I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters, nor am i making and profit from this fanfiction.
A/N: This is my first fanfiction, but I've been reading SS/HG for years. I would really appreciate reviews, to let me know if I should stick to reading or carry on with this fiction. I've a small idea of where this story is going but the plot is still forming itself in my head, seems like it will be a lengthy one. Now for the warnings; please note this fic will contain violence as well as some strong language and sexual content, it's rated M for later chapters. There will also be dub-con, so if you don't like the idea, don't read any further. And again...Please Review
Cause and Effect
Why she had chosen to hide Borgin and Burkes of all places she would never know. It really was the only place she knew in Knockturn Alley. Better the devil you know... and all that she thought. The front door was easily enough opened with an Alohomora, surprising for a place like this, but she really had no time to think about that right now. She ducked under the counter as quickly as she could, but soon enough she heard the heavy footfalls of her pursuer getting closer.
A silky voice came from somewhere in the vicinity of doorway, he was blocking the only exit she knew of; "If you would just talk to me, I could explain. Come on Sabina, you know you can't stay away from me forever."
The statement had her rankled and she immediately responded; cursing her too-quick temper as it forced her to reveal her hiding place. "I can't stay away? I could easily stay away from you, and I will. You really expect to get me back after what you did?"
She slowly rose from behind the counter and faced the man she had no business being involved with, but had fallen for his charm nonetheless. His shoulder length white blond hair was dishevelled from their chase, his fitted robes showed off his broad shoulders and well-built chest (deeply exaggerated by his rapid breathing slowly settling to a normal rate) and his steel grey eyes pierced as his gaze fell on her. A gaze that had previously made her weak in the knees and was probably the cause of her current predicament, she thought. She seemed to see nothing else but his eyes when he looked at her like that, not even what should have been blatantly obvious to someone as intelligent as herself.
But now she knew the truth. And she purposefully kept her eyes on the emerald green and silver serpent clasp of his robes instead and added in a regretful whisper; "I trusted you Draco. Even after so many had warned me against you, I trusted that you wouldn't repeat your father's mistakes. I risked everything for you. When my father finds out what I've done and for whom, I don't know if he'll ever forgive me."
Tears sprang to her eyes as she looked at Draco Malfoy almost imploringly, "How will he even bear to look at me after I very nearly ruined everything he's worked his whole life to achieve? I thought I would be helping people, I thought you wanted to help our kind. But you don't, you want to bring back the old mindset, you want to bring back the horrors of the past!"
Draco took a step forward and opened his mouth to respond. "Don't you come one step closer you bastard! Or I'll hex you!" She cried aiming her wand at his chest.
Draco stayed where he was, he had to placate her, she was their only hope, and she was too special not to have on their side. "This has nothing to do with the old ways Sabina, this is the way forward, can't you see. We will be helping our kind, this is the only way the wizarding world will be safe. My father..."
But he could get no further for sparks suddenly shoot from Sabina's wand as she screamed; "Your father is a conniving, demented megalomaniac who should've died with the Dark Lord those many years ago!"
"You know nothing of my father!" Draco finally raised his wand in response to hers. "Lucuis Malfoy is a great man; he will be the saviour of our world. The entire wizarding world will bow before him in thanks!"
Sabina watched as a sudden crazed look came across Draco's face. "Bow? Bow? Is that what he wants? And you say he has no aspirations to follow in Voldermort's footsteps?"
Draco's face twisted in rage; "My father is nothing like that monstrosity and unlike him, my farther will succeed."
Draco slipped so quickly back into the cool and calm persona Sabina had always admired, it was almost shocking. "Now come my pet, stop this foolishness and let me take you back to the manor. We can talk about this like civilised people and once you've seen reason, we can have the house-elves bring up strawberries and the truffles you like so much. You've had a long day, let me help you relax. You know I know exactly what you need"
He was moving closer as he spoke and there was that gaze again, Sabina noted, accompanied by a lascivious smile that spread across his full lips. She was smart enough to know he'd been at this game much longer than she had and though he was almost twenty years her senior and she was younger and faster, he would probably best her in an out-and-out duel. So she took the chance she saw, she didn't even bother to reply as she cast a first spell in his direction.
Draco being the seasoned duellist he was, quickly dove to the side, but luckily for her, ended up hitting his shoulder heavily against the corner of a display case, dropping his wand in the process. Taking advantage of his momentary distraction Sabina ran further into the shadows of the store, thinking of a way to escape.
