A/N: And now the past comes back to haunt us. Thanks as usual to Lady Starlight for her work on this chapter, and I still own nothing really.
Chapter 17: Dumbledore's Army.
*******************************Hogwarts Library**************************
October 20, 2015
8:00 pm
"Emilia," Sirius asked softly from near her ear, "can I talk to you..." he looked at over at Xander, where the elder Lupin was sitting across the table going over something with his sister, "in private?"
Emilia turned to her brother, sweeping a lock of inky hair out of her eyes. She looked over to Xander, caught a tiny nod, and stood, her fingers tapping the side of her leg automatically to feel the grip of her wand through the fabric of her skirt.
Sirius waited as she kissed the top of Xander's head in passing, and followed through the stacks towards the front of the Library. They dodged around a cart that was working its way through the shelves, spitting out volumes to reshelve themselves. Emilia spun in place, watching a moldy book snap past her nose, and land with a thunk on a shelf behind her. She frowned slightly as Sirius kept walking past the checkout desk and into the main castle.
Emilia caught him halfway down the hall, and walked alongside him as he continued down the hall. Sirius moved with a purposeful stride, his hand movements tight and controlled, as he moved unerringly towards a tapestry depicting a pure white kneazle wearing a witches' hat and directing an orchestra of unmanned instruments with a wand in one of its paws. He pushed aside the tapestry and vanished.
She followed, to find herself on a stone balcony overlooking the early evening grounds. The air around her was warm, and the vague tingle of contained energies told her of a warming field in place. She took another step forward to stand next to Sirius at the balustrade, where he was leaning with his forearms on rail, looking down into the dim grounds. He took a breath as she settled next to him, "It's just beginning." Emilia nodded silently, and Sirius gave her a quick smile. "I'm tired of feeling sorry for myself, Em," he added after a bit, thoughtfully.
"You just had a hard time of it, bro, I'd been as bad if I didn't have Xan."
Sirius frowned slightly at that comment, as did Emilia after what she had said registered. She blanched, but he waved it away, "We need to be ready next time, Em...not just us..."
"Seems it's been done before," was her only reply. She watched a pair of owls wheel past the side of the castle, "should I contact, Mum and Dad, they might have ideas..." he started to shake his head, and she looked over, "They aren't Molly Weasley, Sirius, they know we aren't going to hide under the tables when it comes."
"Who do you think we should bring in to start?"
Emilia stopped and her eyes looked up and to the left, thinking. She worried her bottom lip in her teeth for a moment longer, before responding slowly, "Xander, Rain, Harriet," she held her thoughtful expression as something flashed in Sirius' eyes, "they are a given of course. As are Elliot...Justin, Anna and Nate are trustworthy, of course, but we might put them in a bind with their positions. Beyond them, Abby's going to be there if Elliot is as is Shin, the twins and Bob...beyond that...maybe Dan and his girlfriend, and Virginia's as well..."
He smiled faintly, "Has Aunt Molly ever figured that out?"
"Aunt Molly is still in the eighteen hundreds," Emilia replied tightly, "she can get over it...I'm more worried about her still bitching about Harriet being at our place...Like Mum and Dad would let a bleeding orgy or something go on, like she seems to think is happening or something."
"This weekend?"
"Yeah, we can use the Room to start, it'll be more or less discrete..."
**************************South London****************************
October 23, 2015
11:20 pm
Harry stood from a crouch with a soft sigh and looked over at Hermione. She frowned and brushed her hands along the outside of Harry's long wool coat she had borrowed to cover her short red dress. They had been at dinner with her parents to celebrate Roger's birthday when the call had come through, summoning them here to the darkness outside of a Muggle department store.
They had arrived to find a half-dozen Aurors spread out, a team of Wendel's forensic group on site, and seven bodies strewn about as if attacked by a mad animal. Blood was splattered on several walls and across a plate glass window, but no pools of red were spreading out from under them, as might be indicated by the ripped-out throats.
Hermione reached up and tugged at the knot her hair was piled in on the top of her head, before returning a slight shrug. She looked down at the body spread out under her, then at the half-dozen others tossed about the street like so many discarded toys. They are all drained, Harry.
