He reaches the place in due time and binds his captive to a stone where she will have a full view of what he is about to do. Even as he ties her, the simple sleeping aid wears further. She fights back weakly against his strong hands. Even if she had her wand or her wits about her she could not stop him now. He delights in the fact that the immortality he has been searching for”that she has stalled”is almost in his grasp. He pulls the tousled brown hair out of her eyes and kneels to look at her. His mentor needs to see the success of tonight.
He loved her once. But no more. He slaps her cheek to wake her up more efficiently. He could offer her the antidote, but he finds this method of awakening more satisfying. He is tempted to kiss her pretty lips, to see her response, but that is not his purpose. She is his now. “Wake up, damn it,” he says, finally losing his temper. His fist barrels into her soft stomach. She gasps as the breath is forced from her lungs, but she wakes, though she is a bit groggy. He sees her struggle to keep her eyes open. He knows the drug holds her still, but it makes his moment of triumph less powerful. He raises his hand to hit her again.
“Christian?” comes the breathy voice.
He does not answer, but moves to the shadows. As the brown-haired woman struggles to make sense of the scene, he staggers into view again, dragging another old student of hers form the darkness behind him. She is unharmed, locked in a world of sleep. For the moment. He doubts if she will like what happens when she wakes up. The woman bound to the stone gasps again.
“Christian, what have you done to Isabel?
Again he ignores her but carries on with his preparation. The time to answer her questions will come momentarily, when he finished preparing his experiment. That does not stop the relentless stream of questions. Soon the voice becomes too aggravating to stand. He calmly sets down the little trinket he holds in his hands and walks over to her. She stops speaking as she looks into his cold grey eyes. He can see the hint of arrogance in her eyes. Even tied to a stone, not sure if she would live or die, the woman thinks she is better than him. His knuckles crack unnecessarily as his slim fingers curl up into fists.
He bites the inside of his cheek in an attempt to control the anger he feels towards his old teacher. It would not do to harm her before she can see how much smarter he is than she. That he has beaten death when she, though she clearly thought she was smarter, has not. “I have discovered how to become immortal,” he says very slowly. He takes care to enunciate clearly, so that she could hear every word. She gasps again, but she does not speak. Her eyes are very clearly curious, despite the direness situation.
That was what he had used to love. Her desire to learn when something else was clearly more important. He had loved her for that spark that occurred in her eyes as understanding coursed through her. He sees it in her eyes now, even though she is staring at the girl at his feet. She looks up into his eye with a look of utter horror. “Christian, you cannot take a life to make yours endless! We have discussed thi”,” he raises a hand to her lips, momentarily silencing her.
“No, you refused to listen to me. You had me thrown from Hogwarts for thoughts I had on the subject! That is not discussion,” he stops speaking for a moment, formulating how best to explain what he is about to do. He wants her to understand. He wants to teach her. To reverse the roles just once!
“Her death will mean I can learn for eternity! You see, her death will split my soul. In it’s fractured state, it can be removed and placed in something that cannot age. A horcrux. And as long as my horcrux survives, so can I.”
He kneels down and picks up the seventeen year old who will not live to see another birthday. He lifts the enchantment on her, and she begins to struggle against him immediately. He pulls Isabel closer and takes a whiff of the woman he is about to kill. He kisses her neck once before looking at his old teacher once more. “So Professor Ravenclaw, should I have a bit of fun before I become immortal? Or should I simply get it over with?” The girl moans her protests as she struggles against the hands that hold tightly to him. He knows he cannot prolong the moment much longer. The girl is making it impossible.
He pulls his wand up to her neck and kisses her one last time, taking a long moment to taste her lips under his. He feels her shudder under his touch. A hot tear lands on his finger as he utters the words that will end her poor, miserable existence. She goes limp in his arms and he is vaguely aware of Rowena screaming, almost breaking free of her bonds. He reaches out for his little trinket, a little bronze eagle he was given three years prior. He had told Rowena no one would send him anything for Christmas and she had proved him wrong. Like she always proves him wrong.
But in this he is right. Finally, wonderfully right. Immortality is possible. Rowena is wrong and he is right. His wand draws out a delicate, golden light from his lips and he moves to place it inside the bronze eagle. He laughs lightly, picking up the little figurine. It doesn’t matter that Rowena is free and kneeling by Isabel, trying to wake the dead. All that matters is that he has finally proved her wrong.
He plays with the little figurine. He finds it funny that a little piece of metal will make him immortal. It’s warm under his touch. He holds it loosely in his hands. He doesn’t want to stop touching his small piece of immortality. But it’s getting hotter under his fingers. It’s beginning to glow with heat. He drops it on the ground, cradles his burning fingers to his chest. He holds them up to inspect what he thinks will be angry red welts. But it is much more than that.
They are decaying before his eyes. Slowly the skin on them turns to grey. The muscles melt away and he can feel his features distorting as if they were made of hot wax and are melting away. He reaches up to feel his face and finds nothing but a flat plane. His eyesight is fading quickly. But he only has eyes for one thing: the little figurine on the ground, melting like his face. The golden light that was his soul is leaving it, going to wherever a soul goes when it no longer has a body to occupy. He collapses on the ground when he sees it, knowing he did something wrong.
She is smarter than him after all.
A single tear slips from his eye as he watches the golden light vanish. But then his sadness is gone. Emotions go with his soul to the next plane he guesses as he sits huddled on the ground watching the melted bronze get darker and darker as his eyesight fades. They fade from his body until there is only cold in his heart. There is warmth nearby: he can feel that. He cannot see it, but he can feel it. He wants it so badly”any warmth he can get to ease the intense cold, to return to being human. He doesn’t care who wont have their warm soul, as long as he can be human again. He reaches out to take it. His hands reach out to grip the being in front of him, longing for its warmth. He just wants to feel warm again.
But the warmth turns and runs from him and his decayed, disfigured face, although it froze for a moment in fear of him. He drifts away to search elsewhere for another being that will make him warm for a few more minutes. That will let him feel again if only for those few fleeting seconds.
Immortality, though highly sought after, should never be attempted. I have witnessed the effects of removing soul from body, in an act against nature (murder) in an attempt for endless life. The resulting being is demented beyond belief. The body decayed in a matter of seconds when the soul was released to wherever souls go when the body dies. However, the decayed man did not truly die. Christian Hale has survived his soul, and yet he cannot feel. He goes on to steal the souls and warmth of wizards and witches. I have devised a way of protection against this being, although at this moment he is a rare specimen. The incantation “Expecto Patronum” coupled with a happy memory is (if strong enough) able to hold a “Dementor” off.
-Rowena Ravenclaw
In correspondence to Salazar Slytherin