The Slytherin Shadow Girl

Summary: Esmerelda found out Dumbledore was using her a few weeks after arriving at Hogwarts for her first year, and ran away. She's now seventeen and living a nice life away from magic, but a surprise visit from Voldemort forces her to question whether she is truly happy.

Yep, another story for the Harry Potter category. I am working on the second chapter to Gentle Evergreen, but I have writer's block and a lot of school work, so it might be a white. This was just something to break the monotony.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.

Thoughts

Parseltongue

Esmerelda breathed a deep lungful of air and smiled. White City was really beautiful at night. The lights from the tall buildings contrasting with the deep, dark blue sky that was filled with little white lights of its own was a breath-taking sight and one that Esmerelda never failed to appreciate.

It had been many years since she had come into contact with the magical world.

When she got her letter to Hogwarts, she was thrilled that she would be escaping the Dursley's. But it turned out that Hogwarts may not have been any better. No more than a few weeks after Hogwarts began; she had gone to Dumbledore's office, which she found the location of from asking Hagrid, wanting a chat with the man that had helped her so much. What she didn't expect was to open the door a crack and see Dumbledore discussing with a nasty-looking man with a limp that Esmerelda's power had been successfully blocked and trusted him completely, that she would be the perfect weapon to defeat Voldemort when the time came.

Needless to say, she had been in a shock. She left immediately and went straight to her dormitory, lying in her bed until she had fully understood what had been said and finished crying. The only thing in her mind afterwards was that she had to leave soon, extremely soon. It had been hard, trying to pretend everything was normal after what she had heard, it was almost impossible to smile for her friends during dinner.

She had packed when her dorm mates had fallen asleep and snuck out of the tower. She didn't bother writing a note, it wasn't worth it. She couldn't say why she left or where she was going, so what was the point of wasting paper for a lost cause. If there was one thing she had learnt from the Dursley's, other than how to cook, was to make use of every-little-thing you had. Also, listen to everything you're told. If she didn't, she wouldn't have heard Hermione say that you could check your magical core for extra abilities by going into a deep meditation.

Present day, Esmerelda smirked. If it hadn't been for that piece of advice, she might never have escaped from Hogwarts. That night, when she had finished packing her meagre belongings, she had performed the meditation rite that Hermione had talked about. It had been an odd feeling. She had closed her eyes and was looking at blackness one minute and then was staring at a large, golden puddle that had multiple strands of colours in it.

She had been pleasantly surprised to find out that magic had its own embodied voice and it had been happy to answer Esmerelda's questions. The silver/green strand, she had found was her abilities with being a parseltongue, black had been a horcrux that Voldemort had accidently placed in her (something she felt sick about and needed a few moments to regain herself after being told), red had been her ability as a beast-speaker as well as several possible animagi that was attached to it, and the final had been a purple colour that indicated shadow magic. Shadow magic had meant that she literally controlled all darkness, able to use it to heal, attack and transport, and it had been the technique that got her away from Hogwarts. One thing she found disturbing was that there were large parts of her puddle of magic that were cut off from the rest by a white shield. When she questioned, the magic replied that it had been bound and blocked off by Dumbledore and there wasn't anything either of them could do about. It had hurt her, but she left it alone and returned to reality.

With knowledge of how to escape, she had picked up her trunk, hoisted it onto her shoulders, and snuck out the front doors of Hogwarts. It was a risk, trying to get outside the gates of Hogwarts before using her powers to take her elsewhere, but she was glad she had done so. On the way out, she had spotted Dumbledore and the nasty man again, but with an odd device. The old coot had to the other man that it was an invisibility cloak, which had belonged to her father. She had stood, filled with rage at them for handling something that obviously held memories of her father, memories she would kill to have, when they had been called into Hagrid's hut when the half-giant had spotted them. Attempting to keep with appearances, they had left the cloak and gone with him. In a burst of stupidity, she had rushed forward, stolen the cloak, and placed it into her trunk before sprinting to the gates.

She was lucky.

