New Colors of Life

Thank you all for the reviews, I really like reading them. And they help to write faster.

If you have question to that chapter, and I am sure you will have them, then ask!

Huge thanks goes to Nerys who inspired that chapter. I hope you’ll like that. snickers

Not beta-ed yet.


Warning: this chapter contains information about a certain drug. Drugs are no good!

All the information (italic text) that is used in this chapter is REAL. It means that I did not make it up, but borrowed from a book called “Plants of the Gods” by Schultes & Hofmann

Please read the italic text carefully because it contains vital information for the future story.

Enjoy!

Chapter 12.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
-- George Bernard Shaw

You should have known better.

Walking slowly towards the Defense against the Dark Arts classroom, Hermione Escada, formerly known as Granger, turned around to take a look at her fellow classmates, the Slytherins. The Defense against the Dark Arts was the last class for today. It really was a tough week, Hermione thought while noting an angry glare sent to her direction by Walburga Black.

After those crazy events taking place on Monday, somehow everything calmed down.

For unknown reasons, Tom Riddle decided to ignore Hermione all the time: he did not speak to her, he did not look at her, he did not torture her, he did not send Nagini over, and all in all, Tom Riddle became very, very quiet recently. And that was no good.

“Escada, what happened between you and my Lo-…Tom?” drawled an annoying voice that belonged to “the lap-dog”, Walburga Black.

“I beg your pardon?” Hermione’s calm reply seemed to do wonders to Walburga’s self control.

“Stop playing games here, Escada. You know very well what I am talking about. What happened on Monday?”

Was hissing mandatory to all the Slytherins or only the crazy ones mixed English with “home-produced” Parseltongue ?

“Why don’t you ask your Lo- Tom?” snapped Hermione. This sorry excuse of a sane witch was annoying her beyond imagination, crazy geese. It really was a family trait, Hermione decided; except for Sirius, the whole Black line was touched in the head.

Upon seeing hesitation and uncertainty on Walburga’s face, Hermione sneered. Really, what was all the fuss about? So what, that Riddle was acting weirdly lately; he was crazy after all.

All conversations stopped as Professor stepped into the classroom. Gryffindors were seated on the right side, Slytherins on the left; everything seemed usual, except that there was one person missing. Tom Riddle.

“Oh, I see you noticed our Head Boy is absent today. Mr. Riddle wasn’t feeling very well, and considering that Tom is well ahead of the class, I let him go for today.” Professor Deepwater answered the question before it was even asked. Even that old lady seemed to be an honored member of Tom’s fan club.

“Do you know what is wrong with Tom, Professor?” asked a worried Walburga. Almost all the females in the class had this expression on their faces that practically made Hermione vomit. Disgusting.

Professor Deepwater, who was around seventy or even eighty, smiled indulgently at ‘the sweet girl’.

“Mr. Riddle has a minor poisoning, nothing to worry about I am sure, Ms. Black”.

‘Poisoning, huh? Must have bitten his tongue,’ thought Hermione angrily while opening her book. That bastard had everyone wrapped around his finger. How blind could people be?

The class was stupid; today they were reading a book and answering questions, something that Hermione usually enjoyed doing. Now, however, her thoughts wandered to the bane of her existence.

‘Please, how stupid do you have to be to actually believe that Riddle, Riddle of all people, could have a poisoning? Pleeeaassee…’.

Poisoning, or no poisoning, but something funny was going on.

Riddle did act weirdly, well, more weirdly that usual.

At first, Hermione thought that Riddle’s new behavior was only directed at her, but now, after the worried looks Slytherins were casting and the talk with Walburga, it was pretty clear that something fishy was going on here. Riddle was being a mystery even to his closest followers. And Hermione definitely did not like that.

It was one thing when Riddle was taunting her, mocking her, paying attention, for Merlin’s sake!

It was, however, a completely another thing when Riddle spent a whole week in library, in his room and in classes almost without talking. It was creepy, Hermione had to agree; especially, taking into consideration the “Monday events”.

Getting away with one Cruciatus for everything she did and tried to do- that was considered a miracle when dealing with such an unstable psychopath as Riddle.

After leaving her room with the final strike of the curse and closing the interconnecting door with a bang, Tom Riddle became practically invisible. Even that blasted creature, Nagini, was nowhere to be seen. What was he up to?

When the class was finally over, Hermione slowly made it to her room. Upon entering, there was a surprise waiting for her.

