Post by Temari on Mar 15, 2008 23:15:52 GMT -5
Early rays of sunlight broke between the drawn blinds around the library. Of course, a library needed good light; but actual sunlight was damaging to the more ancient and fragile books.
The restricted section, ominous as it was, always seemed full of lurking shadows. It was quartered off from the rest of the large room in more ways than one, and even during daylight hours the castle's two most reclusive spirits saw no harm in venturing there.
They had yet to be identified concretely by the rest of the castle. One living person alone knew everything. Severus worked with her -- Selene -- to the furtherance of a goal, untroubled as long as there was that to strive for. It was a labour of love on her part, and in many ways it was the same for him. He wanted to return to her, and be all that he could never have been before: her lover, and a father -- at least in thought and deed -- to her children.
As to the other ghost, Lestrange, she clung to an ardent, heartfelt belief that for the truly mighty, there was no such thing as defeat. As though Lord Voldemort would someday rise from beneath the breakfast table in the Great Hall and announce himself.
It was sad and delluded; but only slightly more so than what Severus had in mind. Concentrating, he set himself to the mentally arduous task of moving a book with care. When he 'held' it through force of will, he chose to stand in place rather than pretend to lean on something -- as though it made a difference.
The restricted section held no mystery for Bellatrix. She had been privy to the darkest kinds of magic, performed countless Unforgivable Curses with all the necessary malice. She knew Snape's experience was not very far from her own. So why had he seen fit to bring them here?
And, more infuriatingly, why did he deny the simple request of an occasional visit to the Greenhouses during a certain Herbology teacher's class?
She couldn't quite decide whether it was crueller to aim for the eradication of entire families, or leave one parentless and abandoned child. That thought in turn reminded her of someone else.
"Seven years, I watched him. Standing aside in the shadows with purest loathing -- while that disgusting runt, that perversion of my familial blood, continued to live..." Her stomach twisted with revulsion at the mere thought of the little brat. None of the family breeding and charm -- an uncouth animal like his father, and a disgrace like his mother. A feral child belonging to a niece she had enjoyed, nay, delighted in killing.
One would think that seeing her own funeral, her Lord's funeral, would have endeared certain individuals to her heart. The fact of the matter remained that it would take more than that to sooth her burning hatred.
If only she had snipped the errant branch that was Andromeda too -- no more a sister to her than filth she might wipe from her boots before entering a respectable home. Now it was too late, and she was forced to endure the slow and agonising death of her pride; pride in the blood that flowed through her veins. It was a pride Snape had never felt and could not understand.
She twirled a crow's feather between the fingers of one gloved hand, soothing herself with the distraction. It was very real; and her ability to move it with lifelike control was telling of progress. They were adjusting to this quite well over time. Snape could turn the pages of his books without hurtling them across the room by mistake.
From her sprawled perch across a reading desk, Bellatrix yawned. Her large eyes rolled languidly towards Severus in their own time. "I wonder how easily a blunt knife would loose that ugly nose of yours. Bet that's your father's doing, hm? No full-blooded witch could be so hideous. How did you ever live with it?"
Having been perfectly aware of his own appearance since some indeterminable point in his childhood, Snape was not to be goaded so easily. He was unfortunate-looking, yes, but he had never allowed it to cause him an ounce of pain; and he doubted it had ever prevented him from achieving his goals.
She had a way with words, but compared to his it was classless and lacking in subtlety. That was an achievement, considering her high birth and his low one. "How like you to think that the lack of a nose would be an improvement." There was nothing like one twist of a knife to follow another. It was how they passed much of their time.
She spat at him, as was her habit when dealing with his particular ilk of traitorous filth. The flare of her temper had broken her concentration and the feather she held fell with nothing to support it, passing through her hands like mist and settling where her thigh should have been – where it was, though there was no substance to it.
Her anger and hate boiled in what felt like the pit of her stomach, yet she knew it mustn't be; couldn't be. Not her stomach – she didn't have a stomach anymore. She did not want immortality if it was like this.
Even in her warped mind she saw the bars of this prison and she despised her cellmate. Unlike him, she knew that prisons had a nasty habit of growing smaller by the day until the bars could crush a person's lungs from their body. Oh, yes, she knew something about prisons. Tracing the same steps over the same floor.
Snape slammed the book he held shut with a force that sent a small cloud of dust flying out around the edges. The tome had very little on resting in peace and quite a lot on resurrecting the dead. Was this the sort of thing Selene had in mind? No matter the true history of Ravenclaw, it seemed like a dangerous path to tread.
It was difficult to imagine them winning when they plotted against the very laws of nature.
He would bring the book to Selene later, or bring Selene to the book. He trusted her implicitly, and she was willing to work towards freeing them -- in one way or the other. He was thankful for that. There wasn't much he wasn't thankful for, when it came to Selene. The only weight left on his conscience was that he'd not realised how much she meant to him sooner.
If their plan failed (and as much as he believed in Selene's abilities and his own, he half expected it to fail) then he would be grateful simply for the added time he'd been able to spend with her. Even now he wondered whether it mightn't be too sentimental to count the seconds until she awoke.
He'd forgone sentiment when he'd left a note in her office; an office which used to be his.
'Library. Restricted section.
I do hope you slept well.'
Selene did sleep perfectly fine, although she barely made it in time to the Staff Meeting held by Minerva. She had a chewing out due to it.
It was one she was used to and she knew Minerva wasn't terrifying, just over bearing. Her eyes glinted amused and brightly. The woman was currently sitting in the Great Hall.
She was watching the decorations being put up. It was a new day, closer to the start of term. Closer to the spawn of tension headaches and papers to grade.
She was still working on the Lesson Plans, but with her sudden quest to bring Severus and Bellatrix to life, she'd have to balace everything.
She was just drinking water, and didn't eat breakfast. She wasn't hungry, just preoccupied. The woman soon stood up, alone. She smiled faintly at Flitwick who was currently echanting candles. The standard why thin ones.
Pomona looked at Selene knowing that something was up. Pomona hustled after Selene soon catching up with the younger woman, "Selene.What is up with you? Your up to something" the woman said fussily.
Selene laughed softly at that, "no it's all fine. Just thinking of writing something" Selene answered with a small, if not devious smile. She was considering writing a book, but it wouldn't be for little kids.
"Will you help me with the Greenhouses later? Your Greenhouse is still blooming, still colorful. You have an eye for flowers and colors." The Hufflepuff head said beaming.
"Of course, I look towards it" she said in a happy voice. Afterwards, she went to the Potions classroom and began working on the lesson plans. She made some progress, if not any.
She had with her however, plenty of books lying around her. She smirked and opened the book and began to red. It was in Ancient Greek, a language that she understood.
Her rich background helped her with plenty of talents she has now. She couldh ave become one Dark Lord's servants, one of his little toys. She didn't like being lied to or obeying someone.
She had offers of many areas. Information, Poisons, and Pleasure and plenty more. The pleasure part hse automatically rebuked. She was above all that, why sleep with someone who will sleep with more than one person simultaneously.
He took what was precious to her when she was a mere child, something she never could take back. It was a nightmare that occasionally plagued her. It was her fathers fault mostly, she was still traumzatized somewhat.
"I can't even let go of the past. What sort of person am I? I tell poeple to forget the past, yet I can't do it myself. What a hypocrite" the woman muttered with contempt.
She picked up a piece of thyme that was oh so conveniently placed in front of her. Twirling it throug her fingers she murmured something from a bible. She didn't know who said it.
"Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the
beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short...
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the
beast for it is a human number, its number is Six hundred and
sixty six."
At that, she was thinking of plenty of things. The words echoed into her mind, into the area.
"Devil... Beast... Wrath. Time... Short... Number... Six Hundred and Sixty Six" she murmured under her breath.
The woman pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill. Making sure the ink well was open and full she dipped the quill in. She spoke as she wrote.
"She watched him, as he walked towards her. With his haughty, arrogant strut, he neared. His arrogance radiated off him, as well as his sex appeal. He was a man, who had money, power, and women. Women at his beck and call.
She had heard that he was particular about his woman. He would only take the finest of the fine. High-quality, pure bred women. To him their blood was delicious. Heavy with lust and adoration.
He wanted her blood once, but she turned the other way. She refused to become a pleasure girl. She refused to let him touch and carress her. To use her and break her. Mold her to his design. She refused to let him use her, she hated being someone's pawn.
But here he was close to her, just a hairs breath away. His heavy masculine scent closing in on her. Holding her within it's powerful grasp. Leaving her in a haze." At that she stopped writing. She was thinking on how to continue it.
At the witching hour of lore (or in the dead of night, if you prefer that turn of phrase) it was easier to imagine that they were alone in this scheme. That it concerned no one but themselves -- he, Selene, and Lestrange. In the light of day, Snape could see that they were hardly alone. The castle around them was as alive and bustling as ever before, if not more so.
Sliding the book back into place without laying a spectral hand upon it, Severus was acutely aware of how many people their decisions affected. A great number of those people would consider it selfishness. He could admit that he wasn't entirely opposed to being selfish now and then. It was only the thought of irredeemably dark magic nagging at his conscience: Selene hadn't quite set his concerns to rest in that regard.
If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have given the plan a second thought. His worry was perhaps revealing, given that he'd never shied from dark magic in the past.
"You're boring me, Snape." Bellatrix mimed another yawn, seeming to forget she'd offered a genuine yawn just moments before. "I'm bored, and she's late. How dull." She drew out the word 'dull' as though it had three or four syllables, rising to her feet. She hadn't bothered to shift off the reading desk in order to stand, so now it looked very obscenely as though the table had dissected her clean in half -- and she hadn't noticed.
