Snake, Thy Name is Lion

Gryffindor? Gryffindor? No, there had been a mistake! Leaena couldn’t have gotten into Gryffindor. Not in a million years. She had already made four Gryffindors hate her in the last few days! She was scared of everything! How had she gotten into Gryffindor?

Leaena stood up numbly, putting the hat back on the stool. The students were clapping, but she could see that there were exceptions. The entire Slytherin table was silent, as were Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley. Leaena walked over to the Gryffindor table and sat between two empty seats. She stared at her plate, feeling the glaring eyes of the Slytherins on her back and hearing to furious whispers of Allison McKay and the famous trio. Leaena studied the table throughout the school song, Dumbledore’s speech, and the feast. She didn’t eat anything.

"First year Gryffindors! Come with me!" Hermione Granger shouted at the table of children. The nine other students jumped up promptly and went to follow the prefect. Leaena followed more slowly. She was five steps behind the other students as they followed the brown haired seventh year through the unfathomable number of twists and turns of the castle.

They finally came out in front of a portrait of a stout witch in a pink dress. "Rivera," said Hermione Granger, and the portrait swung open to reveal a comfortable scarlet room. Hermione stood outside the opening, waiting for each student to proceed in. Leaena was last.

"So you’re a Gryffindor instead? I’m sure Malfoy is disappointed. Sorry about that!" said Hermione, not sounding nasty, but Leaena interpreting it that way.

Leaena frowned at her. "I don’t need your pity, Granger. Go bury yourself in your books, or whatever it is you do for fun." As soon as the words left her lips, she regretted them.

Hermione raised her eyebrows at the fierce kid glaring at her. "Well then. God forbid someone waste their time being nice to you."

Leaena didn’t change expressions, just sauntered past her into the common room. Hermione grimaced and muttered something about the Sorting Hat losing its touch.

In the first year girls’ dormitory, Leaena and four other girls picked beds and unpacked. None of them really felt very tired. Leaena sat on the bed that was farthest from the others and surveyed her classmates. They didn’t even glance at the small girl cross-legged on the bed with her strawberry blond hair falling onto her thin face. There were four others besides Leaena. They seemed to already have become best friends forever, leaving the icy girl who was obviously meant for Slytherin secluded in the room. There were two Irish girls, Kasie O’Brien and Margaret McHenry on one side of the room. Margaret was jovial and plump, with dark hair and brown eyes and freckles. Kasie was small and compact, red headed and green eyed, with fair skin. The other two were British, Lila Hones and Jacqueline Weston. Lila was average height with tanned skin and slanted black eyes that sparkled with excitement. Jacqueline was an elegant, thin girl whose shiny, dark curls were pulled into a flawless ponytail.

Leaena seemed not to exist to these four happy children. She was not there, a fly on the wall, that was not to be noticed. The four others jumped into bed and dissolved into excited chatter, that slowly drifted into deep slumber. Leaena continued to sit on her bed staring into nothing. She didn’t know afterward how long she sat there, but eventually she slid out of bed and donned a robe and slippers, and crept out of the dormitory and downstairs. The rosy comfortable room was dark yet warm. Leaena took a deep shuddering breath and quietly opened the portrait hole and dropped to the cold stone floor of the hallway.

"Stop!" shrieked the Fat Lady, "No students allowed out so late!" Leaena turned lithely to look at the portrait, her frigid grey eyes in a fixed stare that didn’t relent and her thin pale face that didn’t so much as twitch from it’s perfectly expressionless look. The Fat Lady would remember the gaze of this young rogue who snuck out. All the others simply smiled or winked at her, while this one looked like she was deciding whether to shred her portrait or set it on fire. The Fat Lady ran to the back of her painted room. Leaena turned slowly and walked away. She walked like a cat, padding softly over the stone hallways. She did not know where she was going, and neither did she care. She suddenly found herself in the Great Hall. Leaena walked to the middle of the huge room and stared up at the ceiling. It was as dark as velvet with stars painfully brilliant in the enveloping darkness. The silver moon shined a cold brilliance on Leaena’s face. So preoccupied was she that she did not notice another’s presence in the ancient beauty of this timeless sky and antediluvian room.

Another little girl, looking younger than Leaena, stood silently beside her. She was tiny, emaciated, looking like she hadn’t had food in a very, very long time. Her dark hair was down to her knees and curled in softly shining ringlets falling into her flawless translucent face that was too gaunt and far too clever. She was clothed in a ragged white nightgown that was in the style of the dark ages or close to then. Her austere grey-green eyes were much too large in her face and worldlier than the usual child of her age. Leaena turned swiftly to stare down this skeletal waif.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" she asked sharply and swiftly, her voice racing through the syllables, hoping that they would not reveal her fear. She assessed the child silently and suppressed a gasp. Her nightdress was splattered with blood.

