A/N: I now give to you chapter three! Dun Dun DUUUNNNNNNN! I know you're trembling. Well, here it is anyways .
Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own Harry Potter…so sad.
My fists clench and unclench as I walk stiffly through the corridors. I wind my way around the school and into the dungeons. Coming to a darker indent in the wall, I stop. Password, password, what is the password?
"Oh, Salazar's Heir," I shout and the wall vanishes.
The common room is busy with Slytherins, who like me had ditched class. The green torches are glowing brightly throughout the dungeon casting eerie, but familiar shadows around the room. The leather sofas are swarmed with a chattering group of first years. The sleek black matching tables are also taken up by people whose names I hadn't bothered to learn.
Standing at the top of the steps, I give my best wicked smile and shout, "ALL OF YOU, GET OUT!"
Seeing the anger clearly etched on my face, the first years don't even think twice about grabbing their books into their arms and shuffling out the door. However, the other group of students at the table only gives me questioning looks. Stealthily, I whip my wand out of my robes and point it at them.
"Are you questioning my ability to send you to the hospital wing for the rest of the term while they try to put the pieces of your body back together?" I snarl.
"Lyra Malfoy, you don't have any power over us. In fact, you don't have any power at all. I'm surprised you even decided to come to Hogwarts after the shame of everything that has happened in your pathetic life," a boy with dark blonde hair and dark brown eyes replies snidely. "I would love to see you try and do any little spell."
"You'll pay," I mutter, "Furnunculus!" the curse hits the boy right in the face and he stumbles to the floor.
His pale face begins to turn red with blisters as it swells and boils pop up all over his neck, arms, and legs.
"Look what you did to Evan, you stupid little girl!" shouts one of the girls, who is now trying to help Evan up.
"He's lucky I didn't do worse, but this filth isn't worth getting expelled over," I say, "Now get out!"
This time I'm not questioned as the five of them pick Evan up off the floor and head out to the hospital wing to cure him. With the common room to myself, I can finally think again. As I pace about the dungeon, I hear it again. The voice floats its way back into my mind.
"Still questioning things I see," it hisses. "All the answers are right in front of your nose. You're a powerful witch and someday you will be known as the great power that brought me back to life. Your name will be loved, feared, and respected. That's what you want, isn't it?"
"Yes," I answer firmly, a new clarity in my once unsteady voice.
"You see what you did there, that was nothing compared to the power I can give you. And together we can purge the earth and rid it of all those of un-pure and non-magical blood. I can give you everything you only dreamed of having."
"Well, then, tell me who you are!" I shout.
"Unfortunately, little snake, that you must find out on your own and soon, I don't plan to lie in a chamber forever," he laughs, as if it was a joke.
"Chamber," I mumble.
"Stttaaarrtttt tthere," it hisses into the distance.
"FIND ME!" and then it's silent once more.
I let the book that had been tucked inside my robes slide to the floor with a thump. Slowly, I bend down to pick it up. The book feels heavy in my hand as I carefully sit down at the table and open the green cover. Cautiously, I leaf through the pages looking for anything that might mention even a sentence about a chamber.
"Miss Malfoy," a voice calls from the entrance of the dungeon. "Please come with me."
I look up to see the round shape of Professor Slughorn looking if possible a mixture of pleased, disappointment and anger, I'm going to guess all at me. Closing the book I rise from the table and walk towards the Professor.
"Can I help you, Professor?" I ask innocently. Though I have to say, innocence for a Slytherin is as uncommon as snow in July.
"Were you the one that cast the boil charm on Mr. Peters?" he asked bluntly.
There was no use in lying, "Yeah," I respond.
"Well, marvelous job in execution of the-"
"Hmmhhrrm," the voice of McGonagall cut him off, "Horace." (Who is this voice?)
"Hmm, yes, right. As a professor of this school, I must deduct five points from Slytherin, and you will be serving detention with me for the remainder of this week, every evening at precisely seven o'clock," he explains somewhat apologetic.
"Fine," I mutter.
"Very well then. Now get to class!" he says.