She was quite content to stand through it, and walk through it -- enjoying those small and surreal liberties. She'd have been all around the place scaring the relative daylights out of students (to alleviate her uninspired mind) if it weren't for her magical binding to the unquestioned greatest ghostly bore in the hemisphere.
Severus considered it a service to the community, keeping out of the way. The castle ghosts had been nothing but a waste of time in all of his experience, and he didn't particularly want to add himself to those ranks. It was best that their presence was a secret, of sorts.
"If she won't come to us, we'll simply go to her. Carefully, this time. We don't want any more... 'accidents'." Snape loosely referred to an incident earlier this morning in which a small clump of Victoire Weasley's hair had been violently tugged from the back of her head; and this after experiencing a strange prickling sensation as though it had been coming out strand by strand...
Bellatrix harrumped indignantly at the suggestion that she'd had anything to do with it. And on the off chance she had, the Weasley brat deserved it for making the Lupin boy so happy. It was insufferable. Now that he'd graduated, his sweetheart was one of the more prominent figures of Bellatrix's loathing. Of course, it was nothing to how she felt about the Potter children, but Severus gave them as wide a berth as the bubonic plague.
Having conceded to the fact that they weren't going to have Selene's company unless they sought it out, Severus lead the way through the castle and down to the dungeons. He'd used to prefer to command as much space as possible striding down the corridors, but in this state he took a more discreet tact. Hogwarts remained the same as ever, and yet in death he felt distanced from it. Nothing was real to him, as he wasn't truly a part of it.
The only moment of stark reality in his afterlife was a single heartbeat; and it certainly wasn't his own.
Flinging open the door to the office with mental exertion alone, he paced in with what might have been a reprimand on the tip of his tongue. It didn't stay there long. "We've been waiting."
He laid heavy emphasis on the 'we', as if daring her to ask whether he'd been having a pleasant time. "Myself and Lestrange, in the library, all morning. Are you blind? I couldn't have put the note in a more obvious--" he caught himself before the natural conclusion of the sentence, taking stock of the words that had been dancing on the furthest reaches of his awareness. Words waiting to be considered.
What, precisely, had Selene been reading as they'd drawn near?
"Are you quite yourself?" He intended to ask if she was alright, more specifically. His gaze took in the quill and parchment as his mind raced back over the verse -- spoken as if reciting. It seemed she was writing something ... disturbing, to tell the truth.
Bellatrix hovered not far behind, leaning against the open doorframe although there was no mass to her -- trying to convey the illusion of weight, half imagining the sensation of being pressed close to something; with a brief flicker of enjoyment and something more meaningful behind her eyes. "Don't interrupt," she demanded of Snape; eyes trained on Selene. "It all sounded positively delightful."
"I apologize, it was rude of me" she siad not looking up, she opened another book and began flipping through the pages.
"Revelations, Chapter XIII and I think Verse Eight. Not sure. But hmm" she muttered under her breath and continued to write while scanning the pages. She was intent on reading something.
In her haste she never noticed the note Severus had left her. She was in such a hurry, to get research done.
"Do you two know anything on the Beast? From what I can gather it is a large monster, with the number 666 burned onto its head. It has ten horns potruding from it's head. The ten horns are blasphemies against god. It corrupted man, burning the number onto them.
If you did not have that mark, then you could not buy nor trade anything. Leading to your demise. Or the monster ate the man. For eons did this beast have man under slavery. That is the Christian and Catholic view. I'm due to gelve into Greek and Roman mythology" she told them not looking up.
She closed the book and put it aside. She was researching and writing at the same time. The ink was dry by now.
"Religion is interesting no? Hmm. I think to bring you two back to life, we have to open Pandora's Box once again. Then all evils will return ten fold. Hope will be no more" she murmured to them.
She was good at researching it was one of her best assets as woman and as a teacher. She did enjoy it, "do you have anything to tell me about?" she asked still scanning.
"The gates of hell, where is that?" she muttered under her breath.
"Door to man's heart, seven gates. Seven lotuses'" she murmured and began writing furiously. The scratching of the quil lechoed through the dungeon. It seemed as if a dementia had taken over her.
"Key... Urn... Dog... Unicorn... Love... Hate..." she muttered. She was translating something from an ancient Aztec language. She still couldn't read it all the way. That didn't stop her from trying though.
Standing across from her, Severus placed either hand on the desk and leant in. If there was anything to him, the desk would have been supporting the larger part of his weight. He doubted whether his proximity would make any difference to Selene's attention, given that she could easily read through him. His hands were quite transparent enough for text to visible beneath.
"I accept your apology, as you certainly do seem repentant," his tone dripped sarcasm. Selene hadn't bothered to make eye contact, which was customary as far as earnest apologies went.
He wasn't satisfied with the response he'd received, nor did he understand (at least at first) any of her thoughts. It was too quick a jump from one subject to another. He felt he'd missed something between the last lot of verbal notes and this one.
No, rather the opposite was the problem -- he hadn't missed anything. And he wasn't the only one.
Bellatrix made an impatient gesture, as if she'd asked a question and Selene had deliberately given the wrong answer. "What did you say after all that trite?" Unable to follow the train of the other woman's thoughts, she dismissed them brutally in favour of exploring a topic she did understand. "You were writing and talking."
Severus muted his objection, admitting that he wanted to know the truth of that as well. In distraction, Selene's mind seemed to wander to strange places. He felt, possessively and irrationally, that he had the right to know what kind of places those were. "I was wondering about that, myself," he confessed, tone low and measured; as if he'd lost nothing by admitting it.
"It reminded me of someone," Bellatrix pretended to have to think, an indulgent smirk playing across her lips; thinking she held the upper hand. In the hope of creating a sense of torturous anticipation, she feigned consideration. Finally, she came to the inevitable conclusion, her smirk reaching and lighting her eyes. "Lucius!"
A dash of adultery was nothing between family, particularly not when it could be excused by the folly of youth. Pureblood royalty needed their adolescent romps like anyone else, and they were limited to those of worthy standing.
"Wasn't that good, bit quick for my tastes." Her smirk cracked into something worse and wider, and a manic sort of delight danced behind her eyes. "As long as you liked it, I suppose that's what matters."
Snape turned on her at once. "You know nothing," he half-spat, his tone intimating that he had ways of making her afterlife unpleasant. He resisted out of politeness and lingering respect; but if that talk went on his patience would soon wear thin. Never entirely privy to that lofty world, he'd known only that Lucius had an eye for Selene. If he had followed that through to its natural conclusion -- Severus couldn't say, and jealousy would only rear its ugly head if he knew.
In any case he doubted Selene would hold the memory in high enough regard to write about it....
It was far better to address their present situation and give no one the chance to speak too liberally. "The Beast? Pandora's Box?" He was considerably more familiar with the latter concept. The former had seemed, to him, like children's stories without any proof or justification. He rejected it as easily as most born Catholics or Christians would accept it; and had done so even before his mother could explain what he was.
Lestrange was not amused by the forced redirection of their conversation.
"What did you say, 666?" She sneered at the number, unable to comprehend its meaning. She had been raised without the vital Muggle taboo, and never considered such suspicions worth learning. "Do you honestly think there's power in that Muggle nonsense?"
Snape's voice cut across the limited opinion like a knife, with a far more balanced view. He'd once spent an hour curled up beneath the Evans' dining table, clutching Lily's hand; shivering with fright that they'd dared to chant 'Bloody Mary' into a mirror three times. "Superstition has power, power sprung from faith."
Faith was perhaps the strongest force he could think of. "What bids us to continue when all hope is lost?" Pacing back and forth before Selene's desk, posing a rhetorical question of his own: he only hoped to consolidate Selene's certainty that she was on the right track. Piquing Lestrange's curiosity was only a sometime-beneficial side effect.
He tried to mimick the sign of the cross; but the order of the gesture escaped him and he shook off the compulsion to try. Possibly to conceal the attempt, he crossed his arms over his chest. He vaguely remembered Tobias as a faithless Roman Catholic -- even then, without practising the religion, certain superstitions had stuck for life.
Severus mused. "Religion is only as interesting as the pressing need behind it, the need to believe in something greater than oneself." He had been unimpressed with the level of sense Selene had been making. She was obviously distracted. However, he could easily work around to her line of thinking and become quite lost in it himself.
"That need and the faith on which it draws can lend strength -- a magical strength -- to even the most mundane of things." He was specific in his mention of magic, lest anyone thought he meant an intangible power, rather than one they could use to their advantage.
Enough small children quaking under dining tables would create a fear and a power so great that even Bloody Mary might spring to life.
Bellatrix released the doorframe and drew into the room, one brow arched as she kept on the move. If she stopped for a moment they might indoctrinate her into their fantasies of Muggle magic.
Resembling a prowling animal as she paced back and forth across the room, she contributed at last with a modicum of reluctance. "At least the matched sevens make sense. Seven is the number of the Unknown runic tile." She'd had something of a flair for Ancient Runes during her school days, though her grades would hardly reflect that. She'd rarely bothered to turn in any work. "The least understood, and the source of the greatest power."
"What about Lucuis? He and I never had been, never would been, and never will. He deserved what he got. Rumors flew about, the two of us. It sucked" she sneered under her breath.
"I was writing an idea down. I don't like my ideas being forgotten about, since I have random splotches of forgetfulness" she murmured to them. She began moving the stuff around and saw the note Severus had left her.
"Oh right, hehe wow. Just noticed it. I'm really sorry about that" she murmured guiltily looking them both over. She was being earnest, for the most part. A part of her wanted to be selfish, but she wouldn't let that happen.
"Yes, but muggle ideas and beliefs stem from magical happenings etc. They believe, with all their hearts. Belief is a powewrful feeling and yet, it helps people go on." she murmured. The woman listened in on their words.
