Provenance

The Witch Bower

By Bambu

All standard disclaimers may be found in Chapter One. My thanks to SnarkyWench is perennial, and I should mention that the name of the restaurant in this chapter coincidentally belongs to a cooking school in New York (the use of it in my story was entirely coincidental.)

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Chapter Three: Provenance

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Light and dark were perfectly balanced and the old ways had been honored once again. The bower stretched its limbs, both arcane and mundane. The magic of the plains flowed along leylines unseen by the naked eye, nor those tainted by the advances of the industrial revolution. Leaves, branches, trunks and recent additions to the bower were clothed in elemental fabric.

It reached.

~o0o~

At first, it was impossible to tell if it was a dream or not.

A swooping sensation in my tummy caused me to clutch at the bed to ground myself, but there was nothing to grab beneath my fingers. Suddenly it felt as if I was cocooned by nothing but air. I struggled to open my eyes, to waken if I was asleep, but something held me in its thrall.

Unfamiliar magic tampered with my mind. It was and wasn't like being subject to the Imperius Curse, and I couldn't seem to form a coherent defense.

Panic raced through me as swiftly as a Wronski Feint. After a brief mental struggle, it seemed as if the strange magical touch loosened whatever constriction had been placed on me and I could open my eyes.

Immediately I wished I hadn't.

I was hovering in the cool night air. Damp cloud cover dusted my face with moisture, and a lustrous Wine Moon hung in the sky like a giant galleon yet partially shaded by wisps of cloud cover.

What was going on? Was this an out-of-body experience?

I'd only read of those in fantasy novels and didn't think it was possible in the magical world. Perhaps it was a realistic dream? Except none of my dreams had ever felt so tangible.

Maybe someone had broken through my wards. They were the best known to wizardkind, but nothing was impenetrable. But how? Who?

My defensive skills were a bit rusty, but my mind reeled with possibilities. Was Draco safe? Harry and my parents?

If the Weasley twins had lived, I would have suspected a prank or a mind-altering potion, but there was no one I knew that would've played such a trick on me. Oddly enough, I relaxed as I rounded out the list of suspects in my mind. My mental functions weren't impaired at all.

Remembering an old martial arts film Dad liked, I decided to act like the hero and conserve my energy for whatever experience lay ahead of me.

Unfamiliar magic touched my mind. It was a bit like Legilimency – at least the way I experienced Legilimency -- where concepts and emotions were expressed more clearly than language and images. The concept of my safety was paramount.

Swallowing my fear, I reminded myself that I had met many new and wondrous creatures since entering the wizarding world at the age of eleven. This might be something ... er ... someone ... new.

It was then I realized how quiet it was around me. Too quiet ... too dark. London was never this dark. Even in the middle of the night, ambient light from the city glowed in the night sky. In contrast, there was moon and star light above me and nothing but darkness below.

The odd swooping sensation in my tummy continued, and it became obvious that I was moving ... flying.

Again that curious intelligence pressed a concept into my mind. Time. There was a schedule to follow.

An infused calm settled upon me, probably a result of the unfamiliar magic. In my peripheral vision I could see the dark landscape below. Intermittent bonfires dotted the expanse of black, but my constant companion was the moon and whatever sentient being had taken me from my bed. For some reason I couldn't explain, I felt as if I'd been wrapped in a tentacle of magic and was being pulled toward the main body of whatever creature held me. Still, there was no hint of menace and despite my unease and confusion, I did feel safe.

After an indeterminate period I changed directions, the moon was now on my right, and it had begun its descent toward the far horizon. With much effort, I managed to maneuver from a recumbent to standing position. It was extremely odd hovering mid-air, but it was better than being flat on my back.

I looked about me as well as I could in that magical embrace and noticed an eerie dilution of the night sky in the east. It looked as if it had been painted with watercolors and the bottom inch had begun to run with too much water. The palest shade of gray announced the coming of dawn.

It was impossible to tell how far I had traveled or where I was, but bit by bit, the night sky grew lighter, and the landscape revealed itself beneath me. Unfortunately, there was nothing but mist and fog, which roiled like a smoky potion in a cauldron.

