FIC: Skinwalker (4/6), by ladychi
To: lyras
Title: Skinwalker [Chapter Four: The Lady of the Lake]
Author: ladychi
Characters/Pairings: Harry/Ginny, Neville Longbottom, Ron/Hermione, OCs
Word Count: Final word count ~12,000, this chapter: 1857
Rating: Older Teen (Content in this chapter continues to be mildly disturbing).
Summary: What does the Harry Potter fandom need more of? Zombies, pirates and things that go bump in the night, of course! Harry and Ginny use much-needed holiday time to help out an old friend protect the children at his school from a threat much more insidious than it first seems.
Previous Chapters: One | Two | Chapter Three
Author's Note: lyras, I appreciate your patience as I post these chapters sort of haphazardly. I can promise another chapter by Wednesday (Thursday morning at the latest), and the final chapter by Friday (or Saturday morning). Funny how even meticulously outlined fics can run away from you...
King Arthur legend purists, do not be alarmed. I am aware that absolutely nothing in here is accurate to the legend at all.
Chapter Four
They decided to walk the short distance between Neville's quarters at the school and Lonnie's parents' home. The wind bit through their cloaks, but the Scottish gale was familiar enough that perversely, Harry felt right at home, walking along the path with his hand securely in Ginny's, his other hand loosely gripping his wand.
“Are you concerned about getting jumped?” Ginny teased him, bumping his shoulder with her own.
“Constant vigilance!” Harry said, brandishing his wand semi-seriously. “We don't know where these creatures are coming from or what they want. I'm not worried, I'm being cautious.”
Ginny nodded. “I've got my wand close, too. Do you suppose a Bat Bogey Hex works on zombies or skinwalkers... or... whatever?”
“Dunno.” Harry beamed at her. “We should find out.”
“Come on, Mr. Harry Potter!” Lonnie skipped ahead of them and back.
“It's cute how she calls you Mr. Harry Potter,” Ginny said under her breath. “Do you think she'll think you're so impressive if she finds out you can't remember to put the lid down?”
“You could look.”
“I'm not looking at three a.m.,” Ginny hissed.
“Oi! You two want to hurry it up?” Neville grinned at them over his shoulder. “Lonnie's mum makes the best shepherd's pie in Scotland. Don't tell Gran I said so, but it's to die for.”
“Still reigning with an iron fist, your gran?” Harry asked, though a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.
“Attempting to, from hundreds of miles away,” Neville said casually. “She's got a bit better over the years, you know. Not quite so many Howlers en masse.”
“En masse?” Ginny laughed. “You sound like Hermione now.”
“Hey, I'm an educator,” Neville drawled, waggling his eyebrows. “Little bit of pretentious French assures everyone you know what you're talking about.”
“Pretentious,” Ginny sing-songed.
“Professor Longbottom is very intelligent,” Lonnie said, her pigtails failing out behind her in the wind. “He's the smartest professor in the whole school.”
“That's very nice of you to say,” Neville said, flushing a bright red. “If not, you know. Really true.”
“Don't be modest Neville,” Harry said, tugging on Ginny's hand to direct her attention in the direction he'd spotted the movement. “You were smart in school.”
“When it mattered,” Neville admitted, slowing down. “What's going on, Harry?”
“Maybe you and Ginny and Lonnie should run ahead,” Harry said, drawing his wand out carefully from his side-holster. “I'd prefer to take a stroll.”
“I'd prefer you not be a prat,” Ginny said easily, “but I'll let it slide this time. Neville, you want to go on ahead with Lonnie?”
“Yeah, sure.” Neville drew his wand out, and some of that familiar hardness settled over his face. He looked like he had during the final days of the war. Purposeful, resolute. He took Lonnie's hand and strode off, his cloak flapping behind him.
“Ginny, you're not an Auror, you don't...”
“We'll discuss this latest instance of head-in-arse at a later date, Harry Potter,” Ginny said firmly, “but whatever's out there, we'll face it together, got it?”
“I was kind of hoping that you would say that,” Harry said with a grin. Together, they left the path and walked a few paces before Ginny summoned a light.