"Maybe. Do you two know anything on Druid Majick? Or anything of that sort?" she asked them keenly. Her eyes looked at the words they seemed to flow together, closely.
"Belief. Relied upon by everyone. Clinging on what has past, memories of yore. Believing they will be saved from their purgatory, saved from them selves. To be brought back to society. Yet many never have that happen. With you Bellatrix, did you not believe that your master, your lord would come rescue you. Bring you back to his ranks?" she asked Bellatrix in a wistful voice.
She was silent, patiently waiting. Waiting for a response.
"Belief is useful. Whether believing in Redemption, believing in the after life. Belief in religion or belief in being saved. Belief in Devil, Belief in God. It gets humans through many things. Magical and Muggle" she murmured.
"Now then, according to Roman Mythology, Pluto was the god of Death, Treasures, and Ground. His wife, reluctant as she was, delicate Persephone. Daughter of the Harvest Goddess Ceres. Pluto had kidnapped the girl as she was picking flowers with her friends. The gorund opened up, creating a huge crevesse. He drove a firey, gothic chariot, drawn by undead horses, flames over the wheels, scorching the ground. He picked her up with an armored hand, throwing her over is shoulder like a sack of potatos. At that he returned to the ground the crevesse closing as if it wasn't there before. He had brought her to the Underworld. A cold, dank place.
Skeletons lying on the ground, some in whole and some in pieces. Skeletons returning, now animated. Wielding cursed weapons. Letting none who enter escape. This place was depressing, with the mournful cries of the deceased. Truly a sad place.
Pluto himself, is rich. Living in the underworld palace. With the towers a depressing gray, the body of the palace casting a haunting, eerie shadow. Shadows that move and twist scaring the spineless.
When they made it to his palace. He brought her to the throne room, sat her upon a throne of gold. He loved her for her beauty, and he was lonesome. He wanted a consort and it would be her. He bribed her with silks of the finest, jewelry, finest clothes, you name it. She refused them, he kept her there however.
One day he had offered of a single Pomegranate fruit. Hungry she was, she ate six seeds. But, she learned that he had tricked her. She was doomed to stay with him, for six months. A seed for each month.
When Ceres had found out, the Goddess made the ground barren, and the seasons grew cold. No harvest could be done, so many starved. Offerings and prayers were made ot her, but the goddess was grief stricken. Her only daughter was with Pluto, a cruel and lonesome being.
She brought this up with Jupiter. But he couldn't do anything, he only had control over the sky and lightning. Pluto had control of the underground and treasures. To do somethign and to take something against his brothers realm, would result in an economic loss to all.
With that in mind, she went to Pluto directly. She pleaded with him, to let her have her daughter back. But the god, informed her that Persephone can't leave him. Not for six more months. Ceres upset and still in grief returned to land, she stayed in hiding for the six months until her daughter returned to her.
When her daughter returned to her, she made sure there was a bountiful harvest for man. Everyone was happy when she returned to her jovial self. But when that six months end, she enters a grief stage. Harvest stops until the new six months.
This is known as Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.
Persephone, she became depressed and withdrawn. Gaunt, never smiling not during her six months of inprisonment. Yet Pluto still loved her.
Now then tell me, do you find anything useful in that little story? I do, I can see it quite clearly." She said in a cool, precise and measured voice. She knew the story by heart. That was the Roman version, not the Greek.
"Most of our answers can be found in old pagan beliefs and rituals." Informed the witch with a faint smile. Her eyes were bright and energetic.
Would anyone be particularly surprised if Lucius had spread the rumours himself? "He told the story differently, that's all." Her gaze flickered towards Snape for a moment. He was impossibly attached to the past, something she wished she'd realised while she was alive.
If this idle conversation about 'old times' was going to get on anyone's nerves, it was his. Of course, Bellatrix knew he'd never take her words to heart (not with Selene to deny it); but as long as the suspicion was there, his precious rose-tinted ancient history would be damaged.
"An idea?" Her tone was spiteful because she'd given away more than she'd meant to, and Selene had returned the gesture by being prim and proper and revealing nothing. Never mind what she'd done, or hadn't done -- if those were the kind of ideas Selene was prone to having, perhaps she should give up teaching Potions and become a romance novelist. "A fantasy, more like."
Severus, typically unrevealing of his emotional state, ignored the conversation utterly. Lestrange was being juvenile, and anything she implied wasn't worth consideration. If there were any truth to the rumours, Selene would have told him herself while they were still at school. Besides, what did it matter now?
When Selene confessed to having occasional bouts of memory loss, Bellatrix abruptly ended her taunts. She went straight-backed and wide-eyed as if gripped by sudden panic, like Selene was holding something very precious over a chasm and threatening to allow it to fall. The Death Eater's voice contained no less venom than before. "If you're so forgetful in your old age, maybe you should tell someone where you keep the urn."
In the meantime, Severus' jaw twitched slightly; but he trusted his... love to handle herself and disregard meaningless words of others. He would have liked to think that a taste of the true afterlife -- not just this ghostly existence -- had left him an improved person. Still, he didn't doubt that (were it still in his power) there would have been hexes ricocheting off the walls at this point.
He directed his attention to the scrolls and texts Selene had been reading from, and for a futile moment he scanned a line or two from where he was -- the print upside down. It was entirely possible, but also impractical and mildly irritating. In search of a better vantage point, he navigated around the desk (as opposed to going through it) and stood more or less over Selene's shoulder. He might have been dead, but that didn't mean he couldn't make himself useful.
Sensing that it was as much of an apology as he was going to get, he thought it best to accept. Severus wasn't typically that generous with his forgiveness, but Selene was an exception to the rule. When he spoke, all trace of reproach was gone from his voice. "It was wise, then, not to add any flowery sentiments." He referred to the briskness of the note, genuinely pleased not to have made a fool out of himself by adding something unnecessary. "They would have been wasted, I see."
His gaze drifted across the surface of the desk before them. "I'm surprised you can find anything in this chaos." Was her workspace always in a state of disarray, or was it just the frantic research she'd undertaken for their benefit?
Selene's question pre-empted his own. "As a matter of fact," Severus returned, "I do." She had surely held his own previous posting long enough to understand the principles involved. Druid Magick had its roots (both figurative and literal) in nature. It was wise to know a little something here and there if one reaped the rewards of nature itself. Surely, no one thought potion ingredients just apparated from nothing in storerooms?
He didn't doubt that Selene was finely attuned with nature herself, having spent long hours in the Greenhouses since her youth. He did suspect she underestimated his appreciation, however. Just because he favoured being indoors it didn't mean he wasn't aware of the goings-on outside.
When she spoke of belief, Severus couldn't help but consider his own -- and the 'purgatory' from which he'd hoped to ascend. It wasn't all turncoating and double-speak. Once, he'd been a Death Eater completely and wholly; though not as fanatical as some. He'd steeped himself in that world, wanting to exact revenge on those who'd wronged him. Kill, quite literally, the demons of his childhood. He was fortunate to have returned from that, if not unchanged.
As Selene waited for her answer, Bellatrix tried to determine whether she deserved it. It took time, but her natural boastfulness won out. "'Yes', is that what you want to hear?" She'd believed without question. "Every second, for fourteen years." She felt that her faith had been well-placed in the end.
Selene, having made the wrong choice, could hardly be expected to understand. "But you have no right to speak of it." Bellatrix maintained her distance from the other two, having ceased to pace some time ago. It was all she cared to say until Selene's story was out, and Snape was thankful for it.
Dividing his attention between the fable and research, Severus had heard it out to the end. He'd read it somewhere before -- when he was younger, he supposed -- yet never in such great detail.
"Useful? You're senile," Bellatrix pronounced hypocritically, with a loose shrug of one shoulder. While the tale had been pleasant enough, she failed to see how it applied. "What does it have to do with anything?" She made a rambling gesture with one hand, making one wonder what would have happened if she was alive and bearing wand in hand.
Less quick to dismiss anything Selene had commited to memory, Severus was reminded of various early cultures. In their fledgling development, myths to explain the very earth and sky were common. Why not the seasons as well? "A far-fetched explanation for naturally occuring phenomenon."
"Bellatrix, I'm not going to give out where the Urn is. As you said, my memory loss habits, do happen. And maybe, just maybe I forgot. I may have said that I know where it is, but I do know where it is, perhaps I forgot" she murmured. She wasn't admitting anything.
"Bellatrix, Bellatrix" she sighed shaking her head.
"How little you know. The world doesn't revolve around you. Open your horizons and think. Think with your mind not with your feelings not with your heart. Thinks for yourself, and not for your beliefs" she chidded faintly.
"Take some time, not only is this little project our going be laborous, your going to learn a few lessons along the way. Whether you apply them or not is solely your decision, not mine." The woman said with a faint, somewhat mischevious smile.
"Now then on the terms of age. Your still older than me Bellatrix, your calling me old. In reality your referring to yourself as ancient" she mocked with mocking smirk. The woman knew that this would grate on Bellatrix's nerve.
"Senile? Wow that's new. Senile, I like the sound of that" she murmured. It seemed that she was up to something. Her glinted rather precociously, and the woman smirked.
"I wonder how prodigious our little research project will be. The time varies depending on what we're going to do. Alright, tell me of some of your myths" she said with a smirk.
She was hanging around to many people. She has gained some of their little habits. The inside her smirked, who's pulling the strings?
Bellatrix steadfastly rejected the first words out of Selene's mouth. The mere suggestion of forgetting such a thing! Selene couldn't possibly mean it. Even as her eyes demanded the truth, there was uncertainty poorly masked behind them. She couldn't be sure, and it was nerve-wracking not to know. Was the urn even someplace safe?
