Hello there lovelies! Chapter 11 is finally here!
Sorry for taking so long to update, but I really do hope it's worth it!
Thanks to Amehhh, BleedinLuva1123, Hailey-Stone, Fredweasleylover4ever, TheMysteriousAuthoress0925, BeautifulMemoryS, TemaxShika forever, glitzysaint, Princess Aria Romanov, Stinepiiig, xXMizz Alec VolturiXx, Ms. Jennylautner , and xOxO Lost Angel OxOx for reviewing!
Also, thanks to all the favorited this story or added it to their alerts! All of this means a bunch to me! :)
Disclaimer: If I owned HP, I don't think I'd be writing FF...though anything is possible isn't it? HP belongs to JK Rowling. :)
Angeline didn't feel terrible for slamming the door behind her after her impromptu meeting with Draco. He just wasn't helping her nerves any.
She sighed as she threw her hair up into a ponytail, it was doing nothing but irritating her and the less that irritated her the better.
The closer she got to her destination, the more she felt as though all the heat in the castle had been sucked out...Dementors, was the first thing that came to mind, but she was sure that Snape had stated that Dementors were not to make their presence in the school. Only the grounds surrounding. Yet, then again, the Carrows liked to take things into their own hands. With the Carrows twisted mind, they probably viewed that the more dread the students felt the better for them.
But Dementors wasn't the cause for the cold temperatures she found as finally stopped outside the closed doors. Something had been down to make it that cold and suddenly, Angeline was actually wishing it had been Dementors instead...
"What do you think they did in there?" Angeline turned slowly, having not paid any attention to the ten or so other students standing outside the door, to find herself standing next to Neville Longbottom.
Luck was on her side it would seem.
"I'm—I'm not sure..." Angeline replied after looking at the door and instantly crossing her arms to gain some sort of warmth back. "Why do you ask me?" She asked meeting Neville's curious hazel eyes.
He shrugged, "You're one of the top Charms and Defense students in our year," he said. Angeline frowned and bit her lip. She wasn't even in the top five Charms or Defense students, sure she moved up with Hermione Granger gone, but that didn't change the fact that it still didn't matter. That had been a lie.
"Not even close," she mumbled.
"You're still really smart," Neville said.
Before Angeline could ask what he was getting at—and she had a good feeling about what that was—the door in front of them was opening.
Angeline felt as though she had just jumped into ice cold water as she felt a chill hit her down to the bone.
"Well would you look at this," Alecto Carrow said as she stepped out the room. Apparently unfazed by whatever spell they had worked into the room. "They're all here and on time," she said in a sickeningly sweet voice. "Well in you all go!"
Slowly and reluctantly they all made their way into the cold room, all of them pulling their robes tighter around them. Taking seats pointed out by Amycus who waited for them inside the room.
Angeline found herself sitting alone in the middle with no one else around her. Everyone was evenly spread apart from one another. Neville was sitting to her right closer to the front of the room.
The doors behind them, slammed, sealing their fate it seemed.
"You're all here because you've all broken the rules," Amycus began. "For that you're all to be rightfully punished." Amycus seemed to linger on her face far longer than Angeline liked, but she supposed she should have anticipated such.
Alecto held up a set of quills, one for what it seemed every person in the class. Angeline instantly recognized them even though she never had to use one...she was familiar with what they did. These quills didn't require ink, all you needed was a piece of parchment and that quill. A certain professor in her fifth year was very fond of these quills and she used them to torture numerous of students during her reign of terror.
"I got these from...a friend..." Alecto gave a wheezy giggle. "They're quite effective," she added as she moved around the room giving out the quill to students. She pointedly skipped her and Neville Longbottom as well.
Another knot tied itself in her stomach as she looked up at the ceiling hoping there was some type of higher power to stop this madness. She'd much rather be writing a message in her own blood and live with the scar forever than deal with whatever the Carrows had planned for her.
"Professor," a girl in the front said. "What are we to write?"
Alecto gave the girl a sickening smile and waved her wand. Sheets of parchment flew about the room before setting in front of each student with with a quill.