The terrain was rough. It would have been easy enough in the day, but they were hesitant to summon a bright light and the light they did risk only lit the ground a few meters ahead of their eyes. Rocks, thick tufts of grass and haphazardly-growing shubbery blocked their way and made stealthy maneuvering almost impossible.
“You do realize, we could be on the trail of a nargle right now,” Ginny whispered teasingly.
“No, I'd recognize a nargle right off,” Harry whispered back. “This definitely had 'zombie' written all over it.”
“How's that?”
“Unsubtle,” Harry said, until he froze. “Ginny, that way. Lumos Maxima!” Suddenly the forest glowed with light from Harry's wand. Gradually, it faded away to something more bearable, and Harry strode off into a thicket of woods.
“What was that all about?”
“I was hoping the bright light would stun the creature,” Harry said, “get it to stop, if only for a moment. The plants and stuff are completely smashed through here --” he indicated a bent-over and broken bush “-- so I'd wager it moved this way.”
“You're the Auror,” Ginny said, her tongue between her teeth. “Let's follow it, yeah?”
Harry looked off in the direction they'd come from and nodded with a sigh. “You know, Gin. Just the once, I'd like to actually get shepherd's pie.”
“Next time we're home we'll ask Mum to make it.”
“Oh great.” Harry rubbed his stomach.
“What?”
“Now I'm really hungry.”
**
Caves outside Aberdeen, Scotland, February 1819
Smit's body was moving, but his mind was locked somewhere else - locked where it couldn't control the legs that carried him further and further into the cave and pushed him deeper and deeper into darkness. He could feel the piercing claws of his parrot punishingly penetrating the fabric of his tunic, but there was no way to stop the bloody bird from causing so much pain.
It was a good song, though. He could give it that. Sort of made him feel light, airy. Like he could float on a river. A lukewarm river, full of bubbles. It made him think of the women he'd seen in all of his days in all of the ports of the world. Generously bosomed, lacking in the teeth, with eyes that were dead inside except when they laughed - and when they laughed, oh how their whole bodies would shake. Women who loved the men of the sea - they laughed like no one else.
If he could have controlled his movements, he would have sighed. He would have cursed out loud his uncharacteristic turn to poetry. As it was, the man inside of Smit's brain was locked in a cage, shouting and rattling at the bars, and then waxing lyrical by turns.
Before he knew it, he was standing at the pool again, only this time he was hip deep in the water. His hands trailed lazily through the liquid. He'd never quite noticed how silky water felt between his worn fingers. It was the only texture he could really appreciate, though his mother had always said his clumsy hands would ruin it.
“The Lady of the Lake lay in longing,” a voice sang, “longing for her Lancelot. Her love, her love, her love.”
His heart, beyond his control, began to race wildly.
“But where was he to be found, her love?” A figure began to appear, just outside of Smit's gaze. “Where could he have gone? Her love, her love, her love...”
The man in the cage began to weep.
Suddenly the voice stopped, and Smit was allowed to turn to see her. Fiery red hair, eyes of the deepest amber and skin so white it appeared the sun had never kissed her cheeks - she was all of this. She was also young. So terribly, terribly young, Smit felt his old man heart break in sympathy, and he shed a tear.
“Are you my love?”
He could not move. He could not either accept or deny. He could only wait while she passed judgment. Her eyes flashed cold - like ice had been dumped in them, and her mouth set into a disapproving line. “You are not my love. Who are you? Speak.”
And once he had been given permission, Smit found his vocal chords suddenly freed, though no other part of him could move. “I'm Smit, m'lady.”
“Smit?” Her brow furrowed in confusion. “You are not Lancelot.”
“No, I'm afraid not, my lady.”
“Neither was your friend,” she said sadly. “I couldn't take his skin like I took his lady friend's.”
“Take his skin?”
“They never fit right, the skins of men. Of course, they last longer. I don't have to stretch them so.”
Smit was beginning to feel light-headed. “My mistress, you...”
“No more. I'm waiting for my Lancelot.” She waved a hand. “I'm so sorry. It's just that I'm terribly, terribly hungry.”
**
The Libraries at the Ministry of Magic. London, England. February 2000.
