The Alchemist's Cell
by SJR0301
Chapter Nineteen
Harry tore back down the steps and out the main doors toward the Forest. He supposed he was going to be in trouble again, but that didn't matter. He couldn't believe, really couldn't believe that Ginny was at all in love with him really, or even that she actually wanted to date him.
But, he thought, she might just be angry enough with him to play a joke on him. She was, for all her size and femininity, far more like the twins than Ron. She was utterly fearless as far as he could see, and had a streak of mischief that rivalled Fred and George's. He thought it not at all impossible that she might give him a love potion as a prank, to assuage her hurt pride. He thought grimly, I’d never let her hear the last of it either, if she has.
The forest was full of white light. A full moon hung swollen over the leafy canopy and the forest seemed full of eerie noises. Harry pounded through the forest paths toward the very center and hoped he wasn't going to meet any of Aragog's kin or the centaurs.
He heard their song before he arrived at the clearing. It floated on the air, beautiful, magical, mysterious, calling all his senses alive. He slowed to a walk and preceded on half hypnotized by the blended beauty of the voices, though what they sang, he couldn't tell. Harry gasped aloud at this first sight of the clearing. At least thirty veela were dancing in the circle, which was filled with a silvery-white light. Each of the veela looked more beautiful than the next. Their silver-fair hair rippled in the faint breeze and the light shone off their fair faces. Lake-blue eyes were fixed on the moon above, which hung, a perfect full circle, right above the clearing.
Harry tried to remember what he had come for. Ginny, he remembered, and felt as though he were fighting off the imperius curse. Search as he might, no red head stood out among the circle of silvery-blonds. A terror rose in his mind: she had become one of them. She would no longer be human. Mrs. Weasley would kill him. The thought almost stirred him out of his half trance, but the veela were dancing. He had never seen anything so beautiful. He staggered into the circle, hand outstretched, thinking, I've got to tell them to stop. I can't ask where she is if they don't stop. But the words never passed his lips. One by one, the dancers in the circle broke their line and came toward him. They wound around him, turning him about, making him part of the dance.
The tallest and most beautiful caught his face in his hands and said, "We have not had a Lord of the Dance in many seasons. And here we have such a pretty one. So young, so full of magic." Her voice was more pleasant the sweetest harp. She drew one pearly nail down his face, and though he felt no pain, he knew by the warm trickle running down to his mouth, that she had drawn blood. The veela ran her finger over the cut and lapped up his blood like a child might lick the melted chocolate off her fingers. Another veela came to touch him, and another. Pearly nails, razor sharp slashed his robes open at the neck, and numerous tiny slashes dripped blood, which the veela tasted, one by one; but he felt no pain.
A faint rebellion woke in his mind. This wasn't what he was there for. But he couldn't quite recall what it was. He tried to push the veela away, and his right hand was slashed quite deeply on the palm. The veela seemed to grow wilder. Their dance, more furious. A wild excitement gripped him, too, and he spun in time with their singing. And everywhere he spun, tiny red flowers sprouted up where his blood dropped.
"Bloodflowers!" the leader cried. "Truly, this one is a prize. This one, we keep." The tallest one wrapped her silken arms around him, but Harry never found out what she meant to do. A wild cry broke the harmony of the song. A jet of red light cleared two veela out of his path. It was Ginny.
"Let him go!" she screamed, "He's not for you." She flung another spell at the leader, who had unwrapped her arms from him. The pearly nails transformed into talons and a fireball sped its way toward Ginny. A shield spell stopped the fire just in time and the fireball reflected back off, setting the branches of a tall tree alight. Harry woke up more fully now. Ginny ran to him and grabbed his arm, tugged at him to come away.
"I thought you were going to pick moonflowers," he said stupidly. "Luna said you were going to pick moonflowers."
"Don't be an idiot!" she said angrily. "What on earth made you think I would be so stupid as to do that on the night the veela dance." She tugged at him again and he started to follow.
The tallest one caught his other arm and said, "Go away little one. We have claimed this one. Once we have blooded him, he is ours forever."