"Each one of you have been given a specific line to write. They're rules that you've broken." Alecto said.
"How many times?" A boy asked.
"Until we tell you to stop," Amycus said. "And believe me when I say you won't be able to stop unless we tell you to."
Angeline realized they had bewitched the quills to continue to write once they started.
"You haven't give us any ink," said another boy.
"Oh you won't be needing it," Alecto said. "Now get to work!"
Angeline's teeth gritted together as she heard gasp after gasp fill the room. Quill scratched across parchment unwillingly and the tears were already threatening to fall. The message would sink in eventually...quite literally.
Shaking from the cold and the pain, Angeline watched as the students around her continued to write across the parchment unwillingly, her own teeth clenched together so hard from listening to cries that she was sure she'd break them.
"You," Alecto said moving in front of Angeline's line of sight. "Will be coming with me."
Reluctantly, Angeline stood up from her seat and followed, Alecto toward the back room. They passed Amycus pointing his wand threateningly at Neville's throat, before Angeline entered the room, and for the first time really felt that these were to be her last moment.
The room was poorly lit and smelled of mildew. Angeline didn't know it was possible to leave from one cold room to another just as cold if not colder. Her teeth chattered against their will and her body shook. Glancing at Alecto she wondered what spell she used. Maybe the next time she had detention—because there was always a possibility of a next time—she'd use it...
"Sit down, Jensen," she said her voice dark. Angeline spotted the stool much like the one used at sortings, but didn't sit as she was told. "I told you to sit down!" Alecto snapped, her hand going across Angeline's face so hard, Angeline momentarily lost balance. She could already feel the beginning of a bruise as she sat down on the stool. The moment she sat she was too nervous to think about about getting up again.
"Aren't you special," Alecto said walking around her. Angeline wanted more than anything but to reach for her wand, but she was scared to reach for her only defense. "Your father says not to kill you, and your mother says you can be fixed." Angeline watched Alecto's wand carefully as she came to stand before her again. "And Demetrius has given me permission to fix you, because you're quite broken aren't you girl?"
"Broken?" Angeline asked.
"Did I say you could speak?" Alecto snapped.
"I'm just confused..." Angeline replied. Alecto glared at her before walking around her once again, but this wasn't a usual walk around.
"You lack discipline," Alecto muttered in her ear just before Angeline felt a burning hot sensation on the back of her neck.
Angeline jerked forward, but she nor the chair got anywhere, it was though she was stuck to it and it to the floor. However, her hand did go to the back of her neck, pulling her hand back around, her finger tips were coated in blood.
"I'm not afraid to make you bleed," Alecto said moving toward her and grabbing Angeline's left arm yanking her from the stool as though Angeline imagined being stuck to it. Angeline tried to pull away then, but Alecto was a lot stronger than Angeline had given the woman credit for.
It was in this moment when, pure flight or fight surged through Angeline's veins. Throwing caution to the wind she had immediately entered fight mode as she went to grab for her wand. It was too late for her to go for it.
Angeline was screaming before her body hit the floor, she figured, Alecto rethought making her bleed for the time being...instead she wanted to make her cry first. Hear her screams fill the small room.
As she withered on the floor she finally understood why it was so cold, when it was this cold, it was impossible to try to find something to cling to as your body contorted in pain. Your screams becoming your only source of comfort that you were alive.
When the feeling of one thousand needles piercing her brain at once ceased. Angeline found herself clutching her head in her hands, her knees had been brought up to her chest. Her breathing was labored and she wasn't sure she'd ever move from that position again.
"Haven't got much to say now, do you?" Alecto questioned. Angeline looked up at her through slitted eyes.
"I have more to say to a brick wall," Angeline groaned.
It hadn't been what Alecto wanted to hear, but Angeline had already come to terms that if she were going to die or come close to it, she wasn't going to compromise who she was for someone like Alecto Carrow.
Angeline didn't know how long she had laid in that cold room on that even colder floor being tortured in what seemed like five minute intervals. As she fought the darkness edging its way into her vision she sort of wished, Alecto had made her bleed instead. She thought that having her own blood leave her body was better than the cruciatus minutes apart.
