Disclaimer: I don't own the Harry Potter books, but I do however own the plot and Jessica J
A/N: GUYS! I don't know how much I can thank you over and over again for the reviews. They make my entire day so please keep them coming! Also, this chapter is really important for Jessica. We're about to start reading a lot about her so I hope you guys like her. Anyway, onward to the chapter!
Careful
Shifting your weight
To throw off the pain
Well you can ignore it
But, only for so long
You look like I did
You resist me just like this
You can't tell me to heal
And, it hurts remembering
How it felt to shut down
-Paramore
Jessica's POV
My breath. My breath was the only thing you could here echoing in the kitchen. I tried to cry out, but to no avail.
Get up!, my brain shouted at me. RUN!
My breathing hitched as I recalled what had happened minutes, hours, seconds ago.
I had received the letter Hermione had sent. I was surprised that it wasn't taken by her owl, but was dropped in the mailbox. That should've alerted me. But it didn't. I was blind to it.
I went to the café she had suggested, Caffe Nero. When I got there the night sky was slowly becoming grey and cloudy. Fog was rolling in. I got an eerie sensation as I stared up at the sky. A sense of dread. I shook it off and walked into the small restaurant, quickly being engulfed by warmth.
I was given a small table in the back of the room. I was quietly content there, watching people talking to each other, with friends, with family members, boyfriends, girlfriends. I liked people-watching. There were a couple of loud pops, alerting my attention.
Then, as if it were happening in fast forward, people came in the café, wildly pushing tables over and yelling over each other. Then one of them shouted, "Find Jessica". My heart began to beat faster, adrenaline pumped through my veins, and I stood up beginning to run to the door. I knew it was me they were looking for; call it intuition. And then the note being dropped in the mailbox instead of being delivered. What is the chance that they come to this café looking for a Jessica? I didn't know much, but I knew it wasn't a coincidence.
A woman with untamable black hair that twisted all around her and horrid wild eyes stepped in front of me, the end of a wooden stick poking my chest. I had seen one like it before. Hermione had once shown it to me. A wand, she called it. It was something of her magical world. These weren't just people, they were people in the war. And they weren't on Hermione's side.
"What is your name?" she asked, the grin on her face widening.
"Leslie." I replied. She frowned.
"Oh, that's too bad." she said with mock sincerity. "Kill her." she said to no one in particular, putting her wand into a pocket and walked away. I was quickly seized by two men with horrifyingly tight grips. I tried ripping my arms away from them but it wasn't working.
"Get off me!" I yelled. They picked me up and began to carry me to the kitchen. The last thing I saw was a woman being stabbed in the chest by the wild woman with a simple knife.
I screamed and began to kick at the men. They were going to kill me. It finally settled in my head. They're going to kill you Jessica. Fight.
One man threw me down onto the floor head first. I heard the crack of my head hitting the ground at such force, but I'd never felt anything like it. It was like being hit by train. One of the men approached me. I kicked him in the shin, hard. He fell to the ground.
"You little bitch." he growled. He pulled my feet toward him so that he was in between my legs, right above me. "Hold her arms." he instructed to the other man. The other did as he was told, pinning my arms above my head. I hocked some phlegm into my throat then spit it into his face.
"Ugh you filthy American!" he shouted. He wrapped his hand in my hair. "You do that again, and I'll rip every pretty little hair off you stupid little head. Understand?" I said nothing. "UNDERSTAND?"
"YES!"
The other man made to undo the button on my jeans. I kicked at him. He quickly straddled me, hovering over my face.
"No, kicking. We can't have that now can we?" he began to kiss my neck. I shouted again. "Silencio." he said softly into my ear, waving his hand over my face. I tried to scream again, but nothing came out, as if I lost my voice. Entirely panicked by the loss of my voice I began to struggle harder. The man holding my hands barely noticed my change, but he was quite unnerved by what the man had whispered.
"He said no magic." he stated, glowering at his friend.
"Do you want people to hear her screaming?"
"Is she worth it?" At this, the man straddling me laughed.
"Look at her. Of course she is." He began kissing my neck again. I tried screaming again but no noise came out. Then my brain finally began to work to my advantage. What's the most painful spot you can hit a man?
Exactly.
I kneed him right in the nuts.
He tumbled over on his side, leaving me free of his legs. The other man holding down my hands didn't have a moment to even consider what was happening when I finally tore my grip from him and ran past them and into the farther end of the kitchen. I grabbed a knife, and slowly made my way back to the men, staying hidden. One of them, the who had been pinning my hands, had the mistake of having his back to me. I ran forward and plunged the knife into his back. As he fell forward I pulled the knife back out, brandishing it toward the other man, fresh blood dripping from it.
