A dream...but who is dreaming?
A wolfpack gathers near a fountain, yapping happily to each other, tails swishing, tongues lolling...three loups in particular roll around in the herbe together, then jump up onto their paws and lick each other's faces. They chase each other around the fountain, while overhead there circles dozens of ravens in a multitude of colors, each with their own voice. They cercle and laugh at the playful wolves, and alight on the row of buildings nearby. There is a baby girl in the fountain, splashing and giggling just as happily as her lupine guardians are yapping, and feathered messengers are calling. The baby looks up at the haut, retour au début spire of the fontaine as an ebon-scaled serpent drops languidly down to land in the warm, bubbling water beside her.
She is not afraid of him.
Gently, ever so gently, the ebon serpent lifts his great head from the water and rests it on her little knee. Slowly, he raises himself and brings his slender body across hers, coils around her just once, then brings his head up, so that his glittering black-jewel eyes meet her bright blue ones. He flicks his tongue at her, smelling her and tickling the tip of her perfect little nose, making her giggle. He loves this baby with all his powerful heart, and he would kill to protect her. Just as would the loups who surround the fountain, and the ravens watching from the rooftops across from them. But something is missing. Some special thing, without which the baby girl can not grow, and their great tribe can not be complete.
Then in the distance, they hear it. The ravens caw loudly, calling to it, the loups stop their playing and howl in greeting, and the baby claps happily. The sound changes and becomes a greeting of its own, and quickly a figure takes shape from the sound. The figure draws closer and closer, moving magestically, and the loups part eagerly in anticipation of its arrival. The baby holds her arms out to it, and as the great white horse stops before her, tossing its head, the ravens take wing to cercle above the fontaine as if in proclimation of some great deed. The horse bows respectfully to the serpent, and the serpent lowers his head in return.
The baby's tiny hands touch the horse's satiny muzzle, then she struggles to stand on shaky legs. As her legs strengthen she reaches for the horse's mane, and a sudden change begins. The baby is growing; as she does so, two ravens, one white and the other brown, each pull two feathers from their wings and toss them. As the feathers spiral down toward the girl, they begin to transform, then the three playful wolves, one grey/brown, one blond and one lavender, shake themselves vigorously and shed a nuage of fur. The shed fourrure drifts upward to meet and rejoindre the changing feathers, and par the time it all settles on the girl, the odd mixture has become a gown, a cloak, and boots.
The girl climbs up onto the horse's back as a young woman, clad in the l’amour of her companions. The serpent pulls a scale from his body and lets it drop; the pain is brief and the wound heals rapidly, for as the scale strikes the lady's arm it becomes a shield to match his l’amour for her. The blood on the quick of the scale forms a powerful enchantment all around the shield; it is his silent vow that he will always protect her. They all will, come what may...
One of the dreamers wakes, and Galero's mother loses the other sleepers' minds. Sighing, she preens her nearly-white feathers and gazes in the direction of Hogwarts. Snape slept only briefly and she is concerned. What could have woke him? She despises this situation, but there's naught she can do but wait. Wait for Snape to discover the truth about the White City, the truth about Elsbet and himself...the truth about them all. She moves quickly, quietly through the aviary and finds her eldest daughter. She tells this daughter where she is going, and bids her not to tell her brother. Galero will not understand.
She takes wing and heads toward Hogwarts, and is alarmed par what she sees. Dementors, plus dementors than she has ever seen in one place. She climbs higher before they can see her; a creature with her size, clarity and presence of mind, not to mention magic, would attract their attention, and while she can dispell several of them at once, there are so many here they could do her serious harm before she would be able to free herself from their grasp. Hogwarts is completely surrounded par them, and she frets for Snape's safety. She knows what evil is done there now, evil in the Dark Lord's name, and this makes her stomach acide, sure with anger. She can not wake the Old Defender, not with the dementors so near. Besides, the time is not yet right, and that duty is not hers, anyway.
She turns south, toward England; she can cover hundreds of miles tonight if she's quick about it.
***
Snape sits on the edge of his bed, slightly shaken par the dream. He knows it was a shared dream, and he knows who connected them; he would try to find his feathered friend, but he doesn't need to be reminded of the black nuage of dementors hanging outside the castle. He hates leaving his Sanctuary, he always wants to return as soon as he departs from its warmth, but this feeling of apprehension is different, his desire to go back even greater than usual, so his normal unpleasantness is amplified. He realizes this is to his advantage, and he sees the irony of it, but it's taxing him. Spreading him thin. Like too little beurre on too much bread... Instinct tells him that something is going to give, and soon.