Harry stopped, entranced by the veela's voice. Ginny raised her wand and shook her head, so that her vived red hair whirled about her. Harry stared in fascination. Her red hair seemd as full of life as the blood that dripped from his wounds
Harry pulled away from the veela. Others were closing in on Ginny, beautiful faces transforming, pearly tipped hands changing into talons. One slashed at Ginny and caught her arm. She put up a hand in front of her face just in time and a slashing talon ripped a slice in her small palm. The sight enrged Harry, fury cleared the final remnants of the trance and he bellowed,
"Let her go!" The tall one changed back to her woman form and began to sing again, but now he felt the magic only as the faintest tug. He whipped out his own wand and sent a stuning spell at the ones attacking Ginny. They fell back, and he seized her hand and pulled her out of the circle. They ran and the veela poured out of the circle after them. Harry turned and sent an impediment spell behind him. The veela in the lead were knocked back into the others. He pulled at Ginny and ran on.
"Stop!" she cried, "You're going too fast." Harry slowed and saw her face, pallid and exhausted, as she tried to catch her breath.
She took hold of his hand and said, "Are you okay? Look what they've done to you! You're bleeding all over."
"You've got a few good cuts on you, too," he said. His voice felt funny and as she clasped his bloodied hand in her bloodied hand he felt a wild, strange pulse go through him, a shock, electric and dangerous. He pulled her to him and kissed her, twining his fingers in her vivid red hair that forever after would be the very color of life to him.
As it was February, there was still snow on the ground in patches, but he never felt the cold. The pulse still ran through him, electric and charged and he kissed her as if it were the last thing he would do in his life. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back and he felt as if he were back in the golden circle all over again, tumbling into infinity.
"What in the name of Merlin are you doing, Potter?" A hand yanked Harry away from Ginny, and he struck out wildly at the person. It was Snape. The Potions Master ducked easily and reached to grasp Harry again, but the hand froze, as did Snape's face, on seeing the condition
Harry was in. "What the devil...?" Snape stared at Harry and then at Ginny.
"You are both of you out of bounds and I want to know what you have been doing?" he repeated again, softly, dangerously.
"It's magic," Harry said hoarsely.
"It was the veelas," Ginny said. "It's all Malfoy's fault!" she added angrily.
"Malfoy?" Harry asked at the same time as Snape.
"Yes," Ginny said. "He tricked Harry, on purpose. He wants revenge on Harry because of his Dad being revealed as a Death Eater, and because he just hates Harry. He's jealous."
"Be careful, Miss Weasely," Snape said. "I want the truth, and I'll know if you lie." Ginny stared back at him, but Harry was puzzled himself.
"I don't understand," He said. "It was Luna who told me you were coming out here. She said she heard it from several other girls, even a couple of Gryffindors. And she didn't lie. Luna was telling the truth." The wild excitement had died and he was suddenly frigid, waiting for her answer.
"Of course, Luna didn't lied, Harry. She told you the truth, as she believed it to be. Malfoy got Pansy Parkinson to tell several other girls and they told Luna that I was coming out. Malfoy knew she would warn you. He was banking on you coming out here to rescue me," Ginny said shakily now. "He sent you out there knowing the veela were dancing. He was raised by magic folk. He knew what they would do to a male on the night of the dance." Ginny turned to Snape.
“Luna went looking for Ron and Hermione, but she ran into me first, so she knew immediately the whole thing was all wrong." Ginny raised her chin just a bit and added, "I told Luna to go find a teacher right away, and I came after Harry. Girls are immune to veela magic, you see."
Snape drew breath to say something, take points off, tell them they were expelled, but Harry cut him off. "You came out here alone? What were you thinking? Why didn't you at least get Ron and Hermione?" he shouted.
"What was I thinking?" Ginny shouted back. "Who are you to talk to me that way. You're the one that's always charging off to the rescue without thinking. I had Luna go for a teacher," she yelled. "Of course, I wasn't expecting him," she added.
"Well, that's just brilliant," Harry said, "just..." He stopped midsentence and stared at Snape and so did Ginny.