I noticed, he murmured in return, and held his wife's eyes for a beat from across the street. You look beautiful tonight, he murmured, and she gave him a wan smile pacing over to him, striding purposefully even in two-inch heels.
She stopped next to him, watching as several wizards moved around the bodies, cataloging the findings and making
preparations to vanish the remains into the ether.
She stood closely to him for a minute of silence, This wasn't even a fight, Harry, she muttered as she did
not quite lean back into him, That girl was just a trainee, she had a flat about a block away...Hermione waved
angrily towards a spilled sack of groceries, probably tried to save them...
Then, what? he asked, stepping away from her to examine the body of the young woman in question, her white blouse was ripped away, exposing a bright purple bra, which was almost covered in her blood. He closed his eyes; She isn't much older than Em, Mione...
I know. She reached into the pocket of Harry's coat and flipped open a mirror, and touched a short combination into the tiny keypad set under the screen. It wavered for a moment, and then settled down into the moiré pattern it took on when making secure calls. She waited as a pleasant female voice answered, and the pattern cleared to show a young blonde girl, "This is Agent Potter, authorization code, alpha seven two epsilon nine zulu seven two nine..." The girl straightened perceptively, and gave Hermione a nod; "We have a rogue Vampire on our hands." The girl nodded, only paling slightly as Hermione went on, "Call in the slayer team on call, have them radiate from here, and issue an advisory on it...Use the usual excuse to the Muggles."
Hermione flipped the mirror closed as the girl nodded again, and watched as Harry stood from his crouch, closing the eyes of the girl with a tired hand. "I think that we might want to pay Deirdre another visit, Love," Hermione said softly.
"Yeah, we should do that."
******************************Cardiff*******************************
October 24, 2015
1:12 am
"FOOLS," A dark-haired, dark-eyed man roared and strode across the floor of an abandoned Muggle nightclub as a pair of women slipped in with smirks on their faces. He reached them just as the taller of the pair, a slim brunette dressed in a tight, half-undone white blouse and a short checkered skirt, looked at him with a sudden spike of fear replacing her glee.
She tumbled through the air, crashing back into a large mirror set over a polished bar and shattering it. Her companion dropped to her knees in front of the man, ripping open her top to expose her chest and tilting her head back to expose her throat. He reached down, twisting his hands in her hair and dragging her to her feet as he bent her head back. She whimpered as his head descended, and ivory-white fangs elongated before sliding into the pale skin of her neck.
He let the girl fall to the floor and shot out his hand, and the brunette flew across the room into his grasp. A sharp tug and her shirt tore away, before he jerked back on her hair and sunk his teeth into her as well. Red tears bloomed at the corners of her eyes as he tossed her on top of her blonde companion, and held her down with a gleaming black boot on her chest. "Do you have a thought in your scrambled little minds besides sex and blood?" he hissed and faint titters of almost laughter came from another pair of casually dressed vampires sitting at a table halfway across the room nursing a pair of steaming goblets of dark red liquid. They silenced at a glare, and he looked back at the table he had been sitting at, looking over several ancient parchments.
He gestured at a tall, bald man sitting there, with a mug of steaming coffee looking tiny in his huge hands. Lucian stood and nodded to a pair of lupine guards and walked over to his master. "Sire," he said neutrally as he stopped a pair of steps back and to the vampire's right.
Kernal Vacko looked back at him, and then at the pair still at his feet, "Tell me why, Sarah, love," the brunette shook slightly and whimpered quietly as he took his foot from her chest, and slowly knelt next to her, letting his fingers languidly trace down from the twin puncture marks on her neck to her chest and back, "Why should I allow you and Olga back into my bed-why I shouldn't just give you to the wolves tonight?
The blonde looked up at him with her upper lip vibrating slightly, exposing the tips of her fangs, "We're sorry...we were feeding...we weren't even going to kill them, and then that stupid girl..."
"Elucidate, Sarah," Vacko murmured, looking from Olga back to her as Lucian stood at his shoulder, his massive arms crossed across a muscled chest that a thousand pound suit did not even start to disguise.
