A/N: Hello, everyone! Welcome to what I hope will become a very enjoyable and long-running story. This is my first proper delve into fanfiction—though I have posted before on FictionPress with an original story—so I hope I'll be doing my favourite fandom some justice. As of now, I have quite a few chapters typed out in advance, and so I'm a little bit ahead of myself (though I doubt it'll stay that way for long).
Now, just as a little bit of background information, the story in this fic will take place during the Deathly Hallows era (at the beginning, anyway) and then slowly but surely turn into a lovely bunch of AU-ness... I'm pretty sure everything else is explained in the story...so enjoy! And please, please review? I love feedback, constructive or otherwise. :)
Music: "Strange Times" by The Black Keys.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; I do, however, own all original characters and storyline.
CHAPTER ONE:
A Duel With a Death Eater
***
Monday, April 26th 1998
4:15 P.M.
Smack!
The moment she hit the hard ground, Audrey Lovecraft could taste the bitter tang of salty blood in her mouth. Though her head swam and a sickly feeling had taken root inside her stomach from being backhanded in the jaw, the seventeen-year-old Ravenclaw student managed to peel her eyes from the stone floor and look up into the mirthful eyes of Amycus Carrow, their new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor.
"And fifty points from Ravenclaw, I think, should suffice your punishment," he sneered jovially. "Back talk me again, Lovecraft, and I'll be using the Cruciatus Curse to make my point clear." He then turned back toward the dozen wide eyes in front of him and yelled, "Class dismissed!"
With a sudden, loud scrape of chairs and several horrified whispers, the class began to hurriedly make their way from the classroom behind a delighted Amycus.
Audrey groaned and rolled awkwardly onto her back, readying herself for the feat of trying to stand, but suddenly two strong hands grabbed her from under her arms and heaved her to her feet. "What were you thinking?" a horrified yet familiar male voice whispered urgently. "Do you have a bloody death wish, Audrey?" The voice grabbed one of her arms and slung it over his shoulder whilst someone else did the same on her other side.
Shaking off another round of nausea and a painful dizzy spell, she looked up and to her right and found herself being lead from the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom by Dean Thomas, with Seamus Finnigan on the other side of her, looking ashen and alarmed.
"Maybe a little," she said hoarsely, smiling, but winced immediately as a sharp tremor of pain shot through her abused jaw. "We're off to the Room of Requirement, I assume?"
Dean nodded, casting her a furtive glance as both he and Seamus heaved her up the stairs to the seventh floor. "We'll clean up the blood and get some ice for your jaw."
Audrey nodded limply as another wave of swirling sickness passed through her stomach. She was very close to seeing stars. "Sounds good," she murmured through the haze.
Moments later, it seemed—though the probability that she had passed out was strong—Ginny Weasley's loud voice assaulted her senses as she was laid down onto a makeshift bed in the Room of Requirement. She closed her eyes and tried to block out the noise as someone began cleaning her face off with a wet towel, but Ginny's voice was soon hard to ignore.
"What in Merlin's name happened to you?" she cried, tentatively setting herself down on the bed beside Audrey and grabbing her hand.
Audrey opened her eyes again to narrow her gaze in on the redhead, and out of the corner of her eye she saw that Michael Corner, a fellow Ravenclaw seventh-year, was mopping up her blood. She made a mental note to thank him later.
It was Dean who spoke up in her place. "Amycus was in the middle of explaining how we were to be using the Cruciatus Curse on each other next week for practice, and Audrey being Audrey decided to open her big bloody mouth and tell him otherwise." He sounded incensed, though Audrey couldn't even summon up enough strength to turn her head and see if he really was angry.
Ginny looked horrified. "Are you mental?" she cried indignantly.
Audrey shrugged half-heartedly. "Probably." Then, with a bout of energy that took it out of her completely, she turned to Dean. "Don't worry, though, I probably won't be able to use my big bloody mouth for a while after this," she added sarcastically.