A strange sound was coming from the Potions masters' mouth. Harry couldn't figure it out. Was he ill? It took him to realize that Snape was laughing. Not just a faint chuckle or sneer, a good old-fashioned belly laugh.
"You think it's funny?" Harry said incredulously.
"Oh, Merlin, yes," Snape laughed. "The great and noble Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, having to be rescued by his little girlfriend."
Harry stared at Snape utterly nonplussed. He could feel the heat rise in cheeks and was thankful Snape couldn't see him blusing in humiliation. He'd been made a fool of again. By Malfoy. He started to shake again, but he couldn't tell if it was the cold or the aftermath of the enchantment spilling back out of him. He could taste blood, salty and warm, trickling from the cut on his face. All of the innumerable tiny cuts and slashes had started to hurt, and the great gash on his hand was bleeding freely. Drops of blood still rained down on the ground and where they fell, flowers still sprung up. Snape had stopped laughing. He was staring in fascination at the tiny red flowers blooming from every blood drop.
"Bloodflowers!" he exclaimed. "I've never seen them before!"
"Yeah, well, try going back into the veela circle, then you can make some for yourself," Harry said, not all too respectfully. Snape stared at Harry again, an odd expression on his face. He stooped to pick the flowers, but Ginny grabbed his hand with her own small bloody one. The drops from hers remained tiny wet spots.
"What are you doing?" Snape said.
"Why do you want the flowers?" Ginny asked. Her voice sounded cool and hard and she seemed not at all afraid.
"They're incredibly rare," Snape answered. "And if you paid attention in class, you'd know that they are an important ingredient in certain very rare and powerful potions."
"Potions you could use for Voldemort?" Ginny asked. "To harm Harry?" Her face was as cold and pure as an ancient goddess set on revenge. She stared into Snape's black eyes, and he seemed riveted by hers.
"No," he said after a moment. "This kind of magic, the magic from bloodflowers and moonflowers, is not the kind of magic the Dark Lord understands at all. This is an ancient magic, far older than the kind we normally study here at Hogwarts.In fact," Snape added slowly, "I suspect the Dark Lord would find them...almost frightening, were he capable of being frightened. They reach an area of the spirit and the body he would prefer to extinguish. They are for healing those incapable of bearing children or finding love."
Harry stared at Snape. He would never have thought to hear the word love coming out of Snape's mouth. Snape reached again for the flowers and Ginny reached again to stop him. Harry stopped her, instead.
"Why are you letting him take them?" she asked. "They're from your blood. How do you know...do you really know you can trust him?" Snape poised in the act of picking the flowers, waiting for Harry's answer. Harry stopped still himself. He had a weird sense that things were frozen, that a balance was about to shift somehow, depending on what he said. He stared again at Snape, and the crouching man reminded him of a small boy crouching in a corner while his parents fought.
"Dumbledore trusts him," Harry said finally. "That's good enough for me. Besides," he said, "who knows if those flowers might come in handy some day. Some day..." He let the thought drift off. Ginny drew back and Snape gently plucked a few handfuls of flowers from the ground. He tucked them tenderly in a pocket of his robe and stood abruptly.
"We'd better get back," Snape said. "Dumbledore is waiting." They followed Snape back to the Castle. He started to take them in the direction of Dumbledore's office, but on a closer look at them in the light, he led them instead directly to the infirmary. Madam Pomfrey clucked in annoyance at their injuries.
"Don't you ever stay out of trouble, Mr. Potter?" she asked.
"It's not his fault," Ginny said again.
"Yes, it is," Harry, said. "I should have known better. I should have known you wouldn't do such a stupid thing. I..." Harry stopped talking.
Dumbledore had come. Dumbledore noted everything in one sweeping glance. His gaze returned to Harry. "Explain, please."
But it was Ginny who answered. She told the whole of it not sparing either herself or Harry for their foolishness, but she finished by saying,
"So you see, sir, it was Malfoy's revenge. He wanted to get me back for the quidditch match last November. And he's been wanting revenge on Harry since last summer, when Harry got Lucius Malfoy exposed as a Death Eater and ruined his respectability."