She took a breath that she did not need and rose to her knees, her neck slightly bowed. "We love you, Kernal...we would never do anything to disappoint you...we didn't have a choice...we had picked up a meal at a club, and four men came along, and attacked us as we were feeding...We killed them for their temerity, and then that Auror girl came along and we had to kill her as well...she almost staked Olga..."
He lifted her eyes to his with one lone finger under her chin and started at her for a solid minute of silence. Kendal kissed her forehead, and lightly petted her side, slipping his hand under the open front of her shirt.
He sighed and cupped the back of her head, drawing her to his chest, before standing easily, and pulling both vampiresses with him. The pair draped along either side, as he looked back to Lucius, "They are telling the truth, old friend." Sarah purred quietly and nuzzled at his neck, letting her fangs scrape lightly along his neck.
"Shit happens as they say," the huge man growled, and if he was perturbed at losing the services of the pair for the night, he did not show it. "This does put a crimp in our activities, however. If the Aurors manage to connect the attack on the train, with this...unwitting action by your lieutenants, it could expose our connection with Bellatrix...and her unseen master." The were made a faint gesture of negation, and stepped closer so only Kendal and the pair of girls would hear him, "Kendal, I have been with you for over a hundred years, and you know that would do anything for you," the Master Vampire nodded, "My pups are at your castle, under your protection...But does this course seem wise? We have chafed under the restrictions the Elders have placed on us, especially since they failed to control Fenrir in the last war, and fear retributions, but if this goes wrong...if we are wrong about this, if it truly is not the means for our freedom from the chains that bind us...They will hunt us down, root and branch and we will be all dead...Potter and Dumbledore and the rest might limit it to us, but the Elders will come after our children after the human hunters have decimated us."
Kendal let his hands drop to the bellies of his companions, holding them more tightly to him, he had never meant the threat to send either of them to the werewolves for the night, "I know, old friend, but they have given us no choice...The Elders have ordered our children to be placed under their 'supervision', you know what that really means..."
He took both women about the waist and started off towards a set of stairs leading downward, towards a chamber he had had installed when he bought the club in the rundown industrial district as a base of operations. "I won't have mine murdered in the night by thousand-year-old crones, that have not taken a lover in decades."
*************************Room of Requirement*****************************
October 24, 2015
7:45 pm
Emilia watched as Dan and Chastity slipped into the room and the heavy oak door closed behind them as they walked over to stand behind one of the couches. The room had manifested, today, into a relaxed version of the Gryffindor common room, though with occasional hints of blue mixed in with the red and gold trim. Tall shelves of books, filled with titles ranging from < u>, to Mundane Weapon Theory in an Age of Magic to Resisting the Urge, an Auror's Guide to Resisting Honey Traps. Robert was currently avidly reading that one.
Sirius was pacing near the fireplace, with Harriet watching him out of the corner of her eye from her perch on one of the conjured couches. Rain sat next to her, leaning back with Justin on her other side, studiously ignoring him as he half slumbered beside her. Anastasia and Nathan sat across from them, curled together on one of the other couches with Nathan occasionally playing with a chestnut curl as he watched Emilia. Abigail was sitting next to Hermione's sister, between her and Elliot, her small size allowing her to squeeze in into the space.
Shin was sitting on a hassock in front of her friend, and was talking quietly to Lawrence about some bit from the last game. He waved his arms wildly, pantomiming some wild hit he had performed, and she was nodding as he went on.
The door opened one last time and every eye turned to the door as Virginia walked in, her hand clutched tightly in the hand of a thin girl with shoulder-length, straight brown hair. Kristina Spurr was a fifth-year Gryffindor, like Virginia, her roommate in fact, and at least since sometime this summer, Virginia's girlfriend. Her mother ran the family business, one of the Wizarding World's largest distributor of unusual and rare potions ingredients, and was one of WWW's larger suppliers. Consequently Kris had spent a great deal of time at the various stores and at Fred's moderate estate a few miles south of Ottery St. Catchpole.
Virginia flushed slightly at the attention, as did her companion, but Sirius gave them a quick smile and waved them into the room. The pair sat down together on an empty hassock in front of one of the couches and Emilia looked to Sirius. Xander crossed his arms as he leaned back against the wall next to the fireplace.
