It had been an absolute disaster. An absolute, huge and tyrannical disaster and the trouble seemed to have no available end.
What on earth was she supposed to do?
Angelina Hausra ran her small hands through her tousled blonde hair on the verge of tears. She had never been so stressed in her entire life. Her freedom was so close, she could practically taste it but trouble after trouble kept on colliding with her on the path to redemption, on her trek to salvation.
Lucius had to know by now. He had to know Draco's secret. Or maybe…just maybe the curse would have enough sense to want to protect Hermione. Lina glanced at the clock by her bedside, trying her very best not to give up all hope. It had been hours since the confrontation and hours since she'd heard anything from her childhood friend.
What on earth was she supposed to do?
Her future depended on Draco's and now on Draco's heart. With the discovery of his affections for her young mudblood friend she began to taste the true texture of a future aside from the one that had been placed before her. And as selfish as her intent was at heart she honestly wanted the best for her friend, never mind that his best would intertwine with her best. It would all work out in the end.
If the world didn't keep throwing these damn bombs at her that is.
She sat in her bed, with her head in her hands combating every single negative thought that continued to assail her person.
What if Lucius found out? What would he do?
Voldemort or not he was still a force to be reckoned with. The Death Eaters that had been left behind and tossed aside after the war were still great in number and had enough hatred for the likes of Hermione Granger to fuel a thousand suns.
But better yet…what on earth would he do to Draco?
"Oh God…"
How did this all happen? How did everything become so askew?
What on earth was she supposed to do?
"Lucius I see no reason for the child to not continue his schooling, the charm has not hindered his ability to learn or function like a normal school boy"
Draco Malfoy sat very quietly in the corner of the head masters office as he watched his father and his head master spar with words over his future at Hogwarts. He had been very careful not to say too much too soon as soon as his father had made his presence known. Curse or not he knew when to keep his mouth closed in the presence of the head of his family.
And so he remained silent, and simply watched. Judging by Dumbledore's relaxed stance in opposition to his fathers own flustered one he could already tell who was going to win this confrontation and as his eyes met that of the old mans his chest tightened at the slight twinkle in the old bastards eyes.
His own narrowed instantly.
The old fart knew something.
"I want him at the Manor until a cure is found!"
"Then he shall remain there for an eternity Lucius. You and I both know there is no such cure, so it would be in your sons best interest to continue on with his life until such a discovery is made…if ever"
Dumbledore stood now, as if ready to show the eldest Malfoy out and continued.
"The charm will not have any effect on your sons offspring Lucius, he simply will not be able to lie, and if this boy is truly your son you should have no trouble with this affliction, or as some would say…blessing"
Draco rolled his eyes at this; did the old coot always have to be so damn cryptic?
"BLESSING? He was cursed in broad daylight you old fool! How on earth could this be deemed a blessing?"
Dumbledore simply blinked and replied.
"He's not dead is he?"
Their relationship had always been rather a precarious one. Comparable to a long winding dark road filled with cavernous potholes and now as they stood opposite each other at the far south gates of Hogwarts Witchcraft and Wizardry Draco became all too aware of the particular pothole he now found himself in.
"You are well then? No physical pains?"
He stood eye to eye with his father now, the last bout of puberty had hit him the previous summer but it was still a strange sensation to not be looked down upon by the man he had spent so many years idolizing…so many years before the second war that is.
"None"
He simply replied. Lucius nodded and continued.
"Do you have any idea who the culprit might be?"
"None" he repeated.
Lucius nodded once more and regarded his only child for what seemed like forever His eyes were completely unreadable, as stone cold and unforgiving as ever but there was something else in them today. Something that shook Draco to his very core.
He seemed to want to add something but thought better of it and without another glance his disappeared beyond the wards of the school.
Draco collapsed on spot. His breathing ragged and strained. There had been so much he wanted to convey, so much this blasted curse had almost forced out of him in his fathers presence. But the idea of protecting Hermione, the idea of saving her had saved them both.