The child gave Leaena a condescending gaze. "I am whoever you think I am, my friend."

"All I think is that you’re a little kid who’s stumbled into Hogwarts out of the Forbidden Forest."

"Really? Than why can you see right through me, Leaena, or what ever the bloody hell you call yourself?" said the girl in a wintry voice.

Leaena could indeed see right through her. Through the bloody dress was the outline of the windows of the Great Hall. Leaena started to shake. The little girl raised an eyebrow. "I am Vivienne, daughter of Gryffindor."

"Gryffindor? As in Godric?"

"No," said Vivienne with irritation, "As in my father, Ilion."

"Is Ilion Godric Gryffindor’s son?"

"Yes."

"So you’re a ghost."

"Yes."

"That’s normal."

"I suppose."

They stood in uncomfortable silence. "How old are you?"

"I believe around one-thousand and nineteen."

"No, how old were you when you died?"

"Eight."

"How’d you die?"

She glared at her. "I was murdered, oh brilliant one."

"No need to be rude about it. Did you go to Hogwarts?"

"I died at Hogwarts. But I was only eight."

"So how did you die?"

Vivienne stepped back, looking at the silver moon with an odd look on her face.

"Or, if there were a sympathy in choice,

War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it;

Making it momentary as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,

Brief as the lightning in the collied night."

"Wait, what?" asked Leaena bewilderedly. She had known many ghosts through her life, and this one, however strange, was not atypical as far as transparent qualities and enigmatic manners go.

"A father’s only daughter doth slay a foe.

All liked the slain foe whom none knew was such

Yet none liked the daughter

The foe of the daughter doth slay the father as a ghost

Only then the father shall know of his daughter’s fidelity

But too late he ascertained the verity

The daughter had been so youthful, not yet nine

But she died at the hand of those who had known her since forever

She is mewed by this castle and doth not come out

Lest one she distinguishes a child whom she knows is found

She is incarcerated for time immemorial"

Leaena looked uncertainly at the blood-splattered child. " Well that was a happy bit of rubbish, but you don’t know me."

"Don’t I? How do I know your name?"

"The sorting ceremony. You watched it."

"No I did not. I don’t come out of my room unless I recognize someone."

"Where?" asked Leaena shakily, her blood chilling in her veins.

"Where do I recognize you from? I’ll show you." Vivienne spun on a bare heel and glided out. Leaena followed her unconsciously. She tried to stop, but couldn’t. She began to become panicky, breathing unsteadily and shivering. Leaena walked behind Vivienne, noticing that she had a bloodstained hole in her back. Leaena was used to ghosts, but this one made her uneasy.

They proceeded to walk through a part of Hogwarts Leaena had never heard of from anyone or seen pictures of in any book on Hogwarts she had ever read, which wasn’t saying much. It was completely furnished with extremely antiquated and crumbling furniture. There were tapestries and paintings on the walls and once-rich carpets, now threadbare, on the floors.

Suddenly Vivienne turned into a long hallway that was filled with portraits. Leaena followed. Vivienne was standing at the end of the hall, looking at a painting that was edged in an ornate gold frame. Leaena came up next to her.

The painting was of two little girls, one about eight and the other around eleven. The elder was fair and the younger dark. The brunette one was eye-catching and very charismatic. She wore a dark jade velvet dress that brought out the green in her eyes. The fair child was plain, not ugly, but not lovely either. She wore a plum coloured dress that did not suit as well as it could. Both were too petite for their years, and too thin as well. But neither of them was as emaciated as Vivienne, however. The fair-haired one was standing next to the dark haired one’s chair. They were situated in a rich cream coloured room with navy trimmings. They did not move, which startled Leaena far more than anything as far as resemblance goes. Vivienne moved her hand across the painting, leaving a streak of clearness along the grime.

Vivienne pointed silently to the gold label underneath it. Vivienne Morgana Gryffindor and Persephone Gwen Slytherin around 1000 A.D., precise date unknown. In most legends, Vivienne is associated with death, and Persephone with life.

Vivienne looked at Leaena silently. "That is me," she said, pointing at the picture of her, "And that is you."

Leaena looked at Vivienne, startled. "It is not! It is not! She died about a thousand years ago!" Vivienne merely looked at her. And looked at her, with enormous jade coloured eyes. Leaena withdrew at her indefatigable gaze.

