The way they argued was quite a peculiar combination of intimacy and violence. They looked physically comfortable with each other, all awkwardness between a boy and a girl removed by the frequency of physical contact while playing Quidditch. However, what they told each other looked like pure verbal violence, that would normally have children tearing at each other physically. They, however, touched shoulders and looked as if they were eating ice cream together.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow can you even say that Voldemort isn\u2019t evil with a straight face? He killed my parents. He tried to kill me. Your parents are his servants and boot lickers. How about facing the reality of it?\u201d, he frowned at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a war. Your parents were on the opposing side. People die in wars, you know? They defied the Dark Lord, fought him, and lost. Then the Dark Lord tried to kill you, and lost. You won the war. How about ceasing to whine as if you\u2019re somehow a victim? I understand that you lost your parents. That\u2019s awful and I feel for you. Losing them and being raised by those muggles must have been terrible for you. But please don\u2019t try to frame yourself as a victim and me as a villain when you personally won that war\u201d. She looked at him with clear focus and truth behind those silver eyes, and he was out of words. She really had a point there, and yet he felt as if it\u2019s not quite right, that the war isn\u2019t over, that he didn\u2019t actually win anything; he just failed to die. But her argument was so clear, so persuasive and respectful, that he felt it would be disrespectful to even reply in some incoherent way, which would be only way he could at the moment, so he just lowered his eyes in silence. She always wins.<\/p>\n
She returned to her dormitory and cried into her pillow. \u201cHe told me my parents are Voldemort\u2019s boot lickers and servants. He holds us in such contempt.\u201d<\/p>\n
She remembered this now, waved her head incredulously and smiled. I was such a dumbass, she thought. He was right. I refused to face the facts. I wrapped my mind in a knot trying to preserve the innocence and virtue of my parents, and refusing to concede that they were on the wrong side seemed like the only way. And how foolish it was to assume that the war was over. The ideas that started it hadn\u2019t been resolved. The concept that identified purity with genetics rather than personal merit persisted. How idiotic one would have to be to believe Harry to be a \u201chalf blood\u201d, and thus somehow less pure than the Carrows? They are not fit to be dirt beneath his feet. On the other hand, the Granger girl was an excellent student, excellent spellcaster, she was brave, virtuous and loyal to him. She wasn\u2019t jealous of the girl; merely envious, because she was with him now. They fought together. I\u2019m fighting merely to survive, to keep my parents alive, to retain my sanity and purity in this awful mess.<\/p>\n
She cast her usual spells to protect the bathroom. They gave her one of the spare wands, taken from the prisoners. It rejected her, made it hard to wield magic, but she shrugged. Her wand is where it should be. He is fighting for her, and this makes a part of her participate.<\/p>\n
She actually got really good at spellcasting since her heart was healed. She smiled happily. It was as if her magic increased when she felt she had her life back. Knowing he loved her made everything easier. Even the daily indignities and humiliations were easier to bear. Things like this \u2013 there\u2019s no quick pee for her. No, it\u2019s a matter of military logistics. Clear the bathroom, block the door, cast sensory blocks to prevent spying, cast anti-apparition spells. Check if the spells hold. All while having to pee. May the pit of hell open beneath Voldemort and all his minions and swallow them whole forever, and may curses of all the gods fall upon their heads.<\/p>\n
However, she was no longer casting spells the normal way. At first, it was verbal. Revelio, protego and so on. Then it was non-verbal. But then as she did it for a while, she began to develop a taste for adjacent magic, for the place where verbal and thought spells lead, and she learned its \u201caroma\u201d, feeling, and learned how to invoke magic with that feeling alone. Then she learned to mix feelings of different spells and invoke the magic together. She learned how the verbal spells were originally made. Someone felt the magic directly, brought it into their mind and bound it to a verbal spell, and carved it permanently into some layer of the world that\u2019s between the layer of pure magic and human mind. So, now it\u2019s easy to access this taste of magical energy by accessing the words that are bound to it. If the words are in Aramaic, that\u2019s how you invoke it now. If they are in bad Latin, that\u2019s how you invoke it. However, you can also do it directly, if you\u2019re powerful enough; and she was. So, she would wield the magic that would normally be behind five different spells, with a single thought and spatial awareness, and she at first checked it, and had her mother check it again, and it was perfect. She didn\u2019t tell mom why; just that she didn\u2019t trust the new wand.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t know any wizard other than Voldemort and Dumbledore who could do it. There were certainly others; the original authors of the spells, for instance. But she felt fiercely proud of herself for learning this. She must tell Harry.<\/p>\n
Another thing changed when she gifted her wand to Harry. It felt so intimate, it made her so vulnerable, so terrifying and satisfying at the same time, that she doesn\u2019t understand how she even managed it. It was an instinct, but a terrifying instinct, because that wand guarded more than just her life, and she gave it to him willingly. It felt like taking off your clothes and going out into the bitter cold of winter. However, for some reason, she stayed warm. She had a weird feeling that, somehow, she conquered fear forever when she did that. She could always escape, she could always say no, she could always cling to some protection, or illusion thereof, but when she voluntarily gave it away, she felt as if fear no longer had power over her. And, weirdly, that she had power over fear. The formulation actually crossed her mind: you are a Mistress of Fear now. She felt as if Dumbledore was watching over her. Her eyes filled with tears; I wish I finished that talk with him. I wish he was here with me now.<\/p>\n
She flicked her borrowed wand and removed the wards. Time to go back to carrying her cross, willingly.<\/p>\n
She initially found it weird how she could keep her secrets without any Occlumency. She soon understood why; she was always terrified. Voldemort liked his people terrified. It made him feel powerful. When he felt what he expected and liked, he looked no further. All was as it should be. She was terrified, her mother was terrified, and her father was broken. Voldemort liked his people broken, so that, too was satisfying to him. The irony is, this protected them better than a white wall of proper Occlumency ever could \u2013 Voldemort would wonder what is there to hide, and investigate. But now, as he saw everything as it should be, he relished in his power over them and asked no questions.<\/p>\n
She was under no illusion that she could beat Voldemort in a duel. Dumbledore could. Harry could hold his own, and almost won a few times. She could likely wipe out most Death Eaters. She could probably beat aunt Bella. Probably. But she practiced hard magic for three years as if her life depended on it, because it did, and there\u2019s a thing about practice \u2013 it makes you good. And she was very, very good. She smiled. I can stand beside my husband and feel like I belong there. I will make him proud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The way they argued was quite a peculiar combination of intimacy and violence. They looked physically comfortable with each other, all awkwardness between a boy and a girl removed by the frequency of physical contact while playing Quidditch. However, what … Continue reading