But for how long would he be able to keep this up? For how long would he be able to remain silent? Sudden visions of Christmas dinner, and all the family outings in between assaulted him and he realized how futile his plans really were.
He needed to lie now. Not because of his own selfish intent but because his damn life depended on it!
He slowly got up and turned back towards the castle.
His father had asked a question no one had thought to ask until now, a question with such an obvious answer it almost robbed him of his reason. He had already canceled out a family enemy because of the nature of the curse, and no one in the school really had the mental capacity or magical knowledge to perform such a curse so perfectly…no one aside from the person who was in every thought, who was at the center of every dream and laced his very heart with her image.
The only person with the motive, the ability and the possible knowledge of his where a bouts that day was Hermione Granger.
It was like a sucker punch to the gut. It was all so obvious. All so conniving, all so fucking Slytherin. But as the memories of his words to her after her jump came back to him he could see why she would go to such lengths. And that morning he had woken up in the infirmary with her on top of him, brushing his hair out of his face with such sorrowful and regret filled eyes. In his joy at her presence he had never thought to ask what was wrong? Why she had looked so guilty?
But if she had cast this curse surely she would've known of his true intentions, of his true thoughts of her. How on earth could she not? She wanted the world to see? Isn't that what she asked of him day in and day out during their encounters? She wanted his love…and so she found a way to uncover it.
He suddenly felt very betrayed.
She had cursed him with his back turned and then she had run away. She didn't want the responsibility but she wanted to reap the rewards? Then what on earth was she doing by the lake, their lake with Blaise Zabini?
She had cursed him….so the world would know.
So her world would know and he would be made to look like such a fool on the stage of her little play.
He was angry now. Angry at the thought of being used to such an extent. Angry at the thought of her in another man's arm when she had consciously tried to pry his open for herself. Angry at the entirety of her selfishness. Did she not ever think of the damn consequences?
Did she ever think of anyone but her own fucking self?
He suddenly felt enraged.
He stopped in the middle of the dark corridor. It was well past curfew but he didn't really care, the entire planet had been placed on his strong shoulders and he had no idea where the hell to put it. He leaned against the stone cold wall and closed his eyes for a moment. Trying to clear his thoughts, trying to clear his heart.
How could she go this far?
"Lina…"
She shot up out of her slumber and sat up in such a flurry, it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the light but when they did she immediately clutched her sheets to her body in trepidation.
"Uncle Lucius?"
He stood at the foot of her bed, all 6 feet pure blood royalty draped in the finest fabrics and jewels looking down on her with a look she had seen many times before. A look she encountered many times with the many male relatives she had, and many of the male friends her father regularly entertained at the Hausra manor. A look she had always feared, a look that almost had her killed during the second war.
"How long do you think you and Draco will be able to keep this up Lina?"
They way he used Draco's name for her made her shudder involuntarily and her stomach twisted itself in copious amounts of fear. Was she dreaming? She had to be dreaming, this was a nightmare. Little flashes her immediate future started flickering in her mind.
She could see his eyes clearly now, and saw a reflection of herself mirrored over the years, all those years he had spent watching her she had run to the cover of her fiancé…of his son. She had known he had looked on her with more than fatherly love and more often as she grew into her beauty and more importantly her body.
She inched back on the bed, as her eyes welled up with tears. She had to be dreaming.
"Uncle Lucius what are you – "
He held his gloved hand up in the middle of his sentence and began to peel the dragon skin gloves off his thing and pale hands.
"I know Lina. Did you forget that I could always read you Lina? Draco may have learnt to block his thoughts from others but you were never so able…I knew the moment you laid eyes on me today"
Both hands were bereft of his gloves now and he placed both the gloves and his cane on her nightstand.
He sat beside her on the bed and brought a hand up to her golden waves, long fingers intertwining themselves in her silken hair. Her eyes never left his and she suddenly understood his intentions.
He smiled and gripped onto her locks pulling her head down beneath his own.