Sirius looked at each of them and took a breath, "Thanks for coming...I'll be blunt, and there is a reason that only...family, is here," he said looking at Dan, Chastity and Kris pointedly. Kris gave him a small, shy smile, and he nodded faintly and went on. "You all saw what happened at the train, and you've all heard about this summer at Diagon Alley, with Harriet and Em..." A chorus of nods answered him. "There won't always be someone there to bail us out."
"Sirius," Kris said timidly, he waved to her, "what about the Aurors, aren't they there to help us?" She looked around at the others, "I mean the Ministry isn't just ignoring the problem this time, is it? I mean they aren't saying that your folks are insane...much anyway." She looked over at Virginia, "I, uh..."
Virginia shook her head, and kissed her, for the first time any of the others could remember her doing so. "It's alright," she murmured and Sirius cleared his throat before looking over to Emilia.
"You're right," Emilia said, "they aren't. But they can't be everywhere at once. Hogwarts was, is and always will be, a target. Its very existence is a poke in the eye of any Dark Wizard out there..." she looked at each of them in turn and swallowed faintly, "and honestly-you are friends-you would all be targets."
A contemplative hush echoed in the room as her words sunk in, the thought that no one had voiced, but had known in the backs of their minds. Dan looked to each side, "So...what will we learn that we won't in Defense? I mean that the professor's no Dumbledore, but he's at least competent."
Sirius took a breath, "Em and I, Xander, Rain, Harriet where she came from, we all learned to fight, at least competently. But we can't go it alone, even Dumbledore can be taken down if he's alone...and some of you still need to learn things, Patronuses, teamwork, combat spells that they don't dare to teach here."
Chastity looked around and spoke up softly, "We can get attacked even here, with Dumbledore, I did, and they still don't know why or whom...I'm not going to let it happen again if I can help it."
"Yeah," Sirius affirmed and stepped back, to stand next to the fireplace. He warmed his hands for a second, fighting off a sudden chill that seemed to fill his bones, before he looked back at the rest of them. "You all know what this could mean?" A few silent nods answered him. "We aren't going to make you sign a parchment to keep this secret, I doubt that we will have to deal with a visit from Umbridge any time soon." Emilia snorted, having got the joke, while several of the others looked on dumbly.
"When are we going to meet?" Shin asked, shrugging, "We don't want this to get in the way of studies," several of the kids looked at her, "I mean that we can't just show up every morning beat to hell, there will be questions that I don't think that we want answered, even if Dumbledore's in charge."
"Good point," Emilia replied, glancing over at Lawrence, Virginia and Bob. "Do you guys think that you could, happen, to know where a few extra cases of healing potions might be stashed?"
Virginia smirked, "I know where Dad has some in the Hogsmeade store, he'll let us have them, they keep them in stock in case some third-year gets hold of a Fanged Frisbee or something. Em, you know that none of our parents will object that much," she glanced over at Kris, and frowned, "Kris...your mum, might not be terribly chuffed about it...she's..."
"She'll deal, or she can deal with me leaving as soon as I turn seventeen...I'm already sixteen, and Dad's will releases to me then. And I have money, it's not much, but it's enough to get by," she snapped bitterly, and Virginia pulled her into her side, kissing the top of her head as the rest looked on uncomfortably.
"You can stay with us," Lawrence said, reaching over and patting Kris' hand, she gave him a quick smile. Lawrence had become one of her best friends, that were male anyway, especially with his total acceptance of her, and his sister. His comment that "Of course she likes girls, I like girls and she is my twin after all", had only served to tighten the bond between them.
"Thanks," she mouthed and looked back to Emilia, "Sorry, Em."
Emilia shrugged, "What's a day around here without a touch of drama?" she asked wryly. "Anyway, how about three times a week, to work together, as a group and in smaller groups and the rest of the time we can get free we work on spells and such..." She glanced around the nascent assemblage, "Um, Rain, you can take up the weapons stuff, such as it is, I can do spells, along with Sirius, hand-to-hand, we'll see, several of us are more or less trained, but we might find someone better to teach it."
"That's it, really," Sirius went on, "how about next Monday to start off, we'll look at where everyone is with a Patronus, alright?" Several nods answered him and the crowd started to stand, and filed slowly out the door, chatting amicably amongst themselves.