He looked to be fighting a grin. "Good," he said flatly. "Then Amycus won't have the incentive to sock you one again."
Again, Audrey shrugged with barely the slightest movement of her shoulders. "I was surprised he did it Muggle-Style; I thought he hated them."
Suddenly, though there were only five people in the Room, there was a flurry of activity by the door, and, before Audrey could think about the repercussions of such an action, she whipped her head round to see—and instantly regretted it. A ripple of intense agony shot through her whole throat, neck and jaw, eventually settling in her head and making her dizzy again.
Hannah Abbott, a pink-faced Hufflepuff girl, came flying into the Room with wide eyes and a piece of weathered parchment clung tightly in her hand. "Look at this!" she called to them, but stopped dead when she saw Audrey lying limply on the bed and covered in blood. "Whoa. Good Merlin, Audrey, what happened?"
Dean cut in right away. "Later," he said. "What's that?" He indicated to the piece of parchment she was holding.
As if just remembering why she had come in the first place, Hannah looked startled before uncurling the parchment and reading it aloud for everyone. "This coming Saturday evening, under the instruction of Amycus and Alecto Carrow, Professors of Defence Against the Dark Arts and Muggle Studies respectively, a Duelling Club will be taking place and made mandatory for all sixth and seventh year students, to be attended every week from hereon out... Special classes; outstanding duellists; blah, blah, blah." Her eyes went lower on the parchment. "Oh! Here! Should a student not attend for unacceptable reason, he or she will be punished accordingly." She looked up and let out a shaky breath. "I bumped into Anthony Goldstein on the way here—he was heading to Slughorn's for a detention—but he saw it, too, so apparently it was posted on all the Common Room notice boards."
Ginny looked aghast at the news. "Mandatory? Why are they making a Duelling Club mandatory?"
Michael had suddenly ceased cleaning Audrey's blood from her pale face; she had sat up with such speed her head didn't feel right on her shoulders. "Training," she said weakly, her voice barely a whisper, but all eyes whipped round to settle on her. "It'll be a Dark Arts Duelling Club... They're training us to be Death Eaters."
Hannah looked horrified by the revelation, covering her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide in alarm.
Dean paled considerably before taking the piece of parchment from the nervous Hufflepuff and reading with his own eyes, his expression looking less and less hopeful with every line he covered. He then handed it over to Audrey—her hand outstretched for a long time in want, indicating she would like a read for herself—who read over each line meticulously as well.
***
DUELLING CLUB
(8 P.M. to midnight)
This coming Saturday evening, under the instruction of Amycus and Alecto Carrow, Professors of Defence Against the Dark Arts and Muggle Studies respectively, a Duelling Club will be taking place and made mandatory for all sixth and seventh year students, to be attended every week from hereon out. Theses special classes, hosted by two Professors well acquainted with duelling and outstanding duellists themselves, will be a special treat for all the senior students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
As aforementioned above, attendance in mandatory. Should a student not attend for unacceptable reason, he or she will be punished accordingly.
-Amycus Carrow
Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor and Deputy Headmaster
***
"I guess we have to go," said Dean hopelessly.
Audrey eye's bugged. Was...was he kidding? "And you were all calling me mental?" she hollered angrily. He looked her over, bewildered. "We're not attending a training course to be bloody Death Eaters!"
Seamus took a seat on one of the many brightly coloured couches in the Room, looking considerably bleak. "But you read it, Audrey, they'll 'punish us accordingly' if we don't go."
"So let them punish us," she growled, snatching up a bag of ice and holding it to the left side of her jaw.
Dean stood up from the couch and looked her dead in the eye, incensed once again. His usually handsome face was contorted with a prickly anger. "Look, Audrey, this isn't just as simply as not going; we can't let people be hurt over this!"
"He's right," said Seamus, standing up as well. "They'll curse us all as punishment, no matter how many refuse to attend. In fact, I reckon they'll enjoy punishing us."
