And that was the worst, the most humiliating. Made even worse by the voices he heard when the dementors had overwhelmed him. Voices he was certain were his mother and father trying to protect him from Voldemort. And something else in the background that sounded like a girl sobbing.
And...he had seen the Grim again. He wasn't about to mention that though.
"Well, you weren't the only one," Ron said commiseratingly when Harry had mentioned how embarrassing it was to fall off his broom. "Kodachi fainted and she was way up in the stands. Those dementors are right awful though, give anyone a shiver."
"I don't see her in here," Harry noted glumly, idly considering that being told that an eleven year old girl had experienced the same problem wasn't that cheering.
"Well, she didn't fall fifty feet to the ground, did she?" Hermione reminded Harry in her normal "think things through, why don't you?" tone.
It was at that point that the Gryffindor team returned to try and cheer up Harry, a pointless endeavor since they didn't really know what was bothering him. Oliver Wood offered what may have been an attempt to take some of the burden off Harry when he said, in a dead sort of tone of voice, that he didn't blame Harry at all for the defeat.
****
Kodachi, meanwhile was paying a visit to her long-time friend, Midorigame and introducing her new-friend, Shirousagi to the crocodile.
"Why, don't be silly," Kodachi told her snake. "Midorigame is very picky about what he eats, and he would not any of my pets."
Kodachi had, in fact, already given Hagrid a very descriptive list of what she'd fed the alligator up until now and had been relieved to learn that it would be fairly easy to maintain the croc, and the weather wasn't all that different from the climate in Japan.
She sighed and sat on the edge of the small pond that Midorigame was resting in, a separate body of water to keep him apart from the giant squid in the main lake. Midorigame's massive head was lying next to her as she leaned against him and scratched at his eye-ridges.
"I do not like those creatures," she said to the python and alligator. "Those dementors."
At the moment she heard Japanese, though she was actually speaking parseltongue. She shivered as she said the word, and Shirousagi hissed uncomfortably. Even the alligator made a long deep-throated growl, though it didn't seem to be speaking anything to Kodachi. It did have some sense of its mistress's distress apparently though.
"The books I have access to only give cursory information on the...beasts," she muttered.
"They are bad," Shirousagi hissed in agreement as it coiled about Kodachi in the serpentine equivalent of a comforting hug. "Very bad, they should be avoided if possible, destroyed if not."
"They make me remember...things," Kodachi responded. "Things that are...not good. But not all of it is memory there's...something else. Upperclassman Potter had a reaction similar to mine..."
"Oi, Kodachi," Hagrid called out. "It's getting close to curfew, shouldn't you be heading back to the castle."
Kodachi looked up at the sound of Hagrid's voice and nodded before noticing that Hagrid looked a bit out of sorts himself. Though she knew what the cause of that was. Buckbeak's case was not proceeding well, especially as the driving personality behind the matter was not Draco, but, rather, Lucious Malfoy.
She looked to the horizon and noticed that sun was indeed dipping quite low to the horizon. It was getting close to the time she'd promised to meet Melody and Karen at.
"Oh," Kodachi said, standing up. "I had not realized it was quite so late. Thank you, Hagrid. And you go off and have yourself a nice swim, Midorigame."
She hugged the alligator which recognized that as a sign that Kodachi was leaving, and took the opportunity to slide back into the water. Then she bowed demurely to Hagrid.
"I'm certain everything will turn out just fine, Hagrid," Kodachi said before she left. It was too bad she was too busy with her own studies, she would like to have helped Hagrid with Buckbeak's case.
****
"The reason Potter has such problems with the dementors is clear," Snape said.
The others agreed on that, though they probably didn't have Snape's added belief that Harry had a weaker character than most of them considered him to have.
"Perhaps some more information regarding Miss Hecate is in order, however," Snape added.
Again, Dumbledor and the heads of the houses were all aware of Kodachi's rather odd situation. All of them had been of the mind that unusual steps were called for on any chance to bring the girl into the school. Hecate's blood had not been seen since Voldemort's time fifty years ago and it had been feared they were all gone.
"The answer to that, I'm afraid," Dumbledor said. "Is that I do not know. I have my suspicions, of course. It was quite surprising that she accepted our offer. Not many children her true age would look kindly on the idea of returning to such a young age as eleven."
"Her mother was a descendant of one of the few of that line to change her name upon marriage," McGonagal said. "And died young, which is why she was not found until so late. Incidently, what magic was used to youthen her, it doesn't seem to be as temporary as other magics."
"Aging mushrooms," Dumbledor said. "A shop in her area had access to a supply."
"Really," Professor Sprout said. "What fortunate timing, the spores of those mushrooms take over a century to germinate and they tend to be shortlived afterwords."
"And I believe that was the only mushroom they had," Dumbledor said, feeling somewhat bad about deflating Professor Sprout's hope to acquire such a rare herb.
"In any case," Snape said. "We are to assume that Miss Hecate was desperate enough to escape her situation to return to a child's age and that that situation was severe enough that the dementors have an effect on her that is generally only seen among those that have had some traumatic event in their past."
Snape tapped his fingers for a moment and considered.
"I suppose, as head of Slytherin, I shall have to talk to her," Snape said. "There are already things that I need to discuss with her as it is."
"My apologies, Severus," Professor Sprout said. "But you are not the most...sympathetic of instructors. Are you certain you won't just scare her?"
"I think you'll find," Professor Snape said. "That Miss Hecate is made of sterner material than the average witch."
"Severus shall handle this," Dumbledor said. "Certainly he knows how to handle a Slytherin girl better than any of us here. Unless you'd like his aide in dealing with your students?"
"No," Sprout said, accepting the reprimand. "My apologies for speaking out of turn. I'm certain he can handle the situation."
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(Posted Wed, 12 Mar 2003 20:07)
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