1. Prologue

Disclaimer: No I don’t own Harry Potter etc. J K Rowling does. Elianne is my own character though. And the poetry is definitely mine, and only mine.

Prologue

“No More Fear”

What did I do?

What did I do

She cries out to me

No girl

You didn't do it

You didn't do anything

Especially not

Ending the world as you knew it

That was just life

No, you didn't cause your pain

You don't deserve it

Why

She continues to cry

Why does it happen

Why to me?

What did I do

Nothing

I reply

Simply nothing any more than any one other than you

Didn't do wrong

It’s just the way

The way?

She questions

What kind of way is that

The path to despair

The trail to hopelessness

And bitter tears

To scrambling hands

Feverous words

Attached to that hate

The way

Why?

I'll make my own way

If only it would let me

##Elianne##

The hot water slid over her body, cascading down like a chilled waterfall. She cherished the brief comfort of its heat, yet in the foreboding atmosphere she knew that she would have to get out soon, stepping in the harsh coldness of the air.

She looked around the dark bathroom, she’d chosen not to turn on the light. The walls frozen in the dull light, the moisture sweating off them. Outside the frosted window, light barely seeped through indicating the oncoming storm clouds. She almost smiled at the storm, for its deathly anger mirrored her emotions. She took herself from upon the place she sought, moving out to the rest of reality. As she dried herself with the towel she heard the thunder accompanying the lightning. It flashed an indignant streak across the sky and silhouetted her form in black on the beige backdrop of the paint. Elianne grinned inwardly at the cruelty of the weather, its suffering something for everyone, not put maliciously on one.

And so she walked back through to her bedroom, to sit on the window ledge breathing in the electrified oxygen and absorb the energy which she craved.

I keep forgetting

Not meaning to

Not really wanting to

But the picture fades never the less

Growing further away by the day

As the date I shall forever remember unwillingly

Where did she go

To that place

The one I'm yet to know

Where did she go

We don't know

For sure

Was not tied to her

Left in our world

Just the promise

We'll see her eventually

In the memorial to everybody

Yes

I will meet her again

But between then and now

Is the indeterminable wait

That breaks me to pieces

Wrecking me completely

Who will I be

When I end up

With her again

Will she know me

Except through recognised pain

The heartbreak

She'd never wish on anyone

There I go another time

Thinking of her

Wanting to see her clearly

But the mind falters

And the body fails

Desperate to know the truth

In the oceans of doubts

That linger on here

With me

Without her

##Harry##

It was in the distance of the house that he heard the wracking sobs of his daughter. He hastened away from the sound himself. He couldn’t bear such torture. No amount of comforting fatherly hugs or treats could manage to get a single smile out of the girl, not for nearly four months.

He paused at the thought. It had been that long?

All she’d done in that time was retreat to her room. As far as he knew she did nothing but stare out at the rain every other day. It had been a typical British summer, bright on a Monday and monsoon showers the next day.

If he’d had to say, he thought perhaps the rain was the only thing that made her feel better these days.

For himself, he didn’t have any feeling inside for the weeks since. On his desk letters had piled up. Mostly from the Weasley’s. One was addressed from Bill who he’d not spoken to for ages, bar the Christmas mini-feast. A large amount of the others were from either Ginny or Molly. Both had tried enticing him out to socialise with suggested and approved of female friends. It might have seemed insensitive for them to do such a thing, Ron certainly thought it was, but Harry knew why. He wasn’t getting any younger and Hermione wasn’t getting any less dead either…

And more so was the fact Elianne now had no mother to speak of. Before she’d had Hermione, then for a brief five minutes she’d had both with Eliza too and now she had neither.

But letters were the proof of the fact Eliza still existed. He knew no sane reason why she’d attempted to contact him.

He hadn’t felt compelled to open a single one. She deserved no compassion or leeway in this because she was largely responsible for everything in his and Elianne’s life, for the hell that it was for them this year.

He couldn’t care less what extreme feat or sacrifice she’d made to get the post out of the prison island, an unruled place where survival was prime and no one was anyone’s friend. He quite liked that her conscience playing up now caused her suffering because she’d been the multiple perpetrator of pain over her years, she got only what her behaviour demanded.

Still his thoughts woke up back to Hermione.

She’d done a good job looking after Elianne, so good he feared he wasn’t living up to it. He’d never had a responsibility like this before, it scared him.

That was another thing that kept his mind busy, worrying over Elianne, how she was doing, what she needed.

Then physically he had everything to do. Magic made it easier on his aching and aging muscles. Luckily all the years at the Dursleys’ had come in handy because he knew perfectly how to cook and clean and keep a house spick and span.

After that he would sit down, devoid mostly of ideas. The only thing his brain liked much to pose to him was the ever-continuing concept that she was gone. Hermione gone. In a tragic sense it was ironic. She had waited for him for a decade and then she died, as he was made alive finally. And he missed her. But he denied exactly how. It would hurt too much to admit. So he held onto the belief he missed her as a friend, as a guardian for his daughter. And as nothing more. Obliterating that helped just a minute amount to stave off the waves of tears that would surely crash down if he broke.

That was why he stayed impassive at all times. He said it was because he did not want Elianne to see, to be reminded to refresh her own tears. Truly it was that he didn’t think he could stop if he ever started.

Ron had been good to him in that sense; he’d gone out with him to the pub a few times. He’d not cry in front of Ron, there was a certain incentive to not embarrass himself. Ron would never say it mattered but Harry never the less did not like the prospect of making a fool of himself. Instead he liked to maintain a manly façade for the sake of his sanity.

Presently he decided the best thing to do was to make a checklist of what Elianne would need next week, as she started her second year at Hogwarts.

That way he successfully skirted his feelings and simultaneously managed to block out the usual miserable noise coming from along the corridor, as his poor daughter cried herself to sleep once more.

The only sign of his distress was the movement of his eyes darting across the sheet of paper, as trying to avoid the welling up that would happen if they continued in one area too long.

That and the disturbance of the silence as a small splatter of liquefied saltiness dropped down onto the parchment seconds later.

555555555555555555555555555555555555555555

2. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: No I don’t own Harry Potter etc. J K Rowling does. Elianne is my own character though. And the poetry is definitely mine, and only mine.

Chapter 1

“The Proverbial Sense”

Feels unreal

To be here

Because;

You don't have a perception

Of how this is the way

It is

Because;

You can't remember what the picture looks of

Now it’s only a fakened blur

Of how it should be

Because;

You aren't sure what to say anymore

No one has words for you to hear

And you, nothing to speak

Empty ears as much as thoughts

Because;

Everyone has sympathy, no one has time

Everyone has a phrase, to part with

No one has what you want

No one has any idea

Unless they've been you

Because;

Its over now

And this pitch is left right here

With you standing in the middle

Of all of this

Unreal

Because

You aren't dreaming

And this isn't nice

You aren't asleep

But you're afraid of what could be

You aren't beneath

Funny how that's not really comforting

You can only think of those who are

Of the life that's still and

Might cease to be

Harry ran his hand over the smooth tight skin of the small book. Still in impeccable condition after all those years. It was the rather formal sixth year Christmas present he'd given Hermione, certainly far more reserved that the beautiful necklace from fifth year yet she'd cherished the book as much.

“The Conscientious Student-Witches Handbook” contained various helpful spells for the magical female in education. He often pondered that any male equivalent book would probably have to have been written by Gred and Forge or even better, the marauders themselves.

He remembered the first spell Hermione had used from it; it measured parchment length that had been used. Hermione had insisted on trying it out on Ron’s transfiguration essay that he had fooled himself into believing was three feet long. Hermione had corrected him saying it was an inch and three quarters short. The look on Ron’s face had been enough alone that Harry had only been able to watch the ensuing drama between his best friends whilst laughing violently to himself, restraining from making any severely loud noises. He'd nearly choked that day, it had been so funny.

It brought back with it jollier memories than he'd seen in days, what such a book could purvey was a wonder.

And holding it seemed to connect him to his deceased friend. That was why he knew he had to give it to Elianne. She loved books nearly as much as Hermione had, a trait he thought might have rubbed off from Hermione during Elainne’s childhood. He knew Elianne would find some use for it. In the last two years of Hogwarts Hermione had never gone anywhere without it and with Elianne being of a more feminine persuasion than Hermione had been in school he suspected some spells in the book that he didn't like to think of might also come in handy in a few years time.

He slipped it under Elainne’s door hoping she'd notice it there.

And though he felt sad to have to let it go, he padded the warm shape of the emerald

necklace on his chest. He’d at first left it at the grave but had found he could not be

without it. It had the feel of Hermione on it and he longed for every bit more of her that he could find in this desolate world. But the book was to be Elainne’s now. He preferred to think of it as a gift Hermione would have given had she been there still.

Only you can ease my troubled dreams

With your soft touch

On my cheek gentle

But nothing comes

Your hand, subtle fingers and all;

Only a dream

An insanity

Telling me I am forsaken to be

As I am, forever more

Sad and untoward, lacking power

Because I know

I cannot change what has begun

The future rolling on

Gathering more and more pain

The underside explored,

That thing I love, adored, no longer mine

No longer any one's or any where that could ever be

I sit quietly

Wondering what that touch would feel like

Hoping I can remember, imagine something quite like it

As a replacement my heart soars

There is only my memory, with a little taste of hope

Something in me, cherishing what little’s left

While silently wishing for more, more

Just a tiny particle more

Anything of what I used to, would still if I could still

Love beyond my capacity

##Ginny##

Ginny peered up to the clock on the wall, worrying rightly as she had, for the hand

pointed directly on ‘Late’. She touched the bracelet and sensing that it was there she hurried out the house. Lately she never went anywhere not wearing the bracelet, almost as if it was her new lucky charm. Though it was hard to see how it could be. It had belonged to the late Ms. Granger. It had been a memoir of her infact, that Mrs.Granger had insisted she have.

She’d refused at first, the memory too fresh, yet now it was good to have a reminder.

Hermione had been the sister she'd never had and to Mrs. Granger, Ginny had been a second daughter.

All the years that Hermione and her mother had been distanced Ginny had written to her in the others place. Hermione had not known, it was an unspoken agreement that Ginny never say anything to her about it. And in return Ginny had been the second daughter, able to tell her new mother every detail she knew of Elianne. It had only in fact been the Granger women’s stubbornness that had prevented Elianne from having a grandmother because Julie had loved that girl like her own in the distance she kept from the two.