***
Elsbet stirs in the massive bed, and feels warm l’amour on either side of her. Love, love, love...she smiles and touches the wizards she's laying between and feels them stir. Her eyes flutter open and she sits up, yawns and stretches, then slides off of the bed. She looks back at the wizards and watches them realize she's gone, then begin to wake. Therion's eyes open first, but it's Malfoy who speaks. "Ellie?" His voice is heavy with sleep, sleep and need. "Come back to bed, dear," he says grogily and Therion gazes up at her. "Did toi dream with me?" She asks them both, but Malfoy seems to have gone back to sleep. "Yes, Ellie, I did, I believe we both did."
Malfoy rubs his head and opens his lovely grey eyes finally, sits up and moves to the edge of the bed. He nods and whispers, "yes...Severus must have as well, though I don't know how." Therion sits up and moves to the edge of the lit as well, and she sits down between them. "Through love," she says, "love connects us." She leans against Malfoy and he kisses the haut, retour au début of her head. "I can accept that," he says with a smile, and Therion sighs, thinking. "I agree, l’amour does connect us. But what is the distance? How far exactly is it from here to Hogwarts? And...why did the dream end? I feel like there should have been plus to it."
Malfoy and Elsbet both agree, then Elsbet looks at her beautiful men. "One of us woke, I think. There's something I don't understand though," she says, and Therion caresses her cheek. "What's that, little one?" She catches his hand and kisses the open palm, then lets it go. "I recognized the two of you, and Severus too, of course. I know the grey/brown loup was Remus, and the lavender loup was Tonks," she pauses and they chuckle, then she asks, "but who was the blond wolf?" They sit in silence for a moment ou two, then Therion asks, "can toi think of no one else who would want to help you, besides us?"
Slowly, she rises and takes a peignoir, robe that's draped over a comfy chair. "Well," she says, "there's Bill, but..." she slips the peignoir, robe on and Malfoy inclines his head. "Bill Weasley?" She nods and he feels a sudden stab of guilt. "I met Bill quite a while ago, not too long after he graduated from Hogwarts." Malfoy and Therion look at each other for a moment, then Malfoy asks her how that could be, because, "he's the oldest Weasley child, he would have graduated in...1989, Ellie, and you're--" she laughs and turns to face them. "How young do toi think I am, Lucius? toi think me a child? And yourself a cradlerobber, perhaps?" Therion laughs as well, catching the glint in her eye; he knows she's teasing the fair wizard, though there's a note of seriousness in her voice.
Malfoy shakes his head slightly. "I...don't...I don't think of your age, Ellie, I--" she comes back to the lit and kisses him softly. "Lucius, I've been here for ten years. Well, not here in the City, but here in Scotland. In this particular area." He gives her a mystified look. "How is it that I never saw toi before now? That our paths never crossed?" Therion touches his arm lightly as if to gently remind him that until recently, he was a terribly hateful bastard. "We may have seen each other in passing, but not for long enough to notice. I was a girl then, I probably wouldn't have mattered to you. But it's possible." The thought of her not mattering to him hurts him, but he knows she's right, and he forces himself to ignore the sting in his eyes. "I knew of Severus before we met, though I didn't let on. He doesn't know, please don't say--" they both touch her and promise not to tell Snape anything.
She looks down at her feet and fidgets a little. "I didn't let on that I knew who he was when we met, because usually, Magicals from the other side of The Divide don't want to be known in the Muggle village. That's why they're there. I didn't want to scare him off," she says, then walks back over to the comfy chair and sits down. "Anyway," she says with a sigh, "I met Bill in Hogsmeade, actually, I had gone up to Tomes and Scrolls to get a couple of things because I couldn't get into Diagon Alley. He was there too, we met reaching for the same book." She giggles and brightens remembering it. "We talked for a while, I let him have the book because I had plus than I could carry anyway, and then we ran into each other again on my way out of Hogsmeade. I went into Honeydukes, and he was there. We laughed about it and he bought me the most incredible chocolate."
