Chapter four. This chapter is going to have a little more action in it. You're actually going to see a mini battle scene. I think it's important that our trio find out that who they're dealing with means business. Also, in case you haven't guessed, Parkinson from the last chapter is Pansy Parkinson's son. You probably won't see much more of him. He's pretty much just a lackey. No important part in the story at all. Just thought it was interesting to have him in there. Also, here's a little spoiler for later on. Our antagonist and Carys have much more in common than they think they do. That's not giving anything away really, but it'll make sense in a few chapters when I get there in the plot line. And this is looking to be even longer than Keep Your Enemies Close. I think that's a good thing. And one more thing. Carys is going to be fighting a real human battle within herself after this chapter. I'm afraid I'm torturing her a little, but there's a destination in mind. That's really important to remember for future reference. All will be revealed when the Dark Queen is fully revealed. Stay tuned.
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Sebastian walked into Noah's bedroom and shut the door. His friend from birth was sitting at the computer desk, firing little green rockets at an alien ship. "Got a minute?"
Noah nodded. "Gimme a second. Almost done." He concentrated on firing by pressing the arrow keys. "Gotcha!" he turned around, swiveling the chair so he could face Sebastian. "What's up?"
Sebastian sat down on the edge of the bed. No matter how close two men got, there was always a level of awkwardness when one needed to talk to the other about a sensitive matter. He bit back his pride and embarrassment. "It's about Carys."
Noah was wondering if he could convince his friend to try out the new video game he'd gotten. "What about her?"
"I'm worried about her. She's so involved in this. She wants to show everyone what she can do so badly it scares me. Noah, she reminds me of the stories Mom told me about Dad. How he thought he had no choice but to be the one who rushed into battle first, the one who habitually risked his life."
"Uncle Harry didn't have much of a choice. It was fight or die."
"Or hide." Sebastian pointed out. "Voldemort wanted him dead, but Dad went looking for him much more than the other way around. Carys is like that. She's so immersed in what her family was like before her Dad that she thinks everyone sees her as a ticking time bomb or something."
"Well, they're always going to be like that, mate. Her grandfather was Voldemort's right hand man. Remember the stories and the history books? And it's always going to be hard for us because the world is going to expect us to be as talented and as smart, and to take over where they've left off. And our parents have spent all of our lives shielding us from anything dark. Carys is just rebelling."
"You really think so?"
Noah was becoming slightly interested in the conversation. "What do you think?"
"That she's fighting herself as much as she is Desdemona Knightley."
"You can't possibly think-"
"That it's a battle for her to stay on our side? Yeah, I do. And it makes sense. It's easier to join her. To be evil. It's hard to be good. To do what's right, when it could get you killed so much faster than doing the wrong thing. Uncle Draco still struggles with it."
"But he has Aunt Ginny and the kids."
"And he was a Death Eater." At Noah's raised eyebrows, Sebastian elaborated. "He had a taste of it. Of what it was. Of what the dark was like. And though it was easy, and what was expected, he couldn't take it. You've heard the story. He knew what was right, but went along with what was expected. He had to break loose of that, and struggle to do the right thing when it was so much harder."
"And you think that Carys struggles to do the right thing? Sebastian, I think you've hit your head on something. Carys has never been expected to be anything but herself."
"And she's eighteen, same as we are. We're all trying to figure out who we are. I just think she's wondering if she isn't going to end up like the rest of her family. Which is what worries me. I don't know how well she'll do when she has to fight this witch."
"She's Carys. She's never failed at anything in her life."
Sebastian nodded. "I know. But she's never had to fight herself before either."
"So what do we do?"
"I don't know. I was hoping you'd have an idea."
"Let me think about it." Noah idly picked up a book on Quidditch, briefly considered reading it. "Give me a couple days. I'll try to come up with something subtle. Though I think if you're right, the only thing we can do is just be there for her. Support her and let her know that we understand."
"That's all I was able to come up with too."
Noah grinned. "It's worked before, mate. My parents, your parents, her parents. They all got through some majorly tough situations just by having one another. Friendship is a powerful force, grasshopper."
Sebastian chuckled at the Star Wars reference, stood and crossed to the door. "Thanks, Yoda."
"Sebastian."
He turned around. "Yeah?"
"You like her, don't you?"
"Of course I like her. She's one of my best friends. I've known her since I was born."
"No, I mean you like her. As more than a friend."
Sebastian sighed. He should have known his friend would catch on. Noah was incredibly astute when it came to matters of the heart. At one point Sebastian had actually entertained thoughts that he was gay. They'd lasted all of two seconds, because at that point he had gone into the dorm and found that Noah had snuck a girl into the guy's dorms, and was checking to see if she still had her tonsils.
"Yeah."
"Thought so. What are you going to do about that?"
"Absolutely nothing. It's practically incest."
"Is not. She's my cousin, not yours. You aren't related to her in any way, shape, form or fashion. Took you bloody long enough, I say."
"Draco would neuter me."