A book, a plain black book was lying peacefully on her bed; the same plain black book Hermione had seen Riddle reading in the library on a couple of occasions.

It was really creepy, Hermione thought, that when she first had seen Riddle holding that book she had wanted to know what he was reading. It was like some sick obsession, or something- Hermione wanted to know what Riddle knew; and she wanted to know badly.

You did not have to be Dumbledore to guess that whatever book Tom Riddle was interested in, was a baaad, baaad book. You had to be Hermione though to want to read that same book.

Even before her “tragic” incident with time-travel, Hermione came to conclusion that no book could be Dark; only the intentions could be classified as Dark, not the knowledge itself.

“Revealo totalus”

After a couple of seconds Hermione came closer to the bed. The strongest revealing spell showed nothing- there were no curses or spells on the book which meant one thing- Riddle wanted her to read the book.

“How sick can that be?” thought Hermione out loud. What was that book about? Was it dangerous? Was it potions, charms, transfiguration, history…Stopping herself from asking all those questions out loud, Hermione did the only thing that could sate her curiosity.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” she muttered while picking the strange book.


Carefully opening it, Hermione stared at the title of the said book for a whole minute. She just could not understand what was going on. Was it some kind of a joke? Merlin, she knew that Riddle was insane, but at least he seemed intelligent. Now, looking at the title, Hermione thought that perhaps she had not understood before just how crazy Tom Riddle really was.

“The powers of mushrooms,” Hermione read out loud and blinked. Did it say mushrooms?

“The powers of mushrooms ,” Hermione read again. Mushrooms?

“The powers of mush-rooms ,” Hermione read for the last time before closing her eyes.

She was hallucinating, she just knew it. For Merlin’s sake! Why would the most evil and powerful Dark Lord of the century be interested in mushrooms?
Did he like to cook or something? He was a weird fellow. Of course, there were some potions where you had to use mushrooms as ingredients, but please…this was a bad excuse. Mushrooms had no real power- they were used in some healing draughts, in some restorative potions; Hermione could not recall a poison or a Dark Potion with mushrooms as an ingredient.

“What curse did backfire on him now ?” mused Hermione out loud, making herself comfortable in the armchair and pouring some pumpkin juice into a big cup.

“Let’s see,” she murmured quietly when she saw a note fall out of the book.

--------------

Escada,

Yes, mushrooms. Shall I spell it for you letter by letter? Just read the book. You can start from page 27.

LV

--------------

“LV,” Hermione drawled, mimicking the way Riddle usually spoke. “Nice to meet you, I am LV. Looney Viper”.

How did he know how she would react to the book title?

‘Manipulating bastard,’ murmured Hermione while turning to page 27.

Slowly sipping the cold and tasty juice, Hermione began to read.

"There is a world beyond ours, a world that is far away, nearby, and invisible. And there is where God lives, where the dead live, the spirits and the saints, a world where everything has already happened and everything is known. That world talks. It has a language of its own. I report what it says. The sacred mushroom takes me by the hand and brings me to the world where everything is known. It is they, the sacred mushrooms, that speak in a way I can understand. I ask them and they answer me. When I return from the trip that I have taken with them, I tell what they have told me and what they have shown me."

Thus does the famous Mazatec shaman reverently describe the god given powers of the intoxicating mushrooms that she uses in her ceremony which has come from ages past.

Few plants of the gods have ever been held in greater reverence than the sacred mushrooms of Mexico. So hallowed were these fungi that the Aztecs called them Teonancatl ("divine flesh") and used them only in the most holy of their ceremonies. Even though, as fungi, mushrooms do not blossom, the Aztecs referred to them as "flowers," and the Indians who still use them in religious rituals have endearing terms for them, such as "little flowers."


Bewildered, Hermione looked up from the book in her lap. This was impossible, wasn’t it?

Hermione read about those weird things during the holidays after her 4th year, but it was muggle , not magical knowledge. Was it really possible that there was some sort of a connection with the wizarding world and that Riddle had found it?


Worried, Hermione turned her attention back to the book.


When the Spaniards conquered Mexico, they were aghast to find the natives worshipping their deities with the help of inebriating plants: Peyotl, Ololiuqui, Teonanacatl. The mushrooms were especially offensive to the European ecclesiastical authorities, and they set out to eradicate their use in religious practices.

"They possessed another method of intoxication, which sharpened their cruelty; for if they used certain small toadstools...they would see a thousand visions and especially snakes...They called these mushrooms in their language teunamacatlth, which means 'God's flesh,' or of the Devil whom they worshipped, and in this wise with that bitter victual by their cruel God were they house-led."