“It's not a classified text,” Hermione said forcefully. “I need to see it, and you're going to let me.”
“I'm sorry, ma'am, but after that whole debacle with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named those texts are reserved only for...”
Hermione saw red and her fingers twitched in the way that told her she'd much prefer to claw the face off of the pompous, ill-educated pimpled young man that stood between her and what she needed to know. “Tell you what.”
He visibly swallowed. “Yes?”
“You go get your superior. You tell him Hermione Granger-Weasley is here, and that I'd like to see your texts on reanimation, and file a complaint about someone calling Voldemort a 'debacle'. PR disaster, that.”
The young man pointed meekly. “Right over there, Mrs. Granger-Weasley.”
“You bet your arse they are,” Hermione said, and strode off across the library, the click of her heels echoing in the vast space.
“Watching you turn that boy into goo was very, very hot,” Ron whispered in her ear.
“I would have appreciated a little help,” Hermione said shaking her head. “You didn't have to stand there with your mouth open.”
“I got a little nostalgic, actually,” Ron said, his hands in his pockets, studying the ceiling as they came to a stop in front of the shelves Hermione needed. “Reminded me of the days when you used to get furious with me'n Harry over homework. I wish I would have appreciated the inherent sexiness then.”
Hermione glanced over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “You're a perverse and twisted man.”
“And creative. Don't forget creative.” He waggled a finger at her.
“Yes, well. I don't need creativity right now, I need research. So. Crack a book open, Ronald.”
“Yes, m'lady,” Ron said, ducking his head, but he grinned when Hermione smacked him lovingly on the cheek.
After several minutes, Hermione raised her head. “Ron?”
“Yeah?” He lifted his head and rubbed his eyes. The last time his head had hurt this bad, he had been studying for exams.
“Do you remember what Harry said the local people called the reanimated corpse?”
“Skinwalker, innit?”
“We've got to go to Scotland.” Hermione grabbed his hand and started to tug on it.
“Why?”
“Harry's in trouble, so is Ginny. I'll explain on the way. We've got to find that school where Neville works.”
Title: Skinwalker [Chapter Four: The Lady of the Lake]
Author: ladychi
Characters/Pairings: Harry/Ginny, Neville Longbottom, Ron/Hermione, OCs
Word Count: Final word count ~12,000, this chapter: 1857
Rating: Older Teen (Content in this chapter continues to be mildly disturbing).
Summary: What does the Harry Potter fandom need more of? Zombies, pirates and things that go bump in the night, of course! Harry and Ginny use much-needed holiday time to help out an old friend protect the children at his school from a threat much more insidious than it first seems.
Previous Chapters: One | Two | Chapter Three
Author's Note: lyras, I appreciate your patience as I post these chapters sort of haphazardly. I can promise another chapter by Wednesday (Thursday morning at the latest), and the final chapter by Friday (or Saturday morning). Funny how even meticulously outlined fics can run away from you...
King Arthur legend purists, do not be alarmed. I am aware that absolutely nothing in here is accurate to the legend at all.
Chapter Four
They decided to walk the short distance between Neville's quarters at the school and Lonnie's parents' home. The wind bit through their cloaks, but the Scottish gale was familiar enough that perversely, Harry felt right at home, walking along the path with his hand securely in Ginny's, his other hand loosely gripping his wand.
“Are you concerned about getting jumped?” Ginny teased him, bumping his shoulder with her own.
“Constant vigilance!” Harry said, brandishing his wand semi-seriously. “We don't know where these creatures are coming from or what they want. I'm not worried, I'm being cautious.”
Ginny nodded. “I've got my wand close, too. Do you suppose a Bat Bogey Hex works on zombies or skinwalkers... or... whatever?”
“Dunno.” Harry beamed at her. “We should find out.”
“Come on, Mr. Harry Potter!” Lonnie skipped ahead of them and back.
“It's cute how she calls you Mr. Harry Potter,” Ginny said under her breath. “Do you think she'll think you're so impressive if she finds out you can't remember to put the lid down?”
“You could look.”
“I'm not looking at three a.m.,” Ginny hissed.
