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By The Light	By : lycanthrope Category: Harry Potter > FemSlash - Female/Female Views: 17685 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: All of the characters portrayed in this fic (apart from Jamie.) and all other creations existing within the world Of Harry Potter are the creative genius of J.K Rowling, I make no profit from the writing or posting of this fan fiction.

Chapter List
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Chapter 39

I’m sure there are many that have experienced the irrational fear of the dark, or at least what many perceive to be irrational. I assure you it is not. Darkness is stagnantly violent and silently volatile. All consuming, swallowing up every speck of light until nothing can be seen. For most it is the unknown, the slightest malicious whisper carried in the wind, a groan, maybe of pain, maybe not but the indecision and the unidentifiable, the chaos that your own imagination will create, that is what causes most to flee in terror.

It’s worse when you know, without looking, without seeing exactly what caused that frightening noise deep in the inky blackness that surrounds you. To have been exposed to moans of agony for so long that even without sight you know if a victim is bleeding or not. Just by the tone of their voice.

It never used to frighten me. Not when I was part of it, adding to it piece-by-piece and revelling in every sound. I would cling to it, hold it tight and wrap it around me. Gleefully suffocating in it. It never once accrued to me how much terror it could strike into my heart until I tried to run from it.

Now, somehow, somewhere, I find myself surrounded. The absence of light so tyrannical that not even my own hand can be seen in front of my face, all around me the sounds of fear, pain and woe echoing, everywhere. Louder than I ever remember them being, filtering through the high walls I have built in my mind as if passing through air.

It’s the guilt that hits me first, that strange emotion I so rarely felt before, tightening my chest until I can barely breathe. The more it mounts the louder the voices become. The gloom all around me, enraged behind measure that I had dared to attempt escape, that I had the nerve to try, just try and step out into the light, even if just for a moment. It bombards me with the echoes of screams, reminding me what I am, what I must always be if I wish to escape the crippling remorse that its absence will leave behind.

The brightness, when it finally appears is almost blinding in intensity and in the first moment I physically wince away from it. So accustomed to the concentrated shade that this sudden assault on my senses is almost too painful to withstand. It’s only through my own determination and the terrifying rattle of chains the darkness suddenly adds into the screams that force me to look along the shaft of light. Following it wherever it may lead because it must be better, must be more peaceful because there is no way it could be worse.

What I find along that shaft of light is surprising to say the least, the circular table is waist height and ornate in appearance. The three clawed feet inlayed with gold flecks, travelling up the single central leg and passing across the small table top in a spider’s web of oak and precious metal. Glistening in the light of a single candle that rests at its centre, gently flickering.

Such a curious sight: that solitary flame, standing proud against the shadows, in such stark contrasts that it burns brighter than the sun. As I approach the lone piece of furniture that is visible I can feel its warmth, soaking into me, dimming the screams into manageable moans. Single handily pushing out the darkness not just from my surroundings but also from within my very soul.

Without thinking I reach out a limb, fingers outstretched, wanting, no needing to touch the source of something so magical, so miraculous that it can literally drive away the inky blackness that surrounds me. As if just one touch, one glace of my skin across it would chase it away and leave me free, indefinitely. I know the flame will burn, my skin will crack and peel but it is a small sacrifice for what is being presented to me.

Only I am never permitted to make such an offering, something unseen in the darkness, skimming along the floor, stronger than the rays of light and anchoring itself to my ankle. With one swift tug I loose my footing, forgoing my quest to touch the flame and instead concentrating on keeping myself upright. My arms fly wildly and after my temple connects with the ornate table I am pulled to the floor. Landing face first and feeling every breath of air pushed from my lungs on impact.

The screams double in volume, my own added to it as I reach and grasp and claw at anything that will give me purchase. First the table and then the smooth floor, all pointless, all my struggles not even delaying the enviable as I am dragged, kicking and screaming back into the darkness.

~X~

When I wake the force of my fright throws my body into a seated position. My own terror and anguish lodging in my throat, in such a wide knot that I am unable to draw breathe, heart rate picking up to an alarming rhythm because even with my eyes so wide the dark is still here still surrounding me. Even outside of my dreams it follows me, waiting for opportunity to drag me back.

It takes a second but I start to notice things, my highly sensitive eyes picking out the shape of a desk, neatly piled books and parchment littering its surface, the high window allowing me to see the presence of night, not the figurative darkness that haunts my sleeping hours. It’s only when I realise this that my chest uncoils enough to breathe.

Fingers find my hair to discover it is drenched in sweat and the heel of each palm digs deeply into each of my eye sockets, trying to press away the vivid images that drove me out of my slumber.

