Misanthropic
"By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich" - Democritus
Once again, her birthday had rolled around. Another year had passed and she had not progressed with any single one of her goals. She was still wearing garish clothes, practically living on the streets (when not in the library) and jobless. How the bloody hell was one meant to survive with no solid income? It was a bloody miracle she had managed to snatch a fairly nice tent from an elderly man before he sold it too the second-hand store. Goodness knows how high a price she would have had to pay had she been forced to buy it from there.
A touch of her wand set up the tent in her usual staked out spot in the forest. She checked the wards that had sprung up with the tent, relieved that even after three months, they had not deteriorated in any way. It had taken her the better part of six months to study warding and tailor-make the wards that she attached to rune stone currently stuck under her bed. With the complex ward scheme that she had woven into it she could practically set up camp in the middle of the ministry and no one would be any the wiser. Well, she wasn't completely sure on that fact, but the point was that the wards were most certainly a very proud invention of hers born out of sheerdesperation and necessity.
She dragged one of the chairs out of the tent as she usually did when she returned to the forest for the evening. Tonight could be considered a good night—a few days ago she had been able to break into some old muggle lady's home and it was just her luck that she had a huge stock of canned foods. She waved her wand, summoning a can of spaghetti to herself and cast a mild warming charm over it. With another wave of her wand, she had a fork in hand, cracked the tin open and was feasting on wonderful preserved goodness.
The familiar taste of the sauce on her tongue brought back both pleasant memories and memories that she had tried so hard to forget. She steeled herself and did what she could to force the memories away, locking them behind her carefully constructed barriers. It would do no good to dwell on the past; it would only hinder her. If she even so much as lingered on one of those memories, she might just lose all hope. She had goals and more importantly, hope. It was the only thing she had.
She caught a flash of movement to her right as three people popped into existence not to far away from her home. She quickly stood, pausing only to place down the tinned spaghetti. Wand at the ready, she stalked to the edge of her thirty-meter radius ward boundary. She paused there for a moment, zoning in on the three figures. She was quickly able to identify two males and a female as she cursed the dwindling light. She estimated that there was approximately fifteen minutes of light left and her vision was terrible with the lack of light, especially being in the darkened forest. She wished she was good enough with human transfiguration to be able to transform her eyes into that of an owl's to help with the vision problem, but she wasn't.
"Harry, no!" The female's voice carried along the change in wind direction.
Harry?
Oh, bloody hell. It was the golden trio.
A steady crunching of sticks and other forest debris reached her ears from the opposite direction. She listened closely—the numerous footfalls and lack of regard for silence suggested that whoever was behind the thick layers of trees did not bode well for the three young heroes.
She made a quick decision, disillusioning herself and silencing her footsteps before hurrying over to the trio. She was glad now to be so familiar with the forest and stealth that she was able to easily sneak up on the three teens. But at the same time, she was concerned with their complete lack of safety. They were the three most hunted wizards and here they were completely out in the open and completely oblivious to both her and the likely attack that was creeping up on them.
She cast three stunning spells in quick succession, not caring that the teens fell harshly to the forest floor. It served them right for being so damn ignorant in a time of war.
She moved quickly, disillusioning them and their few belongings. She cast a large-scale levitation on their wet bodies and began the short trek back to her heavily warded home. She just began crossing her ward boundary when the first wolf peaked out from behind the tree not ten meters from them. Panicking, she quickly used all her strength to drag the bodies though her wards and dropping them unceremoniously just inside the boundary.
She watched in fear as the werewolf sniffed the air, reaching the exact location of the beginning of her wards. Her breath was caught in her throat as the unkempt man took at step as if to cross the threshold of the wards, ending up with his foot on the other side of the ward. She didn't dare breath, lest the creature heard her, despite her wards seeming to work perfectly. The man continued his stride and passed completely over to the opposite side of her wards before stepping back to his original position.
"The trail ends here, lads," he said in rough tones.
"There was no sound of disapparation, they must still be here!" growled another voice, stepping out from the cover of the trees. By now, it was almost completely black and she had to rely almost entirely on her other senses. She was too afraid to cast any charm of sorts, and neither did the scruffy pack of men that surrounded her wards, or what they thought was the spot of disapparation of the golden trio.
"There's a fourth scent," a wolf said, sniffing the air. "It's all over this place."
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity, fuck, fuck, Merlin's balls wankering shits. She was so stupid! She suspected she was dealing with werewolves—after all the forests were typically their domain when it came to search parties—and they were right. Her scent was all over this damn place! In all of her meticulous planning…
A wand tip pressed against the back of her neck. As if her blood wasn't already pounding in her ears—breathing incredibly laboured and body stiffened with shock—the wand tip to her neck just made all her regular symptoms of fear just that much more pronounced.
