Raw Head and Bloody Bones
Disclaimer: Don't own any of JK's original characters...as a matter of fact I don't own shiiit in this story; except a few ideas.
A/N: Please R&R, this is my first HP fanfic, don't be too terribly cruel, please.
Chapter one,
One curly fry in a box of regulars.
Susan Bones bustled to her Advanced Potions class, fighting her way through the crowded halls of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She hoped beyond all hope that seventh year might be easier than the other years had been, but alas, like so many other times in life, she'd been lead down a road to disappointment. This year, for the first time, Hufflepuff had a potions class with Gryffindor. Which she hoped would be better than a class with Ravenclaws; they constantly showed up her house when it came to questions and answers. Since it was an Advanced Class, there would be less people, for which she was thankful.
Susan shouldered past a rather large Slytherin boy. It was hard being nearly invisible to everyone around her. Being in Hufflepuff didn't help matters, as far as the rest of the houses were concerned, she was at the bottom of the food chain.
Susan Bones was a pretty girl, with a shy smile. Unfortunately one rarely saw this as she always had her face hidden behind her mud brown hair, which fell in a cascade across her rather tan face. She only pulled her hair pack with a yellow and black ribbon when she was rolling up her sleeves to get down and dirty in Herbology, Potions, or Care of Magical Creatures.
The past three years had been hard for her, Voldemort had made his return, and it had reopened a chapter of her life she'd believed to be closed. As only a few people knew, Susan's parents had been Aurors when Voldermort had still been in power, and had been murdered by him the night after Susan was born. Susan had been placed as a ward of the state and had been bumped from foster home to foster home, until she'd turned sixteen two years ago.
After that, she left her current foster home, got a job in Hogsmead, a small apartment with a cheap rent (that she didn't have to pay while she was attending school thanks to the Ministry) and the proper working permits from school so she could keep her job part-time during the school year, so she could go to work after her classes were finished for the day and on weekends. Instead of staying at a foster home, the Ministry had wanted Susan to stay with her Aunt, who worked for them, but for whatever reason, her aunt wouldn't take her. Susan supposed that was a good thing in retrospect, her Aunt seemed like a prude anyway.
It looked like it was going to be another tiring year, but she looked forward to the few joys she got out of school. One of which was standing out side his classroom and tapping his foot impatiently as the students filed in. She unwarily rubbed her left forearm, it'd been paining her for the past three years, nothing to worry about, just a numb feeling every now and again. But it was persistent.
Susan glanced up at Professor Snape as she bustled past him. His dark eyes met her gaze for a second, before she quickly lowered her gaze back to the stone floor, blushing slightly. Thanks to the healthy tan she'd acquired from years of laboring outdoors, the blush went unnoticed.
Susan had a schoolgirl crush of sorts on Professor Snape. Sure his hair was greasy, he wasn't the nicest person on the block, nor the best looking, and his nose was large (she had a soft spot for large noses anyway), but there was something about him she found attractive. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, or his intelligence, or maybe it was just him, but she found herself studying extra hard on her potions assignments, and using her best hand writing on all his assignments.
Upon entering the familiar classroom, her nose was assaulted by the smell of potions ingredients; they must be doing some sort of repellant potion today because the ingredients smelled spicy. She settled herself at an empty table near the middle of the classroom. Sitting next to each table was a rather large caldron that they would have to undoubtedly hoist onto the tables. Snape did that every now and again, just to see how each student would handle it.
Susan settled herself comfortably in her seat, and took out her wand (which was thirteen-inches, made of holly, with a dragon heartstring at it's core). She glanced about the room at the semi-new faces of the Gryffindors. Sitting near the back was the infamous Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley.
Harry Potter, a name she'd known since she was a little girl. Susan felt as if she should owe him some sort of thanks for thwarting the man would kill her parents, but she didn't. She didn't really feel anything towards the boy. She'd talked with him when she was in her fifth year and had joined Dumbledore's Army. That had been when the Death Eater who'd murdered her Uncle Edgar and his family, had escaped Azkaban. She knew how he felt, to be terribly alone in the world, but there wasn't anything she could do about it.