Suddenly a grey coloured shadow rounded the corner. Vivienne whirled around and put out her hand as if to grab Leaena, but her long, thin fingers went right through her living acquaintance. Vivienne swore colourfully and ran across the hall into an open doorway. "Come, fool!" she hissed at Leaena. Leaena looked past Vivienne’s ghost into a rich emerald room that was once idyllic but had the quality of a magnificent palace depreciated to a ruin filled with decrepit furniture, it’s owners long dead. The bloody child sitting on an archaic four-poster bed with her heavy dark curls lifting slightly from the night gust from the window looked like a picture from Leaena’s new History of Magic textbook.

She shivered involuntarily and turned away, running as if from a certain death. Or, in Leaena’s case, running from one who was dead. Leaena ran and ran and ran, paying no attention to the portraits and hangings that adorned the wall and pointed and whispered in low voices about the running girl. She stumbled on a piece of obtruding floor, crashing to the stone below. Her knees and elbows bled onto the cold stone floor that suddenly did not seem as smooth as it had earlier in the day. Leaena gave way to frightened tears. She cried for the dead girl who was killed by those she had thought as friends. She cried for fear of Mrs. Norris, the cat that could call Filch from anywhere and get her expelled or in huge trouble. She cried for the pain in her neck, in her back, the ripping pain when she tried to breath the cold air, for the pain in her knees and elbows and hands that were covered in her blood. She cried because it was hopeless for her not to get in trouble, what with the blood on the floor and her loud sobs that she couldn’t stop. She cried for the Slytherin house and the hate in the eyes of all that saw her. She cried for hate of the Sorting Hat who started it all. She cried for want of her home. She cried because her mother didn’t say goodbye with any thought. She cried mostly, though, because it was late at night and she was cold and tired and scared and she didn’t know what to do. Leaena was crying so hard that she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps. A redheaded girl knelt down besides her and patted her back.

"There, honey, what’s wrong? Surely nothing is that bad. What’s wrong? Why are you out here?" Leaena looked up into kind brown eyes, tears still pouring down her pale face. Red hair surrounded a freckled face that smiled kindly. Leaena glared at whoever this blurry figure that dared see her break down was. The figure backed away. "I’m Ginny Weasley. You’re Leaena Rafferty, right? Hermione Granger said something about you. So did my brother. And a girl named Allison McKay. And Allison’s sister, now that I think about it. You’re quite the talk of the house. Why are you out here?"

Leaena grimaced as she moved slowly to her feet. " I was taking a stroll. Night air you know. Does wonders. But you look like you need sun more than moonlight." Leaena, still feeling weepy, walked toward the portrait of the Fat Lady that she just noticed was a few feet from where she was. Ginny Weasley looked at her thoughtfully as she walked up to the Fat Lady. "Password?" Ginny couldn’t help but smile as Leaena realized she didn’t know. "It’s ‘Rivera’." Leaena glanced at Ginny and with as much dignity as she could muster announced: ‘Rivera’ and climbed into the common room and fled to the safety of her bed.

Ginny Weasley looked at a portrait next to the Fat Lady and asked wordlessly. The portrait of a regal man in red shrugged. "The lass came runnin’ in here as if the ghost of Christmas Past was after her. Tripped and went fallin’ down and started sobbin’. Dunno what was wrong with the poor chit." Ginny nodded her thanks to the man and went back up to bed; hearing a muffled sound of foot against trunk and furious cursing that was very creative behind the first year door. The redhead raised her light-coloured eyebrows and went back to bed.

Outside the common room, the portrait of the regal man watched approvingly as a small wraithlike child cleaned the blood off the stone.

The next morning Leaena was the last one out of bed. She looked around, and seeing no one, bolted out and lunged toward her clothes. She yanked a brush through her fine hair and pulled on her shoes hurriedly, finally rushing down to breakfast. She stumbled into the Great Hall and collapsed into an isolated chair, her face turned down to the glances of hostile students. Leaena reached over to a bowl of eggs and spooned them out onto her plate. She ate silently and fast, rushing through the eggs and juice before hurrying back to her room because she had forgotten her books. She bounded the stairs, trying to ignore the bubbling feeling in her stomach. Once in her room, she opened her trunk’s heavy lid and began to dig for her books. Her fingers closed on a leathery spine and she heaved it out, various objects tumbling from the path of the volume. She repeated this over and over, rooting through cloth and other possessions and lifting out her schoolbooks. Once out, she packed them into a tube shaped bag and stood up, the carpet leaving her cut knees aching.

Her first class ever was History of Magic. She had no idea where that was; unfortunately, and knowing what it is and where it is are two completely different things. Very, very different things. She wandered completely lost through the maze of hallways and stairwells until she found herself right where she started. Luckily for her, she started very early and would not be too late. She followed Kasie, Margaret, Jacqueline, and Lila at a surreptitious distance, hoping that at least they knew where they were going. Her first class. Leaena hoped that it would be at least a bit better than her first day. It wasn’t.