Julie had explained about the bracelet, it had been a sweet sixteen present to Hermione that had lain in the loft boxed away for years. Only when she had cleared up Hermione belongings after her death had it been recovered, and she had hated to see it waste away.

It was thin silver band encrusted with small aquamarine jewels and a large turquoise gem set in the middle. Even in all that it looked simple and elegant, nothing too fussy, it was grand in an old fashioned style. Beautiful to sight.

Ginny felt a little guilty wearing it today, given that she was visiting Elianne, who by

right ought to have had the bracelet. Though the fact that Elianne did not know it was

Hermione’s would save her the pain of membrance. She decided it was not worth mentioning.

##Elianne##

Elianne had picked up the book on her floor. The note inside was aged, showing it was an old present that had been Hermione’s. From her father it seemed, whom she presumed had pushed it straight under the door to her.

He rarely interrupted her in her room now, where she spent large amounts of time.

Ginny was coming over soon. She relished the fresh company; she needed it for she had become stale and trapped in her room this summer. She didn't want to be too boring and crusty when she got back to school, even if it meant putting on a brave face. That fitted in with her Gryffindor status atleast. Courage hitting high on the list of qualities.

She opened the door, into the front room, hearing Harry moving towards the front door.

She walked further into the room, browsing at the desk as she heard her father fiddle with the bolt and chain locks. Her attention was caught by a letter sitting there ignored, addressed to her and her father both. It appeared to have lay there for a week or more, having gathered multiple tea stains and crumbs from his daily workings. He hadn't bothered in opening it atleast.

The script wasn't one she could clearly recognise but it pulled strings in her head,

feeling she ought to know whom it was from. She heard further sounds in the hall, the loud groan of the door opening, indicating someone, most probably Ginny, had arrived.

She took a chance and snaffled the letter, justifying that the other recipient had

appeared to have no indication of treating it with respect and reading it. Therefore she felt barely any guilt in taking it. She as the other addressee wanted to know what it

contained even if he didn't. Her curiosity after all had reined supreme in her youth;

usually it was curbed by logic, this time it was bent toward her favour with the use of intelligence.

Because she'd reasoned quite happily it was her right to it. And perhaps her duty to

indeed read it, incase not doing so could cause something bad to happen. Like perhaps triggering her mind to explode with inquisitiveness.

The only thing that gave her away was the slight creaking of the floorboards as she snuck back to her room ready to confront Ginny.

##Ginny##

She’d been met by a lurking Harry, who had taken off promptly, muttering something about Diagon Alley.

She presumed he’d gone to do his duty as a excellent father and gather together Elianne’s last minute supplies, but she felt it was more his escape from the house and their lives. In short, from that constant reminder present here.

She glanced around after he’d left. Every possession still in its last place. Hermione’s stuff more or less totally untouched. Only a few things were scattered round. A diary, letters and papers. Mostly articles Hermione had never had a chance to submit.

There had however been one with Hermione’s name on it since her death. The Daily Prophet had mourned the ‘mysterious’ passing of the ex-Hogwarts student who had for along time been aligned with Harry Potter. Speculation was rife and Ginny wondered what it would do to help Elianne in her second year. The biggest unanswered question had been about who was now looking after Elianne. The ministry had kept quiet, not asking any questions so far. Yet the truth had to come out sometime soon. Jeff Mirage, an old friend of Percy’s, could only keep it under wraps for so long.

She thought honestly to herself that atleast by then Elianne would be safely in Hogwarts, away from the inquiring eyes of the press. Only to be sent supplementarily into the more penetrating eyes of the student population.

##Harry##

He walked a short distance into the woods outside the house’s limits before suddenly vanishing. Apparating to near the leaky cauldron, where he opened up his cloak and pulled his hood high up to enter.

The barman ignored him, merely eyeing him up as he went through.

Harry touched the old bricks, finding his way to the right one and gently tapped his wand.

He’d missed this. And for all the times he’d done it in the last year, it would never make up for the lost moments from the decade absent to him.

Under his own steam he made his way to a small tavern on the far side of Diagon alley, practically under Yawshank Lane, a lesser-visited area.

He entered the cosy room, darkly lit and full of musty air. Here and there regulars were huddled in corners, sipping their drinks.

He shuffled up to the front of the bar and asked for a butterbeer.

The bartend gave him an odd look as he proceeded to remove his hood.

Muffled whispers waved through the pub for a second. He’d been hoping he might have changed enough to not be recognised. His scar was covered, his hair messier than earlier in his life, face not so fresh anymore.

“Do I know you sir?” the man divulged to him, as if unsure.

Harry shuffled in his seat, trying to deny the fact innocently.

“Because you look like one of those quidditch players I'm sure. My son has a poster up on his wall, what were they called? Now let me think…”

He smiled and jeered in relief at the man’s mistake. Easily replying to the question, that no, he wasn’t anything to do with professional quidditch.

He picked up the mug of the warm drink and took a smooth swig of it. He cherished the soothing feature of the liquid, which removed the constricting numbness he often had to his throat. It spread inside him, leaving only a slight happiness in his stomach.

Harry looked back around the room, where most of the people had gone back to their drinks at the barman’s hearty admittance to an inaccuracy in recollection of who he was.

He was caught by the view of a small boy beneath his stool, who was standing staring up at him with a fast interest.

He smiled optimistically to the lad, who too smiled at that yet quickly flitted off away outside.

Forgetting about the mystery of the child he took to finishing his drink. Taking his time before finally stepping out to start in the direction of Flourish and Blotts.

He blinked once in the daylight and fifty thousand lights blinked back at him as the shutters on the cameras responded to the many clicks of the control.

He stepped backwards wanting to escape into the shop, praying to be able to use the floo to get out of here. The doorway was similarly teeming with the many fascinated clients of the said Inn.

Cascades of reporters greeted him, speaking in smiley matey manners. All just about dying to get the first answer from him, the newly resurrected hero as one of them put it. They stumbled over words, each one endeavouring to ask a pertinent question.

He groped for words. Anything to get him out of this circus.

All around he was barraged by them. Whispers in the masses of people. He couldn’t accurately hear enough of them really. His ears grabbed at some of the bits of what they said.

‘ Harry Potter back from the dead…..what can you tell us about your experience…..where have you been…..guardianship of your daughter Elianne… reports on your ex-wife in prison….the recent death of Hermione Granger….’

He tensed up visually at the mention of that last particular event. For a lingering instant the press tensed too in response, waiting eagerly for something. Then they pounced.

Men and women pushing forward, holding quills out infront of them. Literally fighting to acquire a closer position.

“Do you know what happened to her?”

“How do you feel about her death?”

“Tell us the truth, the public deserve to know.”

They inadvertently taunted him with their questions. Insensitively not knowing how much it hurt to be asked these things.

One question caught him.

“You were very close, she brought up your daughter, were you a family? What was she to you?”

He hazarded an answer to it foolishly. Not thinking of the consequences, not thinking of what he was saying. The reply coming out too fast to be censored by his brain.

“….We were never anymore than friends…we were just….nothing ever happened like that…. I mean. No. She only…..”

He stared back out at the silent audience, face no longer quite so blank. It was faced with a powerful blush, highlighted more by his poignant paleness and admittedly gaunt expression.

At that he fled through the swarm, moving them away to create a passage. Opposing them with twice the strength that their own self-seeking media competitors had had in skirmishing through to the front.

And Harry Potter walked out and away to somewhere that was anywhere but there.

Trying not to think anything as he did. In the scathing denial of what he’d just said, that had undone what he’d been building up inside himself for months.

The barrier holding the fort emotionally, collapsed.

The word

We herd around

No thoughts can be allowed

To think what is on

The tip of the tongue

Is for every way

That way that you can’t let

That would hurt much too much

To say today

The word

Followed by more

Followed by the torrent

Of thoughts

Can’t tell a soul

That’s the point

Already it is seeping

Into me, something

Anything

Please

Not me

Not in this day

Once

It could have been

Once

It would have been

Beyond words

Now

We only hear

That word

And what it means

For what isn’t

3. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: No I don’t own Harry Potter etc. J K Rowling does. Elianne is my own character though. And the poetry is definitely mine, and only mine.

Chapter 2

“Shadows In The Dark”

Smile on the upside

Smile on the down

You can get on around without that frown

Smile on the upside

Smile on the down

Maybe just maybe they won't see you drown

Making it easy;

For everyone else

Don’t want it to be hard

When it doesn't have to be

Making it easy

At my expense

But that’s nothing;

Compared to why I have to do it

Walking into town

Like nothing's ever changed

Shopping in the shops, waving goodbye

Singing in the mind

Why oh why

Walking into town

I don't understand

I can put up my mask

Leaning high above,

But as it slips I see

In my mirror, the face that torments

And the rivers

And then I wonder, from the depths the thought hid in

Why did this happen, why to me?

Then I can only walk, shyly into town

Then I can only smile, there's no option for otherwise

Life suddenly made harder than before, the flashing pictures of the scenes I ignored

##Elianne##

I approached the platform nearly shamefully. My father and Ginny stood behind me. All eyes were turned to us, the spectacle, the wonder. I think they all lost their sense of humility and empathy as they started to watch the celebrity we supposedly were.

Did they even remember what had happened to us as they committed themselves to gawping blankly to themselves? Whispering tales and gossiping of possibilities.

Did they remember she was dead, what we’d been through, how he felt standing there like in the past, more vulnerable this time because they knew everything that was to be about him.

I gave my father a quick peck on the cheek and he looked up soulfully, nodding a goodbye. And I hugged my godmother briefly as she shed a tiny tear at leaving me.

Ginny had stayed in our house from that faint moment dad had come back wracked in grief from his visit.

She looked after us for the few days between then and now. My father had holed himself up in his room, Hermione’s old bedroom; much like I had done the whole summer with myself into my own room as my little world.

I realised then how disconcerting it was to have someone act like that. He’d been handling it all admirably until the press had got to him. He’d held up to everything before them, with a cold wall to every single problem and covering himself in what had to be done to get through every day. I know why it was like that now. He did those things every day merely to get through the day, with those stupid menial things being the only responsibility he could hold onto to steady his weak form from breaking. And then he had shattered.

