The Raven

I slammed the door open to Slughorn’s complimentary living area, given to him for being Head of House – what a bloody joke! “Professor!” I screeched while walking into his apartment-like set up. It didn’t take him nearly as long as I thought it would to come fumbling out.

Slughorn came barreling out of his room in an old green robe and shabby slippers. He screamed at me, “Merlin’s Beard, Tom! It’s two in the morning! What is so important?”

I flapped my arms around and shouted back, “Nyathera dropped me from a tower into the lake and left me to die!”

“What are you talking about?” Slughorn shouted and stared at my soaked form. “Nyathera has been patrolling the halls with Longbottom.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Why would she toss you into the lake?”

I’ve never been so irate. “That’s why I’m here!” A subtle warmth perked up the room; I didn’t have to search to know she was creeping in the shadows. “Interesting,” I sighed, “that such an amazing source of power would sneak around like a rat—” I couldn’t continue even the slightest second of snarky remarks. A force that felt like a log barreling through my spine, yet with claws to rip me open and inhabit my person, overpowered me. I fell to the floor and convulsed at Slughorn’s feet. The pain was too overwhelming to hear or see anything; I have no idea how we got to the hut that was built for that oaf last year, but I could see him shocked in a corner as Dumbledore blew down the door, letting early morning sun cover all of us.

And that’s when I finally saw the whole picture: Headmaster Dippet shaking, almost entirely behind Slughorn, while Slughorn was stiff from shock; that oaf was stuck in a corner and Longbottom shoved his way to the front of a crowd of SlugClub members.

“What are you doing?” Dumbledore screeched and made his way to the slab I’ve been pinned to.

Algie used all his might to hold Dumbledore back from snatching the sun straddling me. “They’ve been bonding for too long to be disrupted.”

Dumbledore barked, “What are you talking about?”

“She’s… She’s giving him what he thinks he deserves.”

In a cracked, soft voice, Dippet asked, “And what would that be?”

The familiar sound of wind and melody rode all the air in the room and came crashing down on my body. “Immortality.” I could feel a shift in her position by the way my intestines were jerked. “Take off the ceiling.”

Sounds of protest came in many tones and voices, but the roof was blown off and the sun came pouring in.

“Before I make the final sacrifice—the ceiling.”

I gasped.

My body suddenly snapped with my stomach rising feet into the air. I could feel a mass traveling, squeezing my intestines and groping my major organs. I saw her, for the first time, as she was meant to be seen. Not as a glob of liquid gold flowing and forming an angel’s body, but as shimmering, golden lava – liquid yet solidly formed, as a figure of such greatness. Such power. Such strength. Such tranquility.

Her voice filled my head until I was sure it’d burst, “This is a gift,”

Her golden arms were flowing, elbow deep, into my body. She looked me right in my eyes and said, “It comes with a price,” before sliding her way up to my shoulders, transferring the pain to my neck, shoulders and arms.

Her face hovered a hair from mine. She smirked and sang, “Who is the lamb and who is the knife?”

I screamed from the sudden feeling in my chest. Her golden, honey lava was no longer coating the blood in my body, painting over the flesh of my veins. I could feel her hot hands cradling my heart.

Her face relaxed, but her gaze never changed. “Midas is king and he holds me so tight,”

She stabbed her fingers through my heart.

My body slammed back down onto the slab.

I screamed – a pain filled my body that felt so close to pleasure; my skin was burning and peeling off of my body to reveal layers of muscle fiber shattering into gold. I thrashed and melted, I was still and I ripped, I tensed and I finally formed. I panted, not understanding why I knew the last bit of her verse, but I still felt compelled to sigh out, “Turns me to gold in the Sunlight.”

Still in her godly state, she climbed off me, rising me from the waist up off of the slab. With new eyes I could see her in her entirety. She was no longer the unbearable sun or the golden, molten statue of pure goodness. She looked like what the arc angles must look like – she looked like a true messenger of God, as if He sent her down to monitor his most powerful, most similar creation. Surely it started as wizards, but I know now He has acknowledged me.

I tried to breathe in, but I collapsed onto the floor.

Her melody, what should have sounded normal to me now, was even more powerful. “You prayed for a curse. And now you must live your arrogance.”

All my senses suddenly left me. Was I aware of being unconscious, or was I left stripped of all I just held within my being? Completely unaware of everything – surroundings and myself. Certainly I have not been forsaken now.