Snape was glowering when he saw them walking down the hall towards him, knapsacks slung over their shoulder. He glowered even further when he realized they were wearing wizarding robes, and looking completely natural. Nothing about them suggested that they had anything wrong, and they even had fake wands in their pockets. The only thing that was slightly abnormal was the sword strapped about Shi's waist.
"You're late," he said, looking at Shi.
"Not that late," her partner replied. "So how are we going to do this?"
Snape picked up a knapsack from the floor, and hefted it over his shoulders. "First off, we're going to Hogsmeade, where we can Apparate."
"I thought you could only do that with one person," Chandre said.
He scowled at her. "There is a way for more," he snapped, and turned away. "Come on." Leading the way, he tapped his wand on the hump of a statue of a hag, and it slid back, revealing a tunnel. Carefully they all climbed inside, and it slid shut, leaving them in darkness. Chandre's eyes adjusted quickly, but Snape muttered, "Lumos," and the tip of his wand illuminated, brightening the walls.
They walked for a far distance, none of them talking, and finally the tunnel ended with a ladder and trapdoor. Climbing the ladder, Snape opened the trapdoor and climbed out. Chandre followed last, and had to scramble as he dropped the door on her. Scowling at his back as he walked out of the back of the storeroom to a cafe, Chandre forced herself to act natural, and they merged with the main crowd, walking out the door.
They stopped walking in an alleyway, where Snape held out his hands. "Take my hands and we can get out of here." Chandre did so with some apprehension, and he muttered some words. Her stomach twisted and she cried out, and suddenly they were in London in another alley. Chandre staggered back, feeling sick, and Snape smirked at her. Shi didn't look so well either, but they pulled themselves together and walked down the street several blocks to stand in front of a long row of houses. Snape showed them a strip of paper with a sentence and told them to form in their minds. Looking up, Chandre blinked in surprise as a house popped into view, shoving aside the houses on either side.
Snape walked up the stairs, and they entered. It was dark and gritty and had the smell of a house long unused, and everything rattled as the house went back to wherever it had been, although they could still see the sidewalk outside. The few passersby on the street didn't even seem to notice that anything strange had happened. They were Muggles, after all.
"Coming?" Snape asked snidely, and Chandre came back to herself and followed them down the dank and musty hall, almost trodding on the crunchy shells of dead cockroaches and what looked like huge spiders, before reaching a cleaner room. With stoves and a sink and an oven it had to be the kitchen, and five other witches and wizards were lounging around a table, idly talking with each other.
Chandre had met only two of the people there, after her real encounter with Voldemort, so she knew that the other three had to be the other members of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's force of good, his knights errant. The members sitting around the table looked up as they entered the room, and the three she didn't recognize narrowed their eyes at her and Shi.
Remus Lupin and Kingsley Shacklebolt they nodded to, and the two wizards nodded back pleasantly.
"Those're the assassins?" an old man with a chewed-up face growled. One eye began to spin an all directions, and Chandre felt slightly naked. Unconsciously she raised her shields a little higher. "We must be getting desperate. Coupla pansies."
Shi turned his face towards the man, and Chandre did too, their faces calm and blank, their killing faces. The people at the tabled twitched in alarm.
"Gods. Her eyes are like his," the pink-haired witch gasped.
The other man Chandre didn't know leaned forwards, staring at her eyes. She stared back, nonplussed, and he shivered.
"They're still a couple a pansies," the old man growled from the table.
Chandre smiled, slowly, a true grin as she recognized someone just as crazy as she was. Shi nodded acknowledgment to the man's remark. "Then we won't turn heads at the party now, shall we?" he drawled, morphing into a fop and running a finger along the table, then rubbing two fingers together, tut-tutting at the dust. The young pink-haired witch at the table snickered behind her hand. The old man grunted.