Ginny had provided for me, helped me pack and done everything my father would have done. Whilst he stayed there, happy in misery atleast.

The crowds of parents at the station made things simply worse. I crept away, soft wave to the two new guardians of mine, hoping they’d leave faster because I went off earlier. Hoping to save them further pain of the focus onto their bodies by the ignorant masses wanting only to say they’d bore witness to Harry Potter.

And I got on the train ready to brave them all. The questions, the stares, the accusations. Whatever was coming.

Patricia Parkinson provided the first.

“Nice little cosy twosome out there, Elle.”

She called me by my mock pet name as she tried unsuccessfully to imply something about the relationship between Harry and Ginny.

I walked away from her, too fed up to bother with a retort. The sheer daringness of my not saying anything was enough to annoy the girl beyond doubt.

“Hey! Potter, where do you think you’re going? Come back here. You can’t walk away from me! I'm a Parkinson!”

The stupidity of her egotism made me want to pity her for a second or two, but then I remembered she’d chosen to be like that. She’d chosen the cursed surname proudly and the mentality just the same. Patricia had no excuse to the heritage she took claim of; she’d adopted it after all.

And I smiled more sardonically as she cried out in near desperation that someone wouldn’t cry, let alone say a thing to one of her insults. I flitted back a glance, seeing flaming indignation of ‘fatty patty’s’ face. We called her that despite her apparent thinness, just to infuriate her. I attributed that viciously addictive nickname to Lucretia’s still evident cruel humour that was the Malfoy streak in her.

I found the carriage to the left and middle of the train and sat down in it next to my dearest friends. They’d all gathered together rather more earnestly this year. Inside sat Dido and Flora, accompanied opposite her by Leander. Then there was Cassy, who was rather noticeably different this year. She and Lucretia sat side by side, though she was ignoring Luce completely in favour of entertaining Leander. Flora had chosen to ignore this unashamed flirting, instead talked vehemently to Dido. Who in turn sat quietly taking in the peculiar panorama afore her.

I sat down next to Flora, wondering what had happened over the summer. Lucretia opposite me motioned we go outside, but before we could reach for the door, a tall brown-haired Ravenclaw prefect entered the compartment.

He looked accusingly towards Flora.

“Sis, where did you send Tryr? He hasn’t come back yet. You said he’d be back in an hour.”

The boy folded his arms accusingly.

Flora looked up to her brother’s angry glare and a sweetly pure smile came from her lips as she cajoled him.

“Eric, don’t worry, he’ll be back. I don’t know why he’s late; maybe they took so long with their reply. Anyhow he’s a tough owl and more than capable to flying up to Hogwarts with ease.”

The slim young man lessened his tense shoulders at her statement and muttered a “You’d better hope so.”

He made for the door, as did Flora and me.

Yet Cassy called out to him, “Eric, come join us. I’d love to find out more about you.”

With that Eric silently agreed, at the notice of Cassy’s honeyed looks, her hair prettily pulled back in a style reminiscent of the Russian Anastasia.

Within minutes she’d dug into him, taking over the conversation in the room.

“So how come we never heard about your cute elder brother before, Flora?”

Flora scowled at Cassy’s indecent flattery of her seventh year sibling.

“He was quite busy with quidditch I'm sure and we were all settling in. Besides I’d to a certain extent like to not be in the shadow of my other brothers and sisters thank you very much.” She pouted grudgingly at the end of her spurt.

Eric sat uncomfortably at this between Cassy and Lucretia, under scrutiny equally of his sister too.

I thought perhaps the atmosphere couldn’t get more sour, except that Harriet and Georgia entered, the two slytherins followed by another – the bitter looking Patricia.

Georgia scathingly looked over Lucretia and then myself, ignoring all others.

“Seen the papers yet Potter?”

I flagged my sight down to the one she’d slammed onto the table. The grotesque headline read “The Potter legacy, full of Riddles”.

I read it blindly, hoping it didn’t mean what I thought it did.

If they knew, if they knew what I came from…

Harriet spoke first “I guess the truth comes out eventually and eventually everyone gets what’s coming to them.”

Georgia bit in, adding in a sly manner, “We know what you are now. The question is which one of them do you take after?”

From all they saw Elianne Potter simmered slowly in her seat.

“I see you’re deductive reasoning is sharpened this year, perhaps that’s why you wanted to switch to Ravenclaw. Or atleast that’s your excuse instead of the one where you can’t cut it with the rest of the snakes.” She addressed this to a more meek Harriet.

Georgia’s face paled at the blatant insult to her friend and the implication that anyone would want to leave slytherin.

“Where did you hear that?” asked a nervous Harriet.

Georgia’s face spun in emotion at the request, disbelieving.

Elianne switched to the second girl, watching the conflict evident in her expression.

She added insult to injury, to top off the poor girls position.

“What didn’t the dungeons agree with your complexion? I would have thought you’d be at home with the gorgonesque statues, after all you could nearly be mistaken for Medusa’s sister practically.”

No further comments came from anyone in the coach at the time. The air felt cool and cutting, a painful static in it with the sound of Elianne’s innocent tone of voice.

Harriet wasn’t known for being the most agreeable looking female in the school, not having blossomed into who she’d hoped despite now being in sixth year, which was why she’d been nearly disowned by snobby housemates in her own year. But Elianne’s comment and stark glare following it had pushed her over to despair and she fled the room with the other slytherin girls who hastily attempted to comfort her.

For one moment I’d scared myself, acting in a manner more suited to my mother, I could see it in the wary glances from Dido and Flora, in them there lay fear.

In amongst the awkward scene Cassy’s odd laughter came in bursts as she gasped, “El, wow! You’re acting like the supped up Luce from last year, when she went Malfoy psycho on us. Bravo!”

Lucretia sat confused by it all, not least the opposite response of Cassandra’s to the bitchiness Elianne had emitted.

It was understandable perhaps that she’d go over the top when confronted by those who’d taunt her about something that sensitive, yet Cassy’s reaction unnerved them all.

Once more Lucretia made a shaded figure for them to meet outside.

+++

Away from the doors, we stood. She ignored the prior scene and started on about Cassy.

“She went to her cousin’s in the summer and when I met her a week ago she was just like this. I don’t know why.”

I buzzed over what was wrong with that.

“But she didn’t have any cousins!”

Lucretia glanced back to the carriage checking on the status of it.

“I know, was some second cousin or something. Related to her by Snape heritage.”

“How does she know about that? We never told her.”

“I know but she still found out somehow and something happened to her in the holidays. I just don’t know what.”

We settled on this, not really knowing any explanations for why or how it could be that she’d changed so much psychologically. It was like she’d grown an ego boost, confidence in overdrive and acute awareness of it too.

We both nodded and returned to the carriage, not speaking of anything abnormal the whole journey to school.

+++

The hall once again filled full with new students and old alike.

I felt happy not to be up there this year.

Attention wasn’t what I wanted. I had enough in glowers from the slytherin table, the half that liked Harriet that was. The other attention came in sickly spiteful smiles of thanks from the upper peers that were the select elite in that house.

I frowned at myself for giving into to such cruelties. I should have kept my mouth shut. Life could well be hell for those who crossed slytherins, and the thanks the snobs had for me would not extend to any protection from pranks from the lower years.

One first year in particular had gotten a lot of looks from the school. Tertia Morley. A small dusty blonde girl who was several years below the usual admission age to Hogwarts. The school had made special allowances, it appeared she was worth it or they wouldn’t have taken her on as one of the youngest witches they’d ever had. She had been placed rather predictably into Ravenclaw, as she was a half-cousin to Lucretia and who regardless of being on the Parkinson side still had the same keen mind and wit. This had annoyed Lucretia immensely, due to her little cousins constant queries since sitting down at the table next to her relative.

I sneaked a looked up to the head table, where a black-haired woman stared down at me from. Her eyes ogled me, intensely concentrated on my skull. She creeped me out and I wondered why she insisted on doing that. I didn’t have the faintest clue as to why she’d want to except to gain some reputation equivalent to Professor Snape’s. And if she wanted that then why pick on me?

I went back to eating my food. Wondering what the new DADA teacher wanted from me. She’d been presented as Professor Laudant, Sysalsia Laudant, who had something of a birdiness to her. It was the only way of describing her joint behaviour of twitchiness and crowing over others, back bent badly in a purely protective hunch. She was selected due to the unfortunate disembowelment of our last Professor in that subject during his holidaying in Siberia where he’d met his end with a nasty cave troll.

Another new introduction to our school staff was Draco Malfoy, who poured over the students in a manner much like the absent Professor Snape. He was the new charms professor and security advisor to the school, though I was one of few who knew that last fact – courtesy and secreted by Lucretia. Another appointment due to the ruin of the previous professor, the previous one had been subject to the misfortune of the invading Khaeodrics when the school had been breached last spring.

Lucretia had assured me, as Draco had assured the governors of the school, that his new combination wards were unsusceptible to every kind of attack possible to them. Nothing could now get into Hogwarts that wasn’t wanted.

I watched up and down the gryffindor table, smiling encouragingly to the newbies who sat looking unsure mostly.

Lucretia too sat silently at her table, Ravenclaw. I gave her a quick glance and pointed towards Cassy, who’d begun another unseemly conquest.

This time of a sixth year newly appointed gryffindor prefect who was trying his best to avoid her charms. He reminded me slightly of my uncle Percy. Which was why Cassy’s bizarre choice was amusing, doubled with the fact that he was restraining himself considerably from saying or doing anything dishonourable and that in itself was a display. She’d repeatedly announced what a fine family he was from… much to his gushing embarrassment as she close to paraded him in front of the jealous females who hadn’t the nerve to strike up a conversation with him or risk interrupting Cassy at work.

Apart from the fuss on the train and the gossip around school, I felt the first day at school hadn’t been too bad.

There was my outburst of not-quite-so unsolicited anger; there was the question of Cassy, what was going on with her and even my general problems of the rumours. Yet these things lightened my mood considerably, took my larger problem of grief off my shoulders and away from my conscious mind.

And despite such beginnings I doubted the year would be uneventful, even without them. Even if we solved Cassandra’s quandary and the scandal died down, even then there’d just be something else to fill that place like always. Atleast these problems were handle-able.

It could’ve been much worse a day. And tomorrow would be new.