“Oi! You two want to hurry it up?” Neville grinned at them over his shoulder. “Lonnie's mum makes the best shepherd's pie in Scotland. Don't tell Gran I said so, but it's to die for.”
“Still reigning with an iron fist, your gran?” Harry asked, though a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.
“Attempting to, from hundreds of miles away,” Neville said casually. “She's got a bit better over the years, you know. Not quite so many Howlers en masse.”
“En masse?” Ginny laughed. “You sound like Hermione now.”
“Hey, I'm an educator,” Neville drawled, waggling his eyebrows. “Little bit of pretentious French assures everyone you know what you're talking about.”
“Pretentious,” Ginny sing-songed.
“Professor Longbottom is very intelligent,” Lonnie said, her pigtails failing out behind her in the wind. “He's the smartest professor in the whole school.”
“That's very nice of you to say,” Neville said, flushing a bright red. “If not, you know. Really true.”
“Don't be modest Neville,” Harry said, tugging on Ginny's hand to direct her attention in the direction he'd spotted the movement. “You were smart in school.”
“When it mattered,” Neville admitted, slowing down. “What's going on, Harry?”
“Maybe you and Ginny and Lonnie should run ahead,” Harry said, drawing his wand out carefully from his side-holster. “I'd prefer to take a stroll.”
“I'd prefer you not be a prat,” Ginny said easily, “but I'll let it slide this time. Neville, you want to go on ahead with Lonnie?”
“Yeah, sure.” Neville drew his wand out, and some of that familiar hardness settled over his face. He looked like he had during the final days of the war. Purposeful, resolute. He took Lonnie's hand and strode off, his cloak flapping behind him.
“Ginny, you're not an Auror, you don't...”
“We'll discuss this latest instance of head-in-arse at a later date, Harry Potter,” Ginny said firmly, “but whatever's out there, we'll face it together, got it?”
“I was kind of hoping that you would say that,” Harry said with a grin. Together, they left the path and walked a few paces before Ginny summoned a light.
The terrain was rough. It would have been easy enough in the day, but they were hesitant to summon a bright light and the light they did risk only lit the ground a few meters ahead of their eyes. Rocks, thick tufts of grass and haphazardly-growing shubbery blocked their way and made stealthy maneuvering almost impossible.
“You do realize, we could be on the trail of a nargle right now,” Ginny whispered teasingly.
“No, I'd recognize a nargle right off,” Harry whispered back. “This definitely had 'zombie' written all over it.”
“How's that?”
“Unsubtle,” Harry said, until he froze. “Ginny, that way. Lumos Maxima!” Suddenly the forest glowed with light from Harry's wand. Gradually, it faded away to something more bearable, and Harry strode off into a thicket of woods.
“What was that all about?”
“I was hoping the bright light would stun the creature,” Harry said, “get it to stop, if only for a moment. The plants and stuff are completely smashed through here --” he indicated a bent-over and broken bush “-- so I'd wager it moved this way.”
“You're the Auror,” Ginny said, her tongue between her teeth. “Let's follow it, yeah?”
Harry looked off in the direction they'd come from and nodded with a sigh. “You know, Gin. Just the once, I'd like to actually get shepherd's pie.”
“Next time we're home we'll ask Mum to make it.”
“Oh great.” Harry rubbed his stomach.
“What?”
“Now I'm really hungry.”
**
Caves outside Aberdeen, Scotland, February 1819
Smit's body was moving, but his mind was locked somewhere else - locked where it couldn't control the legs that carried him further and further into the cave and pushed him deeper and deeper into darkness. He could feel the piercing claws of his parrot punishingly penetrating the fabric of his tunic, but there was no way to stop the bloody bird from causing so much pain.
It was a good song, though. He could give it that. Sort of made him feel light, airy. Like he could float on a river. A lukewarm river, full of bubbles. It made him think of the women he'd seen in all of his days in all of the ports of the world. Generously bosomed, lacking in the teeth, with eyes that were dead inside except when they laughed - and when they laughed, oh how their whole bodies would shake. Women who loved the men of the sea - they laughed like no one else.
