Joint fic by FanFicFanatick and Varietygirl9143.
Disclaimer: This one counts for the entire fic! We don't own anything except Alex.
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In a silent house in Shipton Under Wychwood, a girl was tossing and turning in her bed. Her sleep had been punctuated by a dark dream. It was a familiar dream, but wasn't like most dreams. This dream was different because it had actually happened.
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"Mon dieu, non, ceci ne peut pas se produire !"Alexandra gasped, lapsing into her father's native French.
She rushed out of the carriage, breathing hard, seeing the Dark Mark over her house. She had just finished a summer trip from Spain and was coming home to her dearly missed parents. She heard her mother scream, and she rushed down the path, dropping her luggage to the ground. Running through her demolished home, she came to into a room that was partially ruined, the room previously being her sitting room. In it she saw a man in a cloak, holding a wand menacingly over a lifeless form on the floor.
The figure turned to her. Her mother was slumped against a wall, crying. Something in Alex's mind clicked into place, standing in front of her, she realized, was Voldemort. This--creature-- found pleasure in killing his victims and seeing the light of life dimming and dying in his victims' eyes. This dark wizard was making a personal call...to her home.
"There you are," he hissed, sending chills up her spine. His mere presence was terrifying. Part of the ceiling had caved in, giving the whole room a look of eeriness as the emerald light from the Dark Mark shone through.
"Don't touch her!" Her mother cried, and with a last spurt of energy, jumped in front of her as the man uttered a curse to kill the girl in front of him. Her mother fell to the ground, dead, her eyes still open. Having been shoved by her mother, she was resting by a pile of rubble and trash.
"Where's my father?" Alex asked, filled with dread, although in heart she already knew the answer.
"Dead. Just like your filthy, blood traitor mother."
"You killed them!" Alex shouted accusingly. Her eyes shifted and rested on a crumpled heap in the corner. A head covered with neat, shaggy light brown hair. The haircut her father had told her about in his letter.
"Such a smart girl," he whispered, sounding condescending, "your parents most have been so proud. Tell me, my dear, would you like to see them again? As you remember them?"
He raised his arm, his eyes raging with a look of craving for blood. He walked a semi-circle around her, each step bringing him closer to her.
"Give my regards to your parents." He said maliciously. "Avada Kedavra!"
A green light filled the room for the third time that night. Alex screamed and grabbed a garbage can lid from the heap of rubble next to her. She held the lid in front of her body, praying that somehow the Curse wouldn't reach her. The Curse hit the lid and ricocheted off, coming back to its Master. Luminous green light surged into his body, causing the Dark Lord to scream in pain; the force of the blow threw him against the far wall. He swayed, almost drunkenly, and then, as if in slow motion, Alex saw him fall heavily to the ground.
Alex leaned dizzily against what had been the sitting room wall. Besides sapping most of her strength, the Curse had also disintegrated the lid she had held. Her left hand was badly burned from the heat of the Curse, it now hung limp at her side.
She willed herself not to cry. She crawled one-handed over to her mother's body and clumsily tried to wipe away the blood that was smeared over her cheek.
Then in the broken remains of the sitting room, Alex began to sob inconsolably. She laid her head on her mother's shoulder, wishing that the impossible would happen, that her parents would wake and that this was all just a horrible nightmare.
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Alex cried out and woke up.
"It was a dream," she whispered to herself in the half-light of her bedroom.
"I'm alive and it was just a dream…. Oh, who am I kidding, it wasn't a dream, it was real," Alex muttered as she picked up the picture on her picture on her nightstand. It was her favorite picture, taken just a few months before Voldemort ruined her life.
She leaned back against her soft pillow, thinking and remembering. Her mind went back to the night her parents had been killed.
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The Dark Lord's body lay crumpled on the ground; the robes hung from the lifeless corpse, ballooning onto the floor. Suddenly there was movement. A skeletal figure rose from the ground, the robes falling smoothly off its now naked body. The figure seemed less than human, merely a Shadow.
With a gasp Alex, stared in horror at the wraith in front of her. Instinctively, her right hand trailed down to the pocket where her wand was hidden, unused.
