Difficult

"If I should tumble, If I should fall
Would anyone hear me screamin'

Behind these castle walls.
Behind these castle walls,

There's no one here at all.

No one knows I'm all alone,
Living in this castle made of stone."

-TI feat. Christina Aguilera, Castle Walls

Chapter 10: Compromising

"Tracey, get up now. It's past noon already."

"So? It's summer vacation, there's nowhere for me to go," Tracey mumbled from beneath the pillow, which was promptly yanked from atop her head. "Fuck mother!" she yelled angrily, sitting up and rubbing her suddenly stinging eyes as the bright sun wafted in from the window. She glared at her mother accusingly, knowing she was the one that had yanked the drapes open.

"Watch your language, Tracey! How many times do I have to tell you? And I don't care that its late, you're getting up now. Your room can use some cleaning. I won't have you sleeping in Marie's room anymore. You have your own room for a reason."

Tracey glared at her mother who was standing at the door of the room. Since Marie's death, she rarely ever stepped in it. Only to dust it and air it out now on then, but other than that she left it alone. Never moving anything. Tracey knew her mother resented her presence in Marie's space as though she were erasing Marie's memory just by invading her space.

Grudgingly Tracey got up. "My room's fine, its not dirty."

"What do you call all those stacks of books all over the place, I can hardly move around it without knocking a stack over."

Tracey stopped in front of her mother, suddenly glaring at her. "What were you doing in my room?" she asked accusingly. She had expressly told her mother countless times to stay out of her room. "You know I don't like you in there!"

"And you know I don't like you in here! What do you think Marie would say?"

"You treat this place like a damn crypt you're afraid of disturbing. Guess what, Marie's dead! She's been dead for three years, she's gone and she doesn't fucking care about this room. In fact she hated this place so much she couldn't wait to fucking leave!"

Tracey felt the sting on her cheek before she really knew it was coming. It rung in her ear long after it happened, and felt the sting on her cheek like a burn long after that. However, she merely turned to her mother and glared. "I HATE you," she said in a low tone through gritted teeth, her tone dripping with loathing as she glared daggers at her mother.

Shoving past her, Tracey made her way to her room and slammed the door shut behind her and locked it. She turned and stumbled a bit over a stack of text books next to her door. Suddenly, she felt so angry, she started going around the room, kicking various stacks all over the place over. When she was finished, she was panting for breath and sinking onto her bed.

Belatedly, she touched her cheeks and realized there was moisture on them. Hot tears of anger and her wounded pride, not to mention indignation and deep rooted resentment that was never going to go away.

The sound of wrenching curtains came slowly and startled her into consciousness. It took her a moment to realize she was waking, and another to realize what had woken her. By then, her body had already wrenched her so she was sitting upright, rubbing sleep from her eyes. For a moment, her brow furrowed when she felt moisture beneath them.

Her eyes slightly bleary and struggling to see in the artificial light, she realized they were filled with tears. Her mind struggled to recall her dream, but it was fast escaping, slipping as though smoke through her fingers. She was only aware that she felt a terrible amount of guilt, and like the air was struggling to come back into her lungs, grief having stole it all from her in one gasp.

Sighing, she ran a hand through her hair and drew her knees up a bit. She then loosely draped an arm around her knees, leaned her forehead on them. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply as her reality settled back in, the nightmare she called her daily life. She remembered who she was, how old she was, and how utterly alone she was in the world.

Sometimes, just as she woke, she briefly felt as though she were younger, and all the things that had actually happened where a nightmare she was now awaking from. All too soon, she knew that was probably just a foolish wish of her heart to return to a time when things were simpler and she felt stupid for believing even for one delusive second that it wasn't so.

AHEM.

Tracey froze at the rather loud and male-sounding clearing of a throat. For a moment, her heart pounded hard, knowing it could only be one person, as boys weren't allowed into the girls dormitories. There was a barrier on the entrance to the girl dorms that zapped any boy that even came near it with enough electric juice to make them pass out.

Schooling her expression to one of cold resentment, Tracey turned her head to look at Professor Snape. The memories of last night quickly came back to her and she had to steel herself for what she knew must come.

"Nothing would please me more than to expel you," he said coldly as he looked down his hooked nose at her, his eyes cool and calculating. "However, considering your particular circumstance, by which I do not necessarily mean the recent loss of your mother, I can not in good consciousness leave you to fend for yourself in the world. It would be like sending a lamb, straight into a wolves den."

"What are you talking about?" Tracey asked, frowning; she'd been prepared for whatever Snape might do, but she hadn't expected this.

