Author's note: Okay, I just wanted to let all of you know that I know this chapter is very dark and I'm very much prepared for any hate mail headed my way. I know it's darker than most of the things that I write normally and it will continue to be this way for a little while. The worst thing about it is; I couldn't resist. It was just too wonderfully dark to pass it up. In case you haven't noticed, I'm trying to grow as a writer and this requires me to do things I am not comfortable writing. Well, I hope you all understand why I wrote this the way I did, and I don't get too much hate mail.
By the way, the information about the Samurai can be found in this lovely book: The Ways of the Samurai by Carol Gaskin and Vince Hawkins. I don't own that information either.
God bless,
S'Eleene Paris
Chapter Four
A Family Plot
Draco had been right about the Red Squadron taking the Onyx Spell Book. Deep down, Danielle MacNeal was jealous. The thought simply never crossed her mind. As she thought back to the past years, she aided Bellatrix Lestrange with a complex healing potion. "Are you paying attention, MacNeal?"
"Sorry." Danielle shook her head. "I suppose I have a lot on my mind."
"Focus!" The older Death Eater spat. "I do not want to have to show you how to do this again. Malfoy said you were bright. All I have seen so far is the complete opposite."
"I was the one who duplicated the Onyx Spell Book." Danielle snapped.
"Any idiot could have done that." Bellatrix snapped right back.
"You're right." A voice floated into their ears and the duo turned around to greet Draco Malfoy. "Any idiot could have duplicated it, but it would have taken a complete moron not to."
"Be glad you're father isn't here at the moment. He would have smacked your mouth for not showing any respect."
"I highly doubt it." Draco countered. "In order to show respect, one must first be superior: a feat of which you are obviously not."
"How dare you!" Bellatrix rounded, stepping toward them.
"Enough." Danielle stepped in between the duo. "Let's not forget why we're here."
At this point, the two of them relaxed their stance. "We can't take our time on this either. Granted, we do have a window of opportunity, but we can't blow it." Bellatrix began as she turned back to her brew.
"I agree." Danielle added the final potion ingredients. The solution turned light lavender and the vapor turned cadet blue. "The longer it takes for Weasel and Chaos to fix their personal issues the better."
"After we brew this potion, what's next?" Bellatrix asked as she stirred the concoction.
"Oh, I have some things plotted." Draco smiled evilly as he claimed the only armchair in the room. He folded his arms while he kicked up his feet on to the coffee table where the cauldron bubbled. "Something very special indeed for the scar heads."
"Care to enlighten us o' evil one?" Bellatrix rolled her eyes at his corny theatrics.
"Inferi." Draco offered simply as a smirk crossed his face.
"Those are the revived bodies of the dead that can do what we bid them to do, right?" Danielle asked.
"Correct."
"So what does this have to do with have to do with the plan?" Bellatrix asked as she began ladling the potion into bottles.
"Don't you see? The Potters couldn't fight against inferi when it's their own parents."
"Oh, that is right. They are dead aren't they?" Danielle rubbed her hands together deliciously.
"They were killed by the master himself." The full Death Eater now understood what the duo was getting at. "That is excellent, Draco. Continue thoughts like that and the Dark Lord will reward you greatly."
"But Draco, you know Dumbledore will more than likely have protection charms around of the burial site. If he's anything he's not dumb." Danielle cleaned the potion remnants out of the bottom of the cauldron. "Scourgify!"
"I suppose you're right, but it's nothing a confundius charm and a polyjuice potion couldn't handle." Draco offered.
"It would have to be a pretty powerful charm for it to work."
"I know that, Bellatrix. Unlike you, I'm not a complete moron."
"Cheep shot, Draco." Danielle rolled her eyes.
"Watch it, Danny; I have work for you to do."
"Like what?"
"I need you to enlist your aunt to do something to shake them all up."
*****
"So this isn't a wedding band." Heather asked as she twisted the gold band around Ron's middle finger.
Ron chucked as they lay on the common room sofa. They returned from the Weasley family tomb only hours ago and now they were warming themselves by the fire. "No."
"So then what is it?"
"My diploma."
"Your diploma from boot camp?"
"Well it wasn't from my graduation from Hogwarts was it?" Ron took off his ring and tapped it with his wand. "Reveal."
A mist formed around the ring. It then projected the script work:
This certificate and ring of promotion is presented to Ronald Weasley upon is completion of boot camp on May 2, 1998. It certifies
he has completed his training and can apply at any Auror department
with in the Wizarding world with all rights, privileges, and obligations
according to the Auror officer's code and oath.
Head Auror Alexandre
-Head of the Auror training
Department at the Great Lakes
Academy of Auror Training and
Advanced Magic Sergeant Duckhorn
-Sergeant Leader of the Red
Squadron.
