Hello readers! Thank you for taking a chance on this story, it's my first one so I hope you all like it! This is the beginning of the one-shot I wrote before called Truth or Dare which I took down because I didn't want my friend reading it even though I'm a pushover and told her the name of my new one anyways haha; this chapter is for you, Doris. A little background first, Holly is a sixth year Slytherin, the same age as Harry and the gang. I would love reviews so I know what I'm doing right/wrong, and now I won't waste any more of your time with this AN.
Just one more thing first, though: Hogwarts and any of the people that go there were sadly not my idea, all rights to J.K. Rowling
"Any news today, Sampson?" Holly asked as she reached the bottom of a grand marble staircase.
"Sampson is afraid not, Miss Earnshaw," the tiny elf squeaked back with a solemn shake of his head, "would the Miss like some breakfast today? Sampson made her favorite, scrambled eggs on toast," he finished hopefully.
The concern in the house elf's eyes really touched Holly. Although she really wasn't in the mood to eat lately, she smiled warmly down at her favorite elf and said, "you know what, Sampson? That sounds wonderful, thank you so much!" Grateful tears filled his eyes and he snapped his fingers, apparating to the kitchen to prepare a plate for the too-thin girl.
Alone again, Holly sighed as she slowly made her way to the formal dining room and chose to sit where her father normally did, at the head of the gigantic table that was designed to seat at least 30 people. As if she needed another reminder of how utterly alone she was. She thought of her father again for what was probably the hundredth time since she had woken up, or rather, gotten out of bed since she hadn't gotten any sleep again last night. Where was he? Was he ok? And why was his mission taking so long?
The Dark Lord often sent him away on dangerous missions, being that he was one of the most-trusted Death Eaters, but Holly couldn't help but feel especially worried this time. His missions rarely lasted more than a couple of days and by now her father had been gone for a week and a half! There were only a couple of reasons that Holly could think of that would keep him away for so long; he was either extremely far away, probably on a different continent, or else something had gone very wrong, and the Dark Lord wasn't known to be forgiving...
Holly was torn away from her grim thoughts by a faint pop followed by the the smell of bacon and eggs assaulting her nose. Her eyes lazily went to where she knew her house elf would be standing and she barked out a laugh. The only parts of him that she could see behind the tower of eggs were his two frail legs that were wobbling under the weight of the enormous plate that he was carrying and two floppy ears sticking out the sides.
"Oh, Sampson, I don't think I'll be able to eat quite that much!" she said with another giggle. Sampson always knew exactly how to cheer Holly up, half the time without even trying to. "Here, let me take that," she said as she took the plate from his hands and he let out a shaky breath from the effort.
"Thank you, Miss Earnshaw," he said sheepishly, "is there anything else Sampson can get you? Fruit, maybe? Or a cup of tea?"
"No thank you, Sampson. You've done wonderfully as always." The house elf beamed at her and bowed, his long ears brushing the glossy floor before snapping his fingers to disappear, probably off to go clean the already pristine mansion.
"Crazy elf," Holly muttered to herself fondly and looked back to the frightening pile of eggs in front of her. She felt guilty for making Sampson worry so much over her, she knew that she really wasn't eating enough lately. It was just that she was feeling rather depressed and anxious after receiving no news from her father so she had no desire to eat, or do anything for that matter. Holly made a mental note to at least appear to be taking care of herself for Sampson's sake because he'd been so kind to her over the past couple of years- he was more of a mother figure than she'd ever had, if she was being honest with herself. She then picked up her fork and began to eat. Before she could get three bites in, however, Holly heard the front door slam open and a dull thud reverberated through the walls of the mansion.
Panic gripped Holly and she couldn't move. After her paralysis wore off, she immediately remembered how her father has said to handle an intruder and she slipped her wand from her sleeve. Stealthily, she made her way to the parlor, making sure to remain tight against the wall. If a threat was posed, she would fire to kill first, not taking time to debate with herself.
Who could it be, though? No Death Eater would have a reason to want to break into their house; the majority of them were welcomed in without hesitation so they wouldn't need to resort to violence. It would be exceedingly difficult for someone else to get in without setting off the alarms, though, so who did that leave? No one. Unless...
"Dad!" Holly shouted and ran to the unconscious man lying on the floor. She fell to her knees next to him, not caring that one leg was resting in a pool of blood. He wasn't responding to her desperate cries and she tried to push the fog of panic from her mind. "Think, Holly. You've done this before," she coached herself. "Yeah, but it's never been this bad!" her inner demon shot back. Shaking her head to clear it, Holly got back to her feet and used a levicorpus to bring her dad up the stairs as quickly as she could without jostling him around too much.