Her only saving grace was that she could think clearly...she still knew her name, her age, the essentials. That was all she needed to know to feel that she wasn't tormented into insanity...
Whatever comfort Angeline had found was sort loved when Alecto had yanked her up by the collar of her robes. The fabric rubbed against the burn on the back of her neck causing her to gasp as she was dragged out of the little room of torture and into the main room.
Alecto pushed her, and Angeline stumbled into Neville Longbottom. He steadied her, looking up at him, she thought he looked as bad as she felt...but then again she wasn't sure how bad her looks were at that moment.
"What you have before you is what will happen to each one of you if you continue breaking the very simple rules we set up for you," Amycus said gesturing toward, the two seventh years.
Angeline looked at the students before them, only a few of them seemed to be afraid, and if they all were then they definitely were great at covering up that fact. Most of them glared as they held their bleeding hands.
"Now get out of our sight," Amycus said pointing his wand at the doors. They opened and no one wasted any time exiting.
"You okay?" Neville asked once they were a significant distance from the classroom. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement that they were all going to the Hospital Wing. Angeline looked up at him.
"I think I should be asking you that," she said. Neville smiled and she wondered how he found it possible to smile despite the gashes on his face.
"It's nothing," he said. "Amycus, couldn't get what he wanted out of me so he decided to rough me up a bit, but I'll be fine!" he said cheerfully. Angeline wondered had he been confunded during his time with Amycus. "You haven't answered me though, are you alright?"
"I'm fine," she lied as they continued on. In truth she didn't think she was going make it to the fourth floor. "Listen, Neville," she said as they finally made it to the Grand Staircase. Angeline looked behind her to find the Carrows weren't there and that the other students were already halfway to the fourth floor. She had never moved so slow in her life. "For the past week, I've been trying to talk to you about...you-know-what..."
Neville didn't say anything as they continued up the staircase. Angeline was slowly becoming under the impression Neville was only being nice because he's a nice guy...not because he had any interest of telling her about the DA. How stupid of her to assume such a thing. Draco had been right, why would they want to work with a Slytherin?
"We'll talk more in the Hospital Wing," Neville said suddenly. Angeline's head snapped to his direction so fast she hissed at the pain that erupted on the back of her neck. "So much for being fine, yeah?"
Angeline smiled half-heartedly as they continued on in silence.
What had seemed hours, they finally reached the Hospital Wing. Immediately, Madame Pomfrey was moving them to the beds, muttering about how the school would have been better off closed, before she had rushed off to deal with the younger students first.
Angeline swung her legs over the bed and looked over at Neville.
"Well," she said. "We've made it and this is as safe a place as any to talk..."
"Right," Neville said. He proceeded to pull a folded piece of parchment from the most inner pocket of his robes. "Don't open that here, but when you do...I hope you consider what's written." Angeline took the parchment and stared at it before placing it in her own inner pockets. She knew what was written on it, she'd guard it with her life if she had to. "I've talked this over with Ginny and Luna, Luna's fine with it I suppose, but Luna seems fine with a lot of things...Ginny's a little skeptical but she'll come around eventually. As for the others...I haven't told them...so if you decide to show up, prepare yourself, yeah? They may not be very welcoming..."
"I'll take those odds," Angeline mumbled. "Thank you for you this...but Neville, I don't understand...Why?"
"You want it don't you?" he asked. His confusion not masked in the slightest.
"Yes, yeah of course I do. As odd as this is going to sound, I practically stalked you for the past week because I wanted to be a part of this. I'm just shocked that you're so willing to give me this, I mean we've barely spoken two words to one another over the last seven years. Not exactly a reason to trust someone...especially given what that someone has going against them."
"Oh well," Neville said frowning a bit. "The way the Carrow's treat you and your cousin automatically make you an ally, doesn't it? Enemy of your enemy or somethin' like that?"
Angeline stared at him almost baffled at how trusting he was just by what transpired in classes alone.