If he could have controlled his movements, he would have sighed. He would have cursed out loud his uncharacteristic turn to poetry. As it was, the man inside of Smit's brain was locked in a cage, shouting and rattling at the bars, and then waxing lyrical by turns.
Before he knew it, he was standing at the pool again, only this time he was hip deep in the water. His hands trailed lazily through the liquid. He'd never quite noticed how silky water felt between his worn fingers. It was the only texture he could really appreciate, though his mother had always said his clumsy hands would ruin it.
“The Lady of the Lake lay in longing,” a voice sang, “longing for her Lancelot. Her love, her love, her love.”
His heart, beyond his control, began to race wildly.
“But where was he to be found, her love?” A figure began to appear, just outside of Smit's gaze. “Where could he have gone? Her love, her love, her love...”
The man in the cage began to weep.
Suddenly the voice stopped, and Smit was allowed to turn to see her. Fiery red hair, eyes of the deepest amber and skin so white it appeared the sun had never kissed her cheeks - she was all of this. She was also young. So terribly, terribly young, Smit felt his old man heart break in sympathy, and he shed a tear.
“Are you my love?”
He could not move. He could not either accept or deny. He could only wait while she passed judgment. Her eyes flashed cold - like ice had been dumped in them, and her mouth set into a disapproving line. “You are not my love. Who are you? Speak.”
And once he had been given permission, Smit found his vocal chords suddenly freed, though no other part of him could move. “I'm Smit, m'lady.”
“Smit?” Her brow furrowed in confusion. “You are not Lancelot.”
“No, I'm afraid not, my lady.”
“Neither was your friend,” she said sadly. “I couldn't take his skin like I took his lady friend's.”
“Take his skin?”
“They never fit right, the skins of men. Of course, they last longer. I don't have to stretch them so.”
Smit was beginning to feel light-headed. “My mistress, you...”
“No more. I'm waiting for my Lancelot.” She waved a hand. “I'm so sorry. It's just that I'm terribly, terribly hungry.”
**
The Libraries at the Ministry of Magic. London, England. February 2000.
“It's not a classified text,” Hermione said forcefully. “I need to see it, and you're going to let me.”
“I'm sorry, ma'am, but after that whole debacle with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named those texts are reserved only for...”
Hermione saw red and her fingers twitched in the way that told her she'd much prefer to claw the face off of the pompous, ill-educated pimpled young man that stood between her and what she needed to know. “Tell you what.”
He visibly swallowed. “Yes?”
“You go get your superior. You tell him Hermione Granger-Weasley is here, and that I'd like to see your texts on reanimation, and file a complaint about someone calling Voldemort a 'debacle'. PR disaster, that.”
The young man pointed meekly. “Right over there, Mrs. Granger-Weasley.”
“You bet your arse they are,” Hermione said, and strode off across the library, the click of her heels echoing in the vast space.
“Watching you turn that boy into goo was very, very hot,” Ron whispered in her ear.
“I would have appreciated a little help,” Hermione said shaking her head. “You didn't have to stand there with your mouth open.”
“I got a little nostalgic, actually,” Ron said, his hands in his pockets, studying the ceiling as they came to a stop in front of the shelves Hermione needed. “Reminded me of the days when you used to get furious with me'n Harry over homework. I wish I would have appreciated the inherent sexiness then.”
Hermione glanced over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “You're a perverse and twisted man.”
“And creative. Don't forget creative.” He waggled a finger at her.
“Yes, well. I don't need creativity right now, I need research. So. Crack a book open, Ronald.”
“Yes, m'lady,” Ron said, ducking his head, but he grinned when Hermione smacked him lovingly on the cheek.
After several minutes, Hermione raised her head. “Ron?”
“Yeah?” He lifted his head and rubbed his eyes. The last time his head had hurt this bad, he had been studying for exams.
“Do you remember what Harry said the local people called the reanimated corpse?”
“Skinwalker, innit?”
“We've got to go to Scotland.” Hermione grabbed his hand and started to tug on it.
“Why?”
“Harry's in trouble, so is Ginny. I'll explain on the way. We've got to find that school where Neville works.”