"Do not cast any spells," she quickly whispered, knowing she was disillusioned and whoever held their wand tip to her neck was doing so only in defense. "My wards are good, but I don't know how they will react towards ensuring those outside of them don't sense magic. If they so much as suspect you're here under wards, they'll send their best curse-breakers here almost immediately." She was confident that it would take a bloody long time for the curse-breakers to be able to take down her wards, as they would have to locate her rune stone first, and since rune wards usually had to have the stones set along the ward perimeter, they would be looking for a while—once they determined the wards there were dealing with were set in a rune stone.
She stood there for what seemed like hours as the four teens waited for bated breath for the werewolves to conclude their search. No one dared to move, and even less inclined to make any noise. Their breathing seemed even too loud in their ears.
Eventually pops of disapparation could be heard. The group waited for a number of minutes before she dared raise her hand and cast the counter-spell to her disillusion. She spun on her heeland faced the three heroes with her hands held in surrender. A benefit of having cast the disillusionment charm on the three teens herself, was that she was able to see them without them having yet cased the counter charm.
"Vera?" asked Hermione.
"The one and only," replied Vera.
"What the bloody hell was that all about?" said Ron, brandishing his wand harshly against her cheek.
"You there were just out there, in the open, with a group of werewolves against you. If it weren't for me you'd be screaming bloody murder in a rape dungeon somewhere!" She forced the redhead's hand away from her face, pleased with her own physical strength. Her slender build was so often misleading, giving her the element of surprise against any attacker who used physical force. Ever since that fateful day that she had vowed to make sure she could protect herself she had made sure she kept her body in top shape. It was so much easier said than done with her patchy meals—usually tinned spaghetti at best. Most of the time she was surprised she didn't collapse after her morning runs and circuit training.
Vera made her way over to her chair where the cold spaghetti sat. She heard one of the trio cast a drying spell and warming charm over the three of them—probably Hermione.
"Who's to say you are working for Vol—him?" spat Ron, rushing towards her with his wand still drawn.
"I may be a Slytherin, but I'm also a muggle-born,Weas—"
"We need to leave," cut in Harry.
"Be my guest. I'm not keeping you here," she said, accentuating her speech with a flick of her hands to the surrounding forest.
"Right, well. Um, thanks," said Hermione before the three teens hightailed it out of her wards and disapparated. Vera rolled her eyes at their antics. Bloody numb nuts, the lot of them.
She cast another warming spell on her tinned spaghetti,finishing up the can as if nothing unordinary had happened that night. She was just about to enter into the tent when she caught movement of an animal in the air too large to be any of the regular birds of the forest.
An owl. Vera identified it as it passed into the clearing, the almost-full moon lighting up the normally dark forest. The owl inconspicuously dropped whatever it was carrying and flew away. She spent a moment marveling at the fact that the creature that were able to recognise her whereabouts and smart enough to know it would never be able to reach her under her intricate wards.
She quickly walked over to the edge of the wards where the letter had landed. She reached out for the letter instantly recognising the handwriting.
Fuck.
She hurried back inside the tent, dragging the chair in with her. She placed the letter on her bed and rushed through her evening routine, once again thankful for the adequate bathroom facilities the tent held. While it did also have a small kitchenette and four-man table, it was almost completely useless to Vera. She never had any food she could bloody cook.
Climbing into bed, Vera briefly reminded herself that her sheets could once again use a good clean, deciding she would 'scourify' them in the morning.
With unwavering determination, Vera finally grasped for the letter, ripping it open as one would a Band-Aid.
Vera,
He died. Enjoy your victory.
Kaven
Vera barely realised the parchment in front of her was disintegrating with her tears before a huge sob racked through her thin frame.
She couldn't help but feel a burning anger rise within her at her brother's audacity. She knew it was always going to end like this, she was too good with spell work for it to not be, and her family's poor status didn't help in the least. But Kaven knew she wanted to be left alone. It was for the best, and then he goes and sends her that letter. What the fuck? Who did he think he was?
In a fit of anger, Vera curled up the soaked parchment and threw it away from her, only to see it burst into black flames with her wandless magic.
Her anger soon gave way to relief. While he was alive and being eaten from the inside out due to her curse, they still held out hope. Now, though, they weren't likely to ever contact her again. And that was the way she wanted it. Just her, alone with her ambitions. Nothing to distract her and no one to take what was hers.
She was free of the last thing that tied her to her family—besides the obvious genetics. She could truly move onwards and upwards, nothing would hold her back now.