White Bird on a Silver Thread

Chapter Six: Lady of the White Bird

From Chapter Five:

The woman lifted the candle she held in her hand. The flickering light illuminated her features.

Strangely, it was a face that had no flaws, despite the obvious age of its owner. High, firm cheekbones. A straight and perfect nose. Her black eyes, curtained by lashes sweeping and dark, were fixed on Jennie. Long white hair flowed down her shoulders.

And Draco, staring at her, recognized her immediately.

She was the woman in his grandfather's painting.

***

She had not been expecting the knock. It had been years since she had had visitors. Few people traversed the back way out of Hogsmeade, and had they did, her cottage was still miles out of the way. Moonstone Cottage was not a cheerful place to visit. She disliked visitors, discouraged them. Those who knew of her home's existence knew also of the rules.

She had not been expecting the knock. When it had come she had been sitting quietly by the fire, as she had sat every night for nearly half a century, studying the patterns of the flames.

She had always loved fire. She loved its scarlet splashes like blood and its bright yellow like the sun. She loved its darting beauty and she loved its ability to destroy, to burn.

She had not been expecting the knock, but she had had not had time to wonder who was foolhardy enough to come before she sensed who it was. The Potter boy. She recognized the goodness in the strength of his will. So like his mother. For a moment her thoughts flitted back to the flame hair child who had danced through her life like a bright, darting fire.

Sitting before the fire, she had reached out to them again with her mind. She recognized some of the others. Lucius's son; she would have known the power of his mind if she had met him on the Amazon. There were four others with them; one by one she touched them lightly. One was a simple-hearted, loving boy; his thoughts were clear, uncomplicated. One she knew instantly as the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter - a child gifted with the Sight. She drew back, surprised. But it did not concern her. She had long since left the wonderful, terrible world of power and fear that belonged to the Mages and Maguses and Seers.

The third was, she thought, seriously hurt. Hurt, perhaps, beyond repair. In all five of the other hearts she sensed a dread, an urgency, a fear for this one girl. She smiled wistfully. What it must mean to know that one was so loved? Dying would be worth it.

She reached out to the last child. Touched her deeply, so deeply that the memories she saw no longer belonged to the girl.

They were her own.

***

The woman gestured for them to enter. Harry, looking nervously at his companions, swallowed and followed. She did not speak. She led them into a large, circular room with a hearth in the center. The walls and floor were all made of a moone-white marble.

With a flick of her hand six chairs came thumping into the room, forming a circle around the fire. She nodded toward the six, and they sat, apprehensive. They had not expected this cottage to belong to a witch, but since it did, what had looked like a tiny building from the outside was in reality a large, spacious edifice. Harry carefully lifted Hermione from the carpet, setting her down on the most comfortable chair.

In the flickering light, the shadows were strong around the witch-woman's eyes and mouth, and her beautiful face appeared almost sinister. Harry wished she would speak. Her silence made his nerves jump, and he was already exhausted.

"There is a rule in this house," said the woman, at last, after studying each of their faces in turn. "To leave it unscathed, you must solve a riddle."

"And if we answer it wrong?" asked Harry, looking particularly vulnerable and childish. His glasses were sitting low on his nose, but he was too tired to even push them back up.

"If you answer it wrong," said the woman, smiling eerily, "You belong to me. Such are the rules of Moonstone Cottage."

"Cheerful," muttered Draco. "Normal people would offer us tea. You offer us a riddle. I'm not too sure I like it here." He started to stand up, but the chair wouldn't let him.

The woman smiled.

"What is the riddle?" asked Hermione, in a soft, exhausted whisper.

The woman smiled again. Draco gave up fighting with the chair to let him go. Ron wished she'd stop smiling like that, it made her look very frightening. Jennie drew her legs up onto the chair and hugged her knees to her. Ginny, fatigued beyond her endurance point, half-fell asleep. Looking back months later, all she would remember would be the shadows on the shimmering white walls.

Pointing at the space above the hearth, the woman whispered a spell. Green fire shot out from the tips of her fingers.

Forming a tic-tac-toe board above the fire.

Draco snorted. "You want us to play tic-tac-toe with you?" he demanded.

Smiling still, she shook her head. "There are nine squares," she said.

"Yeah, we can count," said Draco. The woman turned to him. He tried not to flinch under her unswerving gaze. Surprisingly, her startling dark eyes were inexplicably tender.

