Dear reader, once again I ask you to suspend what you know about the series from the battle at the Ministry on. I gave Sirius a reprieve--not that I liked him overmuch, but there you are. I also have a tendency to want to put most of the work in the hands of the adults, and no offense to anyone but I found everything from the horcruxes beyond kind of a cop-out. Granted, one should not preface her work, but should you get confused, you've been warned. It's just about all up in the air at this point. Rowling killed my favorite character, ergo I fart in her general direction.

Oh, and if anyone wants to help with the French, mercy buckets.

Un dsire dangereux

I. Un crime de la passion

"Cupo!" shouted the deranged witch. Vivienne was caught in the back, hurled to the ground by the force of the blow. Kingsley, turning back and wrenching her up by the arm, spun quickly on the spot apparating them both away as their assailants bore down on them, firing hexes and curses as they came. Feeling as though she had been sucked through a vacuum only to be spat out again in some dodgy London suburb, Vivienne wrinkled her nose as she looked around. All of the walk-ups she saw looked distinctly rundown. Even the cars were junk heaps.

"What are we doing here?" she said, casting a sidelong glance at Shacklebolt as he stopped midway down the street between numbers 11 and 13. "We should be heading back to the Ministry, should we not? Or better yet, St. Mungo's? I'm sure that hex Lestrange blasted at me hit me solid in the back, and I do not wish to find out here what it does."

"The problem with us going back there, Dulac, is that I have never heard that curse before in all my years as Auror. I doubt they will know what to do with you at St. Mungo's, and the Ministry itself may well be compromised. Someone had to have told them we would be there. They apparated straight in and started firing. Now read this quietly and memorize it."

He handed her a torn piece of parchment, which she read silently to herself while he looked around to make sure no one was about. Just as she finished, it promptly erupted into flames in her hand causing her to drop it. In a trice, it was nothing but ash.

"So we do what now?" she said as the buildings before her suddenly popped apart, revealing yet another dingy townhouse.

"We go in," he said, leading the way up the front stoop.

Upon entering what was clearly a dark wizard's old musty domicile, Vivienne's first thought was that it looked every bit as bad as it had from the outside. Her second was that Shacklebolt must have been confunded. Yet even as she wondered at this supposed refuge, she gasped at the magenta-haired witch who exited a room down the hall and nearly knocked over the hat rack in her haste to greet them.

"Wotcher!" she said, trying to right the stand again.

"La! Tonks!" Vivienne cried, rushing to clasp hands with her friend. "You would not believe what happened on assignment! I've been hit with something." She turned, meeting Kingsley's eyes as he nodded over her head to Tonks, affirming the news.

"I've never heard it before and wanted to check with Albus and possibly Snape. "

"They're neither one of them here yet, but they're expected any minute. The meeting's at seven, and Molly is cooking again. Are you alright there, Viv?"

"Yes, so far. It's really strange. I felt the blow so strongly it knocked the breath out of me. I hit the ground de force; it was hard."

"Let's get you a cuppa then and sit you down while we wait. What was the spell?"

"She said 'cupo', but as Vivienne says, there doesn't seem to be anything outwardly wrong." The two spared her a worried glance as they made their way down the hall to a kitchen, where a red-haired witch was bustling around the stove, banging pots and muttering under her breath, "apparating down for meals as though they lost the use of their legs..."

"Hullo, Molly, we've got two more just come 'round," said Tonks, who stepped up to the stove. "You want any help there?"

"Oh no!" said, Molly clutching a bowl of potatoes to her bosom as if afraid Tonks would try to take it. "No, thank you, Dora. Better if you just sit."

Turning to Vivienne, "hello there, dear, won't you come in and have a seat?"

"Thank you, Molly, was it? I mean no intrusion--"

"Pish tosh! We'll have none of that. You're very welcome here," she said smiling and ushering them to a table. "Hello Kingsley, you're early."

"Molly," he said, clasping hands with her. "We had a bit of a run-in with some Death Eaters on our assignment. I'd like to run through it once when everyone gets here, but we've just arrived from the location we were observing straight away."

"Of course, of course." And with that, she ushered them both to a seat and put on the kettle.

***

It was not many minutes thereafter that the fire in the grate turned a poison green as two wizards stepped through. One, decidedly older had a serene smile playing above a long flowing beard the same silver as his buckled shoes. The second, looking quite more put upon, had a pallid complexion contrasted against the darkest obsidian eyes she had ever seen and lank, oily black hair. "Oh, il est extrmement peu attrayant," she thought. "Est-ce qu'l fait la douche?" And yet strangely, upon sight of him her stomach fluttered, and she was sure had she not already been sitting, she her knees would have given way. "Qu'est-ce qui ce passe?" Before she could wonder overmuch as her reaction to the strange man, the old wizard raised his arms to hug Molly.

"Molly, I thank you for the hard work it takes to feed such an army. Once again it looks as though you have outdone yourself." He gestured to the pots simmering and bubbling on the stove.

"Oh go on, Albus," she blushed, shooing him away.

"Molly," said the other wizard, acknowledging her with a single nod. "Un poisson sang froid," she reasoned watching the display, "and we French are supposed to be snobs."

"Hello, Severus. Both of you come in, sit. Arthur says he will be late and supper with still be a while yet, so what news you have go on with it. We'll catch him up. There's time."

At that point, Kingsley seized his opportunity to introduce Vivienne and relate what had happened to them near Downing Street. Mr. Dumbledore, Albus as he said he preferred to be called, nodded as though he was aware that they were posted to tail the Muggle prime minister. He looked graver yet when he heard that though the prime minister did not appear to be home, the two Aurors were ambushed by no less than six Mangemorts, Death Eaters, as they called them. It was not until Kingsley mentioned the Bella witch's curse that the dark wizard Severus spoke up, his eyes flashing with what she thought might be recognition.

"What did you say was the spell?" he questioned in measured tones that shot a reaction straight to her loins. As she felt the rush from it, so too did a searing pain shoot up her left arm as he spoke. Gasping, she stood straight up clutching at her forearm and yanking up her sleeve. Uttering a shocked cry, she asked in a strangled voice, "qu'est-ce que c'est?" before realizing she had spoken in French. "What is it?" she repeated frantically.

As Kingsley and Albus craned their necks to see the image that had imprinted itself onto her flesh, Severus skirted the table, quickly snatching her wrist and holding it up close. "Good God," was his only remark. There, indelibly etched from her wrist to the crook of her elbow was a replica of the Dark Mark. Lining the side of it, also in black, was the phrase, "property of."

"What does it mean?" she asked him, her voice shaking with shock and revulsion.

"It means, to put it succinctly, that you have been branded as a slave."

*il est extrmement peu attrayant = he is extremely unattractive
Est-ce qu'l fait la douche = Does he shower?
Qu'est-ce qui ce passe? = What's happening?
Un poisson sang froid = a cold-blooded fish