What little moonlight was streaming in through the few high window in the store helped her as she ran through the narrow aisles, knocking artefacts off their shelves as she twisted and flung her wand around every so often to ensure he was not yet behind her. She came to the end of the aisle finding a thick curtain hanging in the centre of the wall directly opposite, probably hiding a storeroom, she thought. Draco had finally retrieved his wand and she could now hear him prowling the store looking for her.
She tried to calm her breathing and racked her brain on what to do next, when she saw a flash of blond in the next aisle through a gap in the shelves. She had no choice. As quietly as she could she moved towards the curtain, brushed it aside and slipped into the unknown behind it.
It was some sort of storeroom she noted, and perhaps there was a back exit somewhere in here. It was rather cramped and she had to watch her step for there were many boxes and other artefacts littering the floor.
She moved deeper inside, moving behind a pile of boxes and crouching low, squinting her eyes in the dark to try and find some door she could escape through.
A sudden change in light told he Draco had lifted the curtain discovered the storeroom too. She cursed under her breath and sunk further into the dark, not even daring to breath for fear of being found. Her backside hit the wall and she crouched down on her haunches as he began to address her.
His tone was now strained, barely hiding his irritation. "This has gone far enough Sabina; I refuse to keep playing this childish game of hide and seek. Either you come out now or I blast everything in this room until I find you, even if it has to be crushed under a pile of debris" The last part was spoken in a cold, deadly serious tone.
She was trapped, and for the first time that night she felt actually scarred of what he'd do to her. Panicking she looked around desperately hoping against hope something could save her. Why hadn't I just stayed in my cosy bed at Hogwarts instead of sneaking out again? Damn the women in our family and their obsession with older men! She thought, and she would have laughed at that last statement if she hadn't been so close to tears.
She thought she saw a slight movement in the corner of her eye and had to wipe the unshed tears away in order to see properly. On her left was a medium sized cabinet with its door facing her. If she were standing it would probably take her up to her hip. On the door were ornate carvings of intricate patterns in the wood and set in the middle, made of a different darker wood was a snake with deep prominent scales and black opal stones for eyes. The eyes where blinking at her, they looked somehow alive.
She knew if she kept crouched this way she could probably fit into the cabinet. And even though it would do little to save her, it was her only option at the moment, she could see no other.
"Sabina!" Draco snarled; he was getting angrier by the second. "You are trying my patience girl. Use that renowned brain of yours, you have nowhere to go. Come out here or I will count down from ten before I start blasting!"
As he spoke, Sabina noticed his voice getting slightly softer, he was moving in the wrong direction, away from her.
"Ten!" he started.
It was now or never. She gripped the silver serpent style handled and pulled...but the door wouldn't budge.
"Nine!"
She tried again, but nothing happened.
"Eight!"
She tried a wordless Alohomora,
"Seven!"
Still nothing happened.
"Six!"
She tried all the other unlocking spells she knew in quick succession.
"Five!"
Still the stubborn door would not open.
"Four!"
The tears where now running freely and unchecked down her cheeks. Those black opal eyes seemed to be mocking her efforts.
"Three!"
No, not mocking...communicating? Could it be?
"TWO!"
She knew she was grasping at straws really, oh well...if it didn't work at least she'd know she tried everything. And I mean everything, she though, her eyes locking with the shiny black ones in front of her as she let out a soft desperate hiss at the same time as Draco shouted;
"ONE!"
The events that followed seem to happen all at once in her mind. She heard the cabinet unlocking and door swung open just as Draco made a sharp turn in her direction and ran towards her. She clambered into the cabinet and had just enough time to see his face, which she had lovingly caressed so often, now red and twisted with rage as the door swung shut in front of her.
She was dizzy with adrenaline and saw flashes of light through the gaps between the wood. The lights were a brilliant kaleidoscope of colours and she briefly wondered just what spells Draco was using. She hoped with all her might that Draco's curses wouldn't penetrate her seemingly fragile wooden shield. The flashes continued for almost a minute before they stopped. She was shaking and pressed her trembling hands to her face.
She really couldn't remember how long she had stayed in that position in the cabinet. Rocking back and forth, anticipating that any second now the door would be pulled open and she'd be yanked unceremoniously out of her hiding place by her angry ex-lover. And as the time moved on and the adrenaline wore off, she slowly slipped into sleep due to exhaustion.
