Sun filtered in through the steel bars of the window, making the view to freedom outside look grim. A young, weedy boy with round spectacles stroked the feathers of his snowy owl, who appeared restless as she plucked at her feathers.
"I know you're itching to spread your wings, Hedwig. We haven't much longer until we're back at school and we'll both be freed from here." Said Harry.
Darcey awoke with a jolt, still drenched in the melancholy aura of the dream of her brother. She wasn't sure what had caused her to dream something so random, perhaps the bars upon his bedroom window were some psychological metaphor for how helpless she had felt lately, since she began regaining control of her life. Ever since she was told she was a Potter and then the death of her brother, Roger and at last, her family abandoning her, she had felt completely and utterly helpless in being unable to prevent the spiraling downfall of her once mundane life. So she had vowed to take back that control and do whatever it took to destroy the people who had destroyed her.
Darcey rose slowly from Harry's tangled sheets, careful not to wake her brother and padded over to the caged owl whom she had dreamt about, cautiously slipping her index finger between the bars to stroke her wings to which she gave a grateful hoot.
Moving to the window, Darcey opened it and leaned her upper body through to get a whiff of the fresh, dewy morning air. It couldn't be past seven, she was up early despite having a long night.
"Are you planning an escape or contemplating suicide?" Came suddenly Harry's voice from beside her as he peered up at her through with groggy eyes before wiping the evidence of sleep away and groping for his glasses perched on the nightstand. He was still shirtless, evidence of their intimate encounter hours earlier and his black hair looked, if possible, even more disheveled than usual.
"Neither." Darcey replied softly, watching the suns ascent into the clear blue sky. "It's a lovely morning. I think I'll go for a walk." She decided, moving over to her trunk near Harry's wardrobe. She shed his t-shirt that she had slept in, standing half naked before him, in just her knickers while rummaging for some clean clothes to wear.
"I'll go with you." Replied Harry unexpectedly, causing Darcey's blue eyes to dart towards her brother in suspicion. 'So did this mean they were alright now?' She faintly wondered, if so she'd retain it to her memory to shag all her enemies, if it'd save her life. Though, she was only kidding.
"That is, if you want the company?" Harry asked unsure, mistaking the narrowed look she was giving him as a glare and not one of puzzlement.
"I wouldn't mind." Darcey shrugged coolly, finally retrieving a pair of cut offs and a t-shirt before heading down the hall and into the bathroom to get dressed and freshen up.
Darcey followed Harry down the street and into an amber field filled with tall, yellow grass that blew in the summer breeze and itched against her knees. Harry took a seat a rusty swing while Darcey lounged on a round, spinning contraption, pushing off the ground with one foot to spin her around in lazy, slow circles.
They weren't alone, near the opposite end of the small park were a mother and toddler playing in the sandbox, but they were far enough away to give the siblings privacy to talk if they so wished, though it seemed they were both too absorbed in their own racing thoughts to engage in conversation.
Until suddenly a familiar, female voice rang through Harry's head, speaking to him telepathically.
"I need to talk to you." She thought, using legilimency. Harry could block her from communicating with him if he so desired, Snape had given him lesson in Occlumency the previous year, but he was eager to hear what the mysterious girl had to say.
"Go on then." Harry thought back after a long moment, wondering if they were about to discuss their forbidden encounter the night before.
He looked over at Darcey who was watching her boot kick up dirt as she spun herself around but her voice continued to speak through his head even though it appeared she wasn't paying him any attention. It was strange hearing her talk without her lips moving or her so much as looking at him.
"Voldemort has ordered me to spy on you. Though, I'm sure you already figured that much out."
"You're not much of a spy then are you? If you're telling me." Harry thought lightly.
"No, I'm not." Darcey agreed, her thoughts taking on a much more serious tone. "He's going to kill me when he discovers I'm no use to him, when the summer is over-"
"Unless you give him something." Harry finishes.
"Which I'll leave up to you." Says Darcey out loud this time, looking over at him to finally meet his gaze.
"I should let you die, seeing as you killed a man who meant a lot to me and I'm still furious at you over it, don't think that just because we-" Harry stopped, lowing his voice to a whisper. "-You know, that you're forgiven and all."
"Snape was going to kill him if I didn't, did you know that?" Darcey asked, diverting the subject slightly in a sly attempt to redirect his anger off of her. "Narcissa Malfoy told me that they had made an unbreakable vow for him to assist Draco and complete the task if he found that he couldn't. I always wondered why Dumbledore was foolish enough to put his trust in him, it's clear where his loyalty was all along."
"Did you know?" Harry asked curiously. "That Draco's mission was to assassinate Dumbledore."