"You will marry Draco sooner or later. So I will allow him to have his fun during his school years, although the company he chose to entertain is not of the preferred variety but it matters not. I will do nothing to harm her as you so fear my sweet Angelina but in return…"
His ghostly white hair fell about his face and tickled her cheeks as he pulled quite swiftly at the ribbon that had kept it in place.
She wanted to scream, she wanted to fight, she wanted to pretend as if she wasn't anything but a Hausra, as if her own father hadn't come to her room in the middle of the night after her magic had been drained, as if this wasn't a normal experience in the life of a pureblood princess, she wanted to pretend that she had the power to fight the worlds expectations, that she could protect a friend by any other means. She wanted to pretend that she was worth more than this.
That she could be more than this.
But if did…she would only be lying. And as her godfathers lips touched her own, and his hands almost ripped her hair out of her skull she understood the severity of the sacrifice she was about to make and in turn said goodbye to her future.
But if she couldn't live…Draco certainly would.
And so she remained silent as he disrobed himself.
"My sweet, innocent and useless little pureblood"
He pulled her head towards his hardened member.
"Be a good girl and protect that little mudblood bitch"
It was nearly dawn when Blaise returned to his chambers. He had spent most of the night conversing with Hermione, and the other part wandering around ridiculously lost after he had seen her off at the Gryffindor portrait entrance. He stumbled into the Slytherin common room completely knackered to say the least and lethargically moved down the hallway of private chambers to his own.
But something was amiss he noticed as he entered the hallway. The air was heavier somehow. He glanced at each door looking for an answer and noticed how the last one on the right hand side of the corridor had been left open.
Of all the things he knew about the Slytherin empire this kind of blind trust had never been any of them.
He moved to door quite swiftly. Pulling out his wand in preparation for only god knew what. He peered at the nameplate to the left of the door that read 'Angelina Hausra' in delicate cursive.
Had she been attacked once more?
He pushed the door open and held his wand ready for some sort of an assault but had the wind knocked right out of him at the image he was presented with.
Angelina Hausra lay in the middle of her sullied sheets. Numerous fresh bruises covered her otherwise clear skin and deep lacerations decorated her bare thighs. They were healing though, but just barely, whoever had caused this had cast a few slow healing charms and he was sure these wounds would be gone in a matter of hours.
He couldn't move a muscle as his eyes fell on her naked and battered body, her tear stained cheeks seemed to glow in the poor sunlight that flickered through the room. She was awake.
And she was crying.
Her full chest heaved up and down as her body shook through the silent sobs. But she made no move to cover herself and remained as still as stone.
He was at her side in an instant, fighting down the wave of nausea that overcame him when he saw the hand marks on her neck and the dried blood between her thighs. Her face was the only part of her body that had been left unscathed.
Her beautiful face.
Without a word he took of his cloak and covered her naked body. She flinched at his touch and opened her eyes in horror.
"No! No! No! No! No! No!"
She was frantic now and darted to the other side of the room her sobs now loud and clear for the entire world to hear.
Blaise stood in shock; he had caught a glimpse of her back, of all those bruises and choked on air.
Did these people have no shame? No honor? No sense of decency?
"Angelina…"
He took a step towards her and she buckled in the corner of the room.
"NO!"
Her voice was hoarse, and contrasted so greatly from the melodic tones he was used to he shirked back in response. He gathered himself once more and stretched out an arm toward her.
"Let me help you Angelina"
The blast that threw him back was so great that it knocked him out cold when he collided with the wall behind him. The air around her crackled with such intense magic it distorted her entire appearance. She stared at her hands in wonder and fear and wordlessly summoned her wand towards her, she cried out in fear when the item came whizzing at her and jumped back before it collided with her skull.
"Lumos"
She whispered, it was the simplest spell she knew and as the small light flickered at the end of her wand she all but shut down. The sheer beauty of the small an insignificant light sent her on an extreme emotional roller coaster, she didn't know her left from right anymore, her bad from good, her life from death. But she knew she had the key to that cage she had been stuck in for so long and the idea was positively enthralling.