"You can't forget. You wouldn't dare." It was too important: vital as breathing, not that either she or Snape had needed to do that for quite some time.
"Don't presume to tell me how I should think!" Raising her voice as her eyes flashed dangerously, she took an advancing step with malice in her body language; subconsciously done even before she'd acknowledged the futility of the effort. "It suits my purposes to help you, and help I will -- but if you think I'll suffer your little life-lessons gladly, you're very much mistaken."
She did not physical draw back the pace she'd taken, but the lapse in her side of the conversation was distancing and deliberate. Her own addled brain was speaking calming words that couldn't entirely sooth her. Bellatrix resented the slight smile gracing Selene's features, and wondered at the inner calm it seemed to reflect. Pardon the hypocrisy, but it was so superior that she could barely stand it.
Age was surprisingly objective, and since she could barely follow all that talk of 'horizons', she harped on the latter subject; refusing to accept defeat.
"I'm dead, what about you? Tick, tick, tick goes the clock." Borderline nonsensical, the unrepentant Death Eater spoke with her tongue-in-cheek. She and Snape were themselves as of the moment of their deaths, Selene was still moving with the steady march of time. Granted, the years were being uncharacteristically kind to Selene, but the technicality of who was older didn't matter in the face of evidence she found personally compelling.
There had to be something positive to be said for being deceased.
"Ancient?" Bellatrix laughed loudly and completely unbridled, the very sound of it emphasising the tenuous grasp she had on her sanity. "Boo hoo, I'm not pretty anymore. What do you want me to do, cry?" She arched a brow in what could only be described as a challenge, and the meaning was clear without words: 'Try harder if you want to hurt me, and I'll extend the same courtesy to you.'
She'd be lying if she said Selene's quip hadn't stung at all. True, her appearance was once greatly important to her; but that importance had been diminished when she discovered more rewarding pursuits. Her lust for power, and insatiable appetite for inflicting pain -- those were the things she took pride in now. Mercilessly destroying anyone that got in the way would endear her to her Lord, far more than the good looks of her youth.
Even left to her own devices, with no one else to impress, there wasn't a thing in the world she liked more. It had become second nature to deal damage first and leave introspection for later. That instinct was next to useless, however, in situations such as these. "You know damn well I don't have any stupid little myths." She glowered across the room on that note, somehow loud without making another sound.
His attention otherwise captured by the weather-beaten text he was reading, Severus directed a comment to both occupants of the wider room: "Ladies, charming though your conversation is... you make it exceedingly difficult to concentrate." His bland tone was not unreminiscent of the one Selene would have often heard him use against students. It was at once disapproving and disinterested; as though his opinion of them was lowered, but he didn't particular care in the first place. It was needlessly indifferent and rather harsh on the poor few children who actually did try to learn. Fortunately, that description fitted neither of the women who's company he presently kept.
At no point did his eyes stray from the thick volume on Selene's desk. He was attempting to decipher it accurately from Latin. If he weren't prone to writing his own spells, much of it would have been quite lost on him.
"But what if we brought you to life. Your body would age, you will not return to life the age you died. You will return to the life the age you will currently be." She said with bittersweet sarcasm.
No one could say she was not manipulative. She was, that was the thing. If the need arises she will maipulate and connive. No one knows the true her, but her. Her eyes still held a cheerful glint in them.
It seemed that she was enjoying the game, "all attack Bellatrix, all attack" she sneered. She was disregarding Severus' words.
Why stop when the game has just begun?
"When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff." The woman qouted, her eyes gleamed in the dim lighting. The blue eyes stood out brightly, the color of the deep ocean.
"Do you see any signifigance in that Bellatrix?" she asked as a mocking grin slid onto her pretty face. She knew something and wasn't going to release it so easily. She was piecing the puzzles together faster than the other two.
She will let them know what needs to be known at the time.
Biding her time, her sweet simplistic time. Time that she has, plenty of time. Time does not wait, it goes on neverending. For time cannot stop, cannot stop aging, cannot stop love, cannot stop death, cannot stop life.
She will sit and wait, sit and think. Bide her time, then release what needs to be released. She wasn't helping them out of love, or care. She was helping them for amusement. And they will get her what she wants.
She doesn't want power, she doesn't want money. She doesn't want love, she had given up, given up on love. It was pointless to love a lover if that lover never returned those feelings. Being alone for so long and loverless made her melancholy.
These two would be her keys. Her keys to her adventure. She couldn't wait for the show get started.
"Look in the Holy Bible, Look under the revelations series. I think you will find what you need to find" she said to Severus. She turned her attention to a thick book in her lap. It was thick and made of human flesh for pages and animal hide for the cover.
She opened it without a care in the world. The ink used was a poor victims blood. A whimsical mocking grin played onto her face. This was going better than planned.
"Now then, let the games begin" she murmured laughing softly.
Bellatrix questioned the sarcastic nature of Selene's tone, doubting whether she spoke the truth. It was too difficult to tell. She was prepared in any case. "It's a small price to pay." If she bartered this ghostly eternity for a single second of life, and in that second furthered the goal of the Dark Lord's return, it would be worth it. "Do you think me so vain?" Even if she admitted that she was vain, her ruthless single-mindedness won out.
Severus finally tore his gaze from the page and shot a withering look at both of them. "Fine, continue your conversation. I'm content to do this by myself." He returned to his task with a pointed exhale. He didn't particularly hold it against them; and certainly didn't suspect anything untoward on Selene's part. He simply thought that the women had baited each other to the point of no return and now had no choice but to continue with their little quarrel. It was his understanding that women were like that.
Arching a sculpted brow at this 'all attack' comment, Bellatrix wasn't playing any games. Her perspective on matters was quite different. "Make sense!" She ordered, voice edged with steel. "You're wasting your own time and mine." Her memory reached for something heard only once or twice, years ago, and she struggled to recall who had said it; and how it connected to Selene's strange verse.
Snape answered for her, reciting distantly in his own distraction. "'The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.'" During his childhood, 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare' were a suitable distraction in the long hours at home.
He doubted whether his father had ever read the plays or sonnets, so much as held them up to a standard. The thick text was there to prove that simple humanity was greater than anything he and his mother could ever accomplish with magic. He'd entertained himself with the bloodier stories when he was old enough, preferring Hamlet for that reason.
In quiet moments (usually awaiting instruction) during the first war, he'd made meagre efforts to socialise. He couldn't recall now what had driven him to do so, when keeping such company. He supposed he'd missed his school days, miserable though they were, for the small amount of friendly interaction -- with Lily at first, and with Selene throughout.
He'd occasionally delivered abridged versions of Shakespeare's plays for his associates, taking care not to mention the muggle nature of the author. He distantly recalled the newlyweds listening: Bellatrix, with her feet in Rodolphus's compliant hands. Affection between those two was scant, but foot massages were not uncommon -- the man's fetish, Snape suspected in hindsight.
It made him think. If he was granted life anew, would anyone be particularly surprised if he proposed to Selene? There were false, fake marriages every day. Would anyone question a marriage based (at least for him) on true and lasting love? Surely it could only be a sign of his willingness to make up for lost time...
A shroud lifted from the distant corner of her mind, and Bellatrix inwardly supplied the only line with any significance that she could fathom: 'My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause 'til it comes back to me.' She didn't recite outloud, like the two of them. It would be too much, too pathetic.
Severus, still copying notes; cast a bemused look in Selene's direction when she made the Biblical suggestion. This time when his attention wavered, it didn't return to the book so easily. "You expect us to read the whole of Revelations, right here and now?" It wasn't as if he had anything better to do, but it seemed like an arduous task. He honestly would have preferred to read anything else.
"Forgive me if I don't leap at the chance. I've had that book dangled over me before." He avoided going into detail, seeming determined not to comply. He hadn't paid attention to Selene's tone. "Get Lestrange to do it." He shoved the holy book across the desk towards the other spirit, mentally -- not particularly wanting to touch it, even with spectral hands.
"Afraid of what some muggles think?" She teased, reaching for the proferred book and levitating it towards herself. Bellatrix began to turn the pages in clumps. A look of distaste imprinted itself across her once-noble features. It didn't escape her notice that the book Selene was holding seemed considerably more palatable.
Snape, too, cast Selene's book a sidelong glance of undisguised interest. "I doubt the people who gave their skin and blood in the creation of that book think of our research as a game, Selene."
"Somewhere along the lines," she answered to them and rested her head on a fist. Her head was tilted and she looked at them through half-lidded eyes. The image it seemed to cast was so unlike Selene. The dim lighting gave her more of a regal, cunning appearance. Her facial expression neutral to an extent, a quirk of a smile appearing on her face. Her blue eyes gleaming, still, bright. Hair was worn up in many braids.
"It doesn't matter, they were either war prisoners or slaves," she began referring to the book, "they were used for something useful. They should be grateful" she sneered rather flippantly. She smiled faintly, it was a friendly and vicious smile, "at least they contributed to something," the woman said in a decietful charming manner.
It seemed that she had adopted Bellatrix's behavior somewhat, except with a more defined, tactful edge.
"There is still information that may be useful in this book," she murmured as she looked down to the words, bright red written in blood. Flesh made the pages, they had a leather suade type feel to them. Smooth, with no bumps on it what so ever.
She flipped the page, "in order to recieve something of great value, you have to, in turn, give something of equal or an even greater value. Law of Equivilent Exchange" she translated from the book. She spoke softly, gently, "well that's certainly an interesting way to put it" she said smiling faintly.
She looked at them and then back to the book.
"You will return to life soon, I promise you of that" she informed them in a rather reassuring voice.
Yet, a life will be used though. It has to be a willing sacrifice to bring one body back. Another one will be needed, for another body to return. Who would take such roles? She thought to herself, biting her thumb that was brought to her lip. She wasn't biting hard enough to draw bloo. It helped her think sometimes.