Still I think I’d spoken too soon when I said that. Because if things can get worse they usually do…

4. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: No I don’t own Harry Potter etc. J K Rowling does. Elianne is my own character though. And the poetry is definitely mine, and only mine.

Chapter 3

“Now That’s What I Call Magic”

#Elianne#

They’d filed into the defence against dark arts room over an hour ago. Met by the steely beaded eyes of Professor Laudant. Or Sysalsia, as she insisted they call her by her first name, as she was most accustomed to. This practice seemed more in line with something to put the students on edge, not only making lessons greatly unfamiliar to them but also bringing the sharp intimidation onto them. Her name like everything else of her sliced thinly through the atmosphere of the class, cutting up the good humour surrounding the new school year and the mischief over a foolish new teacher.

Though anyone would know from a glance that Sysalsia was anything but foolish.

Despite her cranky appearance of a hunched back and tatty cloak, she held total attention like barely any other person. The students scarcely dared to breathe under the presence of her maintained silence at the start.

Quite quickly she got to business, ordering them around profusely in a practical demonstration of the shillelagh for starters.

They’d lined up straight across the back end of the stonewall, one by one meekly testing their own summoned weapon against the Professor’s.

When Elianne got to the front she’d sworn a glint of malice had crossed the woman generally eager glare. And Sysalsia had awkwardly adjusted her stance, minding herself in what appeared to be a shaded self-constraint.

Elianne struck out against her teacher’s identical sheath of leaves that made up the bound florical blade.

She cried out as her teacher moved erratically against this and Elianne’s own strike hit surprisingly close to the strangled leg. Even in her best efforts to play it safe as they were instructed, Elianne had very nearly sliced up the teacher. The reason for this seemed not to her inexperience at fault but stranger that Sysalsia had herself rearranged her form last minute, resulting in the near accident and then the rough tackling of her blade with Elianne’s, that forced the girl to stumble backwards; falling onto the floor and her shillelagh shimmying across the scathed stone tiles in response.

She knew however it seemed, that she had done no wrong. Her hit had been like most, timed and gentle as commanded, for it was only meant to be a test of everyone’s skill in making the weapon and not a battle in itself.

It was Sysalsia, who’d deliberately caused the accident in first and second movements. For a defence against dark arts teacher, Elianne refused to believe this action could be out of error. They should know what they were doing and Sysalsia indeed looked to know her stuff.

“100 points off gryffindor for your insolence and endangering an instructor!” the dark haired woman’s hand flew to point out at her and her angry cackle echoed off the chambered walls in a way of defence like a child would accuse in.

The class whispered round in amazement of what had happened, clambering over the facts in their chatted conversations that Sysalsia did not stop. Instead they all stood round, Elianne standing up now opposite the greying Professor, an awfully fierce set to her jaw, staring up at the equally threatening Laudant.

After a standoff of minutes, Laudant had barked at all of them, even the noisy gossips she’d allowed time to before. They all sat down, with Elianne slumping deep into the chair and avoiding any murderous looks from housemates or admirers of Laudant.

Then there lay the doubt to it. Either Sysalsia Laudant was an extraordinary actor for the job that no-one else would accept or she’d administered the fight out of some bizarre scheme to get at her in particular.

Elianne could only wonder what could have made the professor take an almost instant dislike to her, if the latter was true.

Laudant it appeared, unlike the air Elianne had found towards herself on the opening feast and at the test moments before, treated the students fairly if strictly even under her veiled attitude as appointed vice-head of slytherin. It was only Elianne that witnessed distaste in her looks across the classroom, as if all hatred of gryffindor was centred to her.

It might have been unsurprising as she was the daughter of the man who was in a multitude of ways the epitome of the very house. Yet she sensed Sysalsia’s malice was directed at her simply.

She silently voiced a concern that perhaps it was to do with the all too public knowledge of her mother these days and the best-forgotten grandfather of hers.

And for all this, no one else said anything against the new professor. Cassy and Dido, like the others, sat reasonably entranced by the account of the battle strategy used in 1509 by Hertz the Frank to overcome the dark prince Orrin.

Elianne gave up on convincing them of Sysalsia’s unfair treatment to her and instead flicked through the pages of the textbook whilst the crowing teacher went over the most thrilling part of the story. The story mildly annoyed Elianne, as it had nothing to do with their studies. She couldn’t help but question where it was going.

As the bell rang, Sysalsia rounded off the fable with the eerie warning to heed visions and pay attention in divination lest your foolishness backfire on you much like it had for poor Erwin, Hertz’s ill fortuned brother who was the tragic hero in the conquering of Orrin.

Elianne merely yawned wryly at this and left the room, stalking off in a foul mood to history of magic. Where she prayed she’d find some sanctuary from both Sysalsia’s attitude problem and from the dim ambience of her first school morning of her second year.

++++

The blackboard was filled with scrawled writing, notes on the goblin rebellion, yet all over the class was loud and disruptive. Not a single pupil was taking notes.

Professor Isaacs himself was sat next to a drooling crowd of second year girls, led by Cassy.

The same Cassy who’d not batted an eyelid over the handsome teacher last year. Now she was making up for with overtime.

The professor seemed to take the interest as flattering and rattled on enthusiastically about how he hoped they would all be coming back to him extra mythology course.

And he carried on talking on that topic, reminding them of their credit essay on the subtleties of custom which was focused on the goddess Caltrice in particular as a major influence when…. a large chair flew past his head, clattering on the stone and cracking up against the combination of the barriers of floor and wall that it had met.

Isaacs looked up for a moment, wiping the blood off the slight graze on his forehead and saw a small patch of windswept classroom around one fair-haired girl who’s hand and face when clenched tight in restraint.

*Oh dear* he thought.

++++

She peered at her watched for the fifteenth time. Five minutes she’d been told.

Currently it was four left.

Which was better, four was infinitely better than anything else, except three of course.

And three made it closer to two and in turn even further nearer to one.

Then there’d be simply sixty seconds between her and whatever was going to happen to her.

The door swung open outward with a defined creak. A voice called from around it, the teacher moving to the front of the frame. McGonagil wavered Elianne into her office.

The stern looking woman sat down and up straight, settling her in the seat.

Elianne took her own seat, opposite the witch and feared a peek across to the head of gryffindor.

“Professor Isaacs told me what happened in his lesson”, McGonagil’s voice was clear and impassive. The facts stated deadpan.

Elianne gulped. She didn’t like the look of this. What would they do to her for it?

The head carried on sounding only a little more joyful, “and I think we may have a slight problem in you,”

Elianne found herself sweating from apprehension. She had no idea what it was, it was a problem clearly that she’d caused a flying piece of furniture though she had not the faintest idea how or why.

“Though it’s most certainly one we know how to deal with. It’s a rare wizarding affliction associated with traumatic experiences that may occur once off or perhaps permanently. Much like young magical people’s short bursts of magic in extreme situations, older trained magicians can experience uncontrolled breakouts of magic, more often than not caused by anger. Would I be correct in thinking something Professor Isaacs said may have provoked an emotional response from you?”

Elianne thought quickly, unsure what she meant” well he was talking about our mythology essay…”

A small chuckle escape the professors mouth at the thought of homework provoking an attack

“…about behaviour and the Michiya gods and goddess’ like Caltrice and…”

McGonagil straightened up and said, “Ah, I see. Caltrice. The goddess who sacrificed herself…now it makes sense. I believe unconsciously your mind was angered at the mention of Caltrice which presented in effects much like you are exhibiting right now.”

McGonagil stared up over her head and Elianne following the trail to it saw to her surprise a mini rain cloud that had formed over her head. It emitted a short crackling sound a bit like thunder and a brief shock of lighting hit her nose the second time.

Elianne sat there in wonder of what she’d done. Meekly she sank into the soft backed chair, whilst her dutiful head of house explained it all.

“The key to treating this ailment is to learn to control your emotions, both conscious and subconscious. For which we need to ascertain your magical type..”

“My magical type?” Elianne crossed her brow in confusion. She’d never heard that term before.

“Yes, you would not have been taught about that yet. It’s usually saved as an optional seventh year class. Generally its not too important an issue, wizards and witches usually get on and do what they do, however it would be instrumental in the cure for your ailment to find out exactly how these effects of emotional provocation will manifest themselves. I’ll need to take a piece of hair from you, to give to the potions assistant, he should be able to whip up a testing potion to find out which you are. Though I could quite likely predict you are a water type at the very least, still better to be certain. I’ll be gone a few minutes on the errand, meanwhile take this book it should explain most of what you need to know”

With that the teacher sprightly got up and reached over the bookshelf, fingering along the spines until she found the appropriate title.

She gave a small soft leather bound book to Elianne before leaving the room on her way to the dungeons presumably where the substitute potions master was.

Elianne touched the velvety cover of the minute volume. She opened it up hesitantly, greeted by fantastic illustrations of catastrophic fires rapidly burning across the top, tornados turning around as high speed, the seas swirling up the side of the page and a steady garden at its bottom.

She smiled, pleasantly surprised at the books contents, before starting to read the first paragraph.

“All wizards and witches power is drawn from an elemental type. In the most it is not needed to be known, as they on their own will find their strengths but in certain cases it can be helpful to be aware of your type.

Air, fire, water and earth.

Main category is usually easiest to figure out, in most times by examining a persons character and traits. This is so majorly caused because of inherited preferences on character. Though type cannot be judged on parents alone, such would be difficult in the instance that all four types were included in the possibilities. Yet it is a rare occurrence that a child of two likewise elemental types, e.g. two water-air’s could potentially still become a type figuring neither elements into their type e.g. fire-earth.”

Elianne sat there, taking it in slowly. She marvelled at the simplicity that magic had underneath. In the last year, as you would presume, not one mention had been made to this magical theory. She laughed out loud to herself – that magic and your skill at it could be every bit the same as eye colour. It was in the genes just like everything else. But of course wizards would never think to link such things to muggle ideas like DNA. She briefly wondered if Hermione had ever heard about this, if not it would have made a brilliant book for her aunt to write…

And then it came back to her, the realisation of the last few months.

She stifled a small sob and tried to get on with her reading.

“Weaknesses in spells are often due to a confliction of elemental powers, fire types for example may have difficulty in water activities, likewise they may be good yet never able to excel in such things.

Air opposes earth and fire opposes water.

