"Ennervate" someone pronounced, jabbing a wand into Amaryllis' ribs. She came awake with a snort and the beginnings of a vicious headache. The first thing she saw, sitting up with a jerk, was the pointy nose and irrefutably creepy gaze of Matthias Swallowtail, otherwise known as her boss.
"Homigawd," squeaked Amaryllis, slapping both hands down on her desk, as if by touching as much of the mess of paperwork as possible, she could find what she had last been working on.
"Appropriate sentiment, my dear," remarked Swallowtail in his gratingly nasal voice, adjusting his spectacles with one hand, letting his wand hand rest behind his back primly. "Although I doubt at this point that even God could ensure your continued employment."
"I am not fired," Amaryllis stated, glaring a little at the fussy, waistcoated man she had to defer to daily. "We're too understaffed at the moment to be letting go anybody." Swallowtail wilted slightly; Amaryllis smirked a little in triumph. She had made herself indispensable from the very first day on the job, and both of them knew it.
"Nonetheless, it is very unseemly to fall asleep on the job," sniffed Swallowtail. He paused, and Amaryllis stared at him to continue. "At any rate, my reason for –ahem—disturbing you, was to inform you that a new shipment has just arrived from Iceland, very valuable texts. You'll need to catalogue them before you leave tonight, and lock up."
"Oh," groaned Amaryllis. "Terrific. I don't suppose there'll be anybody here to help me?" she queried. Swallowtail smiled at her maliciously.
"Why, my dear Miss Main, you are the help," he smirked, and oozed out the tiny office door. When she was sure he was gone, she let her head slip down onto the table with a thunk.
"If it wasn't illegal, I'd have already killed him," she said aloud to the room, voice slightly muffled.
After a few minutes, she raised her head again to shuffle through her deskwork. It was all an impossible mess, she had made sure of that by careful orchestration. If she were fired, it would be virtually impossible to sort out anything she had touched.
Amaryllis Main held a position of dubious prestige. She was the only subordinate in the only Wizarding library in Britain, outside of Hogwarts, of course. It was a silly sort of pride, almost, to be able to meet old school friends in a pub, and, after listening to all their gushing about Ministry appointments and offers overseas and setting up shop in Diagon, and then up with, 'Oh, I'm a librarian.' Most of them had Madame Pince very firmly rooted into their memories, and went a little crosseyed before they could reconcile the picture of Amaryllis the Wallflower and the batty, militant concept they had of the Hogwarts librarian.
Well, sod them, Amaryllis thought. She'd arranged to spend a couple of free periods in her sixth and seventh years in the library as an assistant, for credit. It had been quite fascinating, and very educational, and Madame Pince wasn't that bad of a lady, if you got past the fact that she was absolutely mental.
In her fifth year at school, of course, she'd had to consult with her head of house, in her case Professor Snape, to help her choose courses suited to her career path. Snape had done his best to keep a blank face when she'd sprung it on him that she wanted to be a librarian, but his lackluster retort indicated how thrown he'd been. Overall, she'd been one of his better-liked students, mainly because she made good, logical sense, which most of the school and indeed the Wizarding world at large didn't.
At any rate, it had come out that there was very little opportunity for employment in the field of Wizard Librarianship, as there was only one library outside of Hogwarts. Amaryllis was intent, however, and Snape himself had taken her down to Knockturn, where, unfortunately, the library was located. By absolutely confounding the directors—a student, who wants to be a librarian, who's passionate about it? Unheard of! --Amaryllis managed to secure a position there two full years ahead of when she would be ready to start working there.
Now that she was here, however, at the library, every single day, she had gone a little sideways in the head. No longer was it hard to understand why Madam Pince was daft.
Looking down, a stray sheet of parchment caught Amaryllis' attention. It was an official notice from the board of directors, informing her that Inventory would start in two weeks.
"Oh, gods, why?" she groaned, and allowed herself a minute more of self-pity before standing up and stumbling down the rickety staircase, to find the box of valuable Icelandic texts and catalogue them, so she could go home for the night.
Amaryllis Main was paranoid.