The restricted section, ominous as it was, always seemed full of lurking shadows. It was quartered off from the rest of the large room in more ways than one, and even during daylight hours the castle's two most reclusive spirits saw no harm in venturing there.
They had yet to be identified concretely by the rest of the castle. One living person alone knew everything. Severus worked with her -- Selene -- to the furtherance of a goal, untroubled as long as there was that to strive for. It was a labour of love on her part, and in many ways it was the same for him. He wanted to return to her, and be all that he could never have been before: her lover, and a father -- at least in thought and deed -- to her children.
As to the other ghost, Lestrange, she clung to an ardent, heartfelt belief that for the truly mighty, there was no such thing as defeat. As though Lord Voldemort would someday rise from beneath the breakfast table in the Great Hall and announce himself.
It was sad and delluded; but only slightly more so than what Severus had in mind. Concentrating, he set himself to the mentally arduous task of moving a book with care. When he 'held' it through force of will, he chose to stand in place rather than pretend to lean on something -- as though it made a difference.
The restricted section held no mystery for Bellatrix. She had been privy to the darkest kinds of magic, performed countless Unforgivable Curses with all the necessary malice. She knew Snape's experience was not very far from her own. So why had he seen fit to bring them here?
And, more infuriatingly, why did he deny the simple request of an occasional visit to the Greenhouses during a certain Herbology teacher's class?
She couldn't quite decide whether it was crueller to aim for the eradication of entire families, or leave one parentless and abandoned child. That thought in turn reminded her of someone else.
"Seven years, I watched him. Standing aside in the shadows with purest loathing -- while that disgusting runt, that perversion of my familial blood, continued to live..." Her stomach twisted with revulsion at the mere thought of the little brat. None of the family breeding and charm -- an uncouth animal like his father, and a disgrace like his mother. A feral child belonging to a niece she had enjoyed, nay, delighted in killing.
One would think that seeing her own funeral, her Lord's funeral, would have endeared certain individuals to her heart. The fact of the matter remained that it would take more than that to sooth her burning hatred.
If only she had snipped the errant branch that was Andromeda too -- no more a sister to her than filth she might wipe from her boots before entering a respectable home. Now it was too late, and she was forced to endure the slow and agonising death of her pride; pride in the blood that flowed through her veins. It was a pride Snape had never felt and could not understand.
She twirled a crow's feather between the fingers of one gloved hand, soothing herself with the distraction. It was very real; and her ability to move it with lifelike control was telling of progress. They were adjusting to this quite well over time. Snape could turn the pages of his books without hurtling them across the room by mistake.
From her sprawled perch across a reading desk, Bellatrix yawned. Her large eyes rolled languidly towards Severus in their own time. "I wonder how easily a blunt knife would loose that ugly nose of yours. Bet that's your father's doing, hm? No full-blooded witch could be so hideous. How did you ever live with it?"
Having been perfectly aware of his own appearance since some indeterminable point in his childhood, Snape was not to be goaded so easily. He was unfortunate-looking, yes, but he had never allowed it to cause him an ounce of pain; and he doubted it had ever prevented him from achieving his goals.
She had a way with words, but compared to his it was classless and lacking in subtlety. That was an achievement, considering her high birth and his low one. "How like you to think that the lack of a nose would be an improvement." There was nothing like one twist of a knife to follow another. It was how they passed much of their time.
She spat at him, as was her habit when dealing with his particular ilk of traitorous filth. The flare of her temper had broken her concentration and the feather she held fell with nothing to support it, passing through her hands like mist and settling where her thigh should have been – where it was, though there was no substance to it.
Her anger and hate boiled in what felt like the pit of her stomach, yet she knew it mustn't be; couldn't be. Not her stomach – she didn't have a stomach anymore. She did not want immortality if it was like this.
Even in her warped mind she saw the bars of this prison and she despised her cellmate. Unlike him, she knew that prisons had a nasty habit of growing smaller by the day until the bars could crush a person's lungs from their body. Oh, yes, she knew something about prisons. Tracing the same steps over the same floor.
Snape slammed the book he held shut with a force that sent a small cloud of dust flying out around the edges. The tome had very little on resting in peace and quite a lot on resurrecting the dead. Was this the sort of thing Selene had in mind? No matter the true history of Ravenclaw, it seemed like a dangerous path to tread.
It was difficult to imagine them winning when they plotted against the very laws of nature.
He would bring the book to Selene later, or bring Selene to the book. He trusted her implicitly, and she was willing to work towards freeing them -- in one way or the other. He was thankful for that. There wasn't much he wasn't thankful for, when it came to Selene. The only weight left on his conscience was that he'd not realised how much she meant to him sooner.
If their plan failed (and as much as he believed in Selene's abilities and his own, he half expected it to fail) then he would be grateful simply for the added time he'd been able to spend with her. Even now he wondered whether it mightn't be too sentimental to count the seconds until she awoke.
He'd forgone sentiment when he'd left a note in her office; an office which used to be his.
'Library. Restricted section.
I do hope you slept well.'
Selene did sleep perfectly fine, although she barely made it in time to the Staff Meeting held by Minerva. She had a chewing out due to it.
It was one she was used to and she knew Minerva wasn't terrifying, just over bearing. Her eyes glinted amused and brightly. The woman was currently sitting in the Great Hall.
She was watching the decorations being put up. It was a new day, closer to the start of term. Closer to the spawn of tension headaches and papers to grade.
She was still working on the Lesson Plans, but with her sudden quest to bring Severus and Bellatrix to life, she'd have to balace everything.
She was just drinking water, and didn't eat breakfast. She wasn't hungry, just preoccupied. The woman soon stood up, alone. She smiled faintly at Flitwick who was currently echanting candles. The standard why thin ones.
Pomona looked at Selene knowing that something was up. Pomona hustled after Selene soon catching up with the younger woman, "Selene.What is up with you? Your up to something" the woman said fussily.
Selene laughed softly at that, "no it's all fine. Just thinking of writing something" Selene answered with a small, if not devious smile. She was considering writing a book, but it wouldn't be for little kids.
"Will you help me with the Greenhouses later? Your Greenhouse is still blooming, still colorful. You have an eye for flowers and colors." The Hufflepuff head said beaming.
"Of course, I look towards it" she said in a happy voice. Afterwards, she went to the Potions classroom and began working on the lesson plans. She made some progress, if not any.
She had with her however, plenty of books lying around her. She smirked and opened the book and began to red. It was in Ancient Greek, a language that she understood.
Her rich background helped her with plenty of talents she has now. She couldh ave become one Dark Lord's servants, one of his little toys. She didn't like being lied to or obeying someone.
She had offers of many areas. Information, Poisons, and Pleasure and plenty more. The pleasure part hse automatically rebuked. She was above all that, why sleep with someone who will sleep with more than one person simultaneously.
He took what was precious to her when she was a mere child, something she never could take back. It was a nightmare that occasionally plagued her. It was her fathers fault mostly, she was still traumzatized somewhat.
"I can't even let go of the past. What sort of person am I? I tell poeple to forget the past, yet I can't do it myself. What a hypocrite" the woman muttered with contempt.
She picked up a piece of thyme that was oh so conveniently placed in front of her. Twirling it throug her fingers she murmured something from a bible. She didn't know who said it.
"Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the
beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short...
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the
beast for it is a human number, its number is Six hundred and
sixty six."
At that, she was thinking of plenty of things. The words echoed into her mind, into the area.
"Devil... Beast... Wrath. Time... Short... Number... Six Hundred and Sixty Six" she murmured under her breath.
The woman pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill. Making sure the ink well was open and full she dipped the quill in. She spoke as she wrote.
"She watched him, as he walked towards her. With his haughty, arrogant strut, he neared. His arrogance radiated off him, as well as his sex appeal. He was a man, who had money, power, and women. Women at his beck and call.
She had heard that he was particular about his woman. He would only take the finest of the fine. High-quality, pure bred women. To him their blood was delicious. Heavy with lust and adoration.
He wanted her blood once, but she turned the other way. She refused to become a pleasure girl. She refused to let him touch and carress her. To use her and break her. Mold her to his design. She refused to let him use her, she hated being someone's pawn.
But here he was close to her, just a hairs breath away. His heavy masculine scent closing in on her. Holding her within it's powerful grasp. Leaving her in a haze." At that she stopped writing. She was thinking on how to continue it.
At the witching hour of lore (or in the dead of night, if you prefer that turn of phrase) it was easier to imagine that they were alone in this scheme. That it concerned no one but themselves -- he, Selene, and Lestrange. In the light of day, Snape could see that they were hardly alone. The castle around them was as alive and bustling as ever before, if not more so.
Sliding the book back into place without laying a spectral hand upon it, Severus was acutely aware of how many people their decisions affected. A great number of those people would consider it selfishness. He could admit that he wasn't entirely opposed to being selfish now and then. It was only the thought of irredeemably dark magic nagging at his conscience: Selene hadn't quite set his concerns to rest in that regard.
If it weren't for that, he wouldn't have given the plan a second thought. His worry was perhaps revealing, given that he'd never shied from dark magic in the past.
"You're boring me, Snape." Bellatrix mimed another yawn, seeming to forget she'd offered a genuine yawn just moments before. "I'm bored, and she's late. How dull." She drew out the word 'dull' as though it had three or four syllables, rising to her feet. She hadn't bothered to shift off the reading desk in order to stand, so now it looked very obscenely as though the table had dissected her clean in half -- and she hadn't noticed.
She was quite content to stand through it, and walk through it -- enjoying those small and surreal liberties. She'd have been all around the place scaring the relative daylights out of students (to alleviate her uninspired mind) if it weren't for her magical binding to the unquestioned greatest ghostly bore in the hemisphere.