She smiles, wishing she had some of that chocolat now. "He was very nice to me," she says, "he still is." She flicks a little ball of fuzz off of the arm of the chair and closes her eyes. "A couple of months later, I was in Diagon Alley with the witch who was my employer at the time, and I met the rest of the Weasleys while we were there. I still don't know what it was that Bill told them about me, but they knew who I was, and they were so good to me I felt like I was part of their family. That felt so good, to be welcomed like that, and par Pure-bloods. I felt special..." Therion shakes his head as Malfoy rises quickly, picks up his peignoir, robe and slips it on. "Ellie, toi are special, it doesn't matter--" Therion says as Malfoy reaches the door, but the fair wizard stops suddenly, as if a light has gone on in his head, and Therion doesn't finish.
Malfoy turns and looks at Elsbet, who's clearly afraid she's somehow upset him. "You've met the whole family," he says softly, running through an imaginary album of them in his head. "Yes," she replies, and he nods. "You've spent time with them? A lot of time?" She's confused, and a little afraid; there's something in Malfoy's eyes that unsettles her...in fact, Therion is a bit unsettled himself. "Yes, Molly and Arthur insisted that I have holidays with the family when they learned I was alone. They've been almost like parents to me. In fact, I think my parents would have liked them a lot," she says softly, then adds, "when I learned that Arthur is fascinated par Muggles, I nearly told him--" Malfoy kneels down before her and takes her trembling hands in his. Therion relaxes. "Ellie, don't toi see what this means?"
Her eyes glisten with a teary mist, as do Therion's, and as Malfoy kisses her hands his eyes well up as well. "Bill Weasley is a Curse Breaker, toi know," he says, then, "and Arthur is no fool. These are skilled wizards and witches you've spent time with, and they've never questioned toi about your family...about living without Magic?" She says, "no, I just always thought they were being considerate," and Therion runs his hands through his hair, chuckling. Malfoy catches the tear as it rolls down Elsbet's cheek and tells her, "my dear Ellie, I worked with Arthur Weasley at the Ministry. He was the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office." He fixes her with those penetrating eyes and says, "you're not a Muggle, Ellie, exceptionally gifted nor otherwise. If toi were, these people would have known."
A wolfpack gathers near a fountain, yapping happily to each other, tails swishing, tongues lolling...three loups in particular roll around in the herbe together, then jump up onto their paws and lick each other's faces. They chase each other around the fountain, while overhead there circles dozens of ravens in a multitude of colors, each with their own voice. They cercle and laugh at the playful wolves, and alight on the row of buildings nearby. There is a baby girl in the fountain, splashing and giggling just as happily as her lupine guardians are yapping, and feathered messengers are calling. The baby looks up at the haut, retour au début spire of the fontaine as an ebon-scaled serpent drops languidly down to land in the warm, bubbling water beside her.
She is not afraid of him.
Gently, ever so gently, the ebon serpent lifts his great head from the water and rests it on her little knee. Slowly, he raises himself and brings his slender body across hers, coils around her just once, then brings his head up, so that his glittering black-jewel eyes meet her bright blue ones. He flicks his tongue at her, smelling her and tickling the tip of her perfect little nose, making her giggle. He loves this baby with all his powerful heart, and he would kill to protect her. Just as would the loups who surround the fountain, and the ravens watching from the rooftops across from them. But something is missing. Some special thing, without which the baby girl can not grow, and their great tribe can not be complete.
Then in the distance, they hear it. The ravens caw loudly, calling to it, the loups stop their playing and howl in greeting, and the baby claps happily. The sound changes and becomes a greeting of its own, and quickly a figure takes shape from the sound. The figure draws closer and closer, moving magestically, and the loups part eagerly in anticipation of its arrival. The baby holds her arms out to it, and as the great white horse stops before her, tossing its head, the ravens take wing to cercle above the fontaine as if in proclimation of some great deed. The horse bows respectfully to the serpent, and the serpent lowers his head in return.
The baby's tiny hands touch the horse's satiny muzzle, then she struggles to stand on shaky legs. As her legs strengthen she reaches for the horse's mane, and a sudden change begins. The baby is growing; as she does so, two ravens, one white and the other brown, each pull two feathers from their wings and toss them. As the feathers spiral down toward the girl, they begin to transform, then the three playful wolves, one grey/brown, one blond and one lavender, shake themselves vigorously and shed a nuage of fur. The shed fourrure drifts upward to meet and rejoindre the changing feathers, and par the time it all settles on the girl, the odd mixture has become a gown, a cloak, and boots.