The Shadow lowered its head to look at her. Its eyes were narrow slits, appearing hollow and soulless. It slowly raised its arm to point at her throat and stiffly began to stumble towards her. Alex abandoned her post beside her mother's body and rose quickly, carefully stepping around the two bodies lying on the ground. The Shadow followed her noiselessly.
Its eyes were now bloodshot and rimmed with a sickly yellow color. Alex staggered as she reached the outer wall of the sitting room, catching herself just in time. The wraith behind her was closing in; it had trapped her against the wall. All she could do was watch as its spectral hand closed around her throat. The Shadow didn't try to choke her, but it kept its contact with her bare skin.
Alex could feel her heartbeat against the pale hand. All the sudden, the room got extremely cold; the Shadow's hands were like ice. The Shadow started to gain color, going to a fleshy shade instead of translucent white. Alex felt her strength beginning to leave her; she weakly tried to pull the Specter's hand from her neck.
Her vision began to blur; each breath she took was painful. Her arms went limp and she couldn't keep her hold on the wraith.
She was going to die. She would see her parents again. They would be together; happy and together.
Her breathing slowed to a ragged gasp for air. Then, as if far away, she heard voices, and the opening of a door. The Shadow turned its head quickly, its eyes widening slightly. It let go of Alex's throat, causing her to fall unceremoniously to the floor. It took one more look at her, but, hearing the voices getting nearer, it silently turned on its heel and disappeared.
Alex raised her head a little, trying to see who had entered the broken house, but no one had entered the room yet. A flash of gold caught her eye; something was clutched tightly in her mother's hand.
Using the rest of her energy, she crawled the short distance and pulled the object out of her mother's grasp: it was their most recent family portrait. The glass covering the picture was cracked but the picture itself seemed all right.
The voices drew nearer; someone was coming into the room. Alex struggled to stay awake, but the Shadow had done too much damage. She saw the edge of a robe, and then she knew no more.
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Alex was awakened by the sound of low voices. Her eyelids felt heavy, but she forced them open. Three concerned faces stared down at her. One, a woman, sighed in relief and said,
"You're awake! We weren't sure if you'd make it; it's been a week." She pushed a strand of chocolate colored hair out of her face. "Do you feel up to some food?"
Alex nodded weakly.
The woman smiled and went off to fetch something for her to eat. The other two people in the room, two gentlemen, nodded at each other, as if they'd just finished an important conversation. The taller of the two dabbed his brow with a starched handkerchief, then left the room calling for someone to "clean this place up, for heaven's sake!"
She looked around, confused momentarily as to where she was.
"Alexandra, do you remember me?" The second gentleman asked slowly.
Alex examined his face carefully. Yes, he looked familiar. She searched her brain for a name. "Mr. … Weiss?" she said carefully. "Uncle John?"
"Good. Good job," he said, smiling slightly, running one hand through his graying hair.
Now she felt a little better; she knew she could trust John Weiss, he was her always around the house, he had insisted that, as a precocious four year old, she call him 'uncle'. Her parents had adored him—. Her parents.
The memory of what had taken place a mere seven days ago came flooding back to her.
"Uncle John! My parents: are they all right? They—You-know-who… terrible curse…." She broke off abruptly, tears pooling in her eyes. Her parents… they were dead.
"Alex," John said quietly, "hush. Try not to exert yourself; you're still not completely well."
"My parents…." Her voice cracked as she began to sob.
John sat down swiftly on the edge of her bed and pulled her into a hug. She buried her face in his robes, crying her eyes out. He squeezed her gently but the sympathetic gesture only seemed to hurt her more. She wept harder, her sobs interrupted with broken French, "Papa, papa ! pourquoi? pourquoi m'avez-vous laissé ici dans cet endroit tragique au cri pour vous ? pourquoi est-ce que je dois être seul ?"
John remembered, briefly, what Healer Thomas had said regarding his friends' daughter. I've done all I can for her body, but frankly, sir, it's her mind I'm worried about. The emotional damage that's been done to her these last few days is far greater than we initially thought. Not to mention the cut at her throat. We're not certain what it is… or even how she got it.