"I suppose," Angeline said. "Thought I'd have to fight for it more," she shook her head. "I seem ungrateful...thank you," she said.
"Don't mention it...really," he said and for the first time since leaving the Slytherin common room that night a real smile appeared upon Angeline's face.
"Lips sealed," Angeline said. "One other question though...why were you in detention anyway?"
"The Carrows are under suspicion that I'm the cause for Dumbledore's Army surfacing," Neville said nonchalantly. "I mean me of all people, NevilleLongbottom. It's absurd, wouldn't you agree?"
Angeline laughed only to regret it, "Absolutely," she said just as Madam Pomfrey came over chiding them for not lying down like she had instructed them to do minutes ago.
Draco had spent most of the last two hours sitting in the common room, working on homework or writing home, so he told anyone who asked. When in truth he had been watching the common room as it slowly cleared out as people went to bed, waiting patiently for Angeline to return from her detention. Much like her cousin Gisele and Blaise were doing then. Eventually leaving only the three of them.
Though from what Draco could see, Blaise couldn't have cared less as he seemed to be the one actually working on homework. Ignoring the "other Jensen" as she'd pace or accuse him of not caring.
"Angeline's your friend, Zabini!" Gisele said as she stopped in her pacing and glared at him. "You can at least pretend you care!"
"Close acquaintances is probably a better definition of what I and Angeline are to one another...even that might be stretching it a bit," Blaise said.
"Even so you could pretend to care that she's probably getting her skin ripped open," she said.
"Right," Blaise scoffed. "Because that will fix everything won't it? I'm not wasting my energy, Gisele. Besides what do you want me to do? Sprout wings, swoop in and save her? Make her all better? Sorry to tell you this doll, but angel's don't actually exist."
Gisele took a threatening step toward Blaise, whereas Blaise looked to be challenging her. Daring her to even think about evading his personal space.
Draco was just thinking he was going to be entertained by their argument when the entrance to the common room opened.
His favorite source of entertainment walked in her hands deeply in her pockets as she came to a stop, looking at the scene before her.
"I said snog, not look like you're on the brink of killing one another," Angeline commented. Gisele was launching herself toward Angeline, throwing her arms around her. Angeline took a few steps back to regain her balance. "Ow, Gisele," Angeline said her hands shooting from her pockets as she pushed her away. "Not so tight, yeah?"
"I'm sorry," Gisele apologized as she released Angeline. "What took you so long? Your detention ended a long time ago!"
"Hospital Wing," Angeline said moving around her and heading to the couch. Angeline's eyes flicked and met Draco's. He smirked and when she let her confusion show before she flopped onto the couch beside Blaise. "Zabini," she said nudging him with her elbow. "Wasn't expecting you to be up. Worried about me, were you?"
Blaise was gathering his things when he stopped and raised an eyebrow at her, "Please," he drawled as he stood. "She does enough worrying for all of Britain," he said. "Control her will you? G'night," he added before he made his way toward the dormitories.
"Gisele," Angeline said. "Could you not be so...You?" she asked. Draco chuckled before he could stop himself and Gisele glared in his direction. "Oh calm down, it's been a long night and I've got something important to tell you."
"What is it?" Gisele asked.
"Not here," Angeline said as her hand went to the necklace around her neck. "We can talk in the dormitory. I've got a privacy spell around my bed. Plus I stopped by the kitchens." She pulled out a small bag from her robes as they stood from the couch.
Draco felt the pendant in his pocket heat up as the two girls started toward the dormitories. Angeline gave him a meaningful look before she disappeared down the corridor.
Pulling the pendant from his pocket, he read the words engraved on the back.
Give me an hour.
Draco rolled his eyes at the message before he sent his own.
Who says I was up waiting for you?
He had asked her. Minutes passed before the pendant had warmed again in his hand.
Why else would you feign doing homework?
Draco shook his head and decided not to reply back to her. Packing up his homework he moved in front of the first to throw in pieces of parchment as he tore them.
He wondered how long he sat there watching the flames tear away at the small piece of parchment before he heard her approach.