Emilia waited until only her, Sirius, Xander, Harriet and Rain were still there, "Good job, Sirius."
"Yeah, I suppose," he replied with a shrug and started out the door, his hands in his pockets, as he already started to think about Monday.
Emilia watched silently as her brother slipped from the room.
After selecting a pair of books from the shelves lining the walls, Harriet left as well, following Sirius' path quite precisely even though she had not seemed to pay attention as he walked out of the room.
"Still think Christmas?" Xander asked with a faint grin.
Emilia punched his arm with utter precision, with exactly enough force to nudge him but no more, before she took both of his hands and led him back to one of the couches. She pushed him back onto it, before settling herself comfortably into his lap. I did, but they are dancing on the edge all the time. She made a soft, quiet sound as he wrapped his arm around her waist, and started to rub her belly.
She waved her hand behind her towards the fire, stoking it before she reached down to peel off her jumper, leaving her in a loose at the bottom, black t-shirt emblazed with an outline of a pink kitten head set over crossed bones.
"What are you doing?" Xander murmured, looking down appreciatively at the moderate swell of her chest.
"Honestly...making it easier for my fiancé to molest me," she shook her head and rolled her eyes, grabbing his hand that was resting on her waist and slipped it under the hem of her shirt, "That's better," she said quietly, and let her head loll back, accepting a quick kiss from him before relaxing utterly. "This is nice," she whispered, "I want to sleep with you properly, Xan, fall asleep with you after making love for a few hours..."
"You have a rather high opinion of me," Xander laughed. He nodded after a second more and kissed the side of her head, rubbing her belly idly with the other hand, feeling the magic dance between them as his fingers danced along her abs. "How long until Christmas?" he asked.
Emilia took a breath considering the question, "Depends on what you mean," she shrugged, "The Yule Ball is fifty six days away, even though Dumbledore hasn't officially, announced it." Xander snorted, keeping a secret in Hogwarts was like trying to hold water with a colander. Unless you really needed to keep it secret, then there were ways. "Or fifty eight until we go on Christmas hols, or sixty one until Santa flies..."
"I get the idea, smartarse," his affectionate tone destroying any possible hint of rebuke. He let his free hand grasp one of hers and started to massage the back of her hand with his thumb. He sighed and looked around the room, the pair of them falling into silence as the fire crackled in the grate.
Emilia waved her hand, and all of the lights save the fire faded, leaving them in the soft glow of the flames. She wormed back, deeper into his embrace, and half closed her eyes, suddenly lethargic in the warmth and the feeling of being at home, that she had first recognized when she was much younger, and more innocent in every conceivable way. Xander took in a deep breath, smelling her hair, and yawned.
A log popped, sending a line of sparks flying towards them only to fall short by several feet. Xander watched them vanish and die, "How long do you think it will be, Em?"
Sixteen years of knowing each other completed his thought, "I don't know, Xander," Emilia replied honestly. "My parents may be paranoid...and may have made me so as well, but I can't imagine that they will hold off forever...they can't no matter what they are up too...Honestly, I don't know why they launched the attack on Diagon Alley, or the train, all those did was put my parents on the trail...Our parents," she corrected herself without a mental or audible prompt. "But now that we do know that they are still out there, they need to do something to keep us off balance.
"Bella probably got tired of hiding, she's almost like an evil Gryffindor sometimes...I don't think that she liked to hide."
"Bella's not powerful enough to be behind this, Xander...She might give me or Sirius, or you...a run for our Galleons, but not Mum or Dad, or Dumbledore...they'd...what's that saying of Rain's...They'd eat her lunch. Bellatrix is an evil bitch, but she has to know that she's a dead witch walking." Emilia took a breath, "No, there is something here, some reason that they've come out of hiding now."
Xander kissed her hair, and buried his face in her thick locks, Whatever comes, Emilia. No matter where it leads us, I'm with you until the end.
A single tear rolled down her cheek unheeded, I know, Xander, I know.