My frosty breath told me it was cold although I couldn't feel it. Whimsically, I thought it absurd that I was having an adventure while wearing a tatty flannel nightgown. I felt a bit like Wendy Darling being taken to Neverland. But I didn't have a Peter Pan leading me or a Captain Hook waiting at the other end of my trip. We'd already vanquished the evil scourge of our day, and in his wildest dreams, Captain James Hook had never been as evil as Voldemort.

As daylight approached, gusts of wind blew through the thick cloud cover and fleeting glimpses of the earth below teased me, swirling into view, but not for long. It was like trying to spot a unicorn in the Forbidden Forest. Then, as if catering to my thought, the fog opened long enough for me to see clearly and I realized how very far away the ground was ... or my bed. Flying had never been my strong suit and panic spiked at the edge of my enforced calm.

What if the magic lets me go? What if I fall? Could I Apparate while falling to my death? Get a bloody grip!

My wand was in my bookcase. Fear darkened my peripheral vision and I breathed in shallow gasps. Instantly the cocoon of magic tightened around my body, reassurance washing over me in palpable waves, and I fought off the panic, allowing myself to be calmed.

Half of my problem was that I had so little information to work with. My mind wove outrageous scenarios with scant information, but indulging in that luxury would only leave me terrified. Instead, I looked around me. It was too dark for birds to be about, and I didn't see any planes in the air. It was almost like being aloft in a helicopter or a hot air balloon, but quieter.

A dog barked somewhere below, it's voice carrying in the quiet, early morning.

As we moved beyond the damp cloudbank and with the coming dawn, I could see much better. However, it wasn't comforting at all. I didn't recognize this countryside. Nothing looked right.

From the direction we had flown and the placement of the sun and moon, I should have been west and south of London, but there was no M4 in sight. In fact, there were no highways at all, and from this height it should have been easy to see at least one.

My hair flew into my eyes and I brushed it away impatiently. At least the magic had eased up so I had some freedom of movement.

A gentle notion pressed into my mind; pay attention it seemed to say. I was nothing if not accommodating, after all the entity held me in its power. I looked in the direction I seemed to be pointed toward, and in the distance a glimmer of light shimmered along an undulating ribbon of water. A river. But which river?

It could be any north-south flowing river in England, but something about the broad flat plains reminded me ...

With a sense of rightness I guessed it was the Avon, and if we followed it, we would run right into the Channel at Portsmouth. Wracking my brain for anything I remembered from childhooed geography lessons, I realized I was most likely traveling above Wiltshire.

Wiltshire.

Draco lived in Wiltshire. Did he somehow have a hand in this ... whatever this really was? Was this something to do with his estate business?

He wouldn't do anything to hurt me. I knew that ... instinctively and experientially. The inarticulate conscience guiding my journey seconded my belief in Draco's innocence.

Descent was so gradual and my thoughts so consumed with Draco -- I knew he would worry – that it wasn't until I had dropped a dozen meters that I noticed how the growing dawn's light illuminated the entire plain and surrounding forest to the east.

This was a very different landscape than I remembered from trips taken with my parents as a girl. Still, I'd never seen the plains from the air. What was to say this wasn't how it looked normally? Yet, I couldn't see any cities at all, no church spires or roadways crisscrossing the countryside. Things I knew should be there.

Twining columns of smoke rose in the distance, situated along the silver ribbon of water bisecting the land.

If it was the Avon – a smug certainty in my mind supported my hypothesis -- then where was the canal? Mum and Dad and I had hired a boat and taken a picnic lunch on the Kennet and Avon Canal one summer. We'd stayed overnight in Avebury to look at the henges.

A warm sense of satisfaction flooded my body, imposed by the magic which had bound me.

As if my thought sped my passing, I suddenly saw the enormous, man-made barrow of Silbury Hill. This I remembered, except it looked very different. Squinting against the pale gray light, I tried to see more clearly in the mist playing peek-a-boo with the ground. My spine prickled with foreknowledge as I stared at the gently rounded peak of the burial mound. This Silbury Hill didn't have a flat top.

Where was I?