"Was I right then? You were waiting for me," she said laying down on the couch. Her robes were gone but it would see she hadn't bothered to change into nightwear.
Draco threw what was left of his supposed homework in the fire, "No proof that I was waiting for you, Jensen," he said.
"Right," she said rubbing what he could see was a bruise just along her jawline. "I reckon you just enjoy sitting up in the late hours burning your pretend homework..."
They stared at one another as her hand went from her jaw to the back of her neck. She looked away first and sat up flinching as she did so. Still watching her carefully, he noticed that her entire body screamed exhaust, but it was very prominent in her face. Her eyes being her dead give away. He had seen those same eyes mirrored in those that had been through a great deal of torture...
"It took you less than hour to get out here," Draco said looking down at his watch. "What you do? Hit her over the head?"
Angeline looked at him again, almost amused, "I told her what I needed to tell her...and she went to bed. It's far past her bedtime anyway." Draco didn't miss the guilt that flashed across her face.
"You did hit her," he said.
Angeline stopped rubbing her neck and the guilt doubled, "Did not," she said. "I—I may have given her some of the sleeping potion that Madame Pomfrey gave me...Put two drops onto her favorite strawberry pastry before I got here, knowing she'd eat it..."
Slightly opened mouth, Draco stared at her. Had he heard her correctly? Had she really just told him that she deliberately drugged her cousin?
"How very devilish of you," he said smirking. Angeline crossed one leg over the other.
"I'm not proud of what I did," she said as she lifted her wand and a piece of parchment that he just realized she was holding floating into the fire. "I just didn't want to explain why I was coming to speak to you..."
"Why did you want to speak to me?" he asked far more curious than he meant to sound.
"For one, you wouldn't ask me twenty questions about what happened to me in detention because you already know just by looking at me," she said quietly.
And she was right, Draco knew what they had done to her, the cruciatus curse was a favorite, physically one of them laid hands on her, but there was just one that Draco wasn't sure about. It was her neck, her hand kept going to the back of it and she rubbed it absently as her mind seemed to go off somewhere else much like now.
"What about your neck?" Draco asked. Angeline stopped rubbing the spot and smiled a little.
"Alecto burned me pretty good," she said. "I assume you guessed the rest?" she asked. Draco didn't respond he didn't know what to say to that. "It's fine though, you were right when you said they weren't going to play...well almost, Alecto gets her laughs from playing with her students...but it was all worth it in the end, the detention that is."
Draco narrowed his eyes as he stared at her again, "What's that suppose to mean?"
"Longbottom," was all she uttered and it was all Draco needed to understand what she meant. And it actually angered him to know she was going to be joining the D.A., he couldn't explain the feeling he had then, but he didn't like it and it only made him that much more furious.
"Well congratulations," Draco deadpanned. Angeline looked at him, her lips pulled in a tight smile.
"Go on," she said. "Tell me how you really feel."
"Besides the obvious?" he asked. "You just keep digging this hole and before long you're not going make it out of it."
"Then so be it," Angeline shrugged. "Just thought I'd say, I told you so. I do get what I want, when I want it enough..."
Draco scoffed, "Sure," he said. "As long as you know they'll get bored of the whole, good Slytherin act quick. If you proved anything tonight you're just as bad as the rest of us."
"I am not looking for your approval," she snapped. "Just thought you'd like to know that I'll be out of your hair!"
"That won't last long once they get tired of you," he said. "You'll be right back here telling me things pretending you trust me! When I know all you want is to get me to tell you things."
"Merlin," she said sitting forward. "I'm not bloody pretending! I do trust you!"
"Well you shouldn't!"
Angeline and him stared at one another again. It was apparent to both of them that they didn't mean for this conversation to turn into an argument, but they were both far too stubborn to leave it be.
"You haven't given me a reason not to," she said finally. Draco rolled his eyes.
"Yes I have," he said. "Besides the only reason you need is on my left forearm." Her eyes traveled to the spot he indicated. She didn't say anything, it was as if she had even forgotten who he was...what he was... "I lie to you all the time, but you still keep coming back for more."