Audrey could feel the angry heat rising from her throat to her face, possibly coming off as a blush. "No, no! I refuse—refuse!—to attend a Duelling Club run by Death Eaters—!"
"Wait a second," Ginny cut in, a strange expression on her pretty face. She looked half pleased yet half undecided. "Dean and Seamus are right... Maybe we should go..."
Audrey gawked at her friend, trying to bite back all the nasty cuss words that she wanted to throw out. "Ginny, please, please tell me you're joking."
The Gryffindor shook her head, now smiling toothily. "No, listen to me, Audrey, this is perfect!" Many faced around the room were wholly bewildered by the redhead's smile. Surely now was not a time for happiness. "This is an opportunity we can't pass up, think about it! Do you not realise what they'll be teaching at the Duelling Club?"
"Dark magic," mumbled Audrey unhappily.
"Correct!" said Ginny, now grinning from ear to ear. "The Carrows'll be teaching us everything they know, maybe even magic that You-Know-Who uses! We can all learn their magic and tricks and then come up with strategies to defend against them back in the D.A."
Dean looked astonished yet at the same time profusely pleased. "Bloody hell, Ginny, that's pretty brilliant."
She flicked her mane of long red hair behind her, accomplished. "Well, I am known to have a stroke of brilliance every once in a while."
Audrey removed the ice from her jaw, feeling better all of a sudden now that the Duelling Club could be used to the D.A.'s advantage. "Alright," she said, nodding in agreement. "We'll play along with the Carrows at Duelling Club, and once we feel like we know enough, we'll strike back." Audrey smiled blackly all of a sudden, ignoring the stinging pain in her face all the while, and twirled her Rosewood wand through her fingers. "And maybe I can even use this as an opportunity to get even with Amycus." That sounded pleasing.
Seamus grimaced her way. "Don't get yourself hurt again, alright, Audrey? It's not worth it."
"Thanks for the concern, Seamus, but it is worth it, and you couldn't convince me otherwise." Her wand continued to twirl. "Besides, it'll be a fair fight if we're both using wands this time, instead of a fully-grown man against a seventeen-year-old girl," she added hotly.
Ginny, Seamus and Dean frowned at her in deep disapproval, but Audrey was far too busy thinking of spells for the Duelling Club to notice.
***
Saturday, May 1st 1998
7:56 P.M.
Saturday evening came round faster than anyone in the D.A. had anticipated. In their wish to put off the Duelling Club for as long as possible, time had suddenly decided to become a cruel mistress and speed up considerably so that their Friday lessons and Saturday morning had passed in a blur.
One of the brightest part of her weeks, though, was that Audrey had not yet been to another Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson since Monday afternoon and so had not had to bear the sight of Amycus Carrow ever since he had backhanded her in the middle of a lesson. Unfortunately, she had had a double Transfiguration lesson first thing on Friday morning, and Professor McGonagall had indeed noticed the disgusting purple bruise that had, by now, successfully covered almost all of Audrey's left jaw.
The perceptive Transfiguration Professor had made Audrey stay behind after class to explain herself.
"It was a Body-Bind spell gone wrong, Professor," she explained lamely. "I accidentally cast it on myself instead of Seamus Finnigan, and when I fell my face caught the ground."
Professor McGonagall had not believed her one bit. She had tried to get Audrey to tell the truth numerous times during the lesson, but, in the end, she had been unable to find out how the bruise had come about and had been forced to let Audrey leave her classroom some forty-five minutes later. Audrey refused to tell because she didn't want Amycus to have the satisfaction of knowing that he had gotten to her.
One of the major flaws in her character was that she was far too proud for her own good.
So, as eight P.M. drew ever closer than cold Saturday evening, the sixth and seventh year students congregated outside the Great Hall, solemnly awaiting the doors to open and the dreaded Duelling Club to begin.
Audrey lingered near the back of the crowd, nonchalantly perched on top of the stone railings of the staircase, with Luna Lovegood by her side—the most dotty, strange and incredible witch she had ever met; her best friend in the whole world.