Severus considered it a service to the community, keeping out of the way. The castle ghosts had been nothing but a waste of time in all of his experience, and he didn't particularly want to add himself to those ranks. It was best that their presence was a secret, of sorts.
"If she won't come to us, we'll simply go to her. Carefully, this time. We don't want any more... 'accidents'." Snape loosely referred to an incident earlier this morning in which a small clump of Victoire Weasley's hair had been violently tugged from the back of her head; and this after experiencing a strange prickling sensation as though it had been coming out strand by strand...
Bellatrix harrumped indignantly at the suggestion that she'd had anything to do with it. And on the off chance she had, the Weasley brat deserved it for making the Lupin boy so happy. It was insufferable. Now that he'd graduated, his sweetheart was one of the more prominent figures of Bellatrix's loathing. Of course, it was nothing to how she felt about the Potter children, but Severus gave them as wide a berth as the bubonic plague.
Having conceded to the fact that they weren't going to have Selene's company unless they sought it out, Severus lead the way through the castle and down to the dungeons. He'd used to prefer to command as much space as possible striding down the corridors, but in this state he took a more discreet tact. Hogwarts remained the same as ever, and yet in death he felt distanced from it. Nothing was real to him, as he wasn't truly a part of it.
The only moment of stark reality in his afterlife was a single heartbeat; and it certainly wasn't his own.
Flinging open the door to the office with mental exertion alone, he paced in with what might have been a reprimand on the tip of his tongue. It didn't stay there long. "We've been waiting."
He laid heavy emphasis on the 'we', as if daring her to ask whether he'd been having a pleasant time. "Myself and Lestrange, in the library, all morning. Are you blind? I couldn't have put the note in a more obvious--" he caught himself before the natural conclusion of the sentence, taking stock of the words that had been dancing on the furthest reaches of his awareness. Words waiting to be considered.
What, precisely, had Selene been reading as they'd drawn near?
"Are you quite yourself?" He intended to ask if she was alright, more specifically. His gaze took in the quill and parchment as his mind raced back over the verse -- spoken as if reciting. It seemed she was writing something ... disturbing, to tell the truth.
Bellatrix hovered not far behind, leaning against the open doorframe although there was no mass to her -- trying to convey the illusion of weight, half imagining the sensation of being pressed close to something; with a brief flicker of enjoyment and something more meaningful behind her eyes. "Don't interrupt," she demanded of Snape; eyes trained on Selene. "It all sounded positively delightful."
"I apologize, it was rude of me" she siad not looking up, she opened another book and began flipping through the pages.
"Revelations, Chapter XIII and I think Verse Eight. Not sure. But hmm" she muttered under her breath and continued to write while scanning the pages. She was intent on reading something.
In her haste she never noticed the note Severus had left her. She was in such a hurry, to get research done.
"Do you two know anything on the Beast? From what I can gather it is a large monster, with the number 666 burned onto its head. It has ten horns potruding from it's head. The ten horns are blasphemies against god. It corrupted man, burning the number onto them.
If you did not have that mark, then you could not buy nor trade anything. Leading to your demise. Or the monster ate the man. For eons did this beast have man under slavery. That is the Christian and Catholic view. I'm due to gelve into Greek and Roman mythology" she told them not looking up.
She closed the book and put it aside. She was researching and writing at the same time. The ink was dry by now.
"Religion is interesting no? Hmm. I think to bring you two back to life, we have to open Pandora's Box once again. Then all evils will return ten fold. Hope will be no more" she murmured to them.
She was good at researching it was one of her best assets as woman and as a teacher. She did enjoy it, "do you have anything to tell me about?" she asked still scanning.
"The gates of hell, where is that?" she muttered under her breath.
"Door to man's heart, seven gates. Seven lotuses'" she murmured and began writing furiously. The scratching of the quil lechoed through the dungeon. It seemed as if a dementia had taken over her.
"Key... Urn... Dog... Unicorn... Love... Hate..." she muttered. She was translating something from an ancient Aztec language. She still couldn't read it all the way. That didn't stop her from trying though.
Standing across from her, Severus placed either hand on the desk and leant in. If there was anything to him, the desk would have been supporting the larger part of his weight. He doubted whether his proximity would make any difference to Selene's attention, given that she could easily read through him. His hands were quite transparent enough for text to visible beneath.
"I accept your apology, as you certainly do seem repentant," his tone dripped sarcasm. Selene hadn't bothered to make eye contact, which was customary as far as earnest apologies went.
He wasn't satisfied with the response he'd received, nor did he understand (at least at first) any of her thoughts. It was too quick a jump from one subject to another. He felt he'd missed something between the last lot of verbal notes and this one.
No, rather the opposite was the problem -- he hadn't missed anything. And he wasn't the only one.
Bellatrix made an impatient gesture, as if she'd asked a question and Selene had deliberately given the wrong answer. "What did you say after all that trite?" Unable to follow the train of the other woman's thoughts, she dismissed them brutally in favour of exploring a topic she did understand. "You were writing and talking."
Severus muted his objection, admitting that he wanted to know the truth of that as well. In distraction, Selene's mind seemed to wander to strange places. He felt, possessively and irrationally, that he had the right to know what kind of places those were. "I was wondering about that, myself," he confessed, tone low and measured; as if he'd lost nothing by admitting it.
"It reminded me of someone," Bellatrix pretended to have to think, an indulgent smirk playing across her lips; thinking she held the upper hand. In the hope of creating a sense of torturous anticipation, she feigned consideration. Finally, she came to the inevitable conclusion, her smirk reaching and lighting her eyes. "Lucius!"
A dash of adultery was nothing between family, particularly not when it could be excused by the folly of youth. Pureblood royalty needed their adolescent romps like anyone else, and they were limited to those of worthy standing.
"Wasn't that good, bit quick for my tastes." Her smirk cracked into something worse and wider, and a manic sort of delight danced behind her eyes. "As long as you liked it, I suppose that's what matters."
Snape turned on her at once. "You know nothing," he half-spat, his tone intimating that he had ways of making her afterlife unpleasant. He resisted out of politeness and lingering respect; but if that talk went on his patience would soon wear thin. Never entirely privy to that lofty world, he'd known only that Lucius had an eye for Selene. If he had followed that through to its natural conclusion -- Severus couldn't say, and jealousy would only rear its ugly head if he knew.
In any case he doubted Selene would hold the memory in high enough regard to write about it....
It was far better to address their present situation and give no one the chance to speak too liberally. "The Beast? Pandora's Box?" He was considerably more familiar with the latter concept. The former had seemed, to him, like children's stories without any proof or justification. He rejected it as easily as most born Catholics or Christians would accept it; and had done so even before his mother could explain what he was.
Lestrange was not amused by the forced redirection of their conversation.
"What did you say, 666?" She sneered at the number, unable to comprehend its meaning. She had been raised without the vital Muggle taboo, and never considered such suspicions worth learning. "Do you honestly think there's power in that Muggle nonsense?"
Snape's voice cut across the limited opinion like a knife, with a far more balanced view. He'd once spent an hour curled up beneath the Evans' dining table, clutching Lily's hand; shivering with fright that they'd dared to chant 'Bloody Mary' into a mirror three times. "Superstition has power, power sprung from faith."
Faith was perhaps the strongest force he could think of. "What bids us to continue when all hope is lost?" Pacing back and forth before Selene's desk, posing a rhetorical question of his own: he only hoped to consolidate Selene's certainty that she was on the right track. Piquing Lestrange's curiosity was only a sometime-beneficial side effect.
He tried to mimick the sign of the cross; but the order of the gesture escaped him and he shook off the compulsion to try. Possibly to conceal the attempt, he crossed his arms over his chest. He vaguely remembered Tobias as a faithless Roman Catholic -- even then, without practising the religion, certain superstitions had stuck for life.
Severus mused. "Religion is only as interesting as the pressing need behind it, the need to believe in something greater than oneself." He had been unimpressed with the level of sense Selene had been making. She was obviously distracted. However, he could easily work around to her line of thinking and become quite lost in it himself.
"That need and the faith on which it draws can lend strength -- a magical strength -- to even the most mundane of things." He was specific in his mention of magic, lest anyone thought he meant an intangible power, rather than one they could use to their advantage.
Enough small children quaking under dining tables would create a fear and a power so great that even Bloody Mary might spring to life.
Bellatrix released the doorframe and drew into the room, one brow arched as she kept on the move. If she stopped for a moment they might indoctrinate her into their fantasies of Muggle magic.
Resembling a prowling animal as she paced back and forth across the room, she contributed at last with a modicum of reluctance. "At least the matched sevens make sense. Seven is the number of the Unknown runic tile." She'd had something of a flair for Ancient Runes during her school days, though her grades would hardly reflect that. She'd rarely bothered to turn in any work. "The least understood, and the source of the greatest power."
"What about Lucuis? He and I never had been, never would been, and never will. He deserved what he got. Rumors flew about, the two of us. It sucked" she sneered under her breath.
"I was writing an idea down. I don't like my ideas being forgotten about, since I have random splotches of forgetfulness" she murmured to them. She began moving the stuff around and saw the note Severus had left her.
"Oh right, hehe wow. Just noticed it. I'm really sorry about that" she murmured guiltily looking them both over. She was being earnest, for the most part. A part of her wanted to be selfish, but she wouldn't let that happen.
"Yes, but muggle ideas and beliefs stem from magical happenings etc. They believe, with all their hearts. Belief is a powewrful feeling and yet, it helps people go on." she murmured. The woman listened in on their words.
"Maybe. Do you two know anything on Druid Majick? Or anything of that sort?" she asked them keenly. Her eyes looked at the words they seemed to flow together, closely.