Again a deep chuckle echoed deep in my mind, and I had the sense that the entity was amused by me. If I hadn't been so unnerved, I might have been vexed.

Turning my body, I tried to slow my pace to see whether I could spot the enormous henge of Avebury. From my height I should be able to see it over my left shoulder. If only the mist would cooperate.

There.

Curlicues of fog ebbed and flowed around Avebury's stone circle, causeway, and the glinting mirror-like reflection of the water-filled ditch -- moat -- around the henge.

A morning breeze blew more of the fog into whirling eddies allowing me to see the entire Avebury henge – intact. The entire ring of massive stones was complete. There was no village of Avebury, no sweet shop, no curio shop to tempt the crowns, shillings, and pence from the pockets of visiting schoolchildren.

I seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. The question hadn't been where was I.

No ... no ... I should have asked when was I?

A rough sort of affectionate hand invisibly tousled the curls on my head, as if patting me like a good student.

I shuddered, suddenly, overwhelmingly terrified.

The otherworldly presence magically erected a mental wall between my fear and my brain. It felt as if cotton wool had been slipped into place – odd and dampening. My heart rate slowed down and we resumed our travel, passing Silbury Hill in a wink, before I could truly see how 'young' the structure was.

Southward I was propelled, responding to a sense of urgency my magical host was subordinate to, and the landscape blurred before my eyes.

We sped over flat, fertile land, which, in my experience, had been dotted with cities, towns, and small farming communities, but there was nothing of urban life to be found here and now, or, better yet, here and then.

While I was wrapping my mind around the concept of then, we stopped.

I hovered over another circle, but it wasn't what my subconscious expected. My parents had taken me to the most famous of henges during spring holidays my third year at school. The sheer size of the Sarsen stones had been awe inspiring and I had sneaked a touch of one of the time-worn stones. I distinctly remembered the roughness of its pitted surface and wondering what the massive rocks could say if they could speak.

What I now saw below me bore no resemblance to that circle and it should have. The water-filled moat wasn't a surprise. I was prepared for that by the great ring at Avebury, but there was no stone here. This henge was a ring of wooden posts sunk into the ground near the inner rim of the moat.

Where are the stones, I wondered. Was this a henge I had never heard about? One predating the great standing trilithons of Stonehenge?

Aubrey holes.

The name might have come from the abducting magic or from a memory of my voracious youthful curiosity.

That's what they'd been called. Aubrey holes. A forerunner of the great stones.

My stomach clenched.

I was seeing things which had existed thousands of years ago ... four thousand years.

If my emotions had been entirely under my control I would have been hyperventilating. The entity controlling my actions calmed me. Soon it seemed to be saying, soon I would understand.

Goodie.

Let's hurry it up then. I'd like to go home now.

Really.

Contrary to my wishes, however, I remained suspended in the pre-dawn air, ten or so meters above the circle. If I hadn't been so freaked out, I might have appreciated the beauty of the archeological site. There was no car park nearby, no motorway running alongside whose sole contribution seemed to be corrosive exhaust fumes eating away at stones set in place four thousand years ago ... or was it five hundred years from now?

I closed my eyes, wishing fervently this was all some strange sort of dream. After several minutes, I peeked through my lashes. Nothing had changed except I could see more clearly as the sun began its ascent over the horizon.

And there it was, Stonehenge in all its Neolithic glory.

I bit my lip.

This wasn't all right. It really wasn't. I desperately wished for the comfort of Draco's arms.

Instead, the magical cocoon compressed as if offering the comfort of its embrace in Draco's place.

And then we waited.

I had never been so aware of the planet, of the way the moon set and the sun rose. It was so quiet hovering mid-air. There was nothing to distract me from really looking at my surroundings or to feel the power of the sun as it chased the pre-dawn chill from the air.

Briefly I flirted with the idea that this whole experience – maybe it was a vision quest – was supposed to teach me my own insignificance. Except that was a lesson I was likely to need. The war had taught me that. Ron's death and Harry's semi-catatonic state had taught me that.

The sun's leading edge limned the horizon, radiant light its crowning glory. With its ascent, the fabric of time and space stretched ... the magic cocooning me seemed to weaken and thin.