Dumbledore turned to Harry. "This is so?" he asked. Harry nodded.
"Yes, sir. It is." He paused and said the hard thing, the thing that he thought mattered. "But it's my fault for rushing off again without taking enough time to check," he said as levelly as he could. "It's as I was saying before, I knew Luna believed what she was telling me; but I should have known, I would have known if I thought about it, that Ginny wouldn't do anything that stupid and dangerous."
"It's well that we learn from our errors," Dumbledore said. He turned to Snape and said, "but there are some errors that are not forgiven here at Hogwarts. Mr. Malfoy has truly overstepped the line in this. Harry could have been killed. And Mr. Malfoy knew that. At the least, he intended Harry grave harm. And he has wrought it, has he not?" Dumbledore looked again at Harry's injuries. Madam Pomfrey was swiping his many cuts and slashes with the smoking purple stuff she used to disinfect cuts. Each one set up a new sting as she did, and he was hard put not to cry out, especially when she dealt with the gash in his hand.
"That one may scar," she said anxiously. She brought out her wand and began healing the cuts, starting with the slash on his face. Her face cleared a little as that one healed over. "Ah," she said, "at least you won't have another scar on your face. One," she said acerbically, "is quite enough for anybody."
Harry couldn't have agreed more. He had an almost hysterical desire to laugh, which was quickly killed by the look on Dumbledore's face. Dumbledore swung around and said to Snape, "He'll have to be expelled. This is too much." Astonishingly, Snape agreed.
"I fear so," the Potions Master said. "This goes beyond a prank," he said. "I wouldn't have thought it, but this is even worse than the trick Black played on me." Harry gawped at Snape. Snape? Taking his side against Malfoy? Where was the threat of detention? Why wasn't Snape blaming it all on him?
"If you agree, then, Severus," Dumbledore said. A thought came into Harry's head, an alarm bell, a shudder of danger.
"Wait," he said. As one, Dumbledore and Snape turned to him, identical expressions of surprise on their faces, old and young.
"You can't expel him," Harry said flatly. They all stared at him in astonishment.
"You can't be serious!" Ginny said.
"I am," Harry said. He hesitated surprised that Dumbledore and Snape hadn't thought of it.
"Well, Mr. Potter," Snape said. "Why shouldn't Draco be expelled? I'd have thought you would leap at the day you got rid of him."
"Oh, I would," Harry, said with brutal honesty. "But you can't. Because...because it won't be good for the Order."
Harry could see Dumbledore's face change. Slowly he nodded. "Go on," he said.
"It's simple," Harry said. "If you, Professor Snape, don't stop Draco from being expelled, Lucius Malfoy and Voldemort will stop trusting you altogether. They may not trust you fully now, but if you even appear to have attempted to stop it but failed, they will know you aren't working for them. And our eyes inside the enemy will be lost. We can't afford it." Snape had retreated behind his mask. Not a flicker of emotion showed. Harry looked at Dumbledore and he, too, looked quite impenetrable. Serene, but inscrutable, like a very large, very elderly cat.
"It would be better," Harry finished, "if you blamed everything very loudly and publicly on me and Ginny. You can give us detention or something, and everyone will think that I'm getting out of expulsion because of my fame. Nobody will be surprised and Draco will think he's gotten away with it, and that you'll always take his side, because of his Dad."
Dumbledore and Snape exchanged glances and Snape said, "Well, you do have a brain in there after all."
Ginny stared coldly at Snape. "He's always had a brain, if you bothered to look. And are you taking Harry's side this once because of the bloodflowers? Tit for tat, then? And next time it's back to the old nastiness?" Snape drew back, but Dumbledore cut him off.
"Bloodflowers?" the elderly wizard asked. "What bloodflowers? Where did you find them?" Snape pointed at Harry.
