Disclaimer: No, I don't own the Harry Potter characters or universe. I do not receive money for this story, nor do I plan on collecting any.
A/N: Well no reviews but plenty of hits. Hopefully this will inspire you to review cause without reviews and feedback I cant make it better. Muses feed off the stuff hence…:feed" back.
Chapter two – The Escape:
Aislinn's skin was on fire in fury, she felt as though a dragon were attempting to rip its way free of her chest. Voldemort had chained her in a small room next to the throne room so she could suffer her child's screams into the night. As Freya suffered Aislinn could do nothing, she couldn't tell how many Witches and Wizards were in the room beyond, and she had not felt the smooth coolness of a wand in years, to attempt a rescue now could kill them both; but listening to what was done killed her from the inside out. She could feel her magic reacting to her emotions, swelling like an angry tide until it pressed against her skin begging for freedom. Aislinn knew she must wait and the guilt tore at her as she listened to Freya's cries. After long hours it grew quiet and still and only a muffled sobbing drifted through the wall.
The time had come, the death eaters had all left, leaving the bleeding and broken child behind. Aislinn reached deep in her core and grasped her magic firmly until she felt so hot she might combust with it. She shaped it to a deadly edge with her intent, using skills almost forgotten with disuse to bend it to her will. Her collar shattered like glass as she rose, her burgundy hair lifting from her shoulders with the energy and her eyes burning with all the light of an earth shattering storm. Aislinn lifted her hand and watched as the wall blasted, becoming only dust before it had a chance to become rubble. She stepped through the hole even before the drifts of dust settled, walking with the regal baring of a queen on the warpath despite her nakedness. The Wards began to scream as she gathered her weeping daughter to her chest, the warm trails of blood staining her skin and giving her the war paint she so needed, but she paid no mind to the noise as she headed for the main doors.
They had given her what she had needed, had shown Aislinn where her daughter was, and now nothing would save them. Nothing would stop the rain of fire and wrath she would send down upon them, and before this was over they would all scream and plead as Freya had at their hands. The power rose around her like a fiery nimbus she could just almost see, but she could feel it. Men shouted for her to stop, curses flew past her head in burst of light; but when she turned around the spells paused. They froze in pure animal fear at the look in her eyes, falling back a step for only a moment, but it was enough. Without so much as twitching a muscle she flung a severing curse in their direction. Limbs, suddenly free of their owners, fell to the floor with meaty thumps as the Witches and Wizards fell howling beside them.
"Pray while you can. I will return, and when I do I will bring a vengeance upon you so horrific Morrigan herself will bow her head! Your cries will echo hers as you beg for mercy and death!" Aislinn vowed to the very stars themselves that it would be so. With one final look a thunderous crack sent magical whiplash through the room as she disapparated away, she left fear in her wake.
-* ~~o0o~~ *-
Severus hurried to get his robes on as he rushed to leave Malfoy manner. He was careful to wait so that Lucius could disapparate ahead of him; it would look suspicious if they arrived at the same time. Mask firmly in place Severus touched his wand to the burning mark on his arm and whisked away to where the Dark Lord awaited them. He landed with a thud outside the manor he had stood in hours before, where a little part of him had been cut away to die once again. Chaos surrounded him, men racing back and forth in a frantic scramble, bursts of light from spell work flashing in the deep night. Lucius strode up from across the field, robes billowing importantly behind him in a way that rendered the anonymity of the mask and uniform useless.
"What's going on?" Severus asked watching as other Death Eaters cast tracking spells in every direction, their movements driven by fear.
" I only arrived a few moments before you. All I have heard is a hand full of His personal guard were maimed a few didn't make it." Lucius stated his confusion evident.
"Crucio!" They heard Voldemort shout his voice shrill and full of rage. Rabastan fell to the ground in agony, being the last to arrive when summoned earned him swift punishment. "Hurry up and find where she has gone you incompetent fools!" The two Death Eaters turned to each other in understanding, a woman was a force to be reckoned with, a mother protecting her child was more than deadly. They quickly joined the spreading circle of people casting tracking charms, if they could pick up on the trail her apparition had taken they could follow it, though a tedious process, to her destination. What the Dark Lord had failed to take into consideration was the fact that many Death Eaters had apparated into the grounds during the crucial time frame, where her travel would have been detectable. His spell cast out a light mist and all at once it clung like fog to a faint silver trail heading to the west. He banished the spell with a flick of his wand before anyone could notice. He was surprised, while everyone had a magical signature it told a skilled mind to pick it up with any accuracy, his practice with occlumency had allowed him this small luxury. The feel was unfamiliar and it smelt of twilight on a autumn night, crisp and pure.