The man pulled out his wand and pointed it at me. He could kill me with that, I told myself. I was sure of it. Anything magical was far beyond anything that was non-magical. Not from experience, just from common sense. Still, I held myself steady and gave a look that said I'm not going without a fight. At least I hope it did. Then he smiled at me.
"Crucio." I was brought down to my knees with such a force of pain that cracking my head on the floor could never compare to. My muscles when rigid and my body convulsed with the pain. I curled against the floor, opening my mouth with a silent scream. Finally, just as quickly as it had come, it stopped. So abruptly that when my muscles were released, they fell to the floor as if there were no bones in them. I laid against the floor panting heavily and looked up at the man. He seemed to be listening to a voice. He glared at me, then, with an extremely loud pop, he was gone.
So here I was, curled up in a ball on the floor, crying in silence. I don't know why I didn't just get up and leave. I guess I hoped someone would come looking for me, but that was crazy. I was in a foreign country with no family and only one friend who happened to be fighting in a war of her own. She wouldn't be surprised if I didn't write her back until maybe tomorrow.
I took a deep breath, trying to steady my hitched breathing, when another pop sounded. I would have whimpered if I had my voice back, crawled to where I dropped the knife, stood up, and hid behind a large counter. I heard someone walking around the café, surveying the damage. The person walked into the kitchen, its wand at the ready. I looked at his face. Ice blue eyes and hair that stuck out like a thumb it was so blonde. It was slightly falling into his face. I looked at his eyes again. Fear. That was the main emotion in them. Fear, anger, betrayal. Confusion. Slight detachment in the way he was moving, as if he were somewhere else in his brain.
He walked past my hiding spot, completely missing me. He walked a couple feet forward. My knees shook as I forced my legs to point in the direction of the boy. He was a boy. Young. Maybe 18.
Without giving myself a chance to get talked out of this, I lunged forward, my feet making tons of noise. The boy turned around just before I hurled my knife into his back. I didn't have time to stop, plus my body was still weak from being tortured, so I fell to the floor, the knife clattering out of my hands, to far out of my reach. Tears streamed down my face and I didn't bother getting back up. If he was going to kill me, fine. I give up. I can't fight against magic. I'm only one person.
He gently pushed me over so I was laying on my back.
"Who are you?" he asked, his wand in my face. I tried to tell him but I still had no voice. "Can't you speak?" I shook my head. "Magic?" I nodded. "Was the spell, 'silencio'?" I nodded again. "unsilencio." he said.
The first thing that came out of my mouth was a strangled whimper. I wrapped my hands around my throat as a sob escaped it.
"You never really appreciate something until it's gone I guess." I whispered to myself.
"What's your name?" I got to my knees.
"Jessica. Miller." he stared at me. "Are you going to kill me?" he stared at me some more, his wand still in my face. His eyes were such mixed emotions, then finally they settled on anger.
"Dammit, Granger." he muttered. He put his wand away and grabbed my elbows, hoisting me up.
"Granger? Hermione. You know Hermione?" I asked.
"Unfortunately." he muttered. He pulled me over to the opening of the kitchen. He stood me in front of the door. "Stay." he said, as if I were a dog. I glared at him but nodded. He looked over to the side, seeing the dead man. "You killed him?"
"He tried to rape me." he stared at me, stunned, then shook it off and grabbed the wand the was lying next to him. He offered the wand to me.
"Take it."
"I can't do magic."
"You just have to hold the wand, Miller." he said with an annoying sneer on his face. I held the wand in my right hand.
"Who are you? What's your name? Why won't you kill me?"
"The less you know the better." I stepped up to him, invading his personal space.
"No. I've been told that way too many times. I know what happened here. At least some of it. And I demand to know what's happening now. I know there's a war going on and I know that I just got dragged into the middle of it, so I think I deserve to know!" I shouted.
"I'm your guardian angel right now so quit complaining, I'm not telling you, and… I don't know." he said after a moment of intense stare-down time.
"Why can't you tell me your name?"
"The people I'm sending you to, they can't know it was me. If they do then I'll die. You can't tell them anything about me. I would Obliviate you but I'm sure you'd like to remember this."
"Obliviate?"
"A spell used to erase memory." I nodded as if this were completely normal. He turned to me. "Do not take anything they give you. They call it vertia serum. Don't drink it. It'll make you tell the truth, and like I said, they can't know it was me." I nodded again.
"Where are you sending me?"
"Hopefully to…" for a second he struggled with her name, then finally spat it out, "Hermione." he said. "Hold out the wand." I did as he asked. He touched the end of his wand to mine, then, as if I were on a roller coaster moving a hundred times faster, I was transported to another place.
I didn't have time to register where I was until after I threw up all over the floor.
A/N: sooooo? Yes? No? gusta? No gusta? Review!