Severus chose to ignore her question. "Being as detentions with me seem to be rather ineffective, I'll be handing you over for an hour each evening to Filch. I'm sure he'll find use for you. You see Tracey, despite the fact that I won't expel you, I expect you to behave at the level of someone in Slytherin. Even Crabbe and Goyle aren't stupid enough to carry on in the way you do in front of figures of authority. They hold their tongue when necessary. Also, as a fifth year, I think you're a little too old to be throwing tantrums like a toddler-"

"I-"

"DO NOT INTERRUPT ME!" he hissed suddenly at her, glaring. Tracey grudgingly closed her mouth and stared at him, waiting for him to go on. "Good girl. Furthermore, beside your serious curb in attitude and etiquette, I expect your academic performance to improve. You will obtain nothing but top marks from this point forth, do you understand?"

"I don't care if you expel me, so why should I do anything?" Tracey snapped.

"Because your life depends on your education," he said flatly.

Tracey raised a brow. "Isn't that a bit dramatic?"

"Have you not realized yet, girl, that there is a war starting?"

"What's your point? It doesn't particularly affect me, more than the next person. And you've been trying to expel Harry Potter for years, and I think his life is a little more at stake then mine. Hasn't stopped you from trying to kick him out of school," Tracey shot back.

Severus decided to ignore that remark about Potter. "You're not just any other student either, Miss Davis."

Tracey didn't like the tone of that, though she wasn't sure quite why. "Why not? What makes me any different?"

"You don't think your mother being a casualty set you apart from fellow Slytherins?"

Tracey felt a sharp pang of guilt, which she'd been feeling since waking, suddenly spike. The look of her mother's face when she'd told her she hated her, like she'd her heart ripped form her chest, made her own heart pang in her chest. "But... I thought it was just that, a random casualty. Why would anyone target her?"

"Maybe if you prove to me you are worthy of being trusted as an adult, I'll enlighten you a bit. Until then, just do as I've told you," Severus responded coldly, before turning and marching away, ignoring her as she called after him. He'd said all that he'd planned to say, and before even waking her, taken some hairs from her hairbrush for the paternity test, so he left without so much as looking back. He knew the girl would need time to think, and he expected she was smart enough to comply.

XX

"Hey Tracey. Where have you been? Haven't seen you around lately," Blaise said when Tracey turned up in the common room after dinner. It felt like it was the first time he had seen her outside of classes in days.

Tracey barely gave Blaise a look. Looking at him these days just made her angry. After all, it was his fault she was in trouble in the first place. "I don't have time to talk," Tracey said coldly, brushing past him. However, she didn't get anywhere as he felt his hand gently take her wrist. She turned and yanked it away from him. "DON"T TOUCH ME!" she snarled.

"What is your bloody problem?" he asked, furrowing his brow. "I'm just trying to talk to you."

"I've been in detention, that's where I have been, and its all your fucking fault. Couldn't just leave me alone could you?" she said scathingly.

Blaise frowned at this. Tracey merely turned around and started marching away. She had detention with Filch to get to, something she rather loathed. She couldn't believe she was going through with it, but she had spent the entire day in bed brooding, thinking. In the end, she realized she had no other choice. She needed to know what Snape knew, and how the hell else was she to do that without complying with his demands?

However, the entire situation made her feel sick. She was a puppet fate seemed to hate and treated her only with cruelty. Now, for whatever reason, she was at the mercy of Professor Snape. All she wanted was a little bit of freedom, and it felt like all her struggling against her bindings, made them close tighter around her. What good was it to be willful, if either way, all you were was just another fly caught in vast and massive web?

As Tracey worked through her detention sullenly, she wished she could run away from it all. Belatedly she realized that she wanted to be expelled because then she wouldn't be running away, but all the same she would be able to get away. She would achieve that freedom she longed for at long last, without being a coward about it.

Though she loathed to think of it, there was another option too, that she still rather pondered. An out, so many others sought, that she loathed to think of because it meant she was weak, just like Marie. Well she refused to be that weak. And yet, like a mantra, old words came back to her. They were not her own, and yet they were there ingrained, repeating itself obsessively in her mind.

To be or not to be, that is the question; whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. She thought it, while unconsciously and mechanically going on with the task set to her. She was unaware of the set expression on her face, which was distant and dark. A mask of cold anger.

To die- to sleep, no more; and by sleep say we end the heart-ache and thousand natural shocks the body is heir to, 'tis a consumption devoutly to be wish'd.

To die- to sleep; to sleep, perchance to dream- ay there's the rub, for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause- here Tracey always seemed to pause. Here she always seemed to have to start over. The rest of the soliloquy ran into each other. The words slipped from her tongue, trapped somewhere in her brain. Lost in there somewhere.

To be or not to be? Tracey wondered if Marie had even asked herself that? Had her hand trembled at all to take her own life? Had she been scared at all?

To be or not to be, that is the question; whether 'tis nobler in the mind, to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune-

Outrageous fortune. There was nothing outrageous about Marie's fortune. She'd been the lucky one. She had all of mother's love and adoration. Fate had gifted her with a talent with music that few had ever or would ever posses. What right had she to complain at all for the fortune she'd been given? What right had she to run away?