Sighing dreamily, Luna placed her wand behind her ear and inclined her head toward Audrey. Her dreamy grey eyes were glazed over, though from tiredness or boredom Audrey could not tell. "Are you as worried about this as I am?" she asked, her voice a soft Irish lilt.
Audrey shook her head, her eyes zoned forward as she kept her gaze straight ahead on the Great Hall's grand wooden doors. "No," she said flatly. "And besides, Luna, the chances of getting picked to duel Amycus or Alecto are one if a hundred; you're more likely to have to fight a friend."
"Yes, you're right," she agreed with a swift nod of her blonde head, "but, knowing my luck, I'm sure to be partnered with Alecto."
Audrey laughed aloud, but the mirth was drowned out by the uncomfortable sound of wood scraping stone as the Great Hall doors were pushed open by the Carrow's. The hushed whispers of the sixth and seventh years all at once ceased as soon as they realised what was happening.
Audrey, though, was surprised to see Professor Snape greet them. "Quiet down," he drawled in a monotonous, bored tone. He did not seem happy to be here at all. "I want you all to form an orderly line and file in silently. Am I understood?"
It was hard not to obey. Knowing that the former Potions Master had killed their previous Headmaster in cold blood with the Killing Curse demanded that everyone follow an instruction given by him without question.
Audrey jumped from the stone banister and shuffled into the forming line behind Luna and in front of Zacharias Smith—a Hufflepuff seventh year she knew only vaguely and who also had a tendency to be a right little git—just at the tail end of the line.
As the line moved slowly yet surely into the Great Hall, Audrey suddenly felt a light tap on her shoulder, and so she turned round warily to be met with Zacharias' intrigued face. "That bruise," he mused interestedly, whispering as not to be heard, her eyes trained on her face, "are the rumours true, about how you got it?"
Audrey raised a dark eyebrow in question, trying for a disinterested expression. "Well, that depends entirely on what you're heard, Smith."
"Did Professor Carrow hit you?"
Audrey didn't like how the Hufflepuff called Amycus Professor; the tosser did not deserve the title. She decided to indulge him, anyway, murmuring, "He did." When Zacharias' eyes turned wide, surprised, she added quietly, "Not that it matters, he's about to come off a lot worse than I did..."
Just then, Luna, Audrey and Zacharias crossed the threshold into Great Hall and the doors magically slammed behind them, creating a deafening crack as wood slammed against wood in the silence. It had the same hopeless feeling she would expect incarceration to feel like.
Audrey eased up beside Luna at the back of the crowd and they both turned their attention toward the long, rectangular stage where the Gryffindor table usually was. In the middle of the stage, both looking particularly pleased with themselves, stood Amycus and Alecto, each wearing their traditional garb of black Death Eater robes.
Snape stood considerably off to the side, but all eyes were on him as he began to speak. "Because this is the first meeting of a new Duelling Club set up by Professor Carrow"—he gestured toward Amycus with a sweep of his hand, his expression blank—"this meeting will focus on demonstration, to outline what will be necessary of you and your ability whilst you are here. Next week we will split you all into partners and practice the methods shown here tonight." His black eyes scanned the crowd, looking down at them through his awful hooked nose. "Now, the two Professor's will begin with a demonstration—"
"Actually," interjected Amycus with a sneer, his eyes moving over the crowd also, like a snake readying for the strike, "if you wouldn't mind, Headmaster, I'd quite enjoy if a student would be kind enough to demonstrate with me"—a lingering flicker of emotion fluttered over Snape's face, though it passed so quickly Audrey couldn't identify it fast enough—"just for practice, of course."
The Headmaster deliberated for only a moment before giving a curt nod of his head. "Very well."
A gush of confused, wary voices began to circle the Hall.
"This is ridiculous," said Zacharias from beside her, blanching at the news. "There's no way we'll be able to hold our own against a Death Eater, for crying out loud!"