"Well, everyone, this Chandre Zividia, and that's Cazikov Shindle," Remus said, when Snape didn't move to give introductions. "Chandre, Shi, that kind gentleman is Alastor Moody, that's Tonks," he pointed to the pink-haired witch, "and that's Elphias Doge," to a small, elderly man. "You've already met me and Kingsley here."
"So," Moody said, staring at them, still skeptical, "what can you do?"
"Do you realize who they are?" Kingsley asked. "They're the two who went up against Voldemort and his Death Eaters and lived--"
"A sixteen-year-old boy did that," Moody grumbled. "Besides, they almost got themselves killed." He stared pointedly at the bandage on Chandre's hand. "Where'd that come from?"
"Voldemort," she replied.
"What spell'd he use?"
"I have no idea," Chandre replied, growing angry at the memory. "But it melted my sword."
"Let's have a look, shall we?" Moody said. Chandre shrugged and wrapped off her bandage, showing her hand to him. The others at the table drew back, revolted. Elphias actually rose from the table and staggered from the room. Moody's eye spun faster, and he looked very interested. "Huh. That hurt?"
"Not really," she replied truthfully.
"How long have you had that?" Moody asked.
"About seven weeks."
"Hasn't healed, has it?"
"Does it look like it?" she asked, and rewrapped it. Elphias came back, looking slightly embarrassed.
Moody sneered. "So you're hit by a spell that doesn't let your hand heal, and you've got eyes like Voldemort. You'd better not be on his side." He drew his wand, and Shi moved slightly, putting his hand behind his back. A dagger flicked into his hand. Moody raised the wand and pointed it at her. "Already you bear his scent, and his magic pulses about you." Chandre stiffened. "Ha! You are his."
"I would rather die," she snarled. As the others eyes gathered on her and Moody, Shi slowly slipped, unnoticed, around the room.
"That can be arranged," Moody said, almost purring. His fake eye was rolling about in a frenzy, as if it didn't know which way to point, and his wand began to sputter. Suddenly Shi was behind him, a dagger to the old man's throat. Everyone in the room stiffened and stared, utterly shocked.
"Lower the wand," her partner said, his voice low and almost expressionless.
Moody obeyed, and then began to laugh. Shi immediately stepped away, his dagger flicking back to wherever it had come from. Everyone in the room stared as Moody guffawed; it was obviously a very rare reaction from him.
Finally the old man stopped laughing, and drew his breath. "Very good," he said. "No one has crept up on me like that in a long, long time. You are good." He looked at Chandre, the mirth falling from his face. "You, however. You are contaminated. I can feel him about you in a way I haven't in anyone else, not even Death Eaters." He spat the name. "What are you?" He glared at Snape. "How could you bring her here? She jeopardizes this house with her presence."
Snape shrugged. "I didn't know. Truly. She didn't seem like a Death Eater," he said, sounding grudging to have to say that to her.
"She killed five Death Eaters on the Hogwarts Express," Kingsley added.
"I'm not a Death Eater!" Chandre said.
"Of course you're not," Moody said. "He's got you in some other way, doesn't he?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Chandre said.
"Neither do I," Shi replied. "We're from off-planet. Our first time here. What would someone like Voldemort want with her? What advantages would she bring him? Absolutely none."
"Have you seen him since you attacked him?" Remus asked.
Chandre didn't think the dreams counted, and didn't want to mention them. "No." She stared him straight in the eyes, and he nodded.
"There you have it, Mad-Eye," he told Moody. "I don't think she's connected to him. That smell is probably just residue from the spell he cast on her. Something like that should have healed, at least partially, by now. It's the spell, slowing it down, not his direct influence on her."
"Can we get away from my supposed connection to Voldemort and get onto plans for tomorrow night?" Chandre asked, growing irritated. "That seems more important, seeing as I can't really prove, beyond my word, that I have no relation to him, and never would."
Moody stared at her, but the others, growing tired of his fascination, began to outline plans for the Halloween Ball, and she and Shi listened, so they'd know how and where everyone would be. As auxiliary types, it was their jobs to float around and look, so no one would know where they'd be, exactly.