In second point there are subtypes, mostly your type can be referred to by its sub-categoral name as defined in the chart below”

Elianne peeked at the chart, scanning over the bizarre seemingly weather themed names that some wizard had picked out for the various types. She vaguely wondered which one she would be.

1^st 2^nd Subname

fire earth --- thunder

fire air -- flame

fire water -- shell

earth air - sand

earth water -mire

earth fire --ashes

air water --tears

air fire - furnace

air earth - haze

water air --storm

water earth -- fusion

water fire – sultry

She glanced over those containing water, pondering which she’d want to be called. Fusion? Sultry? Shell?

All far to odd to choose from and it appeared that wasn’t completely the end of the text to read, though McGonagil or a previous owner of the book had indeed marked the beginning and end points in the book for pupils use.

Instead Elianne read on in interest, hoping her teacher wouldn’t walk in on her after she’d turned the page over to one that was not in any way what she was meant to be seeing.

“Those with sub types that reinforces the dominant power are fortunate indeed, for fire-air the air fuels the fire and makes them greater. Earth-water types are the other fortunate ones. Nearly all other type have their own advantages but fire-water water fire, air-earth, earth-air types are very rare.

Mostly only 8 out of the 12 are seen, with 4 of them being more prominent themselves. The significance of such rare types are that they encompass that which makes them weak, thereby providing them a limited boost or protection in dealing with the opposing powers. This in those cases provides them either to get to a normal standard in the opposing talents or to become greater in them, despite that all types have a weakness to the opposing power to some degree.

Such talents inherent in types although possible, are not guaranteed except in those who possess great power at birth. A powerful air may become a skilful flyer despite no training on a broom but for most of us, a water element would need to learn before expecting to be brilliant at tending to plants.

The greatest of all elemental types is merely theoretical, The rainbow type, so called because they possess all powers to a large degree and do no suffer any defined weakness, have been strived for for millennia. Many powerful wizards have attempted to’ fine-tune’ themselves to the elements to become a rainbow type, historically called a Spectria. Melissa McCoy in the fifteenth century went, in attempt to take in her weak elements of water and air, so far as to jump off a high watery secluded cliff. The witch trusted absolutely to her faith that doing it would unleash the two powers within her, yet she trusted to fatality, with evidence to modern wizards of this fine 17^th century that such a destiny to become a Spectria is impossible, beyond the bounds of magical nature.”

Elianne snapped back to attention as McGonagil arrived, fresh with the test results held in her hand primly.

++++

She looked at the all but blank manuscript in front of her and sighed.

She gone to bed early, annoyed at the treatment by others at her ‘mood’. She hadn’t yet told anyone, remembering the words her head of house had said, about the stigma attached to her little problem. Funny thing was they all thought she was going dark, from what she could interpret. The talk of her attacking two teacher in one day had already spread. Along with Lucretia avoiding her and her lot, afraid of getting further bad rep she assumed.

And even worse was the trouble with Flora and Leander, and you could guess the next name….Cassy. Which all meant Cassy was the only one she was really speaking to right then.

Oh, and Snape.

That was right, she’d been instructed to write the travelling Professor a letter to request so nicely to him that he give her lessons in emotional management when he returned or if possible and preferable by letter sooner.

And Minerva McGonagil, the very strict and reserved Gryffindor head had sniggered very lightly when mentioning the dear Professors name.

It appeared he had not just learnt the talent of occlumency to assist him as a spy (information divulged by Ron and family at the past Christmas) but also to cure the very same ailment she was now suffering from, which apparently had taken a long time and patient teaching from Albus Dumbledore for Severus to get to grips with his particularly prominent and biting emotions.

This was one of the many reasons she was finding it hard to write a letter to him. Not wanting to alert him to any embarrassing knowledge she might have and too, not embarrass herself to the man which she had come to think of a fatherly figure – someone she admired and respected – despite his often trying behaviour and unfairness towards her house.

Eventually she got out a response that was atleast only slightly incriminating and floundered down to the tense common room, picking up a cheerful Cassandra on her way to the owlery.

After a largely quiet and passive walk there and back, both girls had retired to actual sleep. With Elianne putting her head down weakly, praying for uninterrupted rest after the horrendous first day she’d had. T

That peace seemed to come easy for the friend of hers in the next bed, who was breathing deeply and lightly already. Who’d returned exhausted from extended flaunting most likely and most unlike her.

#####

Cassy dreamt.

It was a familiar scene. Two of them, splashing around in the summer sun at their home, a large swimming pool. Flashes of adults, calling to them – whilst they carried on carefree children that they were. Running around, happily in full-length bathing suits.

But the sun clouded over and the adults were calling again. Massive sirens happened, shrieking out to run away. There was confusion, the wardens came to take them away and the water and the fun faded too….

And in drifted another dream.

Black and white, a monochrome picture of cinematic scope.

A great German fort, she was spinning around the room as she heard a song floating on the ether. Melancholic notes the owner played on even the grand doors burst open, with rain lashing in upon the tiles.

The music stopped abruptly as a lithe blonde woman strutted in, followed by a servant of equal stature. In the rain she was dry.

Her presence takes over the castle she enters.

The pair stopped there in front of the man and in seconds Cassy felt blood reaching through the cells. Moving it over. Displacing reality.

She sat to play the piano, starting with the ‘Danse Macabre’, horrifying beautiful. A haunting song, notes lingering to the entrance hall as did the woman’s daring voice, which sang her words.

Controlling their minds, destroying others.

The new owner of the place got up.

Liking only the cats, she turns to the panthers – the two stone figures, instantly made flesh and colour. To follow her before the wretched female servant.

The violet eyes of the other woman staring out timidly at the violence; unable to affect anything. The golden girl moved onwards into the castle, now its queen, dragging behind her the decapitated corpse of its former owner.

And along with the trail of blood congealing against the grey floor, Cassy felt a great gratitude coming from the blonde goddess of a woman – a happiness that extended to two people – firstly to a man, a patriarchal figure and more alarmingly the second was very plainly and alarmingly, Hermione Granger.

5. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: No I don’t own Harry Potter etc. J K Rowling does. Elianne is my own character though. And the poetry is definitely mine, and only mine.

Chapter 4

“History Repeats”

The clock struck

The second chime

Faintly familiar

Time’s rhyme

He felt it once again

The dull anger simmering in his soul

Tears welling in the sockets

He felt it for her

Like she had for him

The clock forever ticking on it

And the past lived over

What was spilling into what is

What is that we wouldn’t wish

#Harry#

He closed his eyes to the diary. Resting it blindly on the cabinet.

It told him everything he wanted to hear, or everything he would have wanted to hear if things hadn’t taken this turn.

Bittersweet in his head, that she had done that every year.

They called the day pax omnia. Yet tom riddle wasn’t dead but still they celebrated the death and his too. It was strange enough they made a holiday of his sacrifice. No matter it hadn’t been as high as it should – that he had not died, merely missed 10 years of life, which was as it went better than the cost had been to Hermione when she had done what she’d thought her duty.

As he lit the candle he smothered a tear to what the diary had told him.

Hermione's diary, enchanted with a peculiar personality that thankfully lacked the power of the previous diary he'd come across, that of Tom Riddle's.

It had said Hermione had always lit a candle for him on this day, still hoping beyond hope that he would be alive.

And now it seemed all too obvious what that meant.

Hermione had brought him back not from a death that was permanent. No, the death had been physical much like Voldemorts first defeat from when Harry was a boy.

And the second time round without Harry's maternal protection it had hit at both of them. Whilst Voldemort had his faithful daughter to look after his spirit, bringing him back to a body and sort of health - Harry had Hermione, the unbeknownst part goddess.

Her hopes each year might well have been all that kept his spirit from dispersing into nothing, and gradually they'd rebuilt him to be once more. Hermione had saved him by this simple ritual and a little faith in the impossible.

Yet this time as he lit a candle for her instead, he knew that he was not helping her. He wasn't anyone powerful, a great wizard perhaps but not to the degree of a god. His hope was merely a voice in the cosmos, praying someone else might come to their rescue.

All reason told him she was gone, destroyed for the greater good of all, to not let Khaeos gain power over the world.

And now that Khaeos was gone, so was she, intrinsically linked. The leaders had left the cult, been captured, fled or abandoned it for a new belief - with their god shattered and disproved as one. God's you see aren't meant to die. A fact that hadn’t been wasted on the many survivors from the former Khaeodrics.

The only few that had still believed were dead, since they’d been unwilling to leave the unfortunate place of the demise of their ‘great lord’.

They'd found Adeodatus's beaten body in the ruins, preserved in a sacred tomb, lifeless by an enraged Hermione's hands. He couldn't blame her for doing it. The world was better off without the psychopathic megalomaniac and without those she’d also killed in the explosion at the end. They were the fools to pay the self-served price of trying to erect a dark god as ruler of the world and for making a demi-goddess more than a little stressed.

He lit the candle then, simply for her. Even though it did no good, could not resurrect his love. Only that it would keep him from going ape over forgetting her. As long as he did this, she'd be honoured for her sacrifice. And by someone who knew what it meant.

++++

#Elianne#

Elianne lazily got up bleary eyed from her bed. It was Saturday today.

Everyone else around her was buzzing around getting ready for a certain ball she didn’t care to attend, not only for the amateur dramatics that could only inevitably rotate around her offset friend Cassandra but also for a memory that she didn’t like to have to relive in the merry tradition everyone else chose.

After all she knew the truth. Whilst all the girls second year and up where fussing over dresses and makeup, shoes and hair, she could only think of the idea that they were happy over the deaths of two people who were not only not dead but also close relatives of hers.

She snatched up a satchel as she pulled on a grey cardigan roughly over her head with one hand neatening it up.

She made her way to the library, one room that was unusually devoid of the later years due the business of the females with one thing or another and the boys as usual taking their time with wizard chess or some such game or sport.

She sat at a nearly hidden table in a bleak corner where she presumed no one would be disturbing her. The first years would never venture this far into the library unless they for a disturbing and even potentially troublemaking reason wanted final year books.

She opened her bag up, snapping back the latches hastily and peaked a hand into it rummaging for the thing she wanted to look at all week. Finally she’d found private space to read it in and plenty of time too.

The enveloped was a tad more battered than when she’d first picked it up, having lived in her school bag for about a week.

She lifted it up, looking at it from every angle as if she’d find out that way what it held.