No sooner than she had reached the gates and allowed the darkness to swallow her and take her somewhere far away, then she had heard and outraged shout coming from the grounds of the school.

The darkness had deposited her at Wormwood Park, a large gathering place inside of White City. In a fit of pure-luck, she had run into a run-away wolf from the zoo inside the park. Using her beast-speaker ability, she had quickly calmed down the savage wolf, impressing the workers of the zoo. All were muggles, and none had known she had actually talked to the wolf, they thought she had used other methods of communication and calmed it down, something none of the handlers had been able to do. A couple of visits to other problem animals, all of which had turned out well for Esmerelda and the director was begging her to work there.

A quick assurance that they didn't care that she was only eleven and didn't have a birth certificate, as well as signing a couple forms (that she had checked quite thoroughly) that the director was to be her guardian until she was fifteen, at which she would be empicated, and they were discussing living arrangements, time schedules and pay. In his words, "We'd be fools to let you go". Esmerelda never regretted the decision.

Even now, more than six years after she had first arrived, she still worked at the zoo, and loved every second of it. She was free and happy. She worked with all the animals at the zoo, making many friends, including the wolf she had met on her first day; had enough pay to live comfortably in a small, but cosy, apartment not too far away; she had night shifts alone, allowing her full use of both her special abilities; and was even trusted to look after newborns at home since she had rescued and nursed a Belgium Shepherd puppy that had now grown into her best friend.

A sharp nudge to her leg jolted Esmerelda out of her thoughts of days long gone, and she looked down to see a bluish-gray she-wolf standing beside her with a controlled, but concerned, look.

"You were lost in your thoughts, young pup." The wolf, Zelkra, said. One of the perks of being a beast-speaker was the ability to allow animals to speak English. "Thoughts are a dangerous place to be lost."

"She's right." Now the Belgium shepherd, Dakria, joined the conversation. "Are you alright?" Esmerelda couldn't help but smile at her two closest friends.

"I'm fine. Just thinking of the past."

"Don't dwell on such things. It's better to forget things like that." Dakria said, shaking her head as if physically dispelling the thoughts of her friend's bad past. "Come on, we only have one more round for tonight." She then turned to the elder member of the canine family. "You will be joining us, won't you Zelkra?"

"I should be getting back to my pack..." She trailed off; trying to decide what was the best course of action. As much as she cared for the zoo as a whole, her pack came first. But that's always before Dakria pulls out the biggest weapon of persuasion in her arsenal. A perfect, sad puppy look.

"Please." The word was drawn out and said in a child-like voice. Zelkra only could stand a minute looking at them before she caved in.

"Alright." It was sighed, and quickly turned to yelps of protest as Dakria, laughing happily, shoved her down the pathway. Esmerelda couldn't help but laugh. Their antics never failed to amuse her. Jogging, she took after them and quickly caught up. She smiled down at her two friends before starting to recite the proper procedures, not that they usually followed them.

"Alright, first we have to check-"She was cut off by a large explosion-like sound, one that was too close for anyone to be comfortable.

"What was that?" Dakria couldn't help but cry.

"It came from near the main gate!" Zelkra shouted before taking off in the direction of the sound, ready to attack any threat to the home of so many creatures that she valued. Dakria soon followed and Esmerelda went as well. She just hoped that it wasn't going to ruin everything she had worked for.

It had started off as a normal raid.

Contrary to popular belief, Voldemort and his Death Eaters didn't attack muggleborns or wizards. Only Muggles. Reasoning behind it was muggles weren't accepting of anything unusual and wouldn't hesitate to attack wizards if they found out about them. Fresh blood from muggleborns, however, strengthened magic in the next generation, and so they were important to make sure that magic didn't die out. Any attacks on wizards had been coordinated by the meddling old coot and the wizarding world refused to take off its rose-coloured glass and see the abuse muggleborns went through and the true Albus Dumbledore.

And it pissed him off to no end.

The raid had been simple; apparate to White City, take out as many muggles as possible and disapparate when the aurors arrived. White City was an ideal location for a raid because it was far from London and the aurors would take a while to get there, longer than it would be if the raid was staged in London. But it had quickly gone horribly wrong.