"Nah. He loves his little girl, but you're his godson, and he'd never do something that would prevent him from becoming a godgrandfather. He's looking forward to more babies too much."
"Okay, he'd just beat the hell out of me until I ran far away and fast."
"That he might do." Noah chuckled over the image. "Still say you should go for it. Might be what she needs. Someone to hold on to."
"I don't think so. See, first, she has to return the feelings."
Noah chose not to say anything, as he had no idea what his cousin's feelings were toward Sebastian. Luckily Sebastian didn't get a chance to expect him to say anything because they were interrupted by Carys shoving open the door.
"There's a Dark Mark over the building. I think we really pissed someone off."
Sebastian ran to the window, craned his neck to see. He could already see forms in billowing black robes Apparating onto their roof from the balcony. "I think you're right. Get your wand."
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She watched from a neighboring roof, wanting to see if there was any real threat from the three teenagers. She saw the female, pretty in her own right, with long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a near perfect body alert the two boys. They weren't hard on the eyes either. Tall, muscular, well out of the gangly teenager stage. One with black hair, the other with longish, messy red hair. One with eyes of molten silver, the other eyes of shocking blue. What they looked like wasn't important, as their blood would be the same, but she had an eye for beauty, and appreciated those who were of an appealing appearance. Fleetingly she wished she could win the boys over to her side. She's like to look at them.
She sighed as she moved from one side of the roof to the other, her robes and cloak billowing around her legs. She tapped her wand on her hand as she watched her minions physically bust down the door into the apartment. The wards were too strong for them to Apparate through. Considering that, she paused, sliding onto the edge of the roof so that her vision was unimpaired. It was already apparent that her followers were going to lose. The trio was better trained and more cohesive than she'd thought. With a disgusted sigh, she closed her eyes and disappeared with a loud pop. She hated seeing failure. It served no purpose other than to piss her off.
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Sebastian looked at his wand, then plowed his fist into the face of the Death Eater charging him. He liked magic just fine, but it was much more satisfying to get his hands dirty, so to speak. Carys glared at him from across the room and he shrugged.
Noah and a Death Eater were circling. He vaguely recognized the man as having graduated three or four years before him from Slytherin. Maxwell Lestrange if he remembered right. "Always thought you were a bit smarter than this." Noah said, not at all happy about having to kill anyone, let alone someone he knew. But he knew there really wasn't much choice.
"Funny, I always thought the same about you. Nothing smart about taking on a fight you can't win."
"We know all about your plan. All about Desdemona."
Maxwell laughed, lifted his wand. "Lot you know. Crucio!"
The Cruciatus curse hit Noah solidly in the chest. He didn't cry out, he didn't drop to his knees, or fall on his face, though his vision went decidedly blurry and black for a long minute. Nothing pleasant about that one. It felt like his skin was being ripped from his body, and his eyes were boiling out of his head. But he wasn't going to give the older man the pleasure of seeing him fall. So he stayed on his feet, and when his vision had cleared enough, and the pain had faded to the point that he could lift his wand, he closed his eyes and shouted two words.
"Avada Kedavra!"
The man's eyes widened, and he looked shocked for a second before the pain took over. There were several seconds of what appeared to be excruciating pain, resulting in a lot of screaming before he fell and was still.
Carys shoved Noah to the ground, leaping behind the couch herself, fleeing from a well aimed Killing Curse. She hadn't had half a second to think, had just let instinct jerk her around. The curse sailed over her head, and, almost ironically, landed solidly upon the chest of another Death Eater.
She stood, wand aimed perfectly at his head. "Get out of my house."
He laughed, and the sound resonated with evil. "Only when you die, Malfoy. Your father was a coward, and so are you. Turning your back on your family, your lineage, the very reason you were born. Prophecies don't lie, Carys Malfoy, and yours is most intriguing. Join us, or die."
"I'll take death over you." Carys growled, and noticed Sebastian stepping up beside her. "There is no choice."
"So be it, witch." Before Carys could react, he launched a Killing Curse, wordlessly. Sebastian leapt in front of her.
"Patronum!" he bellowed, and a stag spurted from the end of his wand and devoured the curse less than an inch from his throat. The Death Eater was shocked. Sebastian approached, reached out with one hand and lifted the man off of his feet. He took his wand with the other hand. "You're going to leave now, and go tell your master that we haven't even begun to fight. You're going to tell her that we know who she is and what she's up to. And you're going to tell her that I am going to kill her, be it with magic or my bare hands. Got it?"
The man nodded, terrified of the son of Harry Potter, though he'd rather die than admit it. Sebastian dropped him. He looked at Carys, intent on completing his mission. He removed a misty orb from his robes and tossed it at her. "Your future, girl." He said, and then Disapparated.
Carys held the ball in both hands, staring at it like it was going to bite her hand off at any moment. Gently, Sebastian reached over and took it from her. "What is this, Carys?"
"It's a prophecy from the Department of Mysteries."