Eventually she tore at the seal, breaking the flimsy piece until it revealed its secrets.

On the paper a neat scrawl of writing sat, in a way she knew, her mothers without a doubt. She needn’t compare it with the other trick letters she’d received last year – she could tell by the meticulous attention to the swirls and dots on the characters. Not one missed, every f and t slashed at across its stance and all the punctuation fast and to the point. Her mother’s handwriting was like no other she knew and this was hers.

She took the letter in both hands and read.

The note explained why and how Eliza had had to do it, to betray her family and leave her daughter in the lurch.

It was to Harry though, telling things Eliza would never say to Elianne but asking Harry to explain….

Her mother talked of how she was under threat and that the night Harry had taken care of Voldemort as a baby, Eliza’s mother had escaped and disappeared from the prison that they both lived in - leaving Eliza to be brought up briefly in the care of a strange deatheaters wife, hiding in France until her ‘aunt’ Amy had decided to evade authorities and had passed Eliza on to another sympathetic family. From then on she had gone around various odd dark families because after her aunt’s quick arrest there was no one to claim her. Her last chance of redemption and love gone the night Elianne’s grandmother had left. She reminisced as much as recalled the details of how that night had been Delandria’s, Eliza’s mother’s, only opportunity to get away from Eliza’s father Tom Riddle Jr. or Voldemort as he had been last Delandria had seen him. Eliza recounted how Delandria was tied to the place by Riddle’s magic, the magic that had faded the night he had died. But the magic of Amanda, Eliza’s keeper, had not disappeared with the deatheaters leader and along with other events Delandria had abandoned her daughter to the woman.

The curse freed, her mother had left. Eliza still tied to the deatheater, who wouldn’t let her go because she was Voldemort’s key - a daughter as his other chance at immortality and perfection and someone who could not overtake him by stealing away his power as heir of slytherin.

As Elianne examined the sheets a thin and smaller rectangular bit fell out.

A wizard photo showing a sad fair redheaded woman in her 30’s, trapped behind bars. The wild greenery infront of the window almost obscured her portrait except for the starkness of the woman’s hair against it. She held a poignant half smile on her face, saying she still had dignity despite her imprisonment. But nevertheless it was a cold smile, lacking the vitality Elianne felt the woman – obviously Delandria her grandmother – should have had in her. All else showed a strong woman made to succeed. Maybe that was why she’d been chosen or why she might of chosen Thomas Riddle. Everything everyone said of her grandfather mentioned how powerful he was, evil but powerful, as her father had told her Olivander the wandseller had said to him. All she could think was that riddle had drawn her into a battle of the wits and wills, had charmed her to him before he had been as hideous as he’d become later and that ultimately he had won. Nowhere in the letter did it say why her grandmother had had a child with him, other than his motivation for immortality. However, given her family history Elianne didn’t feel it was good to presume that her grandmother had been any different from either her matching grandfather or her mother Eliza, maybe Eliza had taken after her mother – both equally power hungry and cowardly at the same time?

There was no way to know and she certainly didn’t think that the letter, whilst enlightening, was anything in a way of a good excuse for how her mother had behaved. Yet her attention was drawn again to the photo of Delandria, who calmly stood behind the sealed up window front looking outwards with a proudly serene stare.

Perhaps, she thought, perhaps my grandmother was someone in my family I’d have liked to have known. With that thought in her head she stayed in the library taking in all she could from the photo, eating up every detail of it and wondering what had happened back then. Grateful to her mother, as angry as she still felt towards her, that she had been able to fill another part of the puzzle that was what made her.

He stood staring at the grave, the unnecessarily disturbed earth which held no body.

He’d been there for several hours, standing trance like in the pouring rain. He felt it was time to go, to emerge back in to the real world. he’d had his fill of the place, the memories had been relived enough to keep them fresh in a rather raw way that was the only way he could remember them.

He walked out along the rows of other monuments further away from Hermione’s secluded spot. In the slight distance he saw a woman, with the same brown golden hair Hermione’d had right before she died, the last time he’d seen her.

It could be her he thought but it never had been. The same golden strands of what she'd become, her hair different from what he'd known all their lives but still beautiful. The hair that signified the change in her and ultimately that she'd had to die because of what she was - and that she was dead - had to die for the world, to save them.

So he walked on, dismissing it, too painful to grasp at the idea that burnt him as much as it was a cherished hope of forever that she could be alive. However much she'd wondered over him, there wasn’t the same thing there. He couldn't bring her back.

And today he didn’t feel like running up to meet a strangers face blankly staring at him, with his poor excuse that he’d though her another person. This time he doesn’t go after the woman in the corner of his eye. He’s seen her so many times he doesn’t want another look-alike looking emptily into his eyes, saying ‘do I know you?’

I keep forgetting

Not meaning to

Not really wanting to

But the picture fades never the less

Growing further away by the day

As the date I shall forever remember unwillingly

Where did she go

To that place

The one I’m yet to know

Where did she go

We don't know

For sure

Was not tied to her

Left in our world

Just the promise

We’ll see her eventually

In the memorial to everybody

Yes

I will meet her again

But between then and now

Is the indeterminable wait

That breaks me to pieces

Wrecking me completely

Who will I be

When I end up

With her again

Will she know me

Except through recognised pain

The heartbreak

She’d never wish on anyone

There I go another time

Thinking of her

Wanting to see her clearly

But the mind falters

And the body fails

Desperate to know the truth

In the oceans of doubts

That linger on here

With me

Without her

######

She walked to the place, sure of its rightness. This was where she was tied to, somewhere marked as hers.

She wasn’t sure who she is, only that she was loved. The place said as much, its sweet message to her. She knew also that she had had great power, but how to use it was missing in her as was the feeling of it flowing in her

She sees she must have died. Either body was buried there or there wasn’t anyway.

Who she is now doesn’t feel like it’s hers, not really her body, it must be a new body. Something that seems unfathomable to her, she is not sure how it could be or what she must be.

She’d really died and all that had saved her was what she’d wanted to destroy that thing and now it was solely in her. She had the responsibility, her creator for lack of a better word, could not corrupt her. Now it was hers to do with what she wanted, what she needed if only it would return to her. She got the feeling maybe she was responsible for still being here, that her absence of the powers she knew of might be temporarily because of this feat.

It was her maker or moulder, that had been destroyed by his own toy, her.

‘He’ was dead but not dead, words not enough, it was a ceasing to be and never having been.

Though what was after it had been fuzzy and watery, vaguely floating and perhaps non-corporeal, she believed she had once again realised what she should be and had made herself again. From spirit to body, like it felt a familiar form, like she'd done once before to some other she cared for.

Even with the realisation her place gave her she still felt confused, doubtful over her very existence and future, memories and knowledge slipping from her new body’s grasp. She knew nothing, had nowhere to go, no person to help her.

She was vulnerable and was feeling like she was not whole somehow.

She stood rather tall, sticking out on the landscape. Ready for something meaningful to happen, some proof she was there and a sign of what she should do.

6. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: No I don’t own Harry Potter etc. J K Rowling does. Elianne is my own character though. And the poetry is definitely mine, and only mine.

Author’s Note: this is the sequel to one of my other Harry Potter fanfics, ‘fathers daughter’, you are HIGHLY advised to read that before this, otherwise the following wont make one bit of sense. Also apologies for any mistakes in this chapter relating to police procedure, I don't really have a clue about it. A second apology that this has taken so long to get posted – I've had serious computer problems for the last 2 months.

I hope everyone reading enjoys the chapter and as always I appreciate reviews and like to know what you all think of it. Another quick note to say that this is posted on both schnoogle and fanfiction.net, incase you prefer to read one format over the other.

Chapter 5

“To Find Oneself”

I went to the camps, left all empty

Ghosts long gone or waiting far beneath

A personal hell forgotten, a new torture renewed

But listless as I felt it was towards those left

They were who I sought and I found them

Mouths and hearts open, not as much as before

All broken and torn; repeating their story

I went on from them dazed over in the rest of the day

A sickly honey glaze of history

The one not in the textbooks nor like on TV

I saw the fear and regret

The scars in the voice, from the brain

The memories that they could not leave behind as simply as those terrored places

I sadly agreed, nodding in a desolate way

So glad it wasn't, hoping it wouldn't ever be again

And crying sometimes, years after

When I see the hope fractured by the news

Happening there and there, and there

Disguised and called differently

Not seen but still ever same in the care

That it’s only the hate and no compassion

Fuelling wrongs done in the name of a right

Sirens blared out through the misty graveyard. Police and ambulance lights flashed in the not so far distance.

Infront of a nearby headstone lay a teenage boy, his side bleeding.

She found it strange that the authorities had turned up so soon, especially when she’d been thinking a few minutes ago that she really needed help, but it was more likely that it was merely coincidence; that someone in the area, as sparse as it was with housing, had heard the gunshots of the warring gangs of adolescents.

She felt like she needed to help the boy somehow. Yet she wasn’t sure what to do, she had power but to use it felt wrong, like she wasn’t sure how it would work, if it would heal him or if she was imagining it all.

It could have been luck that got her out of the way as she’d run effortlessly through the rows, missed by all the shots fired in her direction. Or it could have been that the stupid boys didn’t know what they were doing and were just as bad shots as there were about commonsense – that they even had a gun in England was odd. And now she was sure she was in England, she’d heard their shouts as they chased each other.

She stood dazed as the police and emergency workers fanned in around her. Half the cars that had shown up had trailed back to find the suspects who’d fled on foot.

She stayed put even as they came up to her. She was surrounded by a blanket and lead away to a car, an officer talking to her as they moved, asking about what had happened.

She smiled a little at this because what she wanted was to ask the questions, to find out who she was. Surely they’d know, they’d return her to her home.

++++

#Elianne#

Elianne skeetered along back to the dorm, she’d been so happy to hear she’d got a new owl. Noone had sent her any for ages despite her prolific writing to family, penfriends and Snape.

And it was Snape who had finally answered her several owls.

The letter was short and blunt, warning her not to talk to anyone about his tuition on her matter and instructing her on a few simple exercises she could do on her own until his return. She was put off only by a slightly snide remark about her fathers talent or lack of in occlumency. Elianne frowned at it but chose to ignore it and move on. It seemed Snape's tolerance of Potters extended solely to her, after three generations it had finally worn off atleast a little.