"Using every number between one and nine once and only once," she said, looking away again. "Fill them into the boxes so that no matter how you look at it, diagonally, vertically, or horizontally, the sums come out as fifteen."

All eyes, naturally, turned on Hermione. Her brow was furrowed thoughtfully, and she murmured under her breath. After a moment of silence, she smiled weakly. The others released the breaths they'd been holding.

"I've got it," she said. "Top right hand corner, a two."

A two appeared in flaming green in the top right hand corner. "Under that, a seven. Under that, a six. Top center, a nine. Center, a five. Under the five, a one. Top left, a four. A three under that. An eight in the last remaining space."

She turned triumphantly to the woman. "Am I not right, ma'am?"

The green flames vanished, the fire grew brighter, and cheerier. The woman smiled a real smile. "How extraordinary," she said softly. "You are the first in nearly forty years to solve the riddle so quickly."

She turned so that she was facing them, the fire cackling merrily between them.

"You may stay, as my guests, for the night. Moonstone will not harm you" - she broke off as Hermione began to cough, violently, spewing forth blood that splattered the moon white stone of her floors.

Frowning, she walked to Hermione's side, and touched her lightly on the chest. The harsh coughing eased.

"Can you - can you heal her?" asked Harry, desperately. He stood to kneel beside her, taking Hermione's cold hand in his own callused ones. "Please," he whispered.

The woman turned away abruptly. She thought to another time, another man, another girl, another love.

"No," she said shortly. "I cannot heal her. Her wounds are deep and beyond my power."

There was a dry, choking sound in the room. The woman turned sharply, saw Draco's pale face.

"But there is one who can," she continued, gazing away, beginning to pace the floor. "One who can, but the way to her may be longer than the girl can stand, and it is not without its dangers."

"We will brave any danger for Hermione," whispered Ginny suddenly. "Anything."

"Will you?"

"Yes," said Ron and Jennie at the same time, staunchly.

"Then you must go north," she said, her voice harsh. "North, to the Island of the Nine Whirlpools."

"The Island of the Nine Whirlpools?" whispered Hermione urgently. Her limbs were liquid with fatigue, but her voice sparkled with excitement. "Not Nyma?"

"Aye. Nyma. Travel to the Northern Island. You must enter Mount Aesculapius. The Sisterhood can heal you."

"Tell me," demanded Hermione imperiously, "tell me, has the Heaven Sword been found?"

The woman gazed at her sharply out of her deep black eyes. "What do you know of the Heaven Sword?"

"Enough. I know enough."

The woman stared into the fire. She was quiet for a very long time, as though debating whether to tell them what she knew. "No," she said, at last. "The Sword of Gryffindor has not yet been found."

"Do you know how it can be found?" asked Harry, his voice breaking. He was too tired to even blush, but he winced. His voice had not broken for nearly two years. Draco snickered.

"Shut up, Malfoy," he said, tiredly.

Silence fell again as the woman hesitated. "Aye. I know," she said, at last.

"Then tell us," said Hermione.

There was a long silence. The flickering flames cast strange and eerie shadows on the white walls.

"Very well." Her gaze fell on Harry. "It is important to you, child, is it not?"

Harry nodded, swallowing.

She went to stand by a window. "Let me tell you a story."

***

"Once, a thousand years ago, there were two Saxon cousins," began the woman quietly. "Gareth, Thane of Gryffindor, and Robert of Huntington. They were close, these two, and they named their sons for the Twins: Godric and Salazar. Before the birth of the two boys, Wulfstan the Wise gifted them with a pair of ancient weapons: the Phoenix Sword and the Dragon Saber. Then tragedy struck. The Black Knight rode against Lionsmere Keep, and they were separated. Gareth was murdered, though his wife Beatrice survived and raised her son under the tutelage of Wulfstan. Robert was believed dead for many years, while Caryn, his wife, was taken under the wing of a powerful Norman lord, the mighty Reginald of Slytherin.

"And so, the years passed. The four Founders met one December day, eighteen years later, in the marketplace. Robert of Huntington, still seeking his lost wife and son, had brought his adopted daughter Rowena of Ravenwood in search of a husband. They say there was a great duel, there in the marketplace, but in the end Rowena fell to Salazar's sword, and thus, they were betrothed.