His eyes wandered over the cut on Alexandra's neck: it was a long, jagged looking thing, shaped like a thin crescent moon. The middle still seemed raw and bloody; Healer Thomas had told him that nothing had been able to cleanse it yet.
Alex sat up again, drying her eyes with the back of her hand. She pushed a strand of red-blonde hair behind her ear and sighed, trying to regain some sort of composure.
"Who will I be staying with?" she asked finally.
"We've made arrangements with your uncle," John said, but Alex interrupted him,
"My uncle? No. You don't mean—him?" she asked horrified.
"Yes, Alex, him. There was no other choice; he is, after all, your legal guardian. And there's no way around that branch of the law. I'm sorry."
Anyone but him, Alex thought desperately, there has to be another way. There must be somewhere else I can go!
John must have seen the fear in her green eyes for he gripped her shoulder suddenly and said bracingly, "you'll be all right. We've made arrangements for you to leave in the morning. I'm to come with you…" he trailed off as her face fell.
"So soon?" she asked quietly, attempting once more to dry her eyes.
He nodded, "I'm sorry, the Ambassador seems to think it's for the best."
Alex nodded miserably and laid back against her mountain of pillows, falling almost immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep.
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Alex remembered the horror she had felt when she first discovered whom her parents had named guardian. She had only met the man once before, but even then they hadn't been properly introduced. He had been in their fireplace, talking with her Mother about funeral arrangements for her Grandmother.
She recalled being absolutely terrified of the man. He was nothing like her Mother. While she had been warm and welcoming, he exuded coldness and the desire to remain distant from everyone. While she radiated elegance and regality, he emanated a sense of arrogance.
Their only similarity was a fierce sense of pride. The same intense sense of worth that was so very common among Purebloods. This pride was passed down from generation to generation; children were taught of this pride before they even knew how to walk. A man's heirs knew of their place in the magical world and were not in the least bit afraid to assert this knowledge.
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Alex and John walked slowly up to the door of her Uncle's house. The windows were completely dark but for a small candle illuminating the front room. As they reached the door, Alex shrank closer to John, frightened of what lay beyond the heavy oak door.
Even as John raised his hand to knock, the door swung open as though the man behind it had been expecting them.
"John." He said curtly, nodding his head in a frostily polite greeting.
"Severus," John replied, just a brusquely.
Severus' glance swept over the girl half-hidden behind John.
"What's she doing here?" he asked coldly, not taking his eyes from Alex for a moment.
John sighed in exasperation. "One would think, Severus, that you would be a bit kinder to your own niece; but perhaps I overestimated you, it wouldn't be the first time."
Severus sneered at the other man.
His niece…. This was only the second time he had seen her. He usually tried to ignore his sister and her family; they were too… different from him. He had been lucky that he was older by six years, it meant that he and Miranda had only to endure one year of each other at Hogwarts. And then she had married that Muggle-loving Frenchman, Jacques Peltier, and brought disgrace upon the entire Prince-Snape family.
"Miranda and Jacques are dead, Snape—I thought you'd heard," John looked at Severus sharply. "That's why we're here. Unless you've forgotten, because Merlin knows you've been busy enough, you were named guardian?"
Severus glared at the two in his doorway; no, he had not forgotten. Not that he hadn't tried to forget.
Oh no, he had not forgotten the day when he was announced guardian of his little blood traitor niece. He had promptly refused. But his Mother, may she rest in peace, he added as an afterthought) she had been the one to insist upon naming him guardian. He and Miranda had finally agreed on something: neither one wanted Severus to be Alexandra's warden. But their Mother had persisted until the point where arguing became useless.
I'm only doing this to please Mother, he reminded himself. She was the one who made Miranda name me as guardian--and forced me to accept. And what an ironic turn of events, I've officially become the guardian. Even from the grave she controls me.
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(Rough) translation of French phrases:
Mon dieu, non, ceci ne peut pas se produire My god, no, this can't be happening.
Papa, papa ! pourquoi? pourquoi m'avez-vous laissé ici dans cet endroit tragique au cri pour vous ? pourquoi est-ce que je dois être seul My father, my father ! Why ? Why have you abandoned me to a life of misery.