************************Hogwarts********************************
October 26, 2015
9:10 pm
Sirius panted and fell to his knees, his wand falling from exhausted fingers and rolling away, as a silver shape dissipated, and vanished. He looked around the room as a squadron of black, cloaked shapes wavered and vanished, and the room reset itself to a blank, white room before a comfortable replica of the Gryffindor Common Room snapped into existence.
This version was smaller, however, and as he looked around, to his surprise, he found one other. Sirius watched as Harriet knelt down and picked up his wand. She flicked it at a suddenly appeared coffee table and a large, chilled pitcher of water along with a pair of glasses snapped into existence.
"Are you alright, Sirius?" she asked softly, almost too softly for him to properly hear, but even so, he understood her perfectly.
She gnawed on her lower lip absently as she slipped his wand behind one ear, before she dropped to her knees in front of him. Slowly reaching out, she touched his shoulder, and gasped faintly as a blue spark snapped between them. "You're shivering, Sirius," she murmured, taking his weight as he slumped towards her.
Harriet summoned a glass from the table with another flick of his wand and held the glass to his lips, holding it there as he gulped the water down greedily. She set the glass down, and looked at him worriedly, as she watched as sparkles of magic continued to snap around his fingers. His eyes pulsed rapidly in time with his heart rate.
Taking a long breath, he reached for his wand. Sirius muttered under his breath as Harriet set it down behind her, out of his reach. "I need to practice more."
"You've been doing this for the last hour, Sirius," Harriet replied, moving to block him from his wand. "I think that you've done enough."
"Obviously not," he growled, and moved to try to reach his wand, only to find himself blocked as if she had read his mind. "Damn it, Harriet, I need to practice."
"You need to rest," she demurred, reaching back and pushing his wand further out of the way. "You're already better than anyone else here with that spell..."
He shook his head violently, his eyes hard and glowing faintly as he stood shakily, "That was only ten, Harriet..." he swayed slightly, "Dad drove off a hundred when he was two years younger than me..."
The room shimmered and shrunk slightly, becoming a touch more cozy as Harriet rocked to her feet, "He was saving those he loved, Sirius, your mother and his godfather..." Her hand started to lift to touch him and stopped halfway, before she closed her hand and let it fall. Harriet slipped her hands into the pockets of careworn jeans, bunching up the Gryffindor sweatshirt that Sirius had loaned her last week when an after hours Potions experiment had ruined her uniform shirt. She shrugged, "Of course he did it..."
Sirius groaned and walked over to a tattered couch and flopped down in it, giving up, for now on retrieving his wand. He dropped his head to his hands and sighed, "I don't want to disappoint them again, Harriet," he said, his voice muffled through the filter of his hands. "I can't...what if..."
"You won't," she replied with an utter assurance that made him look up at her, his eyes pleading for some confirmation. She shrugged slightly and reached down, pulling him back to his feet with both hands before she reached back and summoned his wand to her. She slipped it into the sheath riding his thigh, "You don't want to forget your wand; abandoned wands attract Fredrack Weevils."
Harriet nodded to herself knowingly and Sirius snorted, "We wouldn't want that."
"No, we wouldn't...terrible buggers," Harriet half shrugged and glanced to the door, "I missed dinner...will you come with me to the kitchens?" She carefully did not mention that he had as well, though in her case, it was because she had gotten distracted with a fascinating article in the Quibbler.
"Sure," he replied, opening the door for her, and waiting as she passed through to follow. "Why not...I could use a sandwich."
Harriet gave him a small smile, and started off down the seventh floor corridor.
Sirius froze in place for a moment, his movements suddenly stilled as he watched her walk away absently, before he jerked into motion at a look back from her, missing totally the tiny smile that danced across her lips.
****************************Hogwarts**************************
October 30, 2015
10:20 am
The vast castle that was Hogwarts was filled with students learning the perplexities of magic, of Transfiguration, Charms, of smelly Potions and of creatures too odd and insane to be anything but magical. For the vast majority of students, those topics were the only ones that they bothered to concentrate on, any outside events, or ideas, especially Muggle ones were set aside, in their concentration on the events in the castle
Of course the Muggle-born and half-bloods were born to such things, having learned about computers and automobiles and subways and other such things in their childhood, along with their childhood friends, who were as often as not Muggles. And even many pure-bloods were as accepting of Muggles as anyone these days, putting aside the holdovers, of course.