I roll my eyes and walk past him out into the corridor. I can't cut this class because it's Potions with the Gryffindors and Slughorn as the teacher. I slip into the mob of people entering the low lit dungeon that is the Potions classroom. I am instantly greeted on both sides by Blair and Vincent.
"Where did you go?" Blair asks.
"Is it true what you did to Evan?" Vincent asks before I have a chance to answer the first question.
"Yes," I mutter, "And I would have done much worse, but he's not worth getting expelled over."
"Serves him right though, I always hated Evan anyway," Vincent whispers.
Blair and I nod in agreement. Evan is a self centered nobody who is convinced he is the best thing that ever happened to this place, you could say he is just like every other Slytherin out there, I guess. However, it seems as if Evan Peters' sole reason in life is to get under the skin of every single person he meets.
"Well, come on, you're not going to stand in the hallway all day. There are cauldrons out and potions to be brewed," Professor Slughorn motions from the entryway.
The crowd of students files into his classroom and takes their seats.
"Now, who can tell me what the most powerful sleeping potion is?" The professor asks from the front of the classroom.
Blair is a potions genius, but she knows better than to stick her hand in the air.
"What about you, Mr. Lilith?" Slughorn asked a bored-looking Gryffindor.
When he didn't respond, Slughorn jokes to the rest of the class, "Well, obviously someone knows because they must have slipped him one before my class."
The class laughs feebly at his joke until he takes one of the books from his desk and drops it right next to the brown haired boy's head. Then, the class really laughs as he jerks up, looking dazed and confused.
"Mr. Lilith, you know very well what I think of those who fall asleep in my class. That will be five points taken from Gryffindor house."
The Slytherins give a silent cheer as Slughorn turns his back to the class.
"The most powerful sleeping potion is the Draught of Living Death. This potion is much too advanced for second years, however, it is offered in your sixth year advanced potions class. Instead, we are making a simple sleeping potion that wears off after an hour or so. However, the drinker of the Draught of Living Death can only be awakened with the Elixir of Life," the round professor explains to the class.
"Okay, so on your work tables you will find the basic ingredients of a simple sleeping potion. You have asphodel and wormwood but be sure to follow the instructions exactly because any miscalculations could be deadly to you," he mutters with a smile.
I turn to look at Blair and Vincent, "Blair is my partner, sorry, Vince."
"Nice try, Lyra, but you got Blair last time. It's my turn," he says, looping his arm through hers.
"So, I'm her best friend," I loop my arm through her free one, and I tug her closer in my direction.
"Actually," Blair starts, "I don't think I'm going to work with either of you."
"Is this because you found out that we are only using you to pass the term?" Vincent asks jokingly.
"Oh no, I'm proud of you two for that. However, there is someone else I would rather work with," She murmurs as Adrian Flint waltzes his way over to the three of us.
"Blair, I was wondering…" Before he can finish, Blair responds with a yes. Together they walk back over to the table that Adrian had been working at.
Pursing my lips, I narrow my eyes and glare at Vincent, who in response glares back at me.
"Alright, if I'm stuck with you, we might as well start on it," I say through gritted teeth.
Vincent doesn't say anything in return, only glances at the text book in front of him and passes me the wormwood. In silence, we work on the potion chopping, slicing, measuring, or adding the ingredients as we go to the bubbling cauldron on the floor next to us.
"That should be enough," Vincent mumbles to himself as he tosses the asphodel into the mixture.
"It's not turning purple," I whisper from over his shoulder as I stand on my tiptoes to get a glance into the cauldron.
"Well, maybe-" but I didn't get to hear what he was going to say as the oozing blue liquid shot from the cauldron and splashed on to the floor. Luckily, it landed on the side of the cauldron opposite of us.
"Nobody move!" Slughorn shouts as he surveys the damage and the shocked looks on all the other students' faces.
As he takes a step to the scolding light blue puddle on the floor, he shakes his head.
"Alright, class dismissed while I clean up this little potion mishap," he grumbles, obviously annoyed.
The class gladly grabs their books and makes a mass exodus toward the exit of the dungeon classroom. On the way out, we catch up with Blair, who is still talking to Adrian.