After she lay her father gently in his large bed, Holly called for Sampson. She didn't have to wait more than a couple of seconds before there was a crack and the little elf appeared before her eyes. Holly quickly told him to put a cold towel to her father's head, as he was burning up, and then to clean out the multitude of wounds as best as he could while she robbed the potions cabinet of anything that her father might need to survive.
Once the duties were given out, Holly made a mad dash out the door and down the stairs, almost tripping on the fifth step in her haste. Well, she couldn't have that, she thought. Deciding to forgo the whole process, Holly leapt to the bottom from about ten steps up, twisting her ankle a bit.
"Shit!" She swore. That really hurt! But she couldn't dwell on it right now, she didn't know how much time her father had left. Regaining her composure, Holly jog-limped down the narrow hallway and stopped at the tall potions cabinet at the end.
Holly took a quick inventory of the cabinet. Blood-replenishing potion and burn-healing paste would definitely be needed from what she had seen so far. Quickly grabbing a few more bottles that could come in handy, she whipped around and shot up the stairs again, adrenaline taking away any pain she might still have had in her ankle.
Gratefully Sampson didn't wait for Holly to ask about her father when she returned to the room, instead he just gave her a calm report when she came up next to him. "Master Earnshaw is still unconscious, Miss, but Sampson had cleaned out the wounds and washed away the dirt."
"Thank you, Sampson," Holly said distractedly as she began pouring the different potions into conjured cups. "Right," she said when she was satisfied with the amounts, "can you heal any broken bones while I give him the potions?"
"Of course, Miss," the elf bowed humbly and placed his tiny hands on the seemingly lifeless body, a faint yellow glow emanating from his fingertips. If Holly had not seen this done much in the past, she would have been tempted to watch the healing taking place. Sadly, though, this was not the case,as Holly's father had needed his bones to be healed at least fifteen times that she could recall.
She looked back to the potions and grabbed the one closest to herself: blood-replenishing potion, and a disturbing amount of it at that. Pushing that thought aside, Holly went into full-healer mode; not thinking, not feeling, just doing what was required to save her father's life.
Once the final bottle had been administered to her father and his bones were fully healed, Holly finally allowed herself to register the full extent of what had just happened and a choked sob escaped her throat. A comfortable-looking armchair appeared behind Holly as she heard a small voice say, "Sampson will leave Miss alone with the Master now, but Miss should get some rest."
Holly just sent him a smile conveying the mountain of gratitude that she felt towards him for all of his help and she heard a pop, indicating that she was, indeed, alone with her father now. She took the time to simply look at him.
Charles Earnshaw was only forty years old but you would never guess so just by looking at him; his thinning hair and beard were a little more salt than pepper at this point, and years of being a Death Eater had permanently etched worry lines across his forehead.
Holly knew that there was so much more to him than that, though. She smiled when her eyes landed on the crinkles by his eyes caused by laughing heartily, and she knew that while his strong arms were sometimes used as weapons, their real purpose was to give gigantic bear hugs that you had to beg to be let go of. Charles Earnshaw wasn't just Holly's dad; he was her encouragement before a big quidditch match, he was a shoulder to cry on when she felt like giving up in Ancient Runes, and above all else, he was, and always would be, her best friend.
A quiet tear slipped down Holly's cheek as she grabbed onto her father's hand and slipped into a comfortable position in the big crimson chair. She would be there for him when he finally opened his eyes.
Holly didn't know if she had actually fallen asleep, or if she had just sat there with her eyes closed, but soon she was jolted upright by a squeeze of her hand. Her wide blue eyes met her father's chocolate colored ones and a huge smile lit up her face.
"Hi, Dolly," he managed to croak, and he winced at the pain it sent to his throat.
Holly rolled her eyes at her father's nickname for her as they stung with happy tears. "Dad," she scolded with a smile, "you shouldn't be talking right now."
"Missed... you..." he wheezed.
"Dad, I'm serious! If you don't stop talking I'm going to have to use a silencio on you!" At this, her father acted out zipping his lipped together, making Holly laugh. "Ok, good. Now I'll go get you some water, you sound terrible."
Her dad used a silent accio to bring a quill and parchment over to himself before scribbling down, "you look terrible," before giving her a pointed glare, as if asking her what happened.
"Oh, come on. It can't be that bad," Holly responded, but when she crossed the room to look in her mother's old mirror, she saw that her dad was right. Her deep blue eyes that were once so lively now looked dull and her glossy cinnamon colored waves that she has once prided herself on now hung limply down to the small of her back, infested with tangles.