"Every lie you tell me is wrapped around the truth," Angeline said. "Eventually you'll get tired of telling me lies and tell me something of the truth," she said.
"Is this you again stating how you get what you want?" Draco questioned crossing his arms.
"No," she said. "I've decided that you'll tell me when you're ready to tell me. I don't know when that'll be or if ever...but I'm tired of trying to get you to tell me exactly what happened last year."
"Oh really?" Draco said. "Then why are you still taking time to talk to me?"
"Why do you?" she countered. In that same moment she had crossed her arms and her legs so tightly, he was positive she wasn't going to unfold any time soon.
"Because I have nothing else better to do," he sneered.
"You're a bloody prick," she said.
"And you're a bloody idiot," he responded. They glared at one another for a second before they both turned their heads and glared at different points of the common room.
Draco scowled at the fireplace not really seeing the flames dance before him. He was so furious at her for being so...so...That was the thing he wasn't sure why he was so mad her at the end of it all. It was as though, they bickered just for the sake of bickering. Both of them were far too cantankerous to stand down from an argument that was obviously going nowhere. Both too apprehensive to really dig to what they had buried between them...
Sparing Angeline a sidelong glance, her arms and legs were still tightly crossed, but her hanging foot bounced in a frustrated type rhythm. Her face showed him that she was thinking hard about something and whatever it was, it wasn't on the pleasant side of things. He'd bet her thoughts had gone exactly to the same place his had gone, for the irritation emitting off her body was precisely how he felt.
Looking back toward the fire Draco's thought found the lingering question that he never wanted to answer.
What was between them? They weren't really friends and they weren't exactly enemies, despite that all signs in their lives should have pitted them as such. To say they were somewhere in between was unsatisfying and to Draco almost an insult to this thing they had.
This thing was nothing but a big tangled ball of complicated mess.
As though planned, they both let out a loud sigh. Turning and looking at one another for the first time in the last five or so minutes. Angeline was the first to break as she laughed. Her hand covered her mouth in hopes to stifle her laughter. Didn't quite go the way she planned as it seemed to make her laugh more.
"First I don't quite remember why we're fighting," she said. "Now I don't know why I'm laughing."
Draco chuckled as he watch her fail to regain her composure. Stress, that was what he was seeing her laughing at. When times got too complicated people cracked and they'd either get angry, cry or in some cases, laugh.
It was when she was left with only sporadic snickers did she finally speak.
"We're a mess," she said as she wiped at the corner of eyes.
"Speak for yourself, Jensen," Draco said. Though he did agree with her. He had come under habit of never agreeing with her outloud.
"Whatever," she said completely calm now. She stared at him momentarily before she yawned and stretched slowly. She sat there a little while longer before a frown etched itself on her face. "Probably best I go to bed...," was all she said as she stood up and headed toward the dormitories. However, halfway there she stopped and turned to him.
"Draco," she said.
"What?" he responded.
"I—" she frowned again and looked up to the ceiling as though the words were hanging up there for her to read. "Nevermind," she said quickly before she hurried away from him.
Draco watched where she had been for the longest time before he turned back to the fire. His mind returning to the mess that they had unintentionally created in relation to one another. He had just witnessed Angeline breaking from the stress that surrounded her even though she didn't seem to know it quite yet. Draco felt that it was only a matter of time before he himself started to rip at the seams...
Standing up abruptly Draco headed toward the dormitories as though his thoughts would stay at that fire and not follow him. To him if he didn't retreat from the common room then, he wasn't sure he'd keep those seams intact.
That's the end of this chapter! Hope it was worth the wait. Between exams and this I let this sit on the back burner, but it's finally summer and I'm hoping to update far more than I have!
Oh and a year ago today marks the anniversary of when I uploaded Clandestine! :) Just thought I'd throw out a fun fact!
I've created a webpage dedicated to "deleted scenes" from my stories. Mostly those scenes that didn't make it into Clandestine and Simplicity. It's under construction still, but if you'd like to take a look you can fine it on my profile! :)
No usual questions this time around, but you're still very welcome to review! :)
Peace & Love,
TR