Harry caught her looking at him and looked at her as if to say, 'What are you looking at?' So she glared at him and turned back in her seat to face the front. What she didn't see was that when she glared at him, Harry had to rub his scar.
"What's the matter Harry?" Ron asked looking concerned.
Harry continued rubbing his scar as the pain faded away. "Dunno, Ron, it just started burning. Guess Voldemort must be up to something."
Herminone turned to look at Harry. She'd been thumbing through her Advanced Potions book, "Already? Harry I don't think he'd start acting on anything so soon."
"Yeah, well, he is evil."
Just then Professor Snape came through the door as the last of the students found their seats, his robes billowed out behind him malevolently in a way only he could manage.
"As my Advanced Potions class I expect you, at least, to grasp the fundamentals that the others of your class, unsurprisingly, did not," he glanced coolly about the class, looking for those he knew would do well, and those he knew would drop the class within the next few weeks. He saw that Granger was still here, another unsurprising happenstance, and he saw, unfortunately, that her two counter parts were still there as well.
He also so Susan Bones, sitting alone as usual, the young woman had quiet a remarkable knack for potions, for a Hufflepuff, and for Herbology as well (according to Professor Sprout). The thing that set her apart from the other students, was that she wasn't afraid to do manual labor to get something done, she often would roll up the sleeves of her robes, put on some arm length gloves and dip her arms in her caldron to fish out an unwanted ingredient that had been added.
If she hadn't been so laborious in her efforts to get something done, Severus doubted very much he'd have even recalled her name, she was so quiet, and didn't chatter amongst the other students. But, the Dark Lord had killed her parents and that might have had something to do with her reclusive behavior. Then again look at Potter, and Severus did, glaring at the boy, the Dark Lord killed his parents, and he couldn't be happier with life.
Severus pushed these thoughts to the back of his head almost instantly and, instead, began to think of the task he had been given to give the students.
"The potion you will be brewing today is an incredibly complex one. I do not expect you to come even close to completing it correctly," his voice was droll and his gaze fell on the only two students he believed would complete the potion correctly, Granger and Bones. "The potion's name is Snake Oil—"
Both Harry and Ron sniggered loudly as they imagined that that was what put in his hair to keep it so greasy.
"Ten points from Gryffindor," he said sharply at the interruption. Now, as I was saying, Snake oil, in the muggle world, is a term used for fake, fraudulent, and usually ineffective potions and nostrums. The expression is also applied metaphorically to any product with exaggerated marketing but questionable or unverifiable quality — such as bogus cryptography," he paused and most of the students looked blankly at him.
Severus allowed himself a breif smirk before continuing. "However, in the wizarding world, Snake Oil is the most affective reppelant," Susan Bones smiled a little at the word as she relized her pervious assumotion had been correct, "we have against the venom of posinus snakes. This applies to magical and non magical serpents."
"As I'm sure you all know, the Basilisks venom is the most toxic venom in our world, and a bite from it will kill you almost instanly. However, if one were to be bitten by a Basilisk," his gaze fell upon Harry, who fidgited and rubbed his arm absentmidly when he thought of how he'd been bitten in his second year. "And one were to have a vial of Snake Oil at hand, they would be saved from an ecrusating demise."
The room of students glanced about at each other as Severus reached behind his desk and pulled out a rather large box covered in a black cloth. Someone of the more misinformed students feared that a Basilisk might be caged in the mystecius cube. Just as they thought this, Severus, with a dark gleem in his eye, took the cloth off with a flurish. The box contained sixteen, rather large, snakes of an rather unusal black color. To the trained eye they were Water Moccosins, which are a very aggressive reptile that reside manly in the water.
"These," Severus said pointing at the writhing serpents, "are Water Moccosins, also called Cotton Mouths. A bite from one of these will cause the ganggreen in the limb bitten and will eventually kill the bitten. At the end of today class, each of you will be bitten by one of these snakes, and let us all hope your potions prove affective."
The class began to murmur worriedly, and Severus allowed this to go one for a few moments before commanding their attention again. "You are all to count off by sixteen, and pair up with the person of your number." He pointed to the student closest to him.
"One," the Hufflepuff said.