"Like the one my Dad had telling him about the battle with Voldemort and that Neville Longbottom could have been the Boy Who Lived?"
"I think so, yeah." She looked around their living room for the first time, and saw Sebastian tuck the orb into his robes. "The Aurors will be here soon. We should Floo our parents."
Noah walked to the fireplace. "I'll do it." He reached into the jar on top of the mantle for a handful of the green powder, and threw it on the flames. Moments later, Draco's face appeared.
"Noah. Want to talk to your parents?"
"No, you'll work, Uncle Draco. You and Mom and Dad and the rest should get over here."
"Why? What's going on?"
"We were attacked by Death Eaters."
Draco dropped his coffee mug. "You were WHAT?!"
Noah winced at the change in octave. "Calm down, we're all fine, but we thought we should tell you."
"Damn right. Stay right there, double the wards and don't move." He went to the door. "Ginny! Harry! Hermione! Ron! Luna! We need to Floo to the kids' apartment right now. Send the rest of the kids to Lily and James."
Ginny appeared in the door in her pajamas. "Why do we need to go at eleven o'clock at night?"
Draco gripped her shoulders. "They were attacked. It seems the Dark Knight has figured out they're on their own and decided to go after them."
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Harry paced in front of the three children. The Aurors had come and gone, the bodies had been taken away, the apartment had been reasonably put to rights, and his son had explained what they had done. All six adults were furious. Hermione had screamed at them for a full ten minutes. It had been the first time Sebastian's mother had ever raised her voice at him. Ginny had sat in mute fury, not trusting herself to do so much as even open her mouth for fear of what would come out of it. Draco and Harry had lectured in that way they had that made all three teenagers feel half an inch tall. Luna hadn't said a word, like Ginny, not trusting herself not to hex her own son. Ron had taken a page from Hermione's book and raved at them until, unable to take it, he had started to stun Noah when his son had argued with him. Hermione, still unrecovered from her fit, had snapped his wand into half a dozen pieces.
"You'll all move back into the house immediately." Harry said, his look just daring any of them to argue with him. "You will attend training, or class, and then you will come home. In three years, when you are all licensed, we will again discuss you having an apartment of your own. You will not go out, or put yourself at any risk until we," he cast a glance at the adults to let the trio know they were not going to be included. "have stopped this person. Hermione, Ginny, start looking over their research, will you?"
Sebastian stood. "I'm not going."'
Harry whirled to face his son. "You'll do what I tell you to do."
"I will not. Dad, I don't want to fight with you, and I know you're mad. But think about it. When Gramma Lily and Grampa James came back, you were my age. You were living on your own with Mom and Uncle Ron, and you were fighting Voldemort. You three were bloody vigilantes! You can't say that we can't do what you yourselves did when you were years younger than we were." He looked at his mother. "You can't protect us for forever. And I know you want us safe, but we won't be safe even if we do go home."
Carys nodded. "Daddy. I can do this. I know I can. It's something that we have to do. Sebastian and I, we got into the Auror program because of who our parents are. Uncle Harry and Aunt Hermione, you and Mom. We've never got to escape the stigma of being your children. And if we go home with you, we'll just be putting you in danger. You can't fight our battles for us forever. And this has nothing to do with any of you. This is about us, and you have to let us do it. And even if we fail, at least we did it on our own, without our mommies and daddies hanging over our shoulders."
Noah was still sulking, but decided he had to help out with the last ditch effort at least a little. "We can handle it. We weren't hurt. No harm done. If anything, this just proves that we can hold our own against an attack, which I know is what you guys were afraid of in the first place. Well, we're all here, uninjured, and completely alive. We proved we can do it. And no offense, but you can't make us come home with you."
Ron glared at his son. "Just you watch me make you come home."
Luna laid a hand on her husband's knee. "They're right." She sighed deeply. "I wish they weren't. There's still a good chance they may get attacked by giant man eating Fizzing Whizzby's, and in that case, I'll drag them home kicking and screaming. But, honestly, Death Eaters are nothing compared to the Fibrous Blugworms that attacked them five years ago. They can handle it."
Ginny looked at Luna with raised eyebrows. She was continuously hoping that time would make the woman more sane. So far it didn't seem to be doing anything, but none of her children had been affected by her eccentricities. And in the end, she made a lot of sense. She looked at Draco. "We have to let them grow up, Draco." She stood. "Let's go. We'll talk about this more tomorrow. We all need some sleep, Lily and James are probably desperate to know what's going on, and we'll discuss alternate plans of action at home. We'll be back tomorrow."
The three hugged their parents goodbye and fell onto the couch in one exhausted heap. Noah lifted his head and looked at Carys. "Going to open up that prophecy?"
Sebastian took it out of his pocket. "Want to do it alone, or do you want us to stay?"
Carys rose. "This I think I need to do by myself."
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Prophecy well be revealed in the next chapter. I hope you enjoyed this one. Review and let me know what you thought. Update day after tomorrow, though I most post earlier if the demand for a quicker update is there. So lemme know!
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