For that reason, Muggle Studies had almost been dropped totally as a course of study, having transformed to a more voluntary seminar type of a class. It was for that reason, on this Friday morning-when most of her friends were still sleeping, training, or somewhere in the vast depths of the Library in the case of her 'sisters'-Harriet Weasley was walking down an abandoned hallway, yawning slightly. She had been up the night before until two, working on a complicated shielding spell with Virginia and Kris, which should be able, if mastered, to protect an entire group from moderate-level attacks. The fact that the spell required at least two, closely-linked witches to perform it, had led to the two of them being chosen, and Harriet had volunteered to help.
Especially, as she had watched Sirius about to volunteer to help the two girls even after practicing sword forms for two hours, and after he had already gone to Quidditch practice.
She closed her eyes for a beat as she stopped to lean against a convenient suit of armor. If she looked closely, she would find scars on the plate, still there after seventeen years.
She straightened, and slung her bag more comfortably on her shoulder. She took a step, not looking up and tumbled backwards as she hit a solid wall that had not been there before.
"What do we have here?" a voice drawled, "It's Potter's little bastard..." a female voice tittered, and the male voice went on, with a rough timbre, "You seem to be all alone, where are your little friends, Weasley?" A pair of masculine laughs answered him, as Harriet pushed her way to her feet, and slowly backed away from the four that had surrounded her.
Harriet glanced to each side, watching as a pair of bookends named Banner Bancroft and Lucas Plessy started to crowd in on each side, moving her back into an alcove, one of the innumerable ones that dotted the hallways of Hogwarts. She looked forward as a girl in a green-trimmed, rather short uniform skirt and a white blouse holding the twisted serpent of Slytherin, took a pair of steps towards her. Her hair was a bright, neon-red, fairly glowing in the slight gloom.
Maraisah Hamilton smiled, and slowly licked her lips, as she reached up and let her fingers trail down Harriet's cheek. "You should be careful, walking all alone...It is such an old castle...who knows what accidents can happen." She looked back over her shoulder at a brown-haired sixteen-year-old, with a slight, perpetual sneer. "Isn't that right, Antares, luv?"
He smirked as he slipped past Hamilton, and stopped only a few inches from Harriet. "Is it true, that all of the Weasleys sleep in one room?" A flicker of something crossed her eyes, as he went on, "Or that you all sleep in one room." One fist clenched at Harriet's side, as her eyes narrowed almost imperceptivity. "Of course you wouldn't know...since you are Potter's leavings and all with that blood traitor."
Maraisah smirked, "Or did your parents tell you that your mummy was really Loony Lovegood...did she tell you that flobberworms painted your hair?"
Harriet looked past the fluorescently coiffed girl, at the smirking face of the Parkers' oldest son, and then at the other two standing, looking down at her with leers deep in their eyes. She took another breath, and a small fist flashed out, crashing into the side of Maraisah's jaw, and sending the Slytherin tumbling to the ground. She dodged to the side, adroitly sidestepping Plessy's punch.
She took a quick step to her left, ducked under a wild swing from Bancroft, dropping to one knee and punching straight forward with all of her weight and quite possibly a bit of magic. He dropped as if his strings had been cut and she dove to the side, as Parker jumped over Maraisah, who was just getting back to her feet, and charged Harriet. "You little bitch," he snapped and punched at her again.
She swatted his punch away, hopped backwards and snapped a kick at the back of his knee, collapsing his leg. He tumbled to the ground, just in time for her to see Maraisah and Lucas draw their wands.
She dropped flat as a turquoise and a yellow curling spell bolt snapped through where her chest had been an instant before. A loud crash came from behind her as both spells shattered a line of armor, and she rolled to the side, coming up with her wand in her hand.
A shimmering, whitish-blue cone ripped back, tossing Plessy back against the wall and freezing him there in an almost solid block of ice, leaving only his head free to scream obscenities at her. A hard downward slash beat a Stunner away as Maraisah recovered enough to fire another spell.