"Sorry to interrupt, well, actually I'm not," I say to Adrian as Vincent and I take hold of Blair and turn down a different corridor.
"What do you guys think you're doing?" Blair asks, extremely annoyed.
"See what you did," I mutter.
"Yeah, just because you wanted to be with Adrian, we blew up a potion, no thanks to you," Vincent says.
"…but it was pretty cool." I add. "It's just too bad it didn't hit one of those stupid Gryffindors."
Blair and Vincent both laugh half-heartedly as we head down the main hallway to the great hall for dinner. As we enter the hall, our ears are swarmed with the various voices that float through the air. The ceiling resembles the weather as well as our mood as it rumbles with gray clouds and the threats of stormy weather. We like the night sky tonight were boiling in annoyance but only with empty threats at the moment.
We weave our way over to the Slytherin table where we find an empty place at the long oak table that stretches the length of the great hall. I take a seat on the wooden bench and the other do the same.
"Students, Faculty, and Staff!" McGonagall's voice booms to fill the great hall. She begins her evening speech about one thing or another but my attention is elsewhere. As the headmistress addresses the school another voice finds its way to the reassess of my mind.
"Miss me," the voice murmurs sarcastically, a new tactic to his approach I might add.
"I thought you did," it sneers at me.
"Bite me!" I whisper shout in my head.
The voice chuckles a deep and soulless laugh before saying, "Oh, but little snake, I thought I already did that."
"What do you want?" I ask impatiently.
"The same thing I always want, tick tock, little snake, your time is draining by the minute," he muses.
"And what if I don't want to help you?"
"I've already told you the positive and negatives of accepting or rejecting my commands. And since you asked what I wanted I'll tell you one thing I need a potion or two and something that belonged to me long ago, I want it," he explains.
I begin to ask him yet another question when he interrupts me, "I don't care for your stupid and unintelligent questions, and just do as I say! Are we clear?"
I can't respond it's like my mind has been frozen over and I can't move a muscle.
"Don't question me, little snake, you will find I can be much worse than a fatal snake bite, much, much worse."
I'm strangely quite all through dinner barely eating, just pushing food around my plate with a fork until I get up and say, "Later, I have detention, remember."
I head toward the dungeons to meet Professor Slughorn for detention. I walk in and see him standing over his desk and furrowing his brow at something on the table. My shoes barely make a sound as I stride across the hard stone floor to his large mahogany desk at the front of the classroom.
He doesn't look up but mutters, "What are you doing here?"
"Detention, sir," I reply.
"Mmhhmm, oh, yes, right. Sit. Umm, actually, come back tomorrow, your detention is canceled today. I have urgent matters to which I must attend." Then, he wades his way through the desks and disappears through the archway.
I don't know whether it is curiosity or stupidity that leads me to snatch up my bag and rush down the hallway after him, but something is definitely wrong and it isn't my doing, so I'm going to be the first to know about it. I stick to the shadows as I slither my way behind Slughorn just out of sight. I stay pressed against the cold stone wall as he stands at the foot of the steps that lead up to Headmistress McGonagall's office.
As I wait, practically invisible, unless you were looking for me, I watch a collection of teachers enter McGonagall's office. Something must be really wrong for them to all just up and leave like that. I sneak my way back into the dungeons and to the Slytherin common room where everyone is oblivious to the fact that something is extremely wrong.
"Is it you?" I ask the voice, addressing it first. I haven't heard it since dinner but that doesn't mean it isn't there. It is always there apparently, and it has made that very clear to me.
"Little snake," he taunts "if it was me, you would know because it would be you."
I didn't argue because he was right of course while he apparently had the strength to use legilimency to navigate through my mind, but he did not have the power and strength to do his own bidding. At the precise moment as I formulated that theory, another idea seems to make a more present appearance in my mind, a word that could be the answer to who is behind this.
Legilimency.
There are very few with the skill level in legilimency and even fewer with this much power and again even fewer who are very powerful dark wizards.
"But all that are greatly known are dead, aren't they?" I ask myself.
"Well, obviously not," he creeps back into my mind to say.
Frustrated again, I ask, "Well then why can't you just tell me who you are?"