The last few paragraphs were of much more interest though. She’d become increasingly worried about Cassandra, and Snape after a four letters in a week had got back to her on the issue, telling her what she’d hoped not to hear. “I have as of yet not informed Cassandra of her heritage relating to the Snape family,” and here was where it got more interesting “however, it was brought to my attention she visited her great-great-aunt, and her relations in the summer, who happens to be another woman who married out of the Snape name, a sister of Casseral. Therefore it may be right to assume she is aware of Casseral’s true position in the family and perhaps more of her family history.”

Elianne’s heart sank, if Cassie knew about her knowing then she’d be in trouble, this meant she had to keep her mouth shut on the subject until Cassie revealed the facts herself. Harder said than done.

The next part was more promising, Professor Snape’s answer to Cassandra’s strange behaviour – to check up for signs and ways of possession or encharming.

Her mind automatically thought of Cassie’s new ring, it looked old and possibly suspicious and more importantly was new to her. Did it have something to do with the Snape’s? Had her relative done something sinister to her?

Elianne intended to find out, which was why she headed straight to the great hall to recruit her partner in the plot – Lucretia.

The hall was mostly empty at this late hour in the morning, with the time perilously close to that of first lesson.

Elianne knew Lucretia would be here, she wasn't much of a morning person and a late or leisurely breakfast was her style. Sure enough Lucretia sat alone, as one of only four Ravenclaws on the whole table.

Elianne thanked the fact the other three were first years, sitting in a little hustle at the other end of the table, about as far away as to not be able to hear their conversation.

“El”

“Luce”

They exchanged smooth, cold greetings in an almost business like manner, Lucretia knew something was going on and left the chitchat out of talk.

She simply stated “Cassandra.”

To which Elianne nodded mutely as she sat down opposite.

She hunched over towards Lucretia, arms folded resolutely. “I think its the ring. Proffessor Snape said we should look for signs of possession, and I'm sure it has something to do with it. An enchantment, a link – whatever it is its changing her. We need to get it off her, the question is how?”

Lucretia took a thoughtful munch on her piece of toast, her eyes looked upwards into space as she pondered.

After a few quiet seconds she placed the toast back down on the plate. “I think I have a plan”.

“You do?” elianne's eyebrow quirked upwards questionningly.

Lucretia looked a tad insulted but quickly answered rather superiorly

“Don't look so surprised, I'm not a Ravenclaw for nothing you know.”

###

Leander meandered around the corridor, pretending to read the school notices. He wasn't quite sure why he'd let Flora talk him into doing this. Or why Flora had let Lucretia talk her into it. He had a nagging feeling they, meaning all the girls – cassandra's friends that is,were only doing this out of jealousy; that they were getting nervous over the way cassandra was acting. Personally he didn't see much wrong with it, she was more confident but usually that was good for a person. They only remote reason he could think of as good to do this was to get Flora off his back, he didn't too much like his girlfriend moaning at him constantly.

He heard footsteps and quickly purused the board, looking to be reading a general notice posted by Filch relating to owls in the corridors. The footsteps sounded light and quick and ended abruptly next to him.

He glanced sideways, seeing Cassandra standing there, arms folded behind her back girlishly, her whole body bobbing up and down from tiptoe to feet flat on the floor as she excitedly hummed a sweet melody.

It struck him that he didn't quite know what to do now.

He felt anxious in her prescence, twice as much knowing that he was being watched by the others.

His eyes moved to her ring and she noticed immediately and proudly held her hand out, pouting as she said “Do you like it?”

He stuttered his best answer, “Of course, its really... great”

He tried to smile, weakly, it came out forced and overenthusiatic.

But this didn't put Cassandra off, and he hazarded another question.

“Can I see it? I was just wondering what it's made of.”

She smiled rather seductively at him but complied with his request by taking the ring off.

She dropped it in his hand. He studied it a moment, waiting for her hand to drop back to her side, before he siezed his best opportunity and yelled, throwing it in the direction of the tapestry behind him. Where Lucretia and co. popped out, all of their hands scrambling to catch the ring. It was Dido who caught it and subsequently it was Dido who met with a rugby tackle to the ground from a more than unsettled Cassy who'd realised what was going on.

There were a few moments of confusion and screeching from the bundle of Dido and Cassy, before the rest of the group including Leander struggled to remove the infuriated girl from her friend who grasped the ring tightly in her now bleeding hands.

Cassy huffed loudly and blew her ruffled hair from her face as Leander held her back by the arms. “What the hell are you doing? That's my ring, my father gave it to me.”

Dido was on the verge of tears and everyone else was stunned into silence.

Cassy glared at them all, waiting for something to be said.

“It was my mothers. Give it back to me now, and maybe I might speak to you in a months time; IF you have a good enough explanation for this...this......incident.”

They exchanged looks, all wondering why nothing had changed. She was just as boisterous and demanding as she'd been the last several weeks..

Dido finally opened up her hands and held out the ring towards Cassy, noone else stopped her from doing so.

Cassy walked down the corridors, defiantly striding away in righteous anger.

When she was out of range Lucretia dared to speak.

“So much for that idea. I guess whatever ever it is is in her, not on her.”

She looked around at the bewildered group, noone added anything to the conversation so she continued, asking generally rather than to any one of them “Question is what's in her?

#Harry#

Harry fidgeted, he hated waitng, he hated sitting in these bad seventies chairs and he hated having to come to these monthly meetings. The only good thing was that Ron and Ginny were there too, they were all rather unofficial members of the organisation – now part of the ministry - a subdepartment - yet more of an offshoot, independent for the most part. Ron of course actually was an official member, now ranking rather highly in, especially in Snape's absence.

Yet that was why they were here. Snape was back and there was something supposedly urgent that he had to report. Though Harry presumed it couldn't be that urgent if Snape wasn't on time to the report.

He was saying as much to Ron when Snape stalked through the door.

Ron stood up pronouncing a little too loudly, “Speak of the devil”

Snape scowled at this but got down to business immediately.

He stated all too bluntly for everyone's liking “We have a problem”

Ginny was the first to ask, “And? What is it? I thought you went to track down ... Tom Riddle. Why haven't you brought him back, I thought that was meant to be the condition of your return.”

Even after years harry still sensed she had somewhat of a problem saying that name, the one that haunted her personally from her first year in the same manner the name Voldemort haunted the whole community.

Snape ignored her. Yet managed to answer her question indirectly. “We have a new problem”

Harry noticed the evident stress on new, which made him rather concerned.

“I followed Riddle to a hideaway, a dark moastery deep in the caves on the French border. There were but a few surviving khaeodrics there, they were keepers of the dark tomes, ancient scrolls that contain the prophecy that very almost came true. They made for interesting if not distrubing reading.”

At this snape pulled up a display of the scrolls using his wand. Harry presumed it was from memory as it seemed fuzzy in places. However, the whole thing was lost on everyone except Snape as it was written in some other ancient language.

Snape stared at the room waiting for someone to say something, he seemed to get the point that no one could read it after a few mintuesof silence and rolled his eyes patronisingly at them all before launching into a lecture.

Noone was expecting what he said.

“The scrolls were in Ellyriac, an almost forgotten language. Half of it is lost to the ages, some of the previous keepers obviously not being too careful but what I read showed more than we previously thought existed of the prophecy. In other words it does not end with what happened several months ago.”

“What?” Ginny nearly shrieked her question out in an angry fear “What do you mean by that? Is he dead or not, is Khaeos gone?”

Snape shot her an indignant look. “Khaeos never existed by all accounts, he did not merely die, such a thing does not apply to gods. They either are or are not.”

“Then why didn't you just say he 'wasn't' instead of scaring us like that.” Ginny glared back matching Snape's stare.

Harry shivered at it, she was the only one he'd ever seen who'd managed to do that.

He never remembered Ginny being anywhere remotely near as fierce as this to Snape back at school and wasn't sure what was going on between her and Snape now; why was there was a sudden hatred from her.

She'd been civil when she'd last attended a meeting with Snape, though that had been just before Hermione's death. Ginny didn't blame Snape did she? How could she? Harry didn't blame the man, only himself. Infact they'd been lucky to have Snape's services, not that there had been anything they'd could really do to defend against a god taking over their best friend.

Snape broke off the stare first and finally carried on talking.

“I did not find Riddle there when I arrived, though I am certain he was there and that he too knows what I know.”

Ginny's harsh voice cut into Snape's monologue “Which is?”

Snape ignored Ginny's tone and spoke on, “There were two.”

“Of what?” Ron asked, bemused.

Everyone turned back to Snape expexctantly, worry etched on their faces.

“The clue was in the scrolls, the word was wrongly translated. It was missing a vital letter, yet they schould have been able to interpret it correctly. It was plural, if they'd paid any attention to inflection of the word they'd have known it was despite the damage to it; however they didn't.”

“Why has this only just come up?”

The voice came from the other corner of the room, where Harry noticed a silverhaired pale faced head floating in the fireplace. He'd nearly forgotten Draco Malfoy would be there; he'd been oppointed a place at Hogwarts and had also been covering Snape's Slytherin house duties recently. Since Snape was yet to return to Hogwarts properly, and this had been his first stop, it explained why Malfoy still couldn't attend in person.

“Mr. Malfoy, you should know very well why it has not. You were a spy for us after all. We only knew what you knew and you could only possibly know what the cult knew and clearly they did not realise. Furthermore the scroll describes one as good and one as bad.”

Ron appeared quite panicked at the news. “But what does this mean? Who was which and where is the second one? Do they exist?”

Snape's face darkened at this.

“Most definitely. I met her. She arrived rather spectacularly at the cavess shortly after I did. She was there for the same reason I was. To find Riddle. She was a little surprised to meet me but didn't much care for company”

Ginny snorted before adding “Well, not many people do care for your kind of company, if you can call it that.”

Harry was getting more and more confused by ginny's peculiar behaviour but focused on the meeting. He knew there was something important to this revelation.

“Why was she looking for Riddle?”

“He was a follower of her 'father', as she liked to refer to him. When I met her I got all the answers I ever needed about the conundrum of the scrolls. I don't really know which is which in reference to the scrolls – it can be interpreted either way. To the khaeodrics hermione would be the bad one, she destroyed them, but for us Victoria is the one we do not want around.”

“Victoria?”