Aurors had turned up far earlier than expected and proceeded taking out many of the present Death Eaters. Seeing they were grossly outnumbered, Voldemort had ordered the closest Death Eater to him to cast the Dark Mark. The Dark Mark, when used in the middle of a fight, signified for the Death Eaters to retreat. The order completed, Death Eaters disapparated away before aurors could arrest them. But even that had eventually been countered.

It had only been him, Lucius Malfoy and Fenrir Greyback when an auror had cast an anti-apparation ward. Nothing left, the three fled. Which led to his current predicament.

In London, they would have been able to navigate their way through the streets easily; here, they were completely lost and, as much as he hated to admit it, were in deep trouble. The only advantage they had was that the aurors also weren't familiar with the city. Greyback was easily ahead of them, his werewolf status giving him more speed, agility and stamina than the other two. A quick turn led them to a park; several of its trees were quickly cut down to make roadblocks to hinder the aurors.

"Up there!" He looked up at Fenrir's shout to see a large set of iron gates. The sign above them said zoo. Not thinking twice, they went through the gates, which Lucius then locked with a complex locking spell, which would take the aurors several minutes to undo. Unable to tell where they were, they kept running from the gate till they felt they were a reasonable distance from their pursuers. With luck, they'd decide that unlocking the gate would be a waste of time and leave.

"I think they're staying behind." Fenrir commented. "I can't smell them coming."

"That's something, at least." Lucius panted from over by a lamp pole, which he was leaning on whilst trying to regain his breath.

"Wha-"The unfamiliar voice caused all three heads to turn to its direction. The one responsible for the cry was a teenage girl, maybe just turned seventeen, with black hair and bright green eyes. Though the feature about her that caught Voldemort's attention, was the lightning bolt scar on her forehead.

"Potter!" The hate and loathing in his voice would be enough to make anyone flinch. The hatred for one of Dumbledore's major fighters overruled any surprise he had from seeing the girl in such a place. The one word he spoke had two very different effects on the other wizards. Lucius had tensed and was gripping his wand so tightly his knuckles had turned white. On the other hand, Fenrir had an almost insane grin on his face and was clenching and un-clenching the hand which held his wand. As for how he had a wand at all, let's just say that having Lucius so high up in the ministry had its uses. The girl had tensed upon his voice, though he could see fear and apprehension in her eyes, and he was certain that Fenrir had already smelt the emotions.

"So the light has hid their favourite little weapon here." He couldn't help the insane grin that graced his face as he raised his wand. "Pertificus Totalus!" However, the grin faded as the girl's hands became wrapped in a black light as a similar, but larger amount of black light formed a shield around her, causing the jinx to bounce off and tear up some of the pathway. So she has rare magic. Not a problem.

"You brat!" Lucius raise his wand as well, before firing his own spell. "Incendio!" But, once more, the black energy protected the girl as it wrapped itself around the spell like a hand and extinguished it. Fenrir seemed to have forgotten that he had a wand at all as he charged towards Potter in an attempt to use his werewolf strength to bring her down, but was also brushed off as a large wall of power slammed the werewolf into the ground. The only upside to this was that it was taking a large toll on the girl, she was shaking and paling quickly. Voldemort raised his wand so it was level with her head.

"Crucio!" The red jet of light was thrown towards her as she sent a black jet of light to counter it. For a moment, the two magic's pushed each other, trying to make the other give way, before the girl threw the black to the side, throwing both jets into the pavement and kicking up a large dust cloud.

"You're not doing to cope with this much longer." Fenrir taunted from where he had picked himself up off the pavement. His words where true, the girl was panting heavily and it was obvious the small amounts of magic had taken a lot out of her.

"You know what?" She panted out, glaring at the three of them. "I've decided I can't be stuffed to fight you." With that, she turned on her heel and walked back the direction she came, as three wizards' jaws unhinged as they stared after her.

So, what'd you think? Good? Bad? Outstanding? Troll? Tell me in a review.

NightWhisper.