Audrey turned to him with a stony expression. Was he honestly that naive? "Well, that's what they want, isn't it, Smith? It's not just to teach us a lesson in how to fight; it's a lesson in how to obey what they tell us, by making sure we all know exactly what they're capable of."
The Hufflepuff nodded silently as the voices began to get louder, though he looked as if he wished that was anything but the case.
"Silence!" called Alecto with narrowed eyes. Her tone was vicious. "Silence, the lot of you! It's time to pick the lucky demonstrator accompanying Professor Carrow."
Everyone complied without hesitation, the noise dimming entirely and reverting back into wary silence. Amycus, on the other hand, jumped down from the stage to face the crowd of students with a loud clatter, his black robes billowing out behind him. He surveyed all the nervous faces in front of him before pushing past the front row of students—evidently not seeing what he wanted in his first assessment—and moved into the crowd with a foul grimace.
Audrey grabbed her wand from inside her robes and held onto it very tightly, her knuckles turning white as she grappled to the piece of wood that could ultimately save her life.
Amycus moved through the crowd roughly and without remorse, knocking several of the more delicate students to the ground in the process, and somehow Audrey knew, deep down in the pit of her stomach, that he was looking for someone in particular...
After a minute and a half of painful waiting, his eyes finally narrowed in on her near the back of the crowd with Luna and Zacharias. He marched over with such direct and calculating steps that she knew her suspicions had been right, that he was indeed looking for someone in particular: Her.
Zacharias tensed next to her as Amycus finally stood before them, tall and black-haired and completely malevolent-looking. "Lovecraft," he sneered darkly. He then grabbed her roughly by the upper arm and hauled her back through the crowd, toward the stage.
She heard Luna gasp audibly in dawning horror and then a chorus of "No!" as she was heaved by the big, full-grown Death Eater onto the stage. He shoved her roughly to the left side of the narrow platform before heading in the other direction. As she made her way toward her side for the duel to commence, Audrey threw off her black robe so she was just left in her white shirt, skirt and navy Ravenclaw tie.
At the edge of her side of the stage, Snape stood stiffly with an unreadable expression. As she approached, he said to her in a sardonic, spiteful voice that the front row of students could no doubt hear, "Try not to get killed, Miss Lovecraft."
Audrey snorted before saying in a mock polite voice, "Gee, thanks for the encouragement, sir."
Across the long stage, Amycus bowed with a snide smirk on his face before straightening and readying for the duel, his bulky Oak wand in hand. On the other side, Audrey did the same, though grudgingly, and the act could barely have been considered a slight bow of the head. She had no wish to show the evil Amycus any respect whatsoever.
Behind her, she once again heard Snape's deep voice, only this time it was so low that she was convinced only she could hear—and that was just barely. "Try Averte Statura," he murmured, and Audrey was so shocked by the advice that she didn't know if he was trying to trick her or not.
Alecto's shrill, piercing voice broke the quite that had consumed the atmosphere: "On three we will begin! One...two...th—" but she was cut off as Amycus fired a spell before she had given the order to commence.
"Crucio!" he bellowed.
Before she could even comprehend what had happened, Audrey was suddenly hit with a blinding light and she dropped to the floor of the stage in unparalleled, untold agony. Her entire body felt like it was on fire—like hot knives were piercing her skin in an unrelenting fury—and the most intense pain she had ever felt consumed her whole. She let out cry after cry as the Curse took hold of her.
After what felt like years—though in reality it must have only been a few seconds—the pain stopped suddenly and Audrey looked up to see Amycus' grinning face.
Surprised that her wand was still in her hand, Audrey shakily got to her feet, using her hands to push herself up. When she looked beyond the foreground, she noticed the sea of students ashen faces staring in horror at what had just taken place.
Amycus, though, apparently seeing no threat in her, turned to his sister to give her an accomplished smirk.