Finally they all went to bed, Chandre and Shi sharing a room, even though initially they had been given two. They didn't protest, just moved things from her room to his, and crawled into bed with each other. It was a small bed, meant for one person, so they were a tad cramped, but Shi didn't complain, and neither did Chandre. With Voldemort somehow coming into her dreams she really didn't want to be alone, so she and Shi lay in the bed, pressed as closely as lovers.
That night Voldemort came again, worse than the other times. Before he had let her dance about the room with him with malignant playfulness, but that night she had awakened shackled to the bed, completely naked. Struggling against the bonds, she looked up as he entered, dressed as usual in his black robes, cadaverous chest showing.
He leaned against her, running a hand through her hair, far gentler than he had ever been before. Most times he threw her against the wall or dug his fingers along her back, and she froze, startled at this change. His eyes glowed red with lust as he stared down at her, and slowly his thin lips caressed her cheek in light kisses. At that touch she struggled, one hand breaking free of the shackles, and she punched him, knocking him off her.
With a growl he rose and drew a dagger. "I would have been gentle," he snarled, raising it. The blade glittered from the firelight. "But you refused me yet again." He pinned her hand with his free one and began kissing her with a hot passion, teeth pulled back and biting her. She writhed in pain, and watched in horror as the hand with the dagger raised once more, then began stroking her breasts, running down her stomach, the tip playing at her skin, sharp enough to prick at her skin, but no blood was drawn. It was control, and his eyes shone at the power he held over her. She struggled, and the blade nicked her stomach. He raised the dagger then, and plunged it into the spot. Red blood splurted out, sluggishly, moving faster . . .
"Wake up!" Shi snarled, shaking her shoulders roughly. Chandre woke with a gasp, clasping her stomach tightly and shuddering, until he convinced her, slowly, that she was here, with him, not with Voldemort, and she was safe, safe, did she hear? Voldemort couldn't get to her here.
"S-sorry," she gasped, wiping at the tears of pain from her eyes, shaking even more than normal. Her stomach throbbed. "I think I'm cut," she whispered.
Shi turned on the light, and pulled back the covers. A dark, purple bruise was spreading across her pale skin, right in the spot the dagger had been plunged. His face paled. "Oh shit," he said faintly.
Something shifted in the house, and he put his fingers to her lips. They listened, but heard nothing else. "I don't think you woke anyone," he whispered. "It wasn't very loud." He turned off the light, and shivered, pulling the covers about both of them. "Can you go back to sleep?"
"I don't think so," she replied.
He sighed. "It's only two in the morning. You need to get back to sleep."
"He'll come," she whispered.
"You need sleep," Shi argued. "Odds are he won't come back." She lay back down, and he wrapped himself about her, throwing a leg over hers and holding her gently around the waist, hand spread across her stomach. She let her head rest back against his shoulder, and they stayed that way, him not falling asleep until she did. After a while of lying there in silence, both staring into the dark of the room, he shifted, hip digging into her back before he moved it away again, and his hand shifted a little higher, just under her breasts, but not touching them. It was a very intimate embrace, but she didn't mind, and slowly went to sleep.
If Chandre had thought that a wizarding Halloween Ball was going to be anything like the balls she had seen before, she was absolutely correct. There might have been magic, and the band might have been wearing black spiderwebs, but there was still the usual mingling of high-class, pure-blooded witches and wizards, their noses so high in the air that if it rained, they'd drown.
Everyone was decked to the nines, in some cases wearing so much jewelry that she could hardly see their faces, and the men wore just as much jewelry as the women, and also wore robes, which she was beginning to see, as evidenced in Hogwarts, was completely normal. In fact, pants on either men or women was seen as something of an anomaly, and they considered Muggles as Neanderthals, somewhere lower than gorillas on the evolutionary scale. Chandre couldn't exactly agree with them, but she had to admit that the Muggles on this planet had no idea that witches and wizards existed. It was like the two were completely separate branches of society, one hiding away, the other unaware, both ignorant of the other's customs.