I want to scream. I can feel it coiling in my stomach, winding along my spine begging for release but already I can hear Hermione’s steady breaths becoming uneven and to begin shrieking will do very little to ease her concerns over my well-being. Swallowing it down does nothing to ease the tension in every one of my muscles so when she touches me I feel myself flinch.

“Sweetheart, you’re shaking.” Just like that she’s awake. Pulling herself behind me to wrap her arms around me, her chin resting on my shoulder and her chest plastered to my back. Patently waiting for me to calm within the comfort of her arms, somehow knowing the precise moment that she can whisper in my ear, “Bad dream?” without fear of me retreating clear across the room.

The concept of lying filters through me and in less than a second I have ten, all poised at the tip of my tongue waiting to be chosen. In the end what’s the point? Where will it lead? Another argument? I don’t have either the willpower or the patience for that in this moment. So instead I drag my hands down my face and cross my arms over my raised knees with a quietly uttered, “Yeah.”

Softly she places her lips behind my ear and I feel myself relax, just a fraction. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Tell her? Tell her what? That to keep her safe I would betray her trust and not only do I feel the weight of that decision in Morpheus’ realm but so far in every waking moment since I set those wheels in motion. “No, not really.”

She doesn’t push me any further, just sighs deeply and begins to run the backs of her fingers along my bare arms. Not sounding at all disappointed, as I had expected, more that she is at a complete loss as to how to continue. “Is there anything I can do?” She says completely proving my theory.

When I turn my head to face her, just to see if she can be so blind that she can’t see what effect this small contact is having on me. The answer is yes, blinded so entirely by her concern. “You already are.” The very tips of my fingers glances along her cheekbone until I cup the side of her face in my hand, drawing her closer to slowly encase her lips in mine. Just feeling her warmth seeping into me and that light, that single flame that was so unobtainable in my dreams now made flesh. Nothing able to stop me now from reaching out and touching it, letting it burn right into the heart of me.

When I draw back and find her eyes with mine, I can barely contemplate losing her. Especially willingly. There has to be something I’m over looking and right now I would take anything in place of the plans I have already made because if I continue down this particular road I doubt I will ever sleep fitfully again. Not having been this close to the warmth she radiates and the brightness in her eyes. “I think I’m going to take a walk.” I say slowly.

Her face melts into one of utter disbelief. “It’s not even five o’clock yet. This doesn’t even qualify as an actual time of day.”

“Which is why you should go back to sleep.” With one last brush of my fingers of her features I turn and pull myself up to my feet. I don’t have a plan, not even an idea to work from. I know I need some form of inspiration and have only one place left to turn. Somewhere she cannot follow, not because I don’t want her to but because I have always approached my gods so directly, while in complete solitude. I don’t know how to worship any other way and considering how rare it is that I turn to them so completely it would hardly be helpful if I were to anger them by bringing along a guest.

Hermione falls back to the pillows, pushing her hands under her cushion and watches me dress in the half-light of the room. I am just stepping into my trousers when she chooses to speak, already slowly drifting away, back her to dreams. “Will I see you at breakfast?”

“Yes,” I answer distracted by my fly. Honestly after so many years you would think I would be able to perform that task without thought. “I’ll have already eaten but I’ll be there.”

That pulls her back into our realm, now confused by my words and leaning up on her elbows to scrutinise me. “Where exactly are you going?”

I pull my robes over my shoulders then carefully lift a small tin box from between my folded clothes. Running my palm over it once, in respect and remembrance before tucking it away safe and sound in my pocket. It’s only then that I give her my full consideration, tucking a leg beneath me as I take a seat on the bed. “Can I answer that question later?” I ask, knowing that she would be too interested and I would have no hope of proceeding alone.

“Will you?” There is such utter disbelief in her voice.

“If you ask me. I will answer.” I can see from her face that she still doesn’t believe me. So conjuring all of the truth and honesty I have within my skin I speak again. “I promise.” I truly do not remember ever speaking those words to her, or even to anyone and really meaning them and it makes me wonder, if she can feel the weight of those two simple words as I do.

She accepts this, one side of her lips curling into a smile. “You’re being secretive again.” The accusation is spoken in jest and it pushes away a lot of the tension that has settled over me this morning.

“Does it count if it is only temporary?”

“Maybe.” She says looking to the ceiling and looking thoughtful. “I’ll let you know.”

Dropping a kiss to her temple and gently whispering, “Go back to sleep,” into the shell of her ear I rise and quickly leave the room.