"Belief. Relied upon by everyone. Clinging on what has past, memories of yore. Believing they will be saved from their purgatory, saved from them selves. To be brought back to society. Yet many never have that happen. With you Bellatrix, did you not believe that your master, your lord would come rescue you. Bring you back to his ranks?" she asked Bellatrix in a wistful voice.
She was silent, patiently waiting. Waiting for a response.
"Belief is useful. Whether believing in Redemption, believing in the after life. Belief in religion or belief in being saved. Belief in Devil, Belief in God. It gets humans through many things. Magical and Muggle" she murmured.
"Now then, according to Roman Mythology, Pluto was the god of Death, Treasures, and Ground. His wife, reluctant as she was, delicate Persephone. Daughter of the Harvest Goddess Ceres. Pluto had kidnapped the girl as she was picking flowers with her friends. The gorund opened up, creating a huge crevesse. He drove a firey, gothic chariot, drawn by undead horses, flames over the wheels, scorching the ground. He picked her up with an armored hand, throwing her over is shoulder like a sack of potatos. At that he returned to the ground the crevesse closing as if it wasn't there before. He had brought her to the Underworld. A cold, dank place.
Skeletons lying on the ground, some in whole and some in pieces. Skeletons returning, now animated. Wielding cursed weapons. Letting none who enter escape. This place was depressing, with the mournful cries of the deceased. Truly a sad place.
Pluto himself, is rich. Living in the underworld palace. With the towers a depressing gray, the body of the palace casting a haunting, eerie shadow. Shadows that move and twist scaring the spineless.
When they made it to his palace. He brought her to the throne room, sat her upon a throne of gold. He loved her for her beauty, and he was lonesome. He wanted a consort and it would be her. He bribed her with silks of the finest, jewelry, finest clothes, you name it. She refused them, he kept her there however.
One day he had offered of a single Pomegranate fruit. Hungry she was, she ate six seeds. But, she learned that he had tricked her. She was doomed to stay with him, for six months. A seed for each month.
When Ceres had found out, the Goddess made the ground barren, and the seasons grew cold. No harvest could be done, so many starved. Offerings and prayers were made ot her, but the goddess was grief stricken. Her only daughter was with Pluto, a cruel and lonesome being.
She brought this up with Jupiter. But he couldn't do anything, he only had control over the sky and lightning. Pluto had control of the underground and treasures. To do somethign and to take something against his brothers realm, would result in an economic loss to all.
With that in mind, she went to Pluto directly. She pleaded with him, to let her have her daughter back. But the god, informed her that Persephone can't leave him. Not for six more months. Ceres upset and still in grief returned to land, she stayed in hiding for the six months until her daughter returned to her.
When her daughter returned to her, she made sure there was a bountiful harvest for man. Everyone was happy when she returned to her jovial self. But when that six months end, she enters a grief stage. Harvest stops until the new six months.
This is known as Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.
Persephone, she became depressed and withdrawn. Gaunt, never smiling not during her six months of inprisonment. Yet Pluto still loved her.
Now then tell me, do you find anything useful in that little story? I do, I can see it quite clearly." She said in a cool, precise and measured voice. She knew the story by heart. That was the Roman version, not the Greek.
"Most of our answers can be found in old pagan beliefs and rituals." Informed the witch with a faint smile. Her eyes were bright and energetic.
Would anyone be particularly surprised if Lucius had spread the rumours himself? "He told the story differently, that's all." Her gaze flickered towards Snape for a moment. He was impossibly attached to the past, something she wished she'd realised while she was alive.
If this idle conversation about 'old times' was going to get on anyone's nerves, it was his. Of course, Bellatrix knew he'd never take her words to heart (not with Selene to deny it); but as long as the suspicion was there, his precious rose-tinted ancient history would be damaged.
"An idea?" Her tone was spiteful because she'd given away more than she'd meant to, and Selene had returned the gesture by being prim and proper and revealing nothing. Never mind what she'd done, or hadn't done -- if those were the kind of ideas Selene was prone to having, perhaps she should give up teaching Potions and become a romance novelist. "A fantasy, more like."
Severus, typically unrevealing of his emotional state, ignored the conversation utterly. Lestrange was being juvenile, and anything she implied wasn't worth consideration. If there were any truth to the rumours, Selene would have told him herself while they were still at school. Besides, what did it matter now?
When Selene confessed to having occasional bouts of memory loss, Bellatrix abruptly ended her taunts. She went straight-backed and wide-eyed as if gripped by sudden panic, like Selene was holding something very precious over a chasm and threatening to allow it to fall. The Death Eater's voice contained no less venom than before. "If you're so forgetful in your old age, maybe you should tell someone where you keep the urn."
In the meantime, Severus' jaw twitched slightly; but he trusted his... love to handle herself and disregard meaningless words of others. He would have liked to think that a taste of the true afterlife -- not just this ghostly existence -- had left him an improved person. Still, he didn't doubt that (were it still in his power) there would have been hexes ricocheting off the walls at this point.
He directed his attention to the scrolls and texts Selene had been reading from, and for a futile moment he scanned a line or two from where he was -- the print upside down. It was entirely possible, but also impractical and mildly irritating. In search of a better vantage point, he navigated around the desk (as opposed to going through it) and stood more or less over Selene's shoulder. He might have been dead, but that didn't mean he couldn't make himself useful.
Sensing that it was as much of an apology as he was going to get, he thought it best to accept. Severus wasn't typically that generous with his forgiveness, but Selene was an exception to the rule. When he spoke, all trace of reproach was gone from his voice. "It was wise, then, not to add any flowery sentiments." He referred to the briskness of the note, genuinely pleased not to have made a fool out of himself by adding something unnecessary. "They would have been wasted, I see."
His gaze drifted across the surface of the desk before them. "I'm surprised you can find anything in this chaos." Was her workspace always in a state of disarray, or was it just the frantic research she'd undertaken for their benefit?
Selene's question pre-empted his own. "As a matter of fact," Severus returned, "I do." She had surely held his own previous posting long enough to understand the principles involved. Druid Magick had its roots (both figurative and literal) in nature. It was wise to know a little something here and there if one reaped the rewards of nature itself. Surely, no one thought potion ingredients just apparated from nothing in storerooms?
He didn't doubt that Selene was finely attuned with nature herself, having spent long hours in the Greenhouses since her youth. He did suspect she underestimated his appreciation, however. Just because he favoured being indoors it didn't mean he wasn't aware of the goings-on outside.
When she spoke of belief, Severus couldn't help but consider his own -- and the 'purgatory' from which he'd hoped to ascend. It wasn't all turncoating and double-speak. Once, he'd been a Death Eater completely and wholly; though not as fanatical as some. He'd steeped himself in that world, wanting to exact revenge on those who'd wronged him. Kill, quite literally, the demons of his childhood. He was fortunate to have returned from that, if not unchanged.
As Selene waited for her answer, Bellatrix tried to determine whether she deserved it. It took time, but her natural boastfulness won out. "'Yes', is that what you want to hear?" She'd believed without question. "Every second, for fourteen years." She felt that her faith had been well-placed in the end.
Selene, having made the wrong choice, could hardly be expected to understand. "But you have no right to speak of it." Bellatrix maintained her distance from the other two, having ceased to pace some time ago. It was all she cared to say until Selene's story was out, and Snape was thankful for it.
Dividing his attention between the fable and research, Severus had heard it out to the end. He'd read it somewhere before -- when he was younger, he supposed -- yet never in such great detail.
"Useful? You're senile," Bellatrix pronounced hypocritically, with a loose shrug of one shoulder. While the tale had been pleasant enough, she failed to see how it applied. "What does it have to do with anything?" She made a rambling gesture with one hand, making one wonder what would have happened if she was alive and bearing wand in hand.
Less quick to dismiss anything Selene had commited to memory, Severus was reminded of various early cultures. In their fledgling development, myths to explain the very earth and sky were common. Why not the seasons as well? "A far-fetched explanation for naturally occuring phenomenon."
"Bellatrix, I'm not going to give out where the Urn is. As you said, my memory loss habits, do happen. And maybe, just maybe I forgot. I may have said that I know where it is, but I do know where it is, perhaps I forgot" she murmured. She wasn't admitting anything.
"Bellatrix, Bellatrix" she sighed shaking her head.
"How little you know. The world doesn't revolve around you. Open your horizons and think. Think with your mind not with your feelings not with your heart. Thinks for yourself, and not for your beliefs" she chidded faintly.
"Take some time, not only is this little project our going be laborous, your going to learn a few lessons along the way. Whether you apply them or not is solely your decision, not mine." The woman said with a faint, somewhat mischevious smile.
"Now then on the terms of age. Your still older than me Bellatrix, your calling me old. In reality your referring to yourself as ancient" she mocked with mocking smirk. The woman knew that this would grate on Bellatrix's nerve.
"Senile? Wow that's new. Senile, I like the sound of that" she murmured. It seemed that she was up to something. Her glinted rather precociously, and the woman smirked.
"I wonder how prodigious our little research project will be. The time varies depending on what we're going to do. Alright, tell me of some of your myths" she said with a smirk.
She was hanging around to many people. She has gained some of their little habits. The inside her smirked, who's pulling the strings?
Bellatrix steadfastly rejected the first words out of Selene's mouth. The mere suggestion of forgetting such a thing! Selene couldn't possibly mean it. Even as her eyes demanded the truth, there was uncertainty poorly masked behind them. She couldn't be sure, and it was nerve-wracking not to know. Was the urn even someplace safe?
"You can't forget. You wouldn't dare." It was too important: vital as breathing, not that either she or Snape had needed to do that for quite some time.