…… "I wish to explain the nature of the said mushrooms [which were small and yellowish, and to collect them the priests and old men, appointed as ministers for these impostures, went to the hills and remained almost the whole night in sermonizing and in superstitious praying. At dawn, when a certain little breeze which they know begins to blow, they would gather them, attributing to them deity. When they are eaten or drunk, they intoxicate, depriving those who partake of them of their senses and making them believe a thousand absurdities."


No way in hell. Riddle was not crazy; He was beyond crazy.


……he stated that "others when eaten cause not death but madness that on occasion is lasting, of which the symptom is a kind of uncontrolled laughters. There are others again which, without inducing laughter, bring before the eyes all kinds of things, such as wars and the likeness of demons.”


Why would he need that ? Hermione knew that Lord Voldemort was a researcher, and a brilliant one for that matter, but this ? What could he gain from it?


These various mushrooms are now known to be employed in divinatory and religious rites among the Mazatec, Chinantec, Chatino, Mije, Zapotcc, and Mixtec of Oaxaca; the Nahua and possibly the Otomi of Puebla; and the Tarascana of Michoacan. The present center of intensive use of the sacred mushrooms is among the Mazatec.

Mushrooms vary in abundance from year to year and at different seasons. There may be years when one or more species are rare or absent--they vary in their distribution and are not ubiquitous. Furthermore, each shaman has his own favourite mushrooms and may forego others…

The modern mushroom ceremony is an all-night séance which may include a curing ritual. Chants accompany the main part of the ceremony. The intoxication is characterized by fantastically colored visions in kaleidoscopic movement and sometimes by auditory hallucinations, and the partaker loses himself in unearthly flights of fancy.

He wasn’t a drug-addict; that Hermione was sure of. The worst part of it all was that the more she read, the more the wanted to know. It was insane and it was strictly prohibited.

From what Hermione heard, such rituals and illegal drugs were strictly prohibited not only in the muggle world, but in magical as well. One could get a life- sentence in Azkaban for something like that; for something like this knowledge.

Putting an already empty cup on the table, Hermione returned to the reading, fascinated by what the book could offer.


…Here let me say a word about the nature of the psychic disturbance that the eating of the mushroom causes. This disturbance is wholly different from the effect of alcohol, as different as night from day. We are entering upon a discussion in which the vocabulary of the English language, of ally European language, is seriously deficient.

There are no apt words in it to characterize one's state when one is, shall we say, 'bemushroomed': For hundreds, even thousands, of years, we have thought about these things in terms of alcohol, and we now have to break the bounds imposed on us by our alcoholic obsession. We are all, willy-nilly, confined within the prison walls of our everyday vocabulary. With skill in our choice of words, we may stretch accepted meanings to cover slightly new feelings and thoughts, but when a state of mind is utterly distinct, wholly novel, then all our old words fail. How do you tell a man who has been born blind what seeing is like? In the present case this is an especially apt analogy, because superficially the Bemushroomed man shows a few of the objective symptoms of one who is intoxicated, drunk. Now virtually all the words describing the state of drunkenness, from "intoxicated" (which literally means poisoned') through the scores of current vulgarisms, are contemptuous, Belittling, pejorative.


This was not a muggle book, horrified, thought Hermione.


……Upon receiving six pairs of mushrooms in the ceremony, this novice-participant ate them. He experienced the sensation of this soul being removed from his body and floating in space. He saw "geometric patterns, angular, in richest colors, which grew into architectural structures, the stonework in brilliant colors, gold and onyx and ebony, extending beyond the reach of sight, in vistas measureless to man. The architectural visions seemed to be oriented, seemed to belong to the...architecture described by the visionaries of the Bible." In the faint moonlight, "the bouquet on the table assumed the dimensions and shape of an imperial conveyance, a triumphant car, drawn by...creatures known only to mythology."


Divination…It was pure divination, but muggles did not understand that. Riddle, however, did.


Mushrooms have apparently been ceremonially employed in Mesoamerica for many centuries. Several early sources have suggested that Mayan languages in Guatemala had mushrooms named for the underworld. Miniature mushroom stones, 2200 years of age, have been found in archaeological sites near Guatemala City, and it has been postulated that stone mushroom effigies buried with a Mayan dignitary suggested a connection with the Nine Lords of the Xibalba, described in the sacred book Popol Vuh.