"Much of the story was lost in time, shrouded in legend. We know only that in the end, Salazar. betrayed his birth father for his adopted one, his Saxon heritage for Norman power, and died by his own treachery; the Dragon Saber fell under the Phoenix Sword. We know that Rowena bore him twin sons after his death, and that Godric and Helga had married, as well, and that they had been happy. After Godric's death, the Sword vanished. It did not reappear for many years - not until Gwendolyn, heir of Gryffindor, wielded it against Grindelwald.

"The Sword answers only to the blood of Gryffindor. You, Harry, carry that blood through your father. Your destiny is tied to the sword, as Godric's, and later Gwendolyn's, was. You cannot escape it. You wielded it once, did you not?"

Harry closed his eyes, thinking back to that day in the Chamber of Secrets. Aye, he had wielded it once.

"But you tire." She turned back to them, and waved her hand, and mattresses appeared on the ground. "Sleep well, then, children," she said. "On the morrow, take what food and supplies you will need before you leave. Do not forget, you are headed north."

She turned to leave the room, but in the doorway, she hesitated and turned again.

"Jennie," she said. "Your name is Jennie, Guenevere, like your mother, is it not?"

Jennie, startled, gazed at her through exhausted, bleary eyes. "Yes," she said. "How did you . . .?"

The woman did not answer. "Show me your mother's necklace," she said. Too stunned to protest, Jennie, lifted the silver chain from around her neck and handed it to the woman. She walked forward and took it, and cast it into her fire. Jennie let out an exclamation, but before she could say anything, the woman had reached into the fire and taken it out again.

The jewel on the end was no longer moon white, but blood red. Jennie took it back. It was surprisingly cool. "You will know when it will be needed," she said, and turned again, this time to Draco.

"Draco," she said. "Might I - might I call you that?"

"Only if you tell me your name," answered Draco, drowsily, but still putting up a good effort at obnoxiousness.

"Sybel. My name is Sybel." She hesitated again, then reached into her robes and pulled out a ring.

It was a simple gold ring, but all around it was the curling shape of a dragon. "For you," she said, softly. Draco looked at her, startled, began to say that he did not wear jewelry, but stopped himself.

"Thank - thank you," he stammered. It was the first time in his life he had stammered, and it rather annoyed him. Perhaps it was only because he was tired?

She dropped the ring in his hand. It was curiously heavy, heavier that gold usually was, and oddly warm to the touch.

"You, too, will know when it is needed. Show it to - show it to the Serpent Woman of Aesculapius. She will understand."

Draco blinked. "Sure," he said, at last.

"You carry the Mark of the Mage," said Sybel. She smiled, a sad, tender smile, whispering, "Chris would have been pleased, to know that his grandson was a Mage."

Bending, she kissed his forehead lightly. Before Draco could react, she had left the room in a flurry of white robes and pale hair. The six were too exhausted to do anything but crawl onto the mattresses. In an instant, they were all asleep.

***

Harry was up at dawn. He felt strangely refreshed, though his rest had been short. Through the window he could see the horizon was just whitening as he went into an adjacent chamber to discover what he could.

By the time the others had risen he had taken the food that he felt they would need. He had found broomsticks laid out for their use, as well as some medicine to help ease Hermione's pain.

Studying a map that Sybel had left for his perusal, he had calculated their journey to take about two days, if they traveled quickly enough and if they didn't encounter any trouble. He highly doubted that they would manage to avoid trouble entirely, as the map had been marked with labels like "Manticore Country." He managed to devise a route that would skirt them around most of the trouble as well as save time, but he found that "Firedrake Territory" simply could not be avoided. Harry did not know what a Firedrake was, anyway, so he simply ignored the inconvenient fact. After all, they'd be flying, right? Supposedly, they could just go right over the Firedrake, whatever it was.

He did not stop to consider what would happen if the Firedrake had wings.

At six they set out from Moonstone. It was cold, but fortunately, there was no snow. Hermione and Ron took the carpet, with Ron steering and Hermione resting, while the others flew on broomsticks. Five dark figures against the slowly lightening sky, heading north. They did not look back to besieged Hogsmeade. They did not contemplate what was happening at Hogwarts. They had but one purpose in mind - to save Hermione.

But Hermione knew that they had another mission as well, though she did not voice it aloud.

They must find the Heaven Sword.