"Two," said another.
"Three," said the third.
This continued about the room, Susan was an eight, and so was Harry.
After the pairing was complete Susan found herself sitting next to the Boy Who Lived and not looking happy about it.
"Hello Susan," he said cheerfully.
"Hello Harry," she replied.
Severus called attention back to himself, "Instructions are on the bored, you have until the end of class," he flicked his wand at the box of snakes. The box disappeared, and at each table a group was at, a snake reappeared in a smaller box. He then explained that to complete the potion they'd need to collect venom from each snake. He provided them all with chain mesh gloves and a venom milking kit. "Now, get your caldrons onto your desk, and you may begin." He then whirled around and walked to his desk, sat down, and watched them with a smirk on his face.
Harry looked at the snake oddly, and wondered if he should try and talk with it, maybe he could convince it not to bite either of them. He played the scenario of talking all of the snakes into not biting any of the students, and what Snape would do if that happened. But he decided to avoid conversation with the snake if he could, he remembered how most of the Hufflepuffs had reacted the first time he'd spoken Parsletounge.
Susan quietly took out her yellow and black ribbon from her pocket, and pulled her hair back out of her face, she then rolled the sleeves of her robes up to her elbows.
"Well, I guess we have to get the cauldron on the table," Harry said, cutting the silence.
He raised his wand, but before he could recite the proper levitation spell, Susan had leaned down and hefted the caldron onto the table with a loud 'thunk'. At the sound Severus looked over at the two, fearing they'd managed to foul something up, but instead he saw what Susan had done. She was now slicing the camphor laurel into one-inch pecies while Potter was heating the caldron. He was surprised the she'd been able to lift the heavy object, he himself had to strain to lift it without magic, the fact that she could do it with moderate ease was interesting to say the least.
Harry was also surprised by her efforts, and looked dubisuly at her forarms, which were very muscled.
He whisteled appreciatidly, "You must be very strong."
Susan looked up from the camphor laurel, which smelled very strong and unpleasent. "I move boxes in Honeydukes, and worked as a logger before that," she said this numbly, as if it weren't really her life, and instead a character in a book she wrote. "And before that I harvested for the farmers near where I was staying, and before that I worted as a box girl for a Mom and Pop store," and with that she started slicing the camphor laurel again, the knife made methodic swishing sounds against the cutting bored.
Harry raised an eyebrow, "Aren't there child labor laws to prevent that?"
Susan stopped slicing for a moment and looked up at him, a lock of brown hair freed itself from the ribbon and fell across her face. She tucked it behind an ear, and her brown eyes found his green ones. The scar on Harry's forhead burned numbly. Oddly enough, Susan smiled.
She really hsd a pretty smil, Harry thought.
"Try telling them that," she laughed. "I bullied them into letting me work."
"Why'd you do a thing like that?" Harry reacted forward and putted the bottle of turpintine toward him. He mesured it out carefully.
Susan scraped the camphor laurel into the mix, she then grabbeded the large bottle of fatty oil, which she then measured and poured in with the turpine. It had to be poured at the same time, with equal parts, on oposite ends of the caldron.
There was a large cloud of smoke spreading near the front of the room from where someone had used two unequal parts.
"Well," she said, answering Harry's question. "Work keeps my mind off of things." Then she said as an after thought, "and pays the rent."
"You live on your own?" Harry asked doubtfully.
Susan looked down at the table. "Yes, I do. I live in Hogmead during the summer. And I supose, at the end of this year, year round."
Harry knew why she didn't live with family, as all but one were deceased. He'd met her Aunt in his fith year when she'd precided over his trial, and she didn't seem like the kind of person who'd take in a wayword orphan viva Voldemort, especualialy since she worked for the Ministry.
"That has to be rough," he said solomly. The burning in his scar had supsided now. He wondered at how Susan seemed to be rather talkitive with him at the moment, he'd only ever seen her talk with Hannah Abbot.
She shrugged. "It's all I've ever known."
She began to slice the redpeppers and Harry stirred the boiling concoction. The awkward silence between the two was, at best, uncomfortable.