The Professor locked the details in his mind and went back to task casting tracking spells and vanishing any trace of her magic before someone truly loyal to the Dark Lord stumbled across it. He continued in his false search until Voldemort himself called a stop to it hours later when the sun streaked the clouds in color.
"Stop. Even I can see it is now impossible to track the bitch." He snarled angrily. He lifted his wand towards a slim death eater with a mop of rust colored hair. "You. You will take responsibility for this; it was your guard that was foolish enough to let them escape. Take him away; I will deal with him later." Rabastan and Fenrir separated themselves from the group to take the now sickly looking Death Eater under the arms to drag him away, the former with a look of malicious glee on his face due to his earlier reprimand. Severus had always thought the man was petty, but he was at least glad their prisoner was smart enough not to beg for mercy, it would have only made his punishment worse. "The rest of you may return to your previous engagements. If you receive any news you are to report to me immediately. Anyone who fails to do so will take her place." The men visibly flinched but a muttered chorus of "yes my Lord" followed. The pops of disapparition cracked like thunder as the grounds cleared.
"My Lord," Severus approached Voldemort with a slight bow. The older wizard waved his hand impatiently, giving him permission to speak. "What do you wish done in regards to the Order? With a morsel of information they would make themselves the willing workers while we snatch the prize."
"Leave them out of this now. I won't have them getting a hold of her before we have exhausted every other venue." The Dark Wizard turned away in an obvious dismissal, and Snape took the chance to leave.
He appeared outside the Malfoy home wards and was only a little surprised to see Lucius waiting for him. The man had always had a bit too much incite into the professors actions in his opinion. "It seems I am getting predictable, at this rate the Dark Lord will kill me in no time."
"No old friend, not predictable, just reliable." Lucius chuckled clapping the younger man on the back. "Now, what is it you have found Sev?" He lead the surly Death Eater to a private and hidden gazebo tucked into a dark corner of the lawn.
"Your right, as always it would seem." He conceded as he sat. Lucius took the opposite chair calling his private elf and ordered the customary tea service with sandwiches. "I found her trail headed west. It was faint, my guess is she used a massive amount of magic to burst through the wards. We need to find the them, the girl would likely be fading fast if she was lucky enough to survive." His voice was tight, the torture that the poor thing had been put through curled his stomach still. "I had tried to help but all I could do was apply a salve to help deaden the nerves for pain." He was more than a little disgusted in himself for such a poor excuse of help, to let a child suffer so.
"I fear I did not manage much more. A contraceptive potion in one of her wounds and a displacement charm for some of her pain. I wished to do more but I was moved aside so another could go to rut." The older man said in disgust, he reached up to rub the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Considering a displacement charm only moves a small portion, the transferred pain to me says the pain she bore to be great." He sent back the tea service untouched and knew neither of them would be able to stomach a meal after that night. "Shall we?"
"Indeed" Severus stood as they both sent their patronus' to alert the Order for an emergency meeting before heading to Grimmauld place.
-*~~o0o~~ *-
Order members began to appear, yawning and grumbling, in their night wear. Severus and Lucius had already prepared, a rather large pot of rather strong coffee stood on the table steaming surrounded with biscuits and porridge. As everyone was taking their seats Dumbledore appeared, he was the only one who managed to appear unruffled at 3 am.
"Good morning everyone." The Headmaster said cheerily summoning up tea for himself and ignoring the coffee. The response was grumbled and filled with pointed looks at the Slytherins. The Headmaster chuckled. "Come now, I am sure we wouldn't have been roused at such an hour without a reason. Do you care to explain Severus?" He questioned with, what Severus considered to be, an annoyingly bright twinkle in his eye.
"Two of the Dark Lord's prisoners have escaped. The elders name is Aislinn," No one seemed to catch the way Albus' eyes darkened, twinkle lost in its hard set. "She has long curly burgundy hair and steel gray eyes. Her daughter, Freya, has has shorter black hair with the burgundy highlights and the same eyes. Freya is 15 years old, if I guess correctly, and likely close to death." Severus was stopped by Molly's gasp as sympathy for the child, he had known she would feel deeply for any child in pain. No doubt she was thinking of her own children in the same situation.
"Now Severus, how do you know this is not a trap? Surely if she could have escaped why had she not done so before now?" Dumbledore spoke as if to a child, his voice soft his eyes twinkling in warning. The Headmaster had always aired on the side of caution, even when he appeared not to, but his gaze was sharp as he asked the question.
"She had no wand Albus, hasn't for years which mean, unless she has miraculously learned wandless magic which only a fraction of wizards are able to do or she had an emotional surge. It's unfathomable that she was able to break the Dark Lord's collar much less apparate and punch through the wards to do so. It had to be an emotional overload of unimaginable proportions to do any of this. An overload she was provided." Severus snapped back. He hated when the old man spoke to him like an empty headed first year, and the fact he was insinuating this woman wanted to be a prisoner made his blood boil.