Harriet ducked another curse and snapped her wand out, sending a blue bolt to send Maraisah's wand spinning off into the distance. Harriet stunned her contemptuously, and then Bancroft, almost mercifully, before she stood slowly, holding her wand between herself and Parker, who had drawn his own and was holding the tip on her.
"I'm going to have fun with you, little girl," he snarled, "Dad always told me you little Gryffindor sluts were fun...until you stopped screaming...Let's find out, shall we?"
Harriet cocked her head slightly, "Funny, Mummy said that all of the Slytherins had really small wankers, she is normally right about such things."
He roared, "Plexiao," a green fan shot out at waist height. It splattered against the stone wall behind her, leaving a half-melted, hissing line in the grey stone.
Harriet dove to the left, rolling behind a suit of armor and flicked her wand to the slide, snapping a flaming tendril out at ankle height.
The line snapped around his ankles, and she jerked back, almost like an angler landing a tuna. His feet flew up, sending him crashing to the flagstones with a loud crash and rapping the back of his head on the floor.
She dove out from behind the armor in forward roll, crashing into him and stripping his wand in passing. Harriet scissor-kicked to her feet, and bent over him, holding the tip of her wand very lightly to his Adam's apple. "At least my mother knows who my father was," she said sweetly, as she glared down at him with hard, grey eyes.
Red light filled the hallway, and Parker slumped, stunned.
Harriet straightened, and looked down at her uniform, sighing faintly as she took in the state of her uniform blouse, the dark grey stain she had somehow gained and the long rip almost to her waistband, in her skirt.
"HARRIET," she looked over as Emilia and Rain sprinted around the corner, their wands filling their hands as they saw the scene before them. Rain slid to a halt to one side of Maraisah, the tip of her wand shifting randomly between the incapacitated Slytherins.
"You Gryffindor whor..." Plessy shut up abruptly as Rain flicked her wand and no sound came out.
Emilia stood from checking Parker, and looked at Harriet, "You alright?" Emilia's eyes were glowing faintly and a crackle of magic danced along the upper reaches of the hallway, as she glanced around, and then back at Harriet, taking in the state of her attire.
"I'm thirsty," Harriet replied, shrugging as she paced over to where her bag had fallen, and bent from the waist to pick it up. She reslung the bag and turned back to the other two girls, "Do you think Bob or the twins have any butterbeer left?" She wavered on her feet slightly and both of her friends darted to her side, holding her up.
"We need to let everyone know that the Slytherins are trying to start stuff again," Rain said urgently, looking across Harriet to Em as the pair moved off towards Gryffindor tower with the redhead between them.
"Yean," Emilia sighed, "makes you wonder if they didn't have something to do with Chastity's little 'incident'..."
Harriet's head snapped up, "No...you can't, Em..."
"We have to, Harriet," Emilia retorted quickly, "What if..."
"You can't," Harriet repeated with even more urgency. She swallowed and looked away slightly, "I don't want anyone to get in trouble trying to get back at them," she added softly.
Rain crooked an eyebrow, and Emilia bit her lip, "We have to."
"He'll kill them," Harriet murmured, "he's already in so much pain, I don't want to put him through any more." She looked up at Emilia, "Please, Em."
Emilia took a breath, and looked down again at her sister in all that mattered, and her mind flickered to what would have happened if Sirius had found Harriet like this instead of her and Rain. While his brain might still insist that nothing was between them, Sirius had a great, great deal of his father in him, the same part that had sprinted into a bathroom after a troll twenty or thirty times his size when he was eleven.
"Alright, Harriet...We'll just tell everyone that Maraisah and Parker were playing their usual games and not be too specific, and we'll just tell him you got away alright..." Harriet opened her mouth to object, and Emilia shook her head, "We have to say something, Harriet." Emilia's gaze hardened, becoming the lethal glare, in another's eyes, that had watched as Severus Snape paid for his crimes, "If they want a war, they'll not like the results."
Harriet took a breath and nodded, letting her best friends, other than the one she was mildly afraid of telling of the day's events, lest he get himself hurt, help her away, leading her back towards Gryffindor tower, and home.
A/N: There you go, a touch of S/Har action. Next chapter, Deathly Hallows a few months early and rated
a bit higher. :) And a secret about the kids is revealed if you pay attention.