She hadn't always been, but had taken it up as a hobby last Christmastime, when the flat downstairs had been broken into, and cleaned out of anything of value. Although she owned nothing more valuable than her computer, she valued that dearly, and would be completely unable to pay for another if it were stolen. So she took precautions.
Of course, with Muggles living both above and below her floor in the apartment complex, she couldn't use any of the more efficient anti-burglar alarms favored by the wizarding community. True, the landlady was a witch, but Amaryllis doubted she wanted any of the Muggle lodgers to know that. So Amaryllis had learned non-magical tricks to keep her flat safe.
Stumbling up to her front door, five minutes till three, Amaryllis' first desire was to unlock the door and tumble through, possibly to fall asleep on the floor. Paranoia kept her back, and she bent over, peering at the gap between wall and door, just under the knob. There, every morning, she used saliva to paste a single strand of her own hair across the gap. If anyone entered or exited her flat during the day, the hair would fall, and she would know.
Peering closer, her breath caught in her throat. The single strand of ginger-brown hair lay on the floor under the doorknob. Someone had been in her flat—possibly were still there.
Not breathing now, Amaryllis leaned forward, peering through the large antique keyhole. The lights were not on in her flat, but someone had lit the fireplace, and dragged her chair forward to face it. Her eyes narrowed. Someone was sitting in the chair. Someone… bald.
"You are absolutely certain this flat is currently occupied," a voice, from the man in the chair, reached her ears, only barely dulled by the door. A shiver traveled down her spine. That was a voice marinated in power.
"So our spies maintain, my lord," someone replied from the shadows. With a jolt, Amaryllis recognized the voice. Professor Snape.
"I am growing impatient," the man in the chair growled low, drumming long, thin fingers on the arm of the chair.
A wave of fear washed over Amaryllis. She wasn't stupid. She read the paper, had read all about the Triwizard Tournament and death at Hogwarts this past June. She harbored her own quiet theories. Something moved in the wishy-washy firelight, and the slow, smooth bulk of a humongous snake dripped into view.
Her scalp prickled as her fears were visibly confirmed. The sensation died down, however, and was replaced by a surge of indignant anger. Where was her cat? If that snake had eaten Mercutio…
"She will come, and when she does, we will be ready," Snape drawled, easing into the very edge of the firelight.
No, you won't, thought Amaryllis grimly, and brought her wand up to bear through the keyhole.
"Exstinguo," she whispered, and the fire went dark.
In the next split second, Amaryllis had Apparated into her flat, appearing behind the armchair. By the time Snape cast Lumos, she had the point of her wand dug into the side of the Dark Lord's bald head.
"Kindly don't move," Amaryllis requested of Snape, almost gently, as his startled face registered comprehension. The snake began to rear, preparing for a strike. Amaryllis shot a look at it, jabbing her wand tip even harder into the Dark Lord's temples. "You either, dust-eater."
All four figures were still, caught in a standoff. The Dark Lord was the first to speak.
"Snape… I thought you assured me that the witch who occupied this flat was of mediocre talent," he murmured. Snape's face took on a sour expression.
"That was my perception of her during her education at Hogwarts," replied the Potions Professor. Amaryllis found herself grinning, perversely.
"Then why, if she is so inept, are you hesitating to kill her where she stands?" the Dark Lord's voice had an edge to it now. Snape seemed unable to answer, so Amaryllis did.
"I'm a Slytherin, sir," she drawled. "I don't mind finding supposedly-dead Dark Lords and supposedly-reformed Death Eaters in my flat, but I do wish you'd call ahead."
"Amaryllis Main," Voldemort replied, his voice as sharp as a knife's edge. "Remove your wand from my head."
"So you can kill me? Right," snapped Amaryllis. "I'm not capable of a killing curse, but if you don't tell me where my cat is in the next few minutes, so help me I might just find other ways to turn your head into a canoe."
"The wretched beast is fine," spat Snape. "It ran out the door when we came in."
"Tsk, Severus, you shouldn't have told her," purred the Dark Lord. "I wanted to see what she would have done."