"Ok, so I'm not ready to walk to runway or anything right now," Holly conceded, "but you're not looking so great yourself, if you don't recall, so you're really in no position to point fingers right now."
Her father opened his mouth to argue but Holly shot him a glare and held her finger up, signaling that she would be right back with a potion to sooth his throat. He coughed loudly at the slight fizzing sensation, but he recovered quickly. "Holly," he said sternly, loud voice filling the room and demanding attention, "you look like death and you, unlike me, don't have an excuse."
Holly's big eyes bugged out so that they were even larger. "I don't have an excuse?" she exclaimed loudly, "like Hell I don't! You've been gone for over a week! Don't you know how worried I've been? You didn't send word of how you were once! You can't just leave in the middle of the night on some mission that damn near killed you, collapse on our floor, make me use half of the bottles from our potions cabinet to make sure you stay alive, then wake up and say that I don't have an excuse to look a little under the weather!"
Concern flooded through her father's eyes, "I'm so sorry, Holly. I wasn't thinking. I shouldn't have-"
His last words were muffled as Holly threw her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder. "I just... don't know... what I'd do... without you!" she said through painful gasps of air.
"Sh sh sh shhh. I'm here now, right? Don't worry, I'm here," her father comforted her and rubbed soothing circles into her back. Holly knew that he was right. She wasn't going to think of the future right now because it was inevitable that he was going to be sent away again. Right now, she just wanted to revel in the fact that he was here with her right now, and she took a lot of comfort in that fact as she held him even tighter.
After a few moments for Holly to calm down, her dad leaned back and looked at her with concern-filled eyes and said, "Now, Dolly, you know that I want you here with me, but you look starved. Please go eat something and then you can come back and we'll talk."
"But, Dad," she protested, "I'm not even hungry!" At this precise moment, Holly's stomach gave a loud growl, betraying her words. This caused both of them to laugh and her dad gave her a pointed look.
"Right, because I believe that," he said with another chuckle, "now go before I have to call Sampson back up here."
"Bah, fine! But, I'll be back in fifteen minutes," said Holly as she stuck her tongue out and retreated downstairs to finish her breakfast that still sat on the table, nearly untouched. She scarfed down as much food as she could, barely tasting it, and true to her word, she returned upstairs a little over ten minutes later to sit on the side of her dad's bed. The two of them sat there until the late hours of the night talking about what their last weeks had consisted of, or in Holly's case, not consisted of. Once that was out of the way, the two of them played a few rounds of wizard's chess. Her dad was the best chess player Holly had ever known, but as she got older, she picked up on a few of his tricks and was now able to hold her own against him quite nicely.
As the grandfather clock in the hallway struck midnight, Holly's dad held up his hands as if to surrender. "Alright," he said, "you win this round, but next time I'll be ready to make a comeback, you just wait!"
"Whatever you say, old man," Holly shot back teasingly and laughed at the offended look that he gave her, "I'll take you down, same time, same place tomorrow."
Holly turned to leave but a large hand grabbed her wrist gently, holding her in place. Holly turned back to see her dad with a slightly more serious look on his face. "Oh, no you don't, " he scolded, "tomorrow you're going to go have fun in town. You've been shut up in this house for far too long so you're going to take a bag of galleons with you to Diagon Alley and you're going to buy whatever you want. Ice cream, butterbeer, stationary, heck, you can even get a new broom if you want since yours got pretty roughed up last year in that match against Ravenclaw."
Holly tried to interrupt, saying that she would much rather spend the day with him again, but he would have none of it so he pinched her lips shut and continued on. "Don't forget to but a dress for the Masquerade that the Malfoy's are hosting in November. I want you to buy the prettiest one you see on the spot because you deserve it after all you've done for me."
Holly thought better than to verbally refuse this time and opted to just shoot him a look to let him know that she didn't like him staying home alone.
"Don't worry about me, I;m obviously not going anywhere for a while and Sampson will be here to look after me. Now go have fun, I don't want to see you back here until at least suppertime."
Holly just sighed dramatically to let him know that she would behave. "Goodnight, Dad. I love you," she smiled and pecked him on the cheek before walking to the door.
"I love you, too, Dolly," he replied. And with that, Holly shut off the lights and walked down the long hallway to her room to get some much needed sleep.
So, what did you guys think? This chapter was just to get to know Holly and her relationship with her dad, but the next one will be all Draco. Reviews would be lovely! Thanks for reading!