Luckily after the redpeppers were added, they wouldn't have the liberty of talking as the potion's more difficult parts had to be taken into account. The mixture had to be kept at a specific tempature, it had to be sturred at intervuls of two minutes, and the rest of the ingredents had to be added a exact times and mesurments.
The snake venom had to be added last, and until this point both Harry and Susan had ignored it's presnece.
"How're we going to do this?" Harry asked.
"You can talk to it, right?"
Harry was somewhat taken aback by this, "Er, yes," he said sheepishly.
"Well, can you try and tell it what we're going to do. You know, calm it down."
Harry looked at the snake, and it looked at him, its dark eye gleaming. "I can try."
He leaned in, very close to the box, and very low on the table. He tried to keep his voice quiet, he didn't want anyone besides Susan to hear him.
"Good morning," he said to the snake.
"What's so good about it?!" The snake demanded angrily. "One minute I'm swimming in the lake, the next I'm stuck in a box with fiteen other whiney gits!"
"I'm sorry, that's Snapes fault, not mine."
"Who's Snape? I'll bite the hell out of him!" The snake hissed.
Harry laughed a little. "Yea, he get's that a lot. But listen my friend and I need to use some of your venom."
"How the hell do you plan on getting it? Do you want me to bite you or something?" The snake demaned.
Susan watched all this in awe, it was amazing that he'd be able to talk with snakes, and the even more interesting thing was....she understood it. The numb feeling in her forearm was acting up again, but she pushed that feeling away.
Susan could understand what they were saying. What Harry and the snake were saying! Her mind raced, she'd never been able to understand snakes before. Or had she? She'd never really been close to a snake before.
"Harry?" She asked, and both Harry and the snake turned to look at her.
She clampt her hands over her mouth, because, instead of words, a low hiss had come out.
"Susan! You're a parslemouth too?" He yelped. But that couldn't be right, he thought fervantly, Dumbledore had said that Harry was the only parstlemouth alive besides Voldemort. Then he realized, with a shiver down his spine, that Dumbledore must've been wrong.
Susan shook her head, "I don't know, it's just...I understood what you two were saying..."
"How long have you known?"
"I didn't...I mean...I don't know!" She shook her head violently. What is going on?! Her mind voice screamed.
"Is there a problem here?" a cold voice asked.
Susan turned around and came face to face with Professor Snape. Snape saw fear in her eye, but she lowered them.
"N-no, Professor Snape," she murmered. "My-my mind just wandered away for a second."
"Very well, then," he said and walked away. He wondered what she could be afraid of, not snakes, surely. He'd heard about her handleing much more dangerous creatures when she'd been in a Care of Magical Creatures lesson.
"We'd better finish this," she said quickly. And before Harry could say anything she'd reached into the box and grabbed the snake by the 'neck'.
Severus saw this with his peripherial vision, and saw her cleanly milk the snake and put it back into its box. It couldn't have been the snake that she was afraifd of. Still, she spent the remander of the class pouring over a parchment prentending she was reading it.
When the time came to test the venom he did it by the table, he had each of the studnets reach into their boxes, and each of them were bitten. Then they tested theit potions, those that didn't work were quickly given the proper potion. Grangers worked flawlessly, but she was hesitent to reach her hand into the box. Unfortunatly her snake was sleeping, so she had to wake it up. Needless to say the snake wasn't happy about it.
When he came to Potter and Bones, he only had to look at Bones, and she stuck her hand deftly into the box. The snake reared back, recoilng from her hand, and then, at her sharp gaze, it bit her. She didn't flinch, she just removed her hand calmly from the box, and rested it upon the table.
Potter handled much the same.
The two drank down viles of their potion, and it worked, the snake wound closed as if it never were there in the first place.
Severus moved on. But harry kept glancing oddly at Susan. And she tried to keep herself occupied by anything else. She was working on whatever she could. Work kept her mind off things, off changes, for a time it would make everything good. How could she be a parstlemouth?
She wasn't anyone special, sure her parents, and most of her family had been murdered by the Dark Lord; but a lot of families had. Whole bloodlines had been wipped out by him, the only one who'd ever survived had been Harry...and her.