Audrey struck out whilst he was distracted, and, though she saw no reason to trust Snape, decided to use his spell. "Averte Statura!" she cried, and, to her jovial surprise, Amycus was suddenly thrust backward as if by an invisible gust of wind and shoved into the stone wall behind him, hitting the hard surface with a nasty crunch sound. He slid down the wall and landed onto the stage with a dull thud.
Audrey vaguely hoped he had broken a bone or two, all the while wondering why Snape had given her a spell to make her opponent go flying.
But as Amycus recovered and got to his feet again with a menacing expression, Audrey yelled clearly, "Locomotor Mortis!" before he had the time to Crucio her again.
He fell to the ground once more with a surprised squeak of annoyance and could not get up—his legs having locked together from her curse—but only a mere second later he raised his wand and bellowed, "Sectumsempra!"
Vividly remembering what had happened to Draco Malfoy the year previously when Harry Potter had used that spell on him, Audrey jumped out of the way with more speed than she had ever thought she had, flinging herself out of the spells way—but, despite jumping at once, she was not quick enough. The tail end of the spell caught the small of her back and an enormous pain ripped through her. She could feel three large gashes arise on her back, red and raw and agonisingly painful. Blood began seeping through her white shirt.
She weakly pushed herself to her feet again to see that Amycus' wand was raised once more, but before he could get a word in edgeways Audrey cried, "Mobilcorpus!" and threw him head-first into the stone wall once again.
This time, when he fell to the ground on his back, she could see a deep cut on his head, inflicted no doubt by her throwing him into strong stone. With his legs still unable to move from her Leg-Lock curse, his eyes narrowed in on her again. "Avada—"
Oh, Merlin. Audrey knew what was coming—could hardly believe he was about to use the Killing Curse on a student—so cried out without feeling remorse, "Stupefy!"
Amycus didn't have the chance to finish off the rest of the Killing Curse as he was hit with a glaring jet of red light and fell limply onto his face and passed out.
Before she could register what had happened, Audrey felt her legs buckle beneath her and she fell limply to her knees on the stage. Blood had gone from seeping down her back right down to her ankles.
I was a second away from death...
Before anyone could say anything—even before the crowd could begin crying out in alarm—Snape strode past her, his black robes billowing out in a bat-like fashion as per usual, and stood before Amycus and Alecto, the latter of which had bent down to see to her brother with a wholly surprised expression.
"Alecto," said Snape in a flat tone, "reverse the stunning spell on Amycus and clean him up." His lip curled in a tight, ugly smirk. "You should also warn him that the Dark Lord will be hearing about his attempt on a pure-blood's life."
Alecto nodded dumbly and mumbled "Enervate" over her brother's lifeless form. He began stirring.
Snape turned to the crowd of sixth and seventh years and called out, "I think that is quite enough for this evening! Everyone return to your Common Rooms in a civilised manner, no detours, and absolutely no talking!"
Almost everyone scurried away very quickly, though Audrey did notice out of the corner of her eye Dean, Luna, Ginny and Seamus linger near the entrance of the Great Hall for her, each looking both astonished and expectant.
She somehow managed to pull herself to her feet and was about to make a start for her friends when she felt a cold hand grab her shoulder roughly. Her heart leapt into her mouth, though descended again as she remembered Amycus was passed out on the other side of the stage. "Not so fast, Miss Lovecraft." It was Snape's cold, deep voice. He turned to her four friends by the door and yelled, "Move it, you four, or it's detention for a fortnight!"
They all scurried out of the room when Audrey nodded soundlessly—letting them know it was okay to leave her—all the while throwing her questioning glances.
She turned to Snape with a guilty as sin look about her. Though there was no doubt in her mind that Amycus had been mere seconds away from using the Killing Curse on her, she still figured she was about to pay for knocking a teacher out cold.
Snape inclined his head toward the door of the Great Hall. "Up to my office, Miss Lovecraft," he said flatly, "I think we have rather a lot to discuss this evening."