"It has a spell I take it, for when you're in uniform it disappears." Heather offered as she fingered the gold band.
Ron nodded. "It also allows me access into any building and in any room. We're only allowed to use it on official Auror business, though."
"That is good to hear." Heather smiled evilly. "I won't have to worry too much about you coming into my room when you're not supposed to."
"Only when something big is going on," Ron nodded in agreement, "if the school was being attacked or something to the likes of that."
"Perish the thought." Heather stood up and walked back to her books." I have to get back to this."
"You still haven't found anything yet?"
Heather shook her head. "No, I haven't. One wouldn't normally think of destroying a book would be this much trouble. Most people would just lock it away in a high security vault at Gringotts."
"Why couldn't we just do that?"
"Oh we could, but there still would be a chance someone would steal it. Harry and I are both really sick and tired of Voldermort and his followers constantly interrupting our lives. We want this to end once and for all."
"And how is destroying this book going to do that? Are we even sure destroying the book is even possible?"
"Harry destroyed Voldermort's journal in second year, remember?" Hermione voiced as she continued to read her notes for her healer's examination. The duo swerved in the direction of her voice where she sat across the common room where she was seated against the bay window engrossed in her book and lightly scratching Crookshanks behind his ear.
"How long have you been up?" Ron demanded.
"Since about dawn, I thought I would get a head start on the review for this last chapter before breakfast." Hermione claimed as she looked up from her notes. "Just before the two of you showed up, actually. Where were you coming from?"
Before Ron could retort, Harry burst into the common room. "We've got a message from MacNeal and Malfoy. Professor
Dumbledore summoned me to his office earlier to help him figure it out."
"What did it say?" Ron asked.
"There wasn't a note." Harry gestured to the sheath in hand. "All was left was this? It doesn't make sense."
"This is a wakizashi sword sheath." Hermione said with her eyes wide in disbelief, and then she turned to Heather. "The message is for you."
Heather nodded as she crossed the distance between them and took the silk woven sheath. The familiar forest green Japanese silk was decorated with storks in gold and black. "This is MacNeal's sheath for her sword. We took a class at the Chicago Institute while we were still friends for our Muggle Studies credit. It was a class about Muggle styles of fighting; it covered swordsmanship and archery."
"So what does this have to do with you?" Ron tried to connect the pieces together.
"In this class we learned about different types of swords, their customs, and how to use them."
"This is a sword typically carried by a samurai." Hermione offered to them. "You usually don't unsheathe a samurai sword unless you intended to use it. It was considered a great insult to touch someone else's sword with out permission. If it is unsheathed, the blade must taste blood before it can be sheathed again."
"Bloody hell, how did you know that?" Ron asked mystified. "You read that in Hogwarts: a History did you?"
"No, I was a Sensei in my hometown's dojo." Hermione turned to Harry catching his worried gaze.
"So she sent you the sheath." Harry nodded in understanding.
Heather confirmed. "I'm bonded, by my honor, to fight her. You can be assured I will. I will also guarantee you blood will be spilt."
*****
Louise Goodie hated her employers. It wasn't that they treated her horribly because anyone who would assess her situation would say she was treated impeccably well. She was paid well, had benefits, and her employers paid for her food and boarding.
Even with the hospitality they showed her as Keeper of the Nelson household, she could do nothing but loathe them. After all, the whole lot of them was enemies of her family and their adoptive daughter; she was nothing more than a good for nothing blood traitor.
When her niece approached her with a plan to rid the world of her employers; she looked at her in a completely new light. She was proud of her little Danielle. Her niece had suggested poison, but the keeper of the house knew it would require a large dose or arsenic or cyanide to kill either one of them because they both had built a tolerance to any poison she could get her hands on. No this murder would require some thought.
Louise made her way down the darken corridor to the janitor's closet and she found what she needed: a pair of latex gloves. The cleaning crew often wore them while they used bleach to clean the tile floors and hard surfaces in the bathrooms and the kitchen. If there were a conviction made against her, there wouldn't be any proof.
Once the gloves were on her hands, she turned off the light in the closet and shut the door. Silently, she crept along the corridor to her employers' bedroom. Once inside she shut the door and took out her murder weapon of choice: the thirty-four-caliber pistol Mr. Nelson kept in his office's top desk drawer.
As she loaded her weapon, she smiled as she found Roger and Virginia Nelson sound asleep in their bed. She pulled out the silencer from her bathrobe pocket and screwed it into the barrel of the pistol. As she walked over to the bed, the smile she had on her face grew to a large grin. "I'll see the two of you in hell." She whispered as she took her aim and fired the gun.
*****
End of Chapter