She'd lived through an attack, her parents had secreted her away during the raid, and she'd been found by Ministry Officals sometime during the next week.
"Harry," she said in a quiet voice.
"Yea?" Harry asked, snapping out of thought.
"Don't tell anyone....about what just happened. It'll be our secret, ok?"
"S-sure," he stammared. When she said it that way, she sounded so sweet, like being a parstlemouth was the only thing tainting her innocent world.
Of course Susan knew better. After class she planned on consulting Professor Snape, you wanted to know about the Dark Arts, you went to Snape. Susan could feel the butterflies in her stomach doing the cancan. Harry was being awfully nice about this, agreeing to not tell anyone, and he was rather cute...Her thoughts trailed off for a moment before she pulled the reins and brought them back around
"So," Harry said. "There anything else about you I should know?"
"I'm a gemini," she prompted.
This caused Harry to laugh. "Well I'm a cancer," this caused Susan to laugh. "Or at least that's what Hermione told me," he grinned crookidly.
A Cancer, she thought, so he'd like hobbies...well he was a Quidditch player.
He'd also like parties and romance. But that also ment he wouldn't like aggravating situation, faluire, opposition, being told what to do, and advice (neither good or bad).
They chatted a bit, about this and that, Harry learned a little about Susan, and Susan learned a little about Harry.
At the end of the lesson all the students filed out of the room, Harry, Ron and Hermione in the lead. Harry gave a polite goodbye wave as he left. Susan delerbiatrly hung back.
"Cor, she seems like a bloody nightmare," Ron said looking back over his sholder. "She's so quiet, how'd you ever get her to talk?"
Harry shrugged, "Dunno Ron, she didn't seem shy to me."
"Well she's a brute isn't she. I saw her pick up that culdron, bloody thing must way a hundred pound at least."
"One hundred and fifty pounds, Ron," Hermione chipped in. "To be exact."
Ron put one arm around Hermione's shoulder and squeezed affectionatly. "Hermiones, you're always exact."
Harry rolled his eyes.
Back in the Potion's room, Susan stood in front of Severus' desk, rubbing her forearm.
Severus was sitting at his desk, scribbling on a piece of parchment. As Susan's shadow blotted out what little light he was using to read, he looked up.
"Yes, Miss. Bones?" He asked irritatidly.
"Um, Professor, I don't mean to take up your time-"
"Then you know the way out."
"But I have a question I'd like you to answer."
Severus rolled his eyes. "Yes?"
"How many parslemouths are there in the world?"
Severus looked at her oddly, but she did not meet his gaze. Instead she mearly looked at the edge of his desk, apperently trying to bore wholes into the wood.
"Two, that are know, Potter," he spat. "And the Dark Lord. Why do you ask?"
"N-no reason."
Severus smirked, "You would not ask me the question if you didn't have one about yourself. Now, tell me why you asked, or I'll take this up with the Headmaster."
Susan could have lied, she could have run screaming out of the door. Instead, she stood there, rubbing her arm, and told to truth. "Because," she said in a small voice. "I think I am one."
This caused Severus to raise an eyebrow. "You cannot think you are a parselmouth, you either are or you are not. Now, what makes you think you are a parselmouth?"
"Well, when Harry was talking to the snake, I understod them. And when I called for Harry's attention, it didn't come out in words, it came out as a hiss."
"Accio Water Moccosin!" Severus called. A snake came zooming from the nearest table, and Severus caught it. "Show me."
"Excuse me?" Susan stammared.
"Speak to this snake, and I will believe you. Tell it to move its head from side to side three times."
Susan stood there agast, she didn't think she could do anything to the snake. The snake was there in its little invable cage, looking thouroghly upset. She looked it directly in the eyes, she imagened herself speaking to it.
"Excuse me," she said in words she's never heard before. "Would you mind moving your head from side to side three times?"
"I'm not doing anything you sssay, human!" It hissed at her.
Susan looked desperatly at Severus. "He said he won't do it."
Then a funny thing happened, the snake turned and nodded at Snape as if saying 'Ya! Ya greasy bastard.'
Severus looked from the snake, to Susan, then back to the snake again. "How long have you known?" He hissed in a remarkable impression of the angry snake. He was looking down his hooked nose at her, and it made Susan shiver.