I am grateful that I now possess the knowledge to find the kitchen, finding the strange free elf still working, still serving even at such an ungodly hour. I vow that one day I will ask him if he ever sleeps but fear that when I do that conversation will be far longer than anyone could ever anticipate, so only bid him good morning and make my request. With nothing more than a snap of his spindly fingers he presents me with a rack of pork ribs, still steaming. It’s hardly oxen but it will have to do, it is still flesh and bone after all.

Then, while still under the cover of night I make my out of the castle and into the forest. I step perhaps three feet into the tree line. Only wishing them to hide me from view, not swallow me whole. Finding a suitable place isn’t as difficult a task as I had anticipated, locating a flat rock moments after setting foot under the high canopy. Placing down my tinderbox and running my hand over the stone to clear it of debris I’m ready to slowly begin to build my altar.

My mother would always stress the importance of the fire, I could effortlessly create one at the tip of my wand but to do so is too easy. No sacrifice of the time it takes to gather kindling and strike a flint. It’s important that it is built and stuck by hand. My gods may once have despised this form of worship but if we must continue with this practice the least we can do is complete the ritual properly.

With the fire quietly crackling I ceremoniously strip the meat from bone, offering the latter to the sacrificial fire and consuming the flesh of the beast, then taking a seat and wrapping my arms around my bent knees. Only after this is done do I begin the prayer. Never using words not even in my thoughts. Just my will, my need, driving my emotions and hunting for an answer, never asking for anything specific, just a spark of inspiration.

“Oh, hello.” The voice that interrupts my silent plea is so close that I have to open my eyes just to affirm that someone is in my presence. There she stands, not two feet away Luna Lovegood, bathed in the half moonlight just at the edge of the trees.

“How did you do that?” I ask. So perplexed by this turn of events that I completely ignore the nagging feeling that I should be curbing my speech so I do not admit fault. She’s doesn’t answer, not exactly, only stepping between the foliage and slowly tilting her head in a bird like movement of question. “I didn’t hear you coming.” It’s unsettling to say the least, to think that I can hear the slightest change in Hermione’s heartbeat but cannot perceive the approach of this girl when surrounded by so much noisy terrain.

“Must be the Rasnacks.” She says slowly approaching. “You’re head’s full of them.”

The feeling that I am going to truly regret my next query slithers down my spine but still I ask. “Rasnacks?”

“Yes, noisy little creatures.” Her eyes that were just seconds ago unfocused and gazing between the trees now settle on my small fire. “Who are you praying to?”

That’s a deflection if I’ve every heard one. Trying to draw my attention away from the creatures she has mentioned with something that affects me directly. It is a very clever use of the tactic but I have to wonder why she would bring them up in the first place if she has no wish to elaborate. “Athena.” I answer, albeit a little defensively.

“For wisdom or strategy?”

Slowly I uncurl my arms from around my bent legs and lean back so I can properly look up at the girl. She still has that vacant expression somewhere between glee and nothingness. Not appearing to put any thought into what she’s saying as her eyes remain unfocused and still, looking in my direction but never actually seeing me. “Both.” Is my answer and I remain weary. Athena is the goddess of many things; she is clearly knowledgeable of this. So why chose the only two aspects that I wish to tap into in this moment? More to the point how could she know?

“That’s a little greedy isn’t it?” She all but invites herself to take a seat next to me.

Now it is my turn to sound distracted when I speak. “I suppose.” She’s now looking at the fire, but even with her eyes turned away she’s watching me. It’s a feeling that I can’t quite describe but somehow I know that even though she isn’t looking she’s still able to see. Then my face creases into a frown of thought. I was out here seeking wisdom and I distinctly remember calling this girl wise. Would the gods really send such a strange messenger? Why am I even asking that? Of course they would. “It’s a little early to be out in the grounds, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I woke up…” She pauses for a heartbeat, raising the direction of her gaze to sweep over the canopy high above out heads, “here. I sleepwalk. Wake up in the strangest of places.”

For the first time I take in her attire. She is in a nightgown to prove her excuse, a thin slip of martial that surely can’t provide any warmth in the chill of the pre dawn. Her feet are also bare, which could explain how she was able to walk so close to me without making a sound. She stretches out, closer to the fire, watching as she curls and straighten her toes. “Aren’t you cold?” I finally ask. She has made no noise to indicate as such and even under my intense scrutiny I haven’t been able to detect a shiver but still, having just woken and in such a state of undress I find it highly unlikely that she could be comfortable with the temperature.

She takes a moment to answer me, her eyes quickly losing their faraway look in favour of appearing deeply introspective. “A little.” She answers eventually.