She came back to the present quickly as her escort, the wheezy-voiced Elphias Doge, who was just barely prestigious enough to have been invited, and well known that he was able to wander through the crowds with people knowing precisely who he was, patted her arm. It was the perfect cover for her, even though he was married. She was supposedly his young niece, come up from the country to celebrate the Ball. For the part she was wearing a modest robe that barely came down to her breasts, but fit her waist perfectly. She was wearing a corset, to accentuate what curves she had, but she had insisted to Shi that he didn't tighten it too much, or else she couldn't breath. The robe was a mottled forest green, showing off her pale skin and making it seem like it glowed, and she had dyed her hair for the occasion to a rich brown, putting in brown contacts to make her eyes seem normal. Elphias' eyes had popped out of his head when she had come down to the kitchen, where they had all gathered to meet for the very last brief, and the others had whistled, even though she was only going to blend in with the others. White gloves went up to her elbows, covering the bandage on her right hand. She hoped it wouldn't bleed through, and wished she didn't have to dress up.
She was jealous of Shi, who was waiting outside, scanning the surroundings. He was dressed in all black, wearing a black robe that enabled him to blend in if he had to, but go stealthed for necessity. He would eliminate as many attackers from the outside as possible.
"Uncle, I'm going for a drink," Chandre said, patting Elphias's arm and smiling prettily.
He smiled back. "Of course, my dear. Enjoy yourself."
"It's only a drink!" she laughed, and twirled away, her skirts billowing about her feet. Several of the younger wizards turned as she passed, but she ignored them, dancing over to the punch stand and asking for a drink, which she only pretended to sip, gazing over the dancing figures on the floor as she scanned for anyone who looked out of place, but to the observer, she looked only like a young woman at her first ball, cheeks flushed, eyes alight with excitement.
"My I dance with you, miss?" a young man asked.
"Of course!" she gushed, and took his hand, letting him lead her to the floor, where they settled into a stately waltz.
"What's your name? I've never seen you here before," the man said.
"Ariana," she replied. "This is my first Ball, I live in the country, but my uncle took me. It's to be my coming-out year." She thought hard. "What's your name?"
"Geoffrey," he replied, the hand on her waist moving slightly, feeling her up. She twitched, surprised, and he smiled. "Lord Geoffrey of Frenshine Heights."
The dance finished, and he kissed her hand. "May we dance again, Miss Ariana," he murmured, and she giggled, blushing.
Another young man took her for a dance, and another, and some older men. She danced, using the time to look about the room for any odd-looking person. Unfortunately all of the servers were wearing masks, so she couldn't see much about them, but she caught three that had a very odd body stance, moving jerkily.
Someone tapped the shoulder of the young man she was dancing with, and a man grated, "May I cut in?"
The man looked, and looked again. "O-of course, sir," he said. "If the lady doesn't mind."
Chandre's eyes were wide from alarm, deep in her part, but she recovered and murmured in a slightly shaky voice, "I do not mind."
Mad-Eye put his hand on her waist, the other in her hand, and led her in a slow waltz. "Sir, I'm afraid I have not made your acquaintance," she said as he twirled her.
Mad-Eye put his head towards her ear and growled, "You're not being paid to dance, missy. Get to work."
"I am working," she said, dropping into her normal voice, but her face stayed the same, pleasant, but apprehensive. Anyone dancing with Moody would be. "See the three servers by the door? They're tense. And the guard in the far corner? His eyes never leave the Minister, and his hand shifts to his weapon every so often."
"An amateur could have spotted them," he growled.
"Did you, by chance, catch the Muggle in the black robe?" she asked. His fake eye pointed straight at her, and she let her face show barely masked fear. "Check near the punch bowl. He's got a camera in one hand, which he keeps raising."
"A Muggle?" he asked. "How'd that get in here?"