"Don't distract me," Amaryllis countered edgily. "Why are you even in my flat, anyway?"
"I intended to commandeer it for my own personal use," Voldemort drawled.
"Did you intend to ask my permission?" queried Amaryllis acidly. There was a snort from the Potions Professor. "Right. Off me, and then what? Explain to the landlady? She's a witch, you know, and more paranoid than I am."
"I intended to confund her, if you must know," mused the Dark Lord. "It's not that difficult of a task, for a reasonably accomplished wizard."
"Words, words, words," sang Amaryllis. "And what would you do to the neighbors? Confund them? Send the Library notice for me? You want to lay low here, I'm correct in assuming? A disappearance is not low-profile, not these days."
"All these things were considered, and you were still determined to be disposable," hummed Voldemort. There was a beat of silence. "So. You have nothing to bargain with. I guarantee you will not be able to kill me. How does it feel?"
"Look, if you'd just asked," sighed Amaryllis wearily, her demeanor changing to one of sheer tiredness, as the adrenaline left her and was usurped by the fact that it was three in the morning. "I'm just saying. You don't have to kill me for my flat. I've got a spare room."
"What? Just like that?" Snape sneered, a little incredulously. "No moral struggle, no bargaining, not even more questions?"
"I'm second-rate, Professor, not stupid," she growled. "Now. Mr. Dark Lord. If I were to remove my wand from your temple, would I be able to trust you, your snake, and your lackey to not pounce on me and hex me into oblivion?"
"You would be unwise to trust us," began Voldemort. "But you may, if you choose."
Amaryllis blinked, thinking. Fleetingly, she wondered if the dark side had a decent health care plan. Then, slowly, she eased up on her wand, removing it from the side of Voldemort's head, leaving an almost blue depression on his otherwise deathly white skin.
The Dark Lord swept to his feet, turning to face her in a swirl of black robes. Amaryllis' breath caught in her throat. He had to be nearly two feet taller than her, and those eyes, crimson against his skin as blood on the moon…
"Crucio," he said almost idly, directing his wand at her. Amaryllis made a small noise and crumpled up in a ball on the floor, but the pain was everywhere, there was no position she could contort herself into that would make it even lessen. It felt as though her brain had started eating itself, and the rest of her body was following suit. Finally, after what seemed like a year and a half, the eye-clawing, nerve-twisting pain ceased.
Amaryllis curled herself up even smaller, breathing shakily, eyes tightly shut. Something brushed her shoulder and she jumped. The Dark Lord's breath in her ear, cold as a tomb.
"Never threaten my life again," he said in a low, soft whisper. There was no 'or else' attached, but then, there didn't need to be. Amaryllis only cringed away, trying to make herself even smaller. She felt the creak of the floorboards as he straightened and walked back to the armchair. It would probably be unwise to fall asleep, here, like this, with the very continuance of her existence still in question, but she felt bleached-out, like desert bones. Exhaustion knocked her out without asking.
Oh, right, disclaimer. Don't own it, never have, never will, won't pretend to, am not making any money. Will put them back when I'm done.
Geh.
First HP fanfic I've ever felt mildly amicable towards, so I'm posting it. I always have a terrible fear that I'm not characterizing canon characters right, so I'm doubly nervous about posting fanfic… not only will the reviewers roast me for getting it wrong, but the characters will dig up where I live… since I'm expecting it, feel free to flame, but a nice constructive crit would be… delicious. I'm good at original stories, but my fanfic is… well, it's fanfic.
Oh, the story? Mmmh. It's a plotbunny that bit me in the ass somewhere in between reading no. 5 and waiting for no.6. Just what exactly were all those death eaters and Azkaban escapees doing, in between the end of no. 4 and the end of no. 5? Well, obviously lying low, exclusively to piss Harry etc off, and plotting. But where? Anyway, this was supposed to be funny, but it's not turning out so much, because it's incredibly difficult to keep the canon characters true to form and keep Amaryllis alive at the same time. I've never had so much trouble keeping a character alive past the first chapter, I swear.