"I said your time's up, girl," Filch said, snatching the cloth form her hand. Tracey snapped out of her thoughts and merely looked at Filch, her eyes slowly focusing. She nodded before her brain caught up and started moving down the ladder she was on. Without paying much mind to where she was going, she made her way toward the dungeons, her mind already lost once more in her thoughts.

To sleep, perchance to dream... Tracey had enough of dreams. They were all terrible. Every last one of them she could ever remember. She was better off not dreaming of anything. In fact, she was content on any day she felt she hadn't dreamt at all.

Tracey ran a hand through her hair, wondering why she was thinking of it at all. She didn't want to think about Marie anymore. She didn't have room inside her head anymore to think of nonsense that was long past. Marie was gone, just like mother was now. There were other things she had to think of. More important things to worry about.

What the hell was Snape talking about? What did her mother's death really mean? What did it mean for Tracey, apart form the fact that she had no parental figure? What did it have to do with her survival? Why did Snape even care if she lived or died?

She was so consumed by these thoughts, that she hadn't even realized she had made it to Professor Snape's office, or that she had walked in. For his part, Severus had been staring at a vial in his hand, grimacing when the girl had come in. He had been so absorbed in it, that he didn't notice her quiet entrance, or her standing there for a minute.

The potion used to run a paternity test, was simple to do and easy to read. Once you added the last ingredients, essence of the pair in question, you had to wait only ten minutes for the response. If the potion turned ruby red, the match was a true match. If nothing whatsoever happened, then the pair in question were not progenitor and offspring.

The vial he held, was as red as he'd expected it to be. However, he was surprised to find that a tiny part of him had hoped that he was wrong. But the paternity test was infallible, and the vial was red as a rose petal, red as a pomegranate seed, red as blood.

Tracey was Rodolphous Lestrage's daughter, his only child. Raising his eyes, he was startled to see Tracey there and the vial almost slipped form his grasp. However, he clutched it more tightly before shoving it into his pocket. It took him a moment of looking at her, to realize that she wasn't all there, and there was nothing he had to worry about. She hadn't seen him. Although if she had, he supposed it wouldn't really matter unless she knew what the potion was, or that she was at all connected to it.

Her eyes were unfocused and though staring before her, they weren't looking at anything around her. Severus found himself wondering for a moment, what she was thinking. The expression on her face was so lost, that he was painfully reminded that she was so young. Too young to deal with the weight of the load set on her shoulders.

"Miss Davis, you're late," he called out coldly. He watched her for response. He expected she'd be startled out of her thoughts. However, she was so consumed by them that her eyes focused very slowly before drifting over to him. The look in them, was more haunted than he felt comfortable with. Her face was suddenly blank of all expression, but for her eyes.

In his office, they looked as dark as his. However, he recalled the picture, and knew that was only the effect of the lack of light in their surrounding. He knew that her eyes were really an olive green. "I'm sorry. I stayed longer with Mr. Filch, I hadn't realized my detention with him was up," she said. Though the words were polite and meant to be contrite, they lacked any sincerity as they were delivered in deadpan.

Severus expected to see a flash of anger in her eyes, but they remained dull. It appeared that she was far too tired to be resentful of her pride being abused like this, but there was no reaction to her at all. Her eyes had become dull and lifeless. Her face remained a mask of only weariness, if anything at all. Once more, he felt like he was staring at just a shell of what Tracey was, and he felt uncomfortable.

"Very well, have a seat," he said, motioning to the seat in front of his desk. She walked over, as if floating, before slowly seating herself and turning her darkened eyes back to him. Severus sat behind his desk before setting a stack of papers before her and another sheet of parchment. "There is a inkwell and quill ready for you. You will be grading essays by first years. That parchment holds instructions for what you are to look for and do. However, you will not be scoring them. I will go through them later and score them myself."

"Sir?" Tracey asked, a pinch of curiosity in her voice as her eyes suddenly came alive, and a sleek brow arched over one eye.

"Would you prefer to be collecting bubotuber pus? Or dissecting black beetles? Or something else like that?"

Tracey merely shook her head and set herself to task. By the end of the detention she remembered absolutely everything having to do with the Forgetfulness Potion and her hand was cramping from circling, and correcting and scratching out a whole bunch of papers. Her eyes too, were stinging. She felt so dreadfully tired. Throughout the last few essays, she kept yawning and having to rub the sleep from her eyes. She was far too aware that she hadn't been sleeping particularly well. Not that she ever really did.

When the detention was finally over, she couldn't help glaring at Snape. She really did hate the man. She half suspected he was working her to the bone so she could die an early death. However, she didn't say anything to him. Merely waited quietly, glaring at him and wondering if she could plot his death, until he finally dismissed her. To which she merely nodded and dragged her weary carcass to bed.

The only good thing that came of the detentions making her so damn tired, was that she fell asleep right away. Whether or not she was able to stay asleep, depended on whether or not she dreamt.

TBC...

A/n: Please review and tell me what you think of the chapter.