"Don't presume to tell me how I should think!" Raising her voice as her eyes flashed dangerously, she took an advancing step with malice in her body language; subconsciously done even before she'd acknowledged the futility of the effort. "It suits my purposes to help you, and help I will -- but if you think I'll suffer your little life-lessons gladly, you're very much mistaken."
She did not physical draw back the pace she'd taken, but the lapse in her side of the conversation was distancing and deliberate. Her own addled brain was speaking calming words that couldn't entirely sooth her. Bellatrix resented the slight smile gracing Selene's features, and wondered at the inner calm it seemed to reflect. Pardon the hypocrisy, but it was so superior that she could barely stand it.
Age was surprisingly objective, and since she could barely follow all that talk of 'horizons', she harped on the latter subject; refusing to accept defeat.
"I'm dead, what about you? Tick, tick, tick goes the clock." Borderline nonsensical, the unrepentant Death Eater spoke with her tongue-in-cheek. She and Snape were themselves as of the moment of their deaths, Selene was still moving with the steady march of time. Granted, the years were being uncharacteristically kind to Selene, but the technicality of who was older didn't matter in the face of evidence she found personally compelling.
There had to be something positive to be said for being deceased.
"Ancient?" Bellatrix laughed loudly and completely unbridled, the very sound of it emphasising the tenuous grasp she had on her sanity. "Boo hoo, I'm not pretty anymore. What do you want me to do, cry?" She arched a brow in what could only be described as a challenge, and the meaning was clear without words: 'Try harder if you want to hurt me, and I'll extend the same courtesy to you.'
She'd be lying if she said Selene's quip hadn't stung at all. True, her appearance was once greatly important to her; but that importance had been diminished when she discovered more rewarding pursuits. Her lust for power, and insatiable appetite for inflicting pain -- those were the things she took pride in now. Mercilessly destroying anyone that got in the way would endear her to her Lord, far more than the good looks of her youth.
Even left to her own devices, with no one else to impress, there wasn't a thing in the world she liked more. It had become second nature to deal damage first and leave introspection for later. That instinct was next to useless, however, in situations such as these. "You know damn well I don't have any stupid little myths." She glowered across the room on that note, somehow loud without making another sound.
His attention otherwise captured by the weather-beaten text he was reading, Severus directed a comment to both occupants of the wider room: "Ladies, charming though your conversation is... you make it exceedingly difficult to concentrate." His bland tone was not unreminiscent of the one Selene would have often heard him use against students. It was at once disapproving and disinterested; as though his opinion of them was lowered, but he didn't particular care in the first place. It was needlessly indifferent and rather harsh on the poor few children who actually did try to learn. Fortunately, that description fitted neither of the women who's company he presently kept.
At no point did his eyes stray from the thick volume on Selene's desk. He was attempting to decipher it accurately from Latin. If he weren't prone to writing his own spells, much of it would have been quite lost on him.
"But what if we brought you to life. Your body would age, you will not return to life the age you died. You will return to the life the age you will currently be." She said with bittersweet sarcasm.
No one could say she was not manipulative. She was, that was the thing. If the need arises she will maipulate and connive. No one knows the true her, but her. Her eyes still held a cheerful glint in them.
It seemed that she was enjoying the game, "all attack Bellatrix, all attack" she sneered. She was disregarding Severus' words.
Why stop when the game has just begun?
"When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff." The woman qouted, her eyes gleamed in the dim lighting. The blue eyes stood out brightly, the color of the deep ocean.
"Do you see any signifigance in that Bellatrix?" she asked as a mocking grin slid onto her pretty face. She knew something and wasn't going to release it so easily. She was piecing the puzzles together faster than the other two.
She will let them know what needs to be known at the time.
Biding her time, her sweet simplistic time. Time that she has, plenty of time. Time does not wait, it goes on neverending. For time cannot stop, cannot stop aging, cannot stop love, cannot stop death, cannot stop life.
She will sit and wait, sit and think. Bide her time, then release what needs to be released. She wasn't helping them out of love, or care. She was helping them for amusement. And they will get her what she wants.
She doesn't want power, she doesn't want money. She doesn't want love, she had given up, given up on love. It was pointless to love a lover if that lover never returned those feelings. Being alone for so long and loverless made her melancholy.
These two would be her keys. Her keys to her adventure. She couldn't wait for the show get started.
"Look in the Holy Bible, Look under the revelations series. I think you will find what you need to find" she said to Severus. She turned her attention to a thick book in her lap. It was thick and made of human flesh for pages and animal hide for the cover.
She opened it without a care in the world. The ink used was a poor victims blood. A whimsical mocking grin played onto her face. This was going better than planned.
"Now then, let the games begin" she murmured laughing softly.
Bellatrix questioned the sarcastic nature of Selene's tone, doubting whether she spoke the truth. It was too difficult to tell. She was prepared in any case. "It's a small price to pay." If she bartered this ghostly eternity for a single second of life, and in that second furthered the goal of the Dark Lord's return, it would be worth it. "Do you think me so vain?" Even if she admitted that she was vain, her ruthless single-mindedness won out.
Severus finally tore his gaze from the page and shot a withering look at both of them. "Fine, continue your conversation. I'm content to do this by myself." He returned to his task with a pointed exhale. He didn't particularly hold it against them; and certainly didn't suspect anything untoward on Selene's part. He simply thought that the women had baited each other to the point of no return and now had no choice but to continue with their little quarrel. It was his understanding that women were like that.
Arching a sculpted brow at this 'all attack' comment, Bellatrix wasn't playing any games. Her perspective on matters was quite different. "Make sense!" She ordered, voice edged with steel. "You're wasting your own time and mine." Her memory reached for something heard only once or twice, years ago, and she struggled to recall who had said it; and how it connected to Selene's strange verse.
Snape answered for her, reciting distantly in his own distraction. "'The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.'" During his childhood, 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare' were a suitable distraction in the long hours at home.
He doubted whether his father had ever read the plays or sonnets, so much as held them up to a standard. The thick text was there to prove that simple humanity was greater than anything he and his mother could ever accomplish with magic. He'd entertained himself with the bloodier stories when he was old enough, preferring Hamlet for that reason.
In quiet moments (usually awaiting instruction) during the first war, he'd made meagre efforts to socialise. He couldn't recall now what had driven him to do so, when keeping such company. He supposed he'd missed his school days, miserable though they were, for the small amount of friendly interaction -- with Lily at first, and with Selene throughout.
He'd occasionally delivered abridged versions of Shakespeare's plays for his associates, taking care not to mention the muggle nature of the author. He distantly recalled the newlyweds listening: Bellatrix, with her feet in Rodolphus's compliant hands. Affection between those two was scant, but foot massages were not uncommon -- the man's fetish, Snape suspected in hindsight.
It made him think. If he was granted life anew, would anyone be particularly surprised if he proposed to Selene? There were false, fake marriages every day. Would anyone question a marriage based (at least for him) on true and lasting love? Surely it could only be a sign of his willingness to make up for lost time...
A shroud lifted from the distant corner of her mind, and Bellatrix inwardly supplied the only line with any significance that she could fathom: 'My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and I must pause 'til it comes back to me.' She didn't recite outloud, like the two of them. It would be too much, too pathetic.
Severus, still copying notes; cast a bemused look in Selene's direction when she made the Biblical suggestion. This time when his attention wavered, it didn't return to the book so easily. "You expect us to read the whole of Revelations, right here and now?" It wasn't as if he had anything better to do, but it seemed like an arduous task. He honestly would have preferred to read anything else.
"Forgive me if I don't leap at the chance. I've had that book dangled over me before." He avoided going into detail, seeming determined not to comply. He hadn't paid attention to Selene's tone. "Get Lestrange to do it." He shoved the holy book across the desk towards the other spirit, mentally -- not particularly wanting to touch it, even with spectral hands.
"Afraid of what some muggles think?" She teased, reaching for the proferred book and levitating it towards herself. Bellatrix began to turn the pages in clumps. A look of distaste imprinted itself across her once-noble features. It didn't escape her notice that the book Selene was holding seemed considerably more palatable.
Snape, too, cast Selene's book a sidelong glance of undisguised interest. "I doubt the people who gave their skin and blood in the creation of that book think of our research as a game, Selene."
"Somewhere along the lines," she answered to them and rested her head on a fist. Her head was tilted and she looked at them through half-lidded eyes. The image it seemed to cast was so unlike Selene. The dim lighting gave her more of a regal, cunning appearance. Her facial expression neutral to an extent, a quirk of a smile appearing on her face. Her blue eyes gleaming, still, bright. Hair was worn up in many braids.
"It doesn't matter, they were either war prisoners or slaves," she began referring to the book, "they were used for something useful. They should be grateful" she sneered rather flippantly. She smiled faintly, it was a friendly and vicious smile, "at least they contributed to something," the woman said in a decietful charming manner.
It seemed that she had adopted Bellatrix's behavior somewhat, except with a more defined, tactful edge.
"There is still information that may be useful in this book," she murmured as she looked down to the words, bright red written in blood. Flesh made the pages, they had a leather suade type feel to them. Smooth, with no bumps on it what so ever.
She flipped the page, "in order to recieve something of great value, you have to, in turn, give something of equal or an even greater value. Law of Equivilent Exchange" she translated from the book. She spoke softly, gently, "well that's certainly an interesting way to put it" she said smiling faintly.
She looked at them and then back to the book.
"You will return to life soon, I promise you of that" she informed them in a rather reassuring voice.
Yet, a life will be used though. It has to be a willing sacrifice to bring one body back. Another one will be needed, for another body to return. Who would take such roles? She thought to herself, biting her thumb that was brought to her lip. She wasn't biting hard enough to draw bloo. It helped her think sometimes.