"They came from him. From the cuts the veela gave him. There's a path of them leading from the circle where they danced. But nobody in their right mind would go back in there for them. And they'll be gone by tomorrow." Snape pulled the mass of flowers he had collected very carefully from his pocket. They glistened in the candlelight, each petal as moist and dewy as a drop of fresh blood. An odd, closed look appeared on Dumbledore's face. One Harry had seen only once before, curiously triumphant. In a flash, it was gone, and he thought he might have imagined it.
"You know what to do with them?" Dumbledore asked.
"Yes," Snape answered. "There's enough for each of the major potions that use them. And perhaps just enough for one more, that I'll ask Madam Pomfrey for assistance in concocting." He paused and carefully returned the flowers to his pocket. "One of my own invention," he added. "I think it may come in very handy some day."
Harry glanced at Ginny. "Do you know what he's talking about?" he mouthed at her. She shook her head, and her bright eyes were thoughtful, though she hissed just a bit when Madam Pomfrey cleaned her cuts.
"Very well, then," Dumbledore said. "I think it's just as well if these two remain in the infirmary overnight. Very few escape such an adventure with their lives intact." Snape gave a small cough and said, "Not both of them."
Dumbledore looked momentarily annoyed, but he said politely enough, "Because?"
"Because," Snape said, "if I hadn't interrupted them, we would have had some very difficult explanations to make to Molly Weasley. They were right inside the circle, right in the dance. You don't know if it's affected them." For a moment Harry thought Dumbledore was going to laugh, and he felt embarrassment heat his face again.
"It's a failing," Dumbledore said, "that the old forget what it's like to be young." He sounded peculiarly amused. Harry thought it quite strange considering what Snape had implied. He snuck a glance at Ginny and saw that she was blushing as red as her hair.
She jumped up and said, "I'll go back to the dormitory then. I've only a few scratches compared to Harry." She didn't wait for permission, but sped out of the infirmary as if the veela were still chasing her.
~~***~~
Edgar strode down the hall quickly. He was going to be a few minutes late, which wouldn't help him at all.
"Who the hell are you?" Masters said as Edgar sailed in through the conference room door. "How did you get in?"
Edgar grinned. Perfect. He swept off his sunglasses and said, "Like it? I think it'll work, don't you?" Masters stared at him and Fay fairly jumped.
"What the hell is this?" Masters said. He flushed red, not a good sign.
Fortunately, Fay was a bit quicker on the uptake. "I think it's brilliant," Fay said. "That's about the best undercover disguise I've ever seen. Except maybe the eyes. But still, it's a bloody brilliant idea."
"Undercover? Undercover? What makes you think I'm going to let two of my best detectives go undercover in such a dangerous situation?" Masters exclaimed.
"You will because it's the best idea we've got for cracking this case," Edgar replied. "No one will talk to us. They're all so sh** scared that we could keep investigating until Charles makes King and we'll never get an answer. We need to get inside, or we'll never crack this, sir."
Masters sat down and stared at Edgar with fascination. "That's really quite incredible Bones. I wouldn't have thought you had that in you, that kind of...flair."
Fay was smiling her cat's smile. She had quite a dramatic streak of her own despite her logical approach to life. Edar could see her calculating her own disguise even now. He hesitated and thought of suggesting she stay out of the undercover side, but he knew he'd never get away with it.
"If it's all right with you, Superintendent," she said, "we'll get started right away."
"You'll need a disguise, too," Masters replied. Edgar could see him hesitate, the very same thought going through his head. The thought went unspoken. Masters knew quite well that Fay would file a complaint if Masters tried to treat a female officer differently than a male. Especially when she'd recently been passed over for a promotion in her own department.
As they walked down to the garage to get Edgar's Miata, Fay said, "That really is a brilliant idea. Masters didn't get out one official criticism. And he was planning quite a few."
Edgar grinned at her again. He knew, of course, that what they were going to do was very dangerous. But he could feel his spirits rise anyway. One small change sometimes could break a case. This one might be it. In the back of his mind, though, a tiny warning signal beeped that he contrived to ignore. They might very well solve the case. They might come face to face with the culprit. And if the culprit was the one whom Edgar dreamed about in his nightmares, they might never live to tell the tale.