Managing to suppress a sigh of irritation I swiftly remove my robes and hold them out to her, trying to make the whole exchange move forward a lot quicker than she will allow so no one can question the motives for my actions. Mostly me to be honest. “Here, take it.” I say when she does no more than blink at me for several seconds. When the inactivity continues I come dangerously close to losing all patience with her. “Look I’m far better dressed to be out here. Just take it.”

So agonisingly slowly she reaches out for the article of clothing. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.” I mutter throwing a small twig into my fire as a distraction. “Ever.”

“Why don’t you want people to know how nice you are?”

Her softly spoken, dreamy words give me a humourless snort of laughter, “I’m not nice Luna.” Reaching down to my sleeve I bunch it between my fingers in the material and use it to scratch at the tiny healing wound beneath it.

“You can be.” She says this with such certainty and such lucidity that I find her eyes immediately. “You could be.” Just like that the clarity is gone, the look of seriousness replaced by the half vacant expression, that I am more accustomed to. Does she wear that suit of armour as I wear my mask of impassiveness? “Are those ox bones?” Her gaze is back on the small flame but her sights aren’t, somehow she is far to busy looking at everything else.

“No, I’m afraid not. Pig was the best the kitchens could offer me.” I say, thinking it might be pointless to try and make this conversation travel in any linear pattern, so I settle for leaning back on my hands and let her lead me through her twist and turns.

“That’s a pity.” She must begin to feel the chill in the air because she pulls my robes far tighter around herself. “Would have been more appropriate.”

Before I have chance to ask her exactly what she means I have to swallow a grunt of pain. Once more tearing the scab from my arm and I have caused it to bleed, the scarlet droplets seeping through and staining my stark white shirt. Viciously I pull on the cuff to open it and roll it up my arm, both to inspect the damage and to stop any more of my life’s liquid from touching the material.

“Did you hurt yourself?” She asks and I have no idea how she does it but manages to sound both concerned and vacant in the same instant.

I shrug off her question. “It’s just a scratch.” Then stop to close my eyes, at the feeling that overtakes me. Every morning for months I have woken to the suns rays touching the horizon, more than once before that. Feeling the sunrise long before I can see it, deep in the pit of my stomach but until now I had never done so out in the open air.

It’s like a wave of warmth coating me from the inside out, like being bathed in sunlight right down into your bones.

“What it is?” Luna asks and in my state of bliss I had almost forgotten she was even there. Her voice sounding so curious that it makes me smile.

“The sun.” I reply and as soon as I finish speaking I know it is far too vague for anyone to be able to decipher. “It’s rising.” I still having given her enough, but my eyes are rolling and my head is so fuzzy that I can’t think of anything further to say.

“You can feel it.” For a moment I assume she is asking me this but I’m wrong, I can see it when I am finally able to drag my heavy eyelids open. She’s dipped her head forward, now visibly focused on me, a smile of wonder on her face. “What does it feel like?”

I open my mouth to speak but find that all I am able to do is expel a breath of air that had somehow become trapped at the back of my throat. My tongue, ties itself in knots and I quite simply do not possess the words to express exactly what it is that I feel. I never have and for the first time I recognise that. “I don’t know,” I say and it’s not strictly the truth.

“Why do you feel it?” She says, not put off in the slightest that I was so unable to answer her first query.

A second time she strikes me dumb, a second time I have no answer. “I’ve never even asked myself that question.” I reply with little else to offer her. I find it strange to think that can notice every facial muscle move as I watch someone speak and always ask myself why. Why that twitch, why are they frowning, why are they smiling. Always looking for the lie. Yet so far I have not turned that inquisitiveness inward. Even with so many things changing with my own body, I turned a blind eye to it. “What makes you ask?”

“You can feel it.” She says and her eyes are sparkling, looking at me like I’m a curiosity. As if there is something shining around me that I am unable to see when I stare into the mirror. As I hold her gaze I realise that I have seen that look before but just cannot place it. The image swimming just out of my reach. “The brightest of lights,” with that one sentence I can see it, the look on Tamlen’s face when he finally met my eyes and spoke those words. That’s what she looks like, almost exactly. “The origin of all that is good. And you can feel it.”

I lean closer to her, needing to see every muscle along her face, I must know that out of all of the words and phrases in the English language, why she would chose that one. “Say that again.”

She must hear something in my voice. Possibly urgency or desperation because that is all I can feel, either way she meets my eyes because of it, speaking slowly and watching me just as intently as I am watching her. “The origin of all that is good.” If I were in another mindset, more concentrated on her reactions than the information that I wish to gather I would find it remarkable how much of a master she is over her mask of insanity. Not a slip, not a single one. Not a muscle betrays what it is she is thinking.

