Chapter 20, part 3
"But why?" Harry cried taking a bold step forward.
"He's trying to draw us out. Krynd Sh'a has been waiting for a long time to finish his work. He's been biding his time and now it seems his patience has been rewarded. The gates are opening." Her voice had become distant and strange. It wasn't even like she was talking to him anymore. The mists swirling above the table had changed. They glowed crimson, scarlet and gold. Flames. Harry gazed into the fire for a while before glancing at Professor Dumbledore but even the Headmaster seemed to be lost for words. Harry looked pleadingly at the Headmaster who seemed suddenly frail and weak. Harry looked upon Professor Dumbledore and for the first time saw him: an old man.
"Someone must be able to stop him. Someone has to stop him." He whispered.
"Yes. They must. And Dracus knows it. He has already killed two of us." Harry looked up.
"The Coven?" he asked, his voice mildly croaky and broken. Sirius looked up and Harry saw the warning look he threw Krysta.
"My Mother. Voldemort killed her, not Dracus." He said.
"Aye, he did my dear. But on whose orders?" Professor McGonagall asked. He turned to her. He'd almost forgotten she was there.
"I always thought…I can't get my head around it. Voldemort working for someone else, it doesn't feel right."
"Of course not. The truth is Voldemort didn't want to kill your Mother…"
"Krys, no." Sirius stopped the woman in her tracks and she looked up.
"Oh for goodness sake, he's not a baby anymore!" she cried looking angrily at the man.
"This isn't the way!" he yelled back and Harry could almost feel the electricity charging the air around them.
"And when would be? When it's too late?"
"I just…it's gonna hurt."
"What is? Tell me. Sirius whatever it is I want to know." Sirius took a deep breath, which came across as a huff rather than a sigh and returned to his seat.
"Mister Potter I suggest you sit down a moment." Dumbledore sounded tired but the warm concern in his voice was enough to make Harry heed his words.
He sank into a comfortable but upright chair and clasped his hands together. Krysta looked uncomfortable.
"Headmaster, if it is alright with you, I think I must go and inform the boy of the terrible news." Whispered Professor McGonagall. She too looked uncomfortable and when Professor Dumbledore nodded she slipped quickly and quietly out of the room. What boy? Harry thought to himself, but his attention was diverted for only seconds. Finally Krysta ceased her anxious pacing and unfolded her arms from across her chest, letting them hang by her sides. Sirius was avoiding eye contact with anyone though he sat close to Harry. Finally Krysta exhaled and she took a seat herself.
"Dracus wants to wipe out the Coven." She began carefully. Harry nodded. He could understand that. "However he knows that wiping out an active, mature Coven is no mean feat. After all no one has succeeded before now."
"Before now?" he asked. Did she mean that the Coven had been wiped out? They can't have been. Besides, Krysta was still alive.
"When a sister of Natherra dies a new heir rises and so the Coven is never-ending. However…" she said in a low voice. "If all of the chosen heirs are killed before the last remaining active Sister of Natherra dies, the chain can be broken. The new Coven must rise to power together. When a sister dies, her heir will wait until the remaining sisters die. Then she shall join the other heirs and the new Coven is initiated together. " Harry frowned.
"So, if you had died before your Mother…" Harry began and Krysta nodded in confirmation. "Has that ever happened?" he asked to which she shook her head.
"If it had, we wouldn't be here now." She said and Harry smiled.
"So what if the current sister dies before the heir is chosen?" he asked and she shook her head.
"There is always a chosen one, but…" she seemed to pause here. "Your Mother died and now, the second sister has died in the attack, leaving only me. In the past the heir has always been the daughter of the previous Coven member or sister, but…"
"My Mother had no daughter." Harry finished and looked around at the people at the table. Dumbledore looked sad and Sirius had buried his head in his arms.
"What?" he asked. What was wrong with them all?
"Harry…" Krysta began and then stopped dead. Her eyes looked funny. Was she holding back tears?
"Dracus knew that if he could kill our daughters before he killed us, he could destroy the Coven once and for all." Harry nodded frowning a little.
"Yes I get that. But Mum didn't have a daughter. And neither do you…do you?" he asked, suddenly realising that he really didn't know that much about the woman. Krysta got up swiftly from the table and crossed the room. Sirius looked up, watching the woman putting distance between them. Harry stared at him. The man's eyes were red. He wasn't crying but they had the look of eyes that had been.
"Sirius?" he asked gently. Sirius shook his head.
"No she doesn't have a daughter…not any more."
Harry felt like he was under a ten tonne pile of bricks. The horror of the information his godfather had just bestowed on him was so powerful it had left him completely stunned.
The meeting, such as it was, had diminished completely after that point. Krysta had stayed as hidden as she could in a corner of Dumbledore's office and when Sirius went to join her Dumbledore had given Harry the look that suggested it was time to leave.
Now he sat alone on the roof of the tower too lost in thought to wonder what his fellow Gryffindors may be up to on the floors below him. And all alone, lost in thought, Harry Potter had begun to piece together the fragments of a long and painful story: a story that was far from finished.
And among his thoughts a few of his old questions had begun to answer themselves. He now knew why Lucius Malfoy had felt the need to kidnap Winky. He now knew why St. Mungo's hospital had been attacked. He knew what his dreams meant. He had a terrifying hunch as to why Hermione had been attacked by the Nightwraith and why she could understand the dolphins in the lake outside. He knew why the red sphere in the Arinella beat itself wildly around its cage whenever Hermione came near it. All these things had begun to fall into place when he had asked Sirius one last question. For when he asked when Krysta's child had died he had somehow known what the answer was going to be. And when he got his answer a shiver had gone down Harry's spine.
"September the Nineteenth, 1979."
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