Alarmed, I began to tremble, and then a faint caress of my cheek let me know that whatever had brought me would attend to my safety. Nevertheless, I could feel a greater power at work.

Power I was intended to meet.

It was the closest thing to an actual thought I'd yet understood. Then I wondered what greater power there could be other than this amorphous sentience holding me in its grasp.

As the tendril of pre-verbal thought faded, magic -- ancient, ponderous magic – pulled at my soul. It wasn't like the Dementors or the quick electrified jolt of instinct which made my incantations work. This was entirely different. I'd never felt it before, except perhaps that time we'd ventured deep into the Forbidden Forest in search of the fifth Horcrux. That had been an ancient, loamy sort of feel. This was the same, but different.

How does one meet power?

Awareness prickled along my spine and I turned my head, instantly sighting the figure of a lone individual walking down the broad causeway leading to the circle of Aubrey posts. Pale light shone on his pale hair.

Malfoy?

Was this a trick? A joke?

What was this?

Impatient magic dropped me closer to earth and the pull of that ancient power centered in the balls of my feet, humming up through my legs and spreading throughout my body.

When I was hovering not five meters above the center of the circle I could tell the approaching figure was indeed a man. His clothing was unlike anything I'd ever seen outside a museum. A heavy hide garment, slit down the front and tied at intervals with strips of hide, covered his torso and fell to mid-thigh. His leggings were also made of animal skin; fur side turned inward and held in place by more thin leather strips. His footwear was bulky but form-fitting, and it appeared to be constructed from a single piece of leather wrapped around each foot and tied at the ankles.

Despite this rudimentary clothing, he walked tall and proud and carried a staff.

He was fascinating, and I hardly noticed that I had dropped lower to the ground, close enough to see his features clearly. His face was narrow and I was sure that if he looked at me I'd see gray eyes. And the hair was as fair as Draco's or his father's had been. It was long and tied in a tail at the nape of his neck.

His inherent magic, backed by the ancient power I was here to meet, called to me. Was he a wizard? It might only be the ancient magic I was feeling. Maybe I was learning that the Malfoys had once been Muggles.

A tight squeeze warned me to pay attention, and it was then I noticed that I hovered barely a meter above him. Why didn't he see me? Perhaps this was a dream -- or a hallucination -- after all.

Draco's ancestor – for I was sure he was that -- halted at the perimeter of a denuded circle in the center of the enclosure. Carefully placing his staff onto the flat earth, he then untied the thong restraining his hair. It fell loose and snow white about his shoulders. It reminded me of the way Lucius Malfoy wore his hair on formal occasions. Next, the man removed a pouch slung over his shoulder, letting it drop to the ground before untying his tunic. He shrugged that off, folding it into a neat bundle and placing it on the verge. He wore no shirt of any kind.

Fortunately, this Malfoy ancestor wore a loin cloth so I didn't have to worry about seeing his dangly bits. Using the folded tunic as a seat, he removed his foot coverings and leggings. Finally he stood wearing only his breech clout, and I couldn't help but compare his physique to Draco's. This man was shorter, but he was well-muscled and I fancied I could see Draco's long limbs in this forerunner of his family.

He looped the small pouch over his head, across his chest, and picked up the staff before stepping into the circle of denuded earth. He raised the hand-hewn wood and I could feel power radiating from him. A corresponding vibration echoed in my abdomen, not from my womb or my stomach, but from what Tonks would call the center of my chi. So much for my theory that he'd been a Muggle. This man was definitely a wizard.

This Malfoy ancestor raised his arm, shoulder height, staff balanced horizontally in one hand. One end of the staff pointed toward the rising sun, the other to the setting moon.

Unexpectedly, the air shimmered and rippled around me, and, abruptly, I was dropped onto Draco's many times great-great grandfather.

That is not to say I crushed him, for I didn't. Instead, I seemed to meld with him ... with his body.

His eyes were mine; his hands, my hands, gripped the smooth wood of the staff; and his lungs, my lungs, filled with deep breaths of air. I might not understand his language, per se, but I understood his meaning, and my unnerved thoughts were contained in a tiny corner of our shared mind. It was as if I were a passenger in his body.