"Since just now," she admitted sheepishly.
"You could not have know since just now," he snapped.
She rubbed her arm again, this time out of nervous habbit, and before she could say anything Severus' arm shot out and grabbed her arm. He pulled her bodily over the desk and shoved the robe sleeve up to her elbow.
On the tan flesh of her arm, an outline had appeared, and outline Severus knew only too well. He grabbed his wand with his free hand and pressed the tip of it in the center of the mark.
"What are you doing?!" Susan shouted and began to struggle.
"Hold still you foolish girl!" Severus demanded, and Susan stopped struggling. The pale, boney fingers of the potions master felt like tiny embers buring her skin.
"You're hurting me," she pleaded.
"It's no less than you deserve," Snape said darkly. "Deatheater!"
He held up her forarm and sure enough on her forarm was the dark mark. Susan's eye grew wide.
"No!" She yelled. "No, I'm not a Deatheater, Proffessor," she pleaded.
Snape threw her from him, and she stumbled backwards.
"You sold youself to the other side," he accused. "What did they promise you? Money, power, a place on the throne?" He walked around his desk, each accusation hit Susan like a rock. She began to back up as he adavanced towards her. She wasn't a Deatheater, she couldn't be.
"I didn't, Professor Snape. I'm not a Deatheater! I swear, you have to believe me!" She suddenly reached a wall, the stone felt cold against her back.
"Of course you did, you foolish girl! The mark on your arm porves it, what have you told him?" He stood in front of her now, his wand pointed at her throught.
"I didn't!"
"No more lies!" He snarled.
What happened next happened so fast, no one would be able to tell you what happened if they saw it. Susan was corned, she had a crazed man in front of her in no uncertain terms threatening her. Susan did what she had been taught to do, she rigth hooked him in the jaw, and he went flying.
"I'm not a Deathereater!" She screamed, and ran out of the classroom.
She'd attacked a teacher! She'd be expelled for sure, maybe sent to Azkaban. She had the Dark Mark on her forarm, she'd talked to a snake. She's attacked a teacher! And not just any teacher, the one she'd had an unexplainable crush on for some time! But it wasn't her fault, he'd attacked her first. Right? Oh, but nobody would believe her, she had the Dark Mark. Why did she have it?! What was going on?!
All this would be enough to drive a young person mad, and truly Susan believed that she was doing just that. And then she ran into Headmaster Dumbledore, who was standing in the door. Susan stumbled back and fell on her rear, while the older gentleman stood there, his slim frame taking up very little of the doorway.
"What is going on here, Miss. Bones?" He asked seriously, looking down his crooked nose at the befudled young lady. Behind her he could see Serverus getting p off the floor, and looking furius.
"Headmaster," she gasped. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it. I'm not a Deatheater! I'm not!" Susan was very near histarics, and the moment Dumbledore hoped to avoide forever was fast approching.
"Headmaster!" Severus snarled stalking towards them in a flurry of robes. "This girl is a Deatheater, look at her forearm, she bares the Dark Mark and just today had proved to myself to be a parselmouth."
"And you rewarded this young ladies confidence with wild accusations, Severus?" He said very calmly.
Severus seemed at a loss for words at this, and simply stood there sputter nonsense. Had he been a more apprecitive man, he would have wondered at Susan's right hook and her ability to fell a full grown man long enough to get away. He felt a mingle of shame and anger at Albus' words, but he'd masked that with a smirk.
"I supose you are right, Headmaster," he drawled. "But would you care to explain to me," he made a grab for Susan's arm, but she sidestepped him and was sorely tempted to hide behind Dumbledore. "The mark on this young ladies arm," he finished.
"Certinly, Severus," Dumbledore said solemly. "Susan Bones is Lord Voldemort's only daughter."
Susan stood there in numb shock as Severus gaped at her, and Dumbledore seemed to await some sort of reaction. Susan Bones, now Susan Riddle, did what any other normal eighteen year-old would do when they just found out that their father wasn't a kind hearted, well thought of Auror, but instead was the veritable Hitler of the wizarding world...she fainted.