The girl climbs up onto the horse's back as a young woman, clad in the l’amour of her companions. The serpent pulls a scale from his body and lets it drop; the pain is brief and the wound heals rapidly, for as the scale strikes the lady's arm it becomes a shield to match his l’amour for her. The blood on the quick of the scale forms a powerful enchantment all around the shield; it is his silent vow that he will always protect her. They all will, come what may...
One of the dreamers wakes, and Galero's mother loses the other sleepers' minds. Sighing, she preens her nearly-white feathers and gazes in the direction of Hogwarts. Snape slept only briefly and she is concerned. What could have woke him? She despises this situation, but there's naught she can do but wait. Wait for Snape to discover the truth about the White City, the truth about Elsbet and himself...the truth about them all. She moves quickly, quietly through the aviary and finds her eldest daughter. She tells this daughter where she is going, and bids her not to tell her brother. Galero will not understand.
She takes wing and heads toward Hogwarts, and is alarmed par what she sees. Dementors, plus dementors than she has ever seen in one place. She climbs higher before they can see her; a creature with her size, clarity and presence of mind, not to mention magic, would attract their attention, and while she can dispell several of them at once, there are so many here they could do her serious harm before she would be able to free herself from their grasp. Hogwarts is completely surrounded par them, and she frets for Snape's safety. She knows what evil is done there now, evil in the Dark Lord's name, and this makes her stomach acide, sure with anger. She can not wake the Old Defender, not with the dementors so near. Besides, the time is not yet right, and that duty is not hers, anyway.
She turns south, toward England; she can cover hundreds of miles tonight if she's quick about it.
***
Snape sits on the edge of his bed, slightly shaken par the dream. He knows it was a shared dream, and he knows who connected them; he would try to find his feathered friend, but he doesn't need to be reminded of the black nuage of dementors hanging outside the castle. He hates leaving his Sanctuary, he always wants to return as soon as he departs from its warmth, but this feeling of apprehension is different, his desire to go back even greater than usual, so his normal unpleasantness is amplified. He realizes this is to his advantage, and he sees the irony of it, but it's taxing him. Spreading him thin. Like too little beurre on too much bread... Instinct tells him that something is going to give, and soon.
***
Elsbet stirs in the massive bed, and feels warm l’amour on either side of her. Love, love, love...she smiles and touches the wizards she's laying between and feels them stir. Her eyes flutter open and she sits up, yawns and stretches, then slides off of the bed. She looks back at the wizards and watches them realize she's gone, then begin to wake. Therion's eyes open first, but it's Malfoy who speaks. "Ellie?" His voice is heavy with sleep, sleep and need. "Come back to bed, dear," he says grogily and Therion gazes up at her. "Did toi dream with me?" She asks them both, but Malfoy seems to have gone back to sleep. "Yes, Ellie, I did, I believe we both did."
Malfoy rubs his head and opens his lovely grey eyes finally, sits up and moves to the edge of the bed. He nods and whispers, "yes...Severus must have as well, though I don't know how." Therion sits up and moves to the edge of the lit as well, and she sits down between them. "Through love," she says, "love connects us." She leans against Malfoy and he kisses the haut, retour au début of her head. "I can accept that," he says with a smile, and Therion sighs, thinking. "I agree, l’amour does connect us. But what is the distance? How far exactly is it from here to Hogwarts? And...why did the dream end? I feel like there should have been plus to it."
Malfoy and Elsbet both agree, then Elsbet looks at her beautiful men. "One of us woke, I think. There's something I don't understand though," she says, and Therion caresses her cheek. "What's that, little one?" She catches his hand and kisses the open palm, then lets it go. "I recognized the two of you, and Severus too, of course. I know the grey/brown loup was Remus, and the lavender loup was Tonks," she pauses and they chuckle, then she asks, "but who was the blond wolf?" They sit in silence for a moment ou two, then Therion asks, "can toi think of no one else who would want to help you, besides us?"