“It seems a fitting name, perhaps it is even her given one, she certainly believes she will be victorius. She is more powerful than I expected she might be, she cast a glamour over me, a seduction of a kind. It was as if I could only admire her blindly, her true nature shone through but I was unable to stop her from doing anything, unable to do anything against her. Looking at her was like seeing an angel, albeit a very dark wicked version.”

“Like a fallen angel? She entranced you?” Ginny laughed manically, amused greatly by the idea. Noone else in the room was quite as entertained. Ginny noticed this and stifled her giggles, asking something to take her mind off of it. “Why did she let you go?”

Snape rather surprisingly blanched at the question.

“She said she'd be the death of me, just not today. It was my fortune that she didn't feel like killing me on the spot but she made clear that she would enjoy it next time the opportunity presents itself, or rather when she makes it happen. This would be what we have to deal with.”

“How can we fight her?” queried Ron. Harry noticed Ron was sweating nervousness. The situation really got to him obviously. Harry didn't blame him though, it was Ron's department that would have to deal with Victoria if necessary.

And Harry no more liked Snape's answer than Ron did.

“We can't. Hermione had the power, now Hermione...is gone.” snape seemed to pause and look at him unsurely as he said it.

Harry turned away, he didn't want Severus Snape's pity on the matter. It unsettled him to know that Snape most likely knew exactly why it would hurt him, that Snape had probably seen the inklings of feelings for Hermione before Harry had when he'd probed Harry's mind in the occlumency training in his fifth year. It seemed so long ago but Harry had not forgotten and neither was it likely Snape had.

Fortunately Snape didn't pause for long before he continued “When she destroyed Khaeos she created a power vacuum. Which it turns out in this case is not a good situation, the power was free and there was another vessel for it on earth. Now Victoria has all the power she could want. The only person who could possibly be of help would be Hermione.”

Harry sat there, not looking to the others as he spoke “Couldn't she bring hemrione back? Like hermione brought me back.”

If harry had been looking he might have seen the look that went across snape's face for an instant, a recognition of pain and hope.

It was Draco who spoke back first “Why would she want to? She'd be an opponent”

Harry didn't really know why he said it, it was stupid. It was all he could think of, though rather appropriate given who he was talking to. “Maybe lifes no fun with competition.”

Snape finally had something to say on the matter, “It is very unlikely.”

Harry had almost known it was what Snape would say.

It was futile but he had to ask. “Could we trick victoria into doing it?”

At this Snape seemed to lose the little patience he had.

“You tell me Mr. Potter. You are the one grasping at straws.”

Harry sank back inot the chair sullenly. Angry that snape was so dismissive of the idea, that he'd refuse the chance. It was possible, it didn't matter that it was what he wanted, it was still possible.

The conversation carried on as harry sat in the chair sulking in his own morbid way. Lingering on thoughts he knew very well he should have abandonned. He had to let go of the hope she was alive. He just wasn't ready to do it yet.

“So what do we do?” asked one of lower down members that Harry recognised as Lucetta.

“I have no idea. Wizards can not compete with this kind of power, of that I am sure. Our danger is that Vicotria is everything we could fear from one who takes the power of Khaeos. She wants it, she embraces it and she will use it. So far the only defense is avoiding her. Though I presume she will come to us, there is no way to stop her.” Snape saw their defeated expressions and added “...as of yet”

This didn't do much to improve anyone's spirits, as they started to pack up.

“There is one other thing. The reason I am able to stand here today is because her spell was broken, by her servant. It would have made no difference except that I recognised her, it was Elizabeth Riddle.. She appeared to be in forced servitude and was not in very good health. Life isn't easy where she's been the last few months, though serving a demigod must be a pleasant repreive for her. I have duly informed the authorities of her escape though I do not believe we will be seeing her back in prison whilst she serves Victoria. This is barely of importance, it does however protect those who know her from falling into Victoria's entracement if she is around, which is most likely. It is but a small advantage we have. Dismissed”

#Ginny#

The meeting disbanded, with a dark mood settling over the offices. Ginny stood around waiting for Ron as he discussed strategy. Snape stood still arms braced formally behind his back..

She glared at him for the very fact he was there.

“What are you looking at miss weasley?”

“You.” she replied curtly, “Infact I was wondering why you even went to find Riddle?”

“It was necessary to retrieve him and now he is no longer the great Voldemort I believed I was a fair match for him”

She stared at him in an appalled disbelief. “Is that really why? What, think you can tàke him now, as a childish vendetta. It should be about justice, not hate. We've had enough of that already. Or is it that you'll never rid yourself of it because you hate yourself for being taken in by him?”

Snape stormed out, not saying a thing back to her, but definetely infuriated by her words - his breathing ragged and eyes maddened. Not that Ginny cared.

“For once the sarcastic comments elude you, do they professor snape?” she murmered to herself, satisfied. She was glad he was gone, she didn't like to have to see him or to think of him. She wanted him out of her way, out of her thoughts. It was easier to hate him and drive him away, than to have to negotiate with him and tiptoe around hoping he'd be civil to her. Yes, much easier.

+++++

###

Julianne Raymond watched from across the station. Frank was taking the mystery womans fingerprints. Normally he'd take down details too but she claimed she didn't know anything about herself.

Julianne hadn't ever heard of anyone coming in with amnesia before, it was certainly known to be rare. Which was perhaps why some of the guys were rather suspicious of her.

She waited for Frank to finish, knowing that she had to question the woman shortly. As the only female officer on duty in the station her boss had felt she'd be better suited to ask the woman, that having another woman might make her more comfortable presuming she wasn't lying about not remembering.

Julianne sipped her coffee and watched another officer take the woman away.

On cue she slipped away, following after to the cell.

She entered and sat opposite the woman.

I'm Detective Raymond”

The women looked back at her in a friendly manner, not something Julianne was too used to.

She brushed her blonde hair off her face before asking her first question. “For the record, could you tell me who you are.”

She pointed toward the microphone, indicating the woman should speak into it.

The woman paused uncertainly before replying rather sheepishly “ I don’t know”

Julianne found she believe the auburn haired woman, her air gave away an embarassment of not knowing such a simple fact as her own name.

“Do you know how old you are?”

Once again she replied negatively, blushing fiercely as she said “No.”

“Do you have any memories prior to the incident at Grange Grove, any indication of who you might be, where you might live?”

Julianne felt for the woman as she replied “No” once more and looked saddened not to be able to help, not to be able to know who she was.

“We've heard strange things about you from the boy we found you with, though you did nothing wrong as far as we can tell. We don't need to keep you here but until we know where you belong we can't send you anywhere. Understand?”

The woman simply nodded, eyes cast down in a despair.

There was a sudden interruption as julianne saw the door open, a head appeared around it.

“Frank wants you for a minute.”

She looked at her colleague questioningly.

“There's a problem” he said quietly and urgently.

She apologised to the woman and closed the door behind, making her way to the desk of her workmate.

“What is it Frank?” she asked in a rather tired way. “This had better be important.”

“Its her prints, I put them into the system to search for her and the whole system crashed.”

Julianne was vaguely annoyed at yet another computer related problem. It seemed to happen nearly every other week. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the WHOLE system” Frank looked a little terrified as he said it.

She looked around seeing for the first time the chaos in the room around her.

“The whole system at the station is down, every computer. And some of them aren't even connected to the network..And get this”

He showed her a piece of paper that looked burnt except it ws clearly printed that way, like a photocopy gone wrong.

“What am I looking at?”

“Your mystery womans prints.”

“What? But it's not...”

“But it used to be. I put it in to scan and this is how it came out and I know there's no way the scanner can alter anything that it scans – I don't know what happened to it. It's downright spooky. How the hell will I explain this?”

Julianne got an eery feeling from what Frank had said and felt compelled to return to the cell at once. Julianne was a woman of logic, she didn't much like not knowing the reasons behind what happened in the world. She needed to know more about the woman. About how and why things were going wrong, why they couldn't identify her. . .

She peered thorugh the window in the door, caught off guard by the light inside. She saw another figure in the room, bathed in a golden glow – a hand extended towards the woman she'd been questioning. She rattled the door, but the knob itself wouldn't turn and she jumped back when she felt the shooting pain of the heat from it – it was practically welded stiff from intense heat. She cursed at the incredible pain, and swore when she saw her whole hand was blistered red.

She looked back through the window, the light was greater, almost blinding but if she squinted she could almost make out her mystery woman making to take the hand finally, and she thought too perhaps she could make out a grateful happy expression on the womans face. As the hands of the two inside the cell met there was a shockwave throughout the building and Julianne fell away from the door, her hand protecting her eyes from the burning white flash that accompanied it.

A minute later the tremors had stopped and she'd recovered enough to manage to stand up. She peered through the windows, seeing a sight she'd almost have expected – if anything like what had happened was ever to be expected – the woman was gone. The cell was an empty four grey walls; nothing but two chairs, a table and the recording equipment left.

Her mind was instantly full of thoughts, of questions – most of which sounded alien to her. She was filled with a sense of horror at what had happened. She hadn't seen who'd taken her, she hadn't see their face at all but she was left with an impression of the eyes that had seen her witnessing it. Of eyes that stared back at her in a predatory manner. Of someone who enjoyed seeing her gasp in pain as her flesh had been scorched by the doorknob, who relished the thought they could cause it. Ultimately she couldn't understand why the auburn woman had accepted it, gone with them despite not knowing who they were. They only explanation presenting itself was that she went because whoever it was knew her even if the woman hadn't known them, or anything else for that matter.

She rushed out back to Frank. She scrambled around on the desk, grasping what she wanted. She pressed the paper into his hands.

“This is the drawing of that woman. If she wasn't a missing case before, she certainly is now. And whatever it is that stopped you before I don't care, get someone to handdraw some more copies of this – its the orginal, our only copy so don't even try to photocopy it – incase the equipments faulty of course.”

Julianne didn't quite want to have to explain her superstition about the way things had so far gone wrong with trying to find out who the woman was. She hoped Frank didn't see thorugh her weak excuse about a faulty photocopier.

“The point is I want a copy of this drawing in every major police station. I don't know how but we're dealing with a kidnap, by someone who can manage to kidnap her from under our noses and to start with I'd like to know how.”

A Family Legacy

1. Prologue

2. Chapter 1

3. Chapter 2

4. Chapter 3

5. Chapter 4

6. Chapter 5