"Oh, but what is the fun in that? I have to be sure you're the right one and this is how I am testing you. I can already control you, but can I use you? That's the question I need to answer."
"What do you think you're doing wandering the corridors?" a girl's voice questions behind me.
I spin on my heal and see that I'm standing face to face with the tangled mass of red hair belonging to none other than Gryffindor Prefect, Lily Luna Potter. She stands there like she is all high and mighty with her arms crossed and the questioning look on her face. Her flame red hair that marks her with both Harry's mother and as one of the Weasley family falls down past her shoulders. Her piercing brown eyes gleam with authority as they bore into my glass gray eyes.
"What am I doing here? What am I doing here?" I ask to nobody, "She dares to ask me what I'm doing here, the nerve of her!" I shout again at the empty air in the deserted Hogwarts corridor.
"Yes, I asked you what the bloody hell are you doing wandering the corridor at night?" she asks.
A wave of hysteria comes over me and my body turns fever hot, and as I burn up, I manically laugh at the ceiling. But I have no control anymore, it is me on the outside, but on the inside I was struggling to stay present. His smoky grasp was reaching too far into my brain and trying to take hold. I collapse to the floor and he retreats, but I feel like I'm going to die, that he will kill me right then and there as I lay on the cold and unforgiving stone floor. My skin is still burning up against the cool stone. Then, I slowly raise my eyes to meet the gaze of Lily Potter as I slightly lift my throbbing head from the floor.
She is not amused, if only it had been a joke, but I feel sick to my stomach as I gingerly pick myself up off the ground. I stand up and look up at her, my eyes glaring into hers. I feel anger as I slowly regain control of my own mind.
"You best get back to your common room, Malfoy, oh, wait, shouldn't you be in detention?"
"Wouldn't you like to know!" I shout bitterly and push past her back toward the direction of the Slytherin common room.
I run through the corridors breathlessly, still burning up. I stop in front of the Slytherin common room entrance, ready to enter, then rethink my decision and head in a new direction, leaving the dungeons altogether. My head is pounding and I press my palms to my forehead and the cold sweat sticks to my shaking hands. I quickly turn down a new corridor and find myself face to face with the entrance to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
Once inside the deserted lavatory, I run my hands under the cool water from the old sinks and splash some on to my face in hopes of breaking my temperature.
"What are you doing here?" Myrtle moans at me from the window ledge.
Angrily, I shout at her, "Why does everyone want to know what I'm doing or why am I here all the time? Why can't anyone just leave me alone?"
At first, the ghost girl shrank back, but then she rises from the window and floats an inch from my nose and screams, "Then just GO AWAY!"
I reach out to swat at her, but my hand passes through her without making any real contact, but I guess that what happens when you try to hit a ghost.
"GO AWAY!" she screams again. Then, she flies back up to her nook in the windowsill as I fume, heading out the door and back into the hallway.
"Quite unfortunate that filthy mudblood is already dead," I mutter to myself.
"Quite," the voice agrees.
"Because if she weren't, why I-"
But I was interrupted by the voice's laughter, directed at me.
"What, pray tell, is so hilarious."
"I can see into your mind, your thoughts and desires, little snake. I know you still question why I chose you and what this means to you. I know your doubts, your fears, your desires and your secrets I can see them at any time I wish." The words formed in my mind. "You still question that dark flame I mentioned that burns within you, but I know more than you think, so much more."
Exhausted, I make my way back toward the common room glad that my fever-like skin and pounding head have returned to normal and I no longer feel like I might die. Upon entering the common room, I don't linger by the door or in the main room instead I head straight to my dormitory and collapse on my bed. I don't see Blair, thankfully, as I am not in the mood for her pestering questions.
I change and then I crawl into my bed and rest my head against the far too soft and squishy pillow. I stare up at the dark ceiling and wait for sleep to carry me away.
"Sweet dreams, little snake," I hear before spiraling deep into my subconscious.
A/N: Well, that's that! Hope to hear what you all have to say. I love reviews and compliments, but I also love CC, so please, just take the time to tell me how I'm doing. Yours truly, and remember
READ, WRITE, LOVE, FANFICTION
~DL