"No." Darcey answered honestly. "I hadn't a clue until that night, when I found them. Draco had disarmed him and it was clear then what Voldemort had ordered him to do and it was also clear he wasn't capable of doing it, despite knowing that he'd die if he didn't kill him…"
"So that's why you did it then? To save Draco, you loved him?" Harry asked, clearly struggling to use the word 'love' and 'Draco' in the same sentence, it left a foul taste in his mouth.
"No." Darcey admitted, deciding to be truthful and at this Harry's eyebrow quirked from beneath his ebony bangs.
"Honestly, and I'm not proud of it." Darcey reminded him. "I murdered Dumbledore out of cold-hearted rage. Knowing he was the reason Roger died and I lost my family, knowing that, it made me hate him and wish him dead. So when I was given the opportunity for vengeance, I selfishly took it, not thinking of the consequences my actions would have." Darcey recited almost robotically, her tone extremely detached as she gazed out upon the horizon. It was getting warming now that the sun had moved higher into the sky and both teens were beginning to sweat.
"Do you regret it?" Harry finally asked after a long, thick silence hung between them. Darcey knew, at least at the moment she did not regret the death of Dumbledore, but she did regret the effect it had upon her and Harry's relationship. It had sealed their fate as enemies, as well as causing more despair to be shed upon her brother's already unfortunate life and for that she did regret it.
"Yes." She answered simply, quietly.
If Harry was pleased with her answer he didn't show it, instead looking at her with a blank, unreadable mask. It unnerved her seeing the Gryffindor act so cold.
"I'm thirsty, let's head back." Said Harry, rising from the swing suddenly and causing the chains to rustle.
Darcey followed wordlessly behind him, wiping the sweat from her brow and pulling up her hair into a ponytail to cool off her hot neck.
Darcey eyed the delicate, gold necklace strung around Aunt Petunia's tanned, boney neck as she fanned herself off with a muggle newspaper. It was unbearably hot and stuffy in the house, as her uncle insisted upon only running the AC at night to cut back on the 'electricity bill'.
"Is that some sort of flower? It looks like a rose." Darcey pointed out, no longer able to contain her curiosity as she stared at the pretty pendant. Petunia stopped her fanning, a distressed look crossing over her features at her niece's unknown personal inquiry.
"A lily pad." Her aunt corrected her in a barely audible hiss before suddenly disappearing off into the kitchen. A moment later Darcey met Harry outside where he was lounging beneath the shade of an english oak tree in the Dursley's garden.
"Have you even noticed that Aunt Petunia's necklace depicts a lily pad?" Darcy asked in excitement, moving to sit Indian-style beside him.
"No. Never paid it much attention really." Harry admitted. "Why?"
"Don't tell me you haven't made the obvious connection, Harry." Darcey gaped at him, her tone scolded. "A lily pad, really, our mother, Lily. The necklace was obviously hers." She decided.
"How can you be certain?" Asked Harry, although he did appear rather interested now.
"I can't, but I am." She replied hastily, explaining further when Harry cast her an odd look. "I just know it was Lily's and so it's only right that as her daughter it should belong to me..."
"Maybe our mother gave her the necklace, as a keepsake or something." Harry suggested.
"No way. You honestly think they were that close? I call rubbish. That necklace belonged to Lily and it was given to Petunia once she died. Our mother never intended her to wear it." She said in disgust.
"Still, the necklace belongs to Petunia now..." Harry replied carefully, as if he were trying to talk a little girl out of nicking cookies from the cookie jar.
"I don't care." Declared Darcey in a huff. "It should belong to me. It's disgusting that such a vile muggle like her is wearing it. I'm going to ask for it back, right now." She decided, rising impulsively and trudging with rigid determination back into the house with Harry right at her heel.
Draco watched alongside his parents as a pair of snatchers dragged into the entryway a muggleborn by the name of Marcus Belby. Belby attended school with Draco sorted into Ravenclaw house if he recalled.
The stalky, dark haired boy had been given a painful looking stinging jinx to the eye causing the skin around it to swell and appear shiny pink and blood trickled at a steady pace from his crooked, broken nose. He groaned softly, his good eye half opened to a slit as if struggling to remain conscious.
"Captured this mud-blood." Announced the lead snatcher smugly, a longhaired man with a charming smile. "I'm here for my payment."
Lucius stepped forward, his steel cane echoing off the elegant, marble floor as he moved. His piercing, pale, gray eyes framed with dark circles burnt into the lead snatcher as if he were trying to light him on fire.
"I'm afraid I don't see the logic behind you bringing a mud-blood into my home and then demanding I pay you for the obnoxious intrusion." Spoke Lucius in a glacial tone. "For your sake, I pray to Merlin, you have a good excuse."
The second Snatcher gulped as the leader spoke once more, "The Dark Lord told Greyback who then told to us that this particular manor would be the new headquarters for the Dark Lord's army and to bring all blood traitors and mud-