I feel the frustration slipping into my body, annoyed that I must prod further with words not with sight and reveal how interested I am in what she knows of this sentence. This inconsequence collection of syllables that keeps coming up, far too many times around me to merely be a coincidence. “Why would you say that?” Her closed lips curve, ever so slightly. Not actually telling me anything other than she knows how closely I’m watching her. Then turns her gaze away, settling it on the slow flicking of the flame a few feet from us. She’s not going to give me anything unless I dig and I am far too invested and desperate to simply put down the spade. “Does the name Amaterasu mean anything to you?”

“Not to me.” She pauses and for a moment I am terrified that this is all she will impart. “But to some, she is that which illuminates the heavens.”

“And mother to us all.” I mumble, pulling pieces of memory from the dark crevices of my mind. Filtering through every moment since the day I was bitten, hunting for anything that might just prove such a ridiculously outlandish theory.

“So, you have heard the stories?” The seriousness that was once between us evaporates as she speaks, stepping back into herself and taking on the persona of the unhinged.

“No.” I answer her honestly and sensing that I have learned all I can from her, slipping behind my own mask. “Just the sentence.” Before Ammy removed herself so completely, the centaurs spoke those exact words, with so much vigour and feeling behind them that I had no choice but to commit them to memory. At the time I didn’t understand it, couldn’t even pull apart the words because they were so confusing, so meaningless. Now I know the context behind it, everything becomes so clear.

That small family of centaurs saw the sunlight in my eyes. Every time they looked at me. Or to be more exact at least one version of the personification and the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Things that had no significance at the time now pulled to the forefront and I must take note. Every time I woke to the rising of the sun. Not because of the actual time of day but because it clambered over the horizon to begin a new day. That day after I was bitten, the scratches across my skin that were once visible, I saw them and the blood that matted my clothes. Clinging to my skin. The sun was shining that morning. It pulled me from a deep sleep that I had thought to be unconsciousness, even if it couldn’t reach deep into the dungeons of the castle it still filtered through the high windows in the infirmary. Catching the deep scars before anyone could see.

The conclusion I come to time and time again, as I follow all of the available information I had involuntarily stored in my memory bring me back to the same bizarre conclusion. She’s a goddess.

That only leaves one avenue. One more text that will prove, at least to me, one way or the other if such a thing is even possible.

Luna is watching me when I push myself to my feet, even though she is keeping her eyes on the fire she’s watching every move I make but she doesn’t follow. Not when I begin to slowly walk away, not when I am hesitant to step out of the tree line and onto the castle grounds. Not even when I follow the lone of foliage for several feet so the imposing building cannot disrupt the flow of natural light. All the while watching that huge ball of burning peeking over the eastern sky.

Slowly, so slowly the shadows around me begin to retreat. The darkness of night giving over into day. Brining another morning, another whole host of possibilities for everyone but none more so than me. I find myself, even though removed from the impromptu alter still praying, only this time with no idea what for. Torn between a desperation for this idea, this impossibility to actually becoming a reality, and wanting nothing more than to run in fear over this, knowing it is something I have no hope of ever being able to comprehend.

The light touches my eyes and gradually travels down my torso, giving me time to either flee or gather enough courage to find out. In the end, the thought of remaining ignorant and remaining so alone in my own head has me raising my arm, showing my already healing wound to the sunlight. Right before my eyes it closes and is gone. That incision that has been weighing so heavily on my mind for days, throwing me into childish fits of retribution against anyone and anything that I could. Making me feel powerless and weak. Gone. Just like that, appearing to be swallowed up by my skin, under the beating of the sun’s rays.

“That changes things a bit.” I say quietly, just to hear it hit the open air. To force away the shock that such a revelation provokes. My words are an understatement, to be sure but a change for better or worse I cannot say. Cannot even begin to decide without more information and so far I have only found one person who will share their knowledge freely with me. Not in any linear order but freely non the less.

I doesn’t take much to retrace my steps and I find Luna is much the same position that I had left her. Curled up and hugging her knees over my robes. Still staring at the flicker of the gentle flame. Slowly I lower myself at right angles to her. A lifetime of habit dictating that I must be able to clearly see her entire profile but still certain that I will learn next to nothing from her body language. “Who are you praying to?” I ask, keeping my voice low.

A half smile curls along her face and when she turns her sights from the fire she finds a distinct place over my shoulder to stare though. “Do you want to hear the stories?”

I know she can see my smile and I pause, leavening a silence between us filled only with the subtle breeze and the chirping of life from within the forest. A gap just long enough so she knows I have seen her deflection but once more has cleverly chosen a subject she knows I have an invested interest in. “You already know I do.”
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By The Light