“Povol Vuh”…Oh, no…It was believed to be a myth, a legend; a lot of people tried to find that book, but instead found their death. A myth, just like…The Chamber of Secrets. A chill ran down Hermione’s spine.

Back in her time, Hermione had never heard about Riddle’s adventures in South America. He went to Albania, not Mexico, for God sake! Why was he interested in that knowledge now? What changed?

Hermione definitely did not want to think that something drastic had already happened that changed the whole time line.


A superb statue of Xochipilli, Aztec Prince of Flowers, from the early sixteenth century, was recently discovered on the slopes of the volcano, Mt. Popocatepetl (see illustration, p. 62 and on jacket). His face is in ecstasy, as though seeing visions in intoxication; his head is slightly tilted, as though hearing voices. His body is engraved with stylized flowers which have been identified as sacred, most of them inebriating, plants. The pedestal on which he sits is decorated with a design representing cross-sections of the caps of Psilocybe aztecorum, an hallucinogenic mushroom known only from this volcano. Thus Xochipilli undoubtedly represents not simply the Prince of Flowers but more specifically the Prince of Inebriating Flowers, including the mushrooms which, in Nahuatl poetry, were called "flowers" and "flowers that intoxicate."


On page 38 was a mark that showed where to stop reading.

Pulling her wits together, Hermione tried to clam down. It was a weird sense of something forbidden, hidden away from the prying eyes…becoming available…Hermione did not what to acknowledge that, but she was fascinated by what that knowledge could offer. She wanted to know. Now, all she had to do was to find out why Riddle gave her that book.


As if Hermione’s questions were heard in heaven, or hell for that matter, Tom Riddle walked in.

“Don't you know how to knock, Riddle?” snapped Hermione at the Dark Lord who was making himself comfortable on her bed.

Leaning back into the pillows Tom smiled at Hermione. It was the first time Hermione saw Tom Riddle smile like that; it was a very beautiful smile that made you blood freeze. Whatever Tom Riddle had been doing for the whole week, it was connected to her.


Judging by the Cheshire smile on Tom’s face he knew that she knew she was in trouble. Again.

“My, my, my…How rude,” pleasantly drawled Tom Riddle while stroking his pet's head.

‘Where did that helminth come from?’ thought Hermione looking at the lazy snake on her bed. And then she looked at the said snake’s owner; another nasty reptile.

“What? Did you piss in your bed because of a bad dream and now you want to sleep in mine? No way. I don’t need helminth eggs in my bed. If you haven’t noticed yet, my room isn’t your personal piddle-potty. So, grab your slimy teddy-bear and get the hell out of my room”. Angry Hermione meant Gryffindor Hermione.


A nasty smile on Tom’s face disturbed Hermione more than she thought it should.

‘I’m afraid it’s you who’s going to wet herself ,my sweet Gryffindor time-traveller.’

It has taken a week to find all the necessary information, but it was worth it. After taking a good long look into Escada’s mind while having sex with her, Tom had to withdraw quickly.

After seeing the sorting ceremony with an old coot as a Headmaster and hearing
‘Gryffindor’ towards the end, Tom knew straight away- she was his gift. She came to his time like a precious vessel with all the knowledge and information about his failures and successes in the future.

Taking a quick look around in her mind, Tom had to stop himself from withdrawing all the information forcefully. He had to think, he did not need a time-paradox that would no doubt occur had he gained complete access to Hermione’s mind. No, he needed only some answers and now, he was going to get them.

‘My sweet, little Gryffindor. You should have known better.’

Glancing towards an angry and nervous little hellcat, Tom smiled again.

The nauseous and panicky feeling started gathering in Hermione’s stomach. She missed something; something that Riddle did not.

“Hermione, tell me one thing, please. Are you ready?” indulgently asked a very amused Dark Lord.

“Yes”. ‘What?!!’


Cold eyes shone like precious diamonds- the Dark Lord was happy; not satisfied or pleased, but happy .


A playful wink and then: “What’s your last name?”

“Granger”.

‘What? Merlin, no…not this,’ shocked and panicking Hermione turned to look at the object that Riddle had saluted to a mere second ago.

‘No…,’ mentally cried Hermione upon seeing an empty cup from the tasty and cold pumpkin juice standing innocently on the table, ‘not the Veritaserum’.

She should have known better. A quiet devil is the worst devil.

A/N yayaya…I’m a bad, bad girl…snickers