When Sabina woke up she could hardly breathe. The cabinet was so small and she was never a fan of feeling in anyway confined.
She listened closely for any sound or movement outside, but could hear none. She knew there was a good chance Draco was still out there, but if she didn't get out of the cabinet soon she felt like she'd lose consciousness. So it was either die of suffocation or risk being captured. Maybe if she was captured she's have another chance to escape at some point.
She slowly placed both her palms on the oddly warm wooden door and pushed. As she'd expected it didn't open.
She lifted her wand, ready to cast if the need arose. She focussed her mind, picturing once again the blinking shiny black eyes of the snake on the other side of the door and let out the same low hiss as before. "Open" she said in Parseltongue, an ability that utterly confused and perplexed (and scared, she thought grudgingly) everyone she knew.
Like before the lock clicked and the door swung open and she was forced to shield her eyes from the sudden light streaming in from outside. Have I been asleep that long? Can it really be morning already? She quickly stretched out her wand arm trying desperately to get her eyes use to the light so that she could protect herself if he was waiting for her. When she could finally see and nothing had yet tried to grab her or attack her, she slowly began to crawl out of the cabinet.
She stood up quickly, turning a full 360 degrees to make sure she was safe. Maybe he went to get help or something. She knew she had to get out of there fast. She moved towards the thick curtain and slowly pulled it back.
Her wand was already raised half way, when she realised the man standing with his back facing her was definitely not Draco Malfoy. The top of his head was bold and he was hunched over from old age, his robes hung loosely from his thin frame and it was made from a tatty, ugly brown fabric no Malfoy would be seen dead in. He was standing at the counter, the quill he was writing with slightly shaking as his hand moved across the parchment.
She moved fully out from behind the curtain now, her wand still at the ready, just in case.
She tried to slip into the aisle in front of her without him noticing, but he was surprisingly quick and alert for his age. "Hey, you there! What where you doing in my storeroom? Who are you?" He asked in a gravelly voice.
His wand was aimed directly at her chest, she had to think quickly. "Um...I work for from your supplier; they had me deliver some goods for you. You weren't here when I came in so I just dropped them in your storeroom." She knew it was a lame excuse even before the words left her mouth.
"Don't try your luck with me girlie! I've been standing at this counter all morning. Now you better spill it before I hex you for trespassing." He narrowed his eyes at her. Good god, she thought, from one hopeless situation to another! "I...I...um..."
Just then the front door opened and the old man turned his attention towards the new comer. Sabina ran as fast as she could down the aisle towards the door. The old man shouted and started throwing hexes at her back, which luckily hit his merchandise instead.
The man, who provided Sabina with such a timely distraction, was in such shock at the sudden happenings inside the store that he stood frozen to the spot, conveniently still holding the door open. She dodged a near missing hex and flew out of the store, down Knockturn Alley and into Diagon Alley, which was surprisingly full for this time of the morning.
She ran into the crowd of people hoping to lose the old man. She had run so fast and so blindly that she had no idea if he was still following her or not. After a full five minutes of shoving her way down the street and looking over her shoulder, she finally settled and tried to calm herself. Once she got to a quieter less populated area she breathed one last long breath of relief and apparated to Hogsmeade.
The moment she landed in High Street she got the uneasy feeling that something was wrong. There were too many Hogwarts students walking around. It was Thursday morning; they were all supposed to be getting ready for classes. She couldn't understand it, it seemed like it was a typical Hogsmeade weekend, the way the students were behaving but how could that be. Unless she had somehow managed to sleep two full days in that cabinet at Borgin and Burkes and that really was not possible.
She looked around for someone she recognised, but saw none. She started down the High Street hoping she'd come across someone who could help her. She was just about to stop a short, chubby little boy she didn't recognise, must be a third year, when she heard a voice that stopped her in her tracks...
"Hey Harry, let's go to Zonko's, Hermione's at the Quill shop again buying more parchment. From the amount of notes she takes, no wonder she's always buying more! She'll probably be a while"
Sabina slowly turned her head in the direction of the voice, a voice she would know anywhere, Ron's voice. And once she'd located him, easily enough given his unmistakable red head raised above everyone else's, she saw another face that made the colour drain from her cheeks. A face she had never seen before, except in photos. The face of Harry Potter. Something is definitely wrong!