"No clue, but you might want to catch him," Chandre replied, and gasped with delight as a sparkle of blue shimmering things descended from the ceiling in a puff of smoke.
At that moment the three servers attacked, drawing their wands. Chandre broke away from Moody, who was drawing his wand as well. She let him handle the three servers, looking around the room for the Minister. He was gagging, and a group of people about him were trying to help.
Quickly Chandre pushed her way to him, spotting a man running away from the scene, his blue robe flaring about him, a vial of something in his hand, wand in the other. Running as fast as she could, she overtook him and tackled him, bringing him to the ground with a grunt. He rolled over and pointed his wand at her, but she knocked it aside and ripped out a dagger, pressing it against his throat.
The commotion died down rather quickly as the witch and wizard police came, setting aside spells and taking away people who were being quickly caught by the Order of the Phoenix members or Fudge's bodyguards.
Chandre was pulled off of her man, kicking him in the face as she did so and gasping that he had something bad in his hand, she saw him pour it into the Minister's glass. They discovered it and she slipped into the crowd, smoothing down her hair.
Someone grabbed her arm at the elbow and drew her away from the crowd, twisting her head she saw it was Shi, and relaxed slightly.
"What's up?"
"Trouble. Four men down in the alleys, Snape's watching them, but the fifth got away from him and went in here," he murmured. "Purple robes, blue sapphire in left ear."
She nodded and they parted, going their separate ways. It was Shi who found the man, weaseling his way into Fudge's entourage. Her partner moved up behind him and pressed a dagger into his back, taking him away just as he was about to cast a spell. The man tried to escape, but Shi applied a thumb to a pressure point, and he sagged against him. Quietly Shi flung an arm under his shoulders and took him away, telling those who were watching that his friend must have had one too many, and the excitement was just too much.
The man was taken away for questioning, and the rest of the group went back to watching as the party dispersed, too shocked to do anything else. The police took some aside for questioning, and Chandre quickly got away without notice, slipping through the crowd to find Elphias, where she stood with him, shaking and quivering in mock fear.
Fudge was carried out of the ball, weak but very much alive, and one of their members went with his group as his bodyguard, already placed as a mole many months before. Their job done, the Order of the Phoenix went their separate ways, Shi and Snape waiting until the police took their men away for questioning before slinking further back into the shadows.
Back at the house, she dressed back into her normal clothes, told that when everyone came there'd be a debrief. She was just shrugging out of the corset when the door opened and Shi entered, talking with someone. Turning in surprise, her eyes widened as they met with Snape's, and his face got very red and he coughed, looking away.
"I'd better change," he said, and Shi shrugged, closing the door behind him.
They changed and went downstairs, dressed once more in ordinary black robes, Chandre's contacts out but her hair still brown. It would take a good washing to get the dye out. Shi leaned against the wall beside her, scratching at the back of his head as the meeting progressed. No doubt the dye on his head itched like crazy; he was slightly allergic to the temporary dyes. They weren't mentioned at all during the meeting, which was for the best, and at the end they went back to their room and slept. They'd return to Hogwarts in the morning.
Voldemort did not come that night, to her great relief, and to Shi's too, she thought. He was getting very tired of her waking up gasping and sobbing the middle of the night; it was unlike her and he wasn't getting any sleep.
That morning they waited while Snape came down the stairs, looking sleep-tousled and grumpy. He glared when he saw her, but said nothing, and they headed out of the house, things slung across their backs. It was early enough that no one else was awake in the house, nor out on the street nearby, so they headed into an alley and Apparated in another alley at Hogsmeade, then took the walk back to Hogwarts, all silent.
They parted at the front door, Snape to his room or his office or his classroom, Chandre and Shi up to somewhere with a shower, so they could wash the dye out of their hair. The facilities at the safehouse had been less than welcoming, with spiders resting in the bathtub.
Several students were awake at that cold hour, though, and they passed them in the hall, but they weren't recognized. It wasn't any of their students, after all.