It reminded me of the time Barty Crouch, Jr., masquerading as Mad-Eye Moody, cast the Imperius Curse on me. I had that distant feeling of well-being as the body I inhabited proceeded to move as directed, yet I could feel everything which was happening.

I wondered if the ancient magic had taken control of us both.

He ... I ... we ... placed the staff on the earth, its ends pointing toward both sun and moon. When he ... we ... rose, we straddled the staff, and I could feel the coarse dirt beneath his ... our ... feet. Without conscious thought – mine – he raised our arms, forming the most rudimentary shape of a Bridget's Cross I could imagine. We faced the sun with our eyes closed. Pale yellow sunlight shone on our face.

Turning his head to the right, we aligned our sight with one of the perimeter posts before crossing the thick, damp ground cover. Without ritual, Malfoy retrieved an implement embedded in the ground at the base of the post. It appeared to be a flat sort of bone.

Quickly returning to the center of the circle, the early Malfoy aligned himself ... us ... once again and then dropped to our knees. Using the bone, we dug a small divot in the center of the ground. I felt small pebbles pressing against his knees and the flex of his muscles as we dug in the dirt. He was strong and the task was finished with swift, efficient movements.

When we rose to face the sun once more, I felt the earth change ... our feet were no longer cold. The ground heated beneath us as the blond pulled ancient earth magic from the henge.

It felt as if we were a conduit for the earth's power and I felt alive, connected in a way I'd never felt before.

He arched his neck and suddenly we were looking up into the sky. The sun's light shone in our face and we were warmed from above and below. My body heated and my womb twitched with the combined magic. Correspondingly, Malfoy's groin stirred with the early signs of arousal. I felt it in our shared body. His testicles felt heavy and he had the beginnings of an erection.

He accepted it as if it was a natural aspect of the rite, and turned his mind's eye to a broader range of mental vision. Confined as I was in his mind, I could still sense the greater world beyond this small, denuded circle. One, two, eight people were nearby, several farther beyond. But it wasn't just the people. There was the silken cool touch of the water, the solid presence of the earth, and the myriad animals inhabiting the plains. I could feel their lifes' essence, too. Somewhere at the far edges of his reach, this wizard could feel the ancient woods of the forest which lay south and east of here.

It seemed that we had waited until that last touch -– the distant forest -- before dipping into the pouch slung across our chest. Tiny, hulled pieces of grain, slipped through our fingers, before he gripped a handful and removed our hand before carefully spilling the grain into the divot at our feet. He next retrieved a smaller bag from within the pouch. It was quite small, and I remembered its oddly tensile texture from Potions classes. I recognized an animal's stomach lining when I saw and felt it. This bag was filled with water, and we emptied its contents onto the grain.

Kneeling once again, Malfoy placed our palm over the small hole and thanked the moon and the sun for their blessings. Then drawing on the power of the earth he offered her his gratitude for the bounty of the harvest. For a moment, it felt as if the heat of the sun had been channeled through his body, and when he removed our hand, the divot had been covered as if it had never existed in the first place.

He closed his eyes briefly before rising and picking up his staff from the ground, and magic hummed from within the wood.

I stayed with Malfoy while he crossed to one of the timbers in the circle, then removing a slate hand-axe from his pouch – examples of this sort of tool, I'd seen at the Museum – he cut a notch in the wood. I could see other notch marks lower on the pole, and I realized that we were marking the date.

It was a calendar of some sort. How very, very clever.

The second the thought solidified in my mind, I was ripped from his body; his only acknowledgement was a shudder which shuddered through his lean muscles.

I rose in the air and the proto-Malfoy returned to his clothing.

My abducting, cocooning magic hummed in great satisfaction just before my mind became clouded. Maybe it had all been a dream, but even as I had the thought I knew the experience had been real.

As I sped through the clear blue sky -- for the sun had burned off the last remnants of fog while I'd been with Draco's ancestor – a rushing of darkness, its wings fluttering softly in my mind, its feathers metaphorically sweeping gently against me, induced me into a deep, dreamless sleep.

~o0o~