She was tall for her age, but with a lithe grace that could make water seem like a bumbling idiot. White hair, or silver rather, framed her face and fell to her elbows. Her skin was whiter than milk, and looked as if it'd break if dropped. Like a porcelain doll, Harry thought vaguely, intranced at the sight before them all.
She was breathing in a determined slowness, thought it was obviously strained. There was a large cut on her right cheek, and Harry could see she was clutching her side under her menacingly jetblack robes. The second he lifted his eyes from her injured state, he met something that nearly made him faint.
Her eyes. Scarlet, no, more than that. Blood red. The irises were fine, perfectly normal besides their color, but what struck Harry was the shape of her pupils. They were slightly acute, and seemed so utterly snake-like that she resembled his worst enemy, Hell, the world's worst enemy, Lord Voldemort.
Their gaze never faltered, and from the slightly crazed silence that was encompassing the room, nobody was willing to speak before one of them did. She was first to jerk her eyes away, and Harry fleetingly realized that she hadn't once looked at his scar, nor gotten that glazed look most did when they were using their peripheral vision to glimpse it.
Suddenly she blanched and turned to Mrs. Weasley. "Molly, do you think I could get a bowl... or something?" Her voice was light, but it held a power, and Mrs. Weasley quickly ran to the kitchen and came back with a large wooden bowl. Nearly immediately the girl leaned over it with all the grace a spellbound person could muster, heaving what sounded suspiciously like slugs into the bowl Mrs. Weasley was sympathetically holding for her.
Harry tore his eyes away to look at the others, who were now all gaping between the woman and him, still curious about the little stare-off they'd had. Ginny had stopped crying the moment the girl had spoken, and was now looking pityingly at her. Bill was shaking his head and muttered something about how brothers could be the worst eggs in a family, and Ron and Harry shared a significant look. Ron had gone through the same condition a few years back, and it hadn't been a great experience. He looked at her again before taking out his wand and saying the counter-jinx Madam Pomfrey had used on him then. The girl looked faintly startled at first before taking out her own wand and cleaning the bowl, then, to the slight humor of Fred and George, Scourgified her own mouth.
"Well, then. We should get down to business?" Her eyes flicked fom face to face, avoiding Harry's, and landed on Lupin. "Remus, would you mind not taking so much of that accursed aging potion. Surely you don't think we know so little of werewolves not to know they have a slow aging process? Please save us all the worry you're going to keel over and just... stop?" One of her pale eyebrows was raised, and Harry saw a glimmer of amusement in her eyes. Aparently she had to advert the attention from her.... and to Lupin?
Harry's head swivelled so fast he could have sworn it'd popped twice. "Lupin?! You git! I thought you were bloody well dying!"
And he gave a slight smile to the ex-Professor, who looked extremely pale at the thought of someone knowing this significant fact.
"Well..." Lupin shifted slightly, utterly unnerved. "I -- Alright you lot will you stop looking at me like that?!" He turned to the girl and tried to glare, but apparently couldn't; as if a force were keeping him from it. He left her gaze and stared intently on the wood of the table.
A light, strangled laugh left the girl as she pulled out an empty seat across from Harry and sat herself. Harry noticed again, with a twinge of sympathy, that a dark liquid was seeping between the fingers of her left hand, which was clutching her side. Before he could comment, she raised a hand and a complete hush followed it. Her startling eyes rested on Harry, who was fully aware of the slight frown that was evident on his brow. A second passed before she took her hand away from her side and took a cloth from the table to wipe her hand. The blackness of the liquid didn't escape Harry's eye.
"Potter." Harry's attention jerked at the sound of her voice, which had considerably stablilized itself after her wretching. "Do you know who I am?"
It seemed such a stupid question at the moment that Harry had to make his memory repeat it twice before he realized she was serious. "Of course I don't, how could I?" His voice came out a bit colder than he'd liked it to be, but she didn't seem to mind.
On the contrary, she rather enjoyed it.
The boy was startling, actually, in the way he kept himself composed on the other end of the table. The scar didn't matter to her, and she could tell he was faintly suprised at it. She tossed the cloth at the reproachful house-elf, much to the displeasure of the Mudblood, and turned her gaze back to Potter.
"There are many ways to get to know things, Potter." Her head tilted slightly as his eyes widened in the slightest. She kept her voice in a deadly quiet. "Or have you been mentally penetrated multiple times and come out of it will so little knowledge? I'm fully aware that you can get into Weasely's mind at random times. And... if I'm not mistaken..." Her eyes narrowed slightly as she her head raised in understanding, or was it comprehension....? "You've attempted --"
"Tell me who you are, then, if that's where you're getting at." The boy did look rather menacing when he was snarling like a rabid beast....
A slow smirk lifted the corners of her unusually scarlet lips. "Certainly. I'm Rainnealla Shea Fall, daughter of Voldemort's step-brother, Aakarshan Murdre Fall."
There was a stunned silence, of which she didn't miss the opportunity in. She hadn't even told Dumbledore the fact that she was personally related to the Dark Lord, nor the tidbit that she was supposed to take over for him in a case that he'd be unable to. "I'm his heir."
At this the Potter kid abruptly convulsed, clutching his forehead, and even from the two meters separating her from the boy, Rainne could tell her uncle was very angry.
I'm doing what you told me, Uncle. You cannot blame me for that. Her thought was completely neutral, even loving, in a sick, sly kind of way.
No, certainly not, dear child, but you're not here, and Nott just noticed. Knew he was too intelligent for his own good. What do you think, Cruciatus or Callus Vaporus? The Dark Lord sounded deeply thoughtful, anger seeping through his mind's barriers.
Definately Callus Vaporus. The more he crumbles the better. Have fun Uncle.
Oh I will, Trust me... I will.
Immediately the Potter boy stopped, gasping for breath, and looked over at her. Slightly aware of the accusatory glint in his eyes, she gave a small, almost pitying smile. "Nott noticed my absence. Sorry about that, Potter. Nothing I could have prevented. He'll be dead tomorrow, so your pain will be paid in full."
At the horrorstruck faces, she nimbly got up from her seat and inclined her head in their direction. "The man in your bedroom tonight was Jadian, my brother. He was trying to avenge himself after ten years in Moribundus, a wizarding prizon hundreds of miles below Malaysia, completely impregnable. Nobody's survived after going in. Everyone but him. Rest assured he'll regain ranks for attempting your murder though. That is, if he can get out again." With that, she nodded to Bill, who led her over into the tea parlor to heal her wounds.
After this, Harry wasn't sure if he should be worried, thankful, depressed, or gleeful. This Fall character could be a spy for Him. And he was sure he'd heard them speaking mentally during that elaborate pain spasm. Perhaps she was a spy for them, the Order. If so, he should be immensely relieved. She was Voldemort's bloody heir! That's definately got to have huge privelages and inside connections attached to the majesticality of it. Just think of the look on Malfoy's face when he saw the heir to the man he'd sworn faith to, at Hogwarts. Yes. Harry knew she'd be in Slytherin. One look at the whiplash of her tongue or cut of her eye would tell you that. A mind full of cunning and a heart worthy of Voldemort himself. Vaguely, he wondered if it really was black. He'd been certain that liquid on her hand had been blood. But if it was, she had the strangest blood he'd ever seen. Then again... he'd only seen reaccurances of Wormtail's blood over the past month. So he thought it likely that fleeting second of seeing it, he'd just imagined it.I mean, everything about her screams strange, maybe I just thought her blood was no exception.....