Slowly, she rises and takes a peignoir, robe that's draped over a comfy chair. "Well," she says, "there's Bill, but..." she slips the peignoir, robe on and Malfoy inclines his head. "Bill Weasley?" She nods and he feels a sudden stab of guilt. "I met Bill quite a while ago, not too long after he graduated from Hogwarts." Malfoy and Therion look at each other for a moment, then Malfoy asks her how that could be, because, "he's the oldest Weasley child, he would have graduated in...1989, Ellie, and you're--" she laughs and turns to face them. "How young do toi think I am, Lucius? toi think me a child? And yourself a cradlerobber, perhaps?" Therion laughs as well, catching the glint in her eye; he knows she's teasing the fair wizard, though there's a note of seriousness in her voice.
Malfoy shakes his head slightly. "I...don't...I don't think of your age, Ellie, I--" she comes back to the lit and kisses him softly. "Lucius, I've been here for ten years. Well, not here in the City, but here in Scotland. In this particular area." He gives her a mystified look. "How is it that I never saw toi before now? That our paths never crossed?" Therion touches his arm lightly as if to gently remind him that until recently, he was a terribly hateful bastard. "We may have seen each other in passing, but not for long enough to notice. I was a girl then, I probably wouldn't have mattered to you. But it's possible." The thought of her not mattering to him hurts him, but he knows she's right, and he forces himself to ignore the sting in his eyes. "I knew of Severus before we met, though I didn't let on. He doesn't know, please don't say--" they both touch her and promise not to tell Snape anything.
She looks down at her feet and fidgets a little. "I didn't let on that I knew who he was when we met, because usually, Magicals from the other side of The Divide don't want to be known in the Muggle village. That's why they're there. I didn't want to scare him off," she says, then walks back over to the comfy chair and sits down. "Anyway," she says with a sigh, "I met Bill in Hogsmeade, actually, I had gone up to Tomes and Scrolls to get a couple of things because I couldn't get into Diagon Alley. He was there too, we met reaching for the same book." She giggles and brightens remembering it. "We talked for a while, I let him have the book because I had plus than I could carry anyway, and then we ran into each other again on my way out of Hogsmeade. I went into Honeydukes, and he was there. We laughed about it and he bought me the most incredible chocolate."
She smiles, wishing she had some of that chocolat now. "He was very nice to me," she says, "he still is." She flicks a little ball of fuzz off of the arm of the chair and closes her eyes. "A couple of months later, I was in Diagon Alley with the witch who was my employer at the time, and I met the rest of the Weasleys while we were there. I still don't know what it was that Bill told them about me, but they knew who I was, and they were so good to me I felt like I was part of their family. That felt so good, to be welcomed like that, and par Pure-bloods. I felt special..." Therion shakes his head as Malfoy rises quickly, picks up his peignoir, robe and slips it on. "Ellie, toi are special, it doesn't matter--" Therion says as Malfoy reaches the door, but the fair wizard stops suddenly, as if a light has gone on in his head, and Therion doesn't finish.
Malfoy turns and looks at Elsbet, who's clearly afraid she's somehow upset him. "You've met the whole family," he says softly, running through an imaginary album of them in his head. "Yes," she replies, and he nods. "You've spent time with them? A lot of time?" She's confused, and a little afraid; there's something in Malfoy's eyes that unsettles her...in fact, Therion is a bit unsettled himself. "Yes, Molly and Arthur insisted that I have holidays with the family when they learned I was alone. They've been almost like parents to me. In fact, I think my parents would have liked them a lot," she says softly, then adds, "when I learned that Arthur is fascinated par Muggles, I nearly told him--" Malfoy kneels down before her and takes her trembling hands in his. Therion relaxes. "Ellie, don't toi see what this means?"
Her eyes glisten with a teary mist, as do Therion's, and as Malfoy kisses her hands his eyes well up as well. "Bill Weasley is a Curse Breaker, toi know," he says, then, "and Arthur is no fool. These are skilled wizards and witches you've spent time with, and they've never questioned toi about your family...about living without Magic?" She says, "no, I just always thought they were being considerate," and Therion runs his hands through his hair, chuckling. Malfoy catches the tear as it rolls down Elsbet's cheek and tells her, "my dear Ellie, I worked with Arthur Weasley at the Ministry. He was the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office." He fixes her with those penetrating eyes and says, "you're not a Muggle, Ellie, exceptionally gifted nor otherwise. If toi were, these people would have known."