"LUMOS!"
She screeched and the light blinded the room entirely and in that instant she had completely forgotten about the night before, about the sacrifice she hade made for a girl she barely knew, for a would be lover that would hate her when he found out and so she was up in a flash, she transfigured her torn and tattered nightgown into a new robe and glamoured all of her very quickly healing wounds. Her eyes darted to the injured Italian in fear and she fled without another moments thought.
His eyes flickered open to the curious face of a fellow housemate.
"Zabini"
Theodore Nott nodded at his mental arrival and motioned to the room around them.
"Care to tell me what happened here?"
Blaise stood up and gazed at the room that was completely bereft of one Angelina Hausra. His gaze hardened and he sneered at his housemates.
"Where is Angelina?"
Theodore chuckled in response.
"Oh so it's like that is it? Well fuck if I know mate, I walked by here and saw you knocked out cold amongst that shit hole of a bed I suppose you were taking a spin round last night"
He snarled in response.
"I did not spin Angelina's bed!"
Nott raised his hands and back away towards the door.
"Third party here. I really could care less whose bed you spin Zabini, no need to go all Mussolini on me"
The muggle Italian remark did nothing to abate Blaise's anger and he returned his gaze to his surroundings. He remembered everything quite clearly. The nature of her body, her wounds, her frantic eyes and her attack.
Her attack with magic.
Magic she wasn't supposed to have.
He had to find her. He had to get to the bottom of this. She had been raped he was sure, and judging by the nature of her departure he was also sure she would tell no one. Judging by the quiet din of the Slytherin common room she had told no one about her magic being restored to her either.
He had no idea where to go, he knew next to nothing about Angelina Hausra, but after last night he felt a fierce need to protect her, to save her. She had looked so out of place, she had looked so lost and so destitute and he couldn't possibly understand why on earth she felt this way. She was the toast of society, the most beautiful girl in the school he had been told, she had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth she continuously spent time with the bastard Draco Malfoy.
She should be happy.
So what happened last night?
The idea of uncovering a sinister under working of her world drove curiosity, she was so bright and so lively, so happy and so pure but last night…she had been dead. She could've been dead. It was such a contrast to everything he knew to be true.
He had to find her.
And her magic. Her magic had returned, in her hysteria and fright accompanying his presence she had sort to protect herself and her raw and untamed magic lashed out at his body.
She could've killed him.
He had to find her.
His legs took him to unknown corners of the castle, at this point he didn't care if he missed all his classes, he knew Hermione would fare quite well without him and he knew she would understand.
His Hermione.
As his feet took him to another woman's heart he never thought to question who inhabited his own.
"My Hermione"
And that was when he saw a flash of blonde, heading up the stairs to a now empty astronomy classroom.
"Angelina!"
His Italian accent carried itself well in the hallway and echoed so much that he knew she had to have heard him. She began running and so he picked up pace.
"GO AWAY!"
She was crying. He passed by curious faces of many students and took great pains to ignore the flurry of whispers. And then he lost sight of her.
He stopped in front of a blank wall; quite sure he had seen a door here before. Quite sure he had seen her blonde locks float into the room that was supposed to be in front of him. He stood and glared at the war for a moment.
What magic was this?
"Lina…"
And that's when the image in front of him changed and a door appeared almost out of thin air, and without question he gripped the handle and threw the door open. The room was softly lit and the elder Slytherin female stood in the middle of it her small and frail arms wrapped around her sobbing body.
"What happened to you?"
Authors Note: This had NO Hermione. But the next chapter is nothing but her, so yeah, I just wanted to work on Angelina more since a lot of my reviewers really seem to like here, it's almost as if she were an original lol. Blaise and Angelina…yeah…um….See my problem is I still don't know about the fate of Draco and Hermione. So it's all up in the air.
But thank you for your time and be sure to review.
Thanks again.