"How can you be sure? I assume you were not present for this amazing feat?" The raised eyebrow was a challenge that Snape did not miss.
"He was enraged Albus. Members of his personal guard were maimed and killed by the woman and he sent the head of the patrol to the dungeons." The younger man countered. "Or are you suggesting she decided to watch as Voldemort handed her daughter over to his men before leaving. Perhaps that little session was staged to make it seem like she had a surge of emotional magic, just using her daughter as a front. Surely the look of absolute horror on her face as her daughter screamed was also a ruse." Severus could still see it when he closed his eyes. The woman's mouth stretched wide in a terrible silent gash of rage, the wild emotion in her eyes as she clawed so fiercely at her collar that the white rags about her chest had been stained with blood. Worse had been the way she had thrashed and clawed wildly at the air as she had been dragged from the room, trying desperately to reach her weeping daughter. There had been a streaks of blood left behind from her fingers trying to gouge at the stone. He could feel it as Lucius brushed his fingers against his forearm, gently reminding him that he was not alone. It took all of Severus' will to keep his face placid and smooth.
Dumbledore opened his mouth to speak when Molly cut him off. "Enough Albus. There is a child involved, who may be dying, while you sit here bickering. Trap or no trap the child is innocent. There is no reason why we should not assist this woman and her child. We must hear Severus out." She said in a clipped tone tears of outrage standing in her eyes. "Now, please continue Severus. What happened?" The potions professor nodded his thanks to the woman before continuing.
"Considering a life may hang in the balance I will skip the details. Considering the nature of the details you would sleep better without them I am sure. This woman and her child were captured some years back. The Dark Lord took her as his personal "pet". As I understand it he had quite a bit of trouble getting her to "cooperate" shall we say. At some point he threatened her daughter, and as most mothers would do, she swore to do whatever he wished if Freya remained safe from him and his men. From then on her daughter was kept safe, a prisoner, but safe; even educated a bit. Any of the men that tried to get near her Voldemort himself punished, and Aislinn was his personal devoted slave; I am certain I do not need to explain all that entailed." He paused a moment to let the gravity of what he said sink in. Molly had a look of pride on her face as she watched him, a mother recognizing the sacrifice of another. He was pleased to see that not one face at the table was drooping in drowsiness, all the eyes focused on him as he spoke. "He kept his word; that is, until tonight. Moral was low and he wanted to rally his men so he handed Freya over for them to do with as they pleased, which I'm sure you can imagine. He chained Aislinn to his throne and, after giving her false hope of saving her by…" He took a steadying breath, covering it with a sneer, again seeing the way the woman had moved in the hope of saving her child. "forcing her to perform her "duties" in front of everyone, including Freya, forced her to watch as her daughter was tortured and raped. Some time later that night she escaped with her daughter after attacking the men that tried to stop her."
The gathered members began to talk among themselves angrily, their voices twisting into each other as they considered the situation. Severus didn't miss the fact that Sirius grabbed Lucius' hand beneath the table for comfort. Molly stood and the room quieted immediately, her face could have iced over the whole of Hogwarts, and even Arthur looked sick and a bit afraid. "We need to find them. Do we have any idea where she may have gone?" She directed her question at the two Slytherins. It was strange to see her looking at them for direction, she had been one of those opposed to Lucius joining them three years before.
"West from the manor where she was being held." Lucius conjured a map in mid air. He drew across the surface with the tip of his wand drawing with different colored lines. "The path leads in this general direction. I suggest we split up, she would have gone somewhere she felt safe I imagine and somewhere she could find help for her daughter. Chances are she will also want to find a wand." He drew a red line through an area that was known to be barren mountains where dangerous creatures lived. Molly marched to the head of the table pushing in between Albus and Severus with her hands on her hips.
"Alright everyone here is what is going to happen. We are splitting up into groups of two and we will each take a sector and report back every hour. Tonks your going with Remus, and Sirius with Moody." Molly said taking charge. Sirius just barely suppressed his disappointment at being separated from Lucius. "I will go with Arthur and Severus you will go with Lucius. Considering your arguments to this mission Albus I assume you do not wish to take part in this search?" She barely waited a heartbeat before continuing, not giving the wizard a chance to reply. Apparently his comments had touched a nerve in her, and she treated the Headmaster with uncharacteristic coldness. "Anyone have a problem with these arrangements? No? Alright then everyone go home get dressed and return here. I will bring some of my spare medical potions for you to take with you just in case. Well, don't just sit there, lets go." She clapped her hands in finality. The mother bustled out to apparate dragging her husband with her.
A/N: PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW. I will be writing a bonus chapter for those who want it at the end of the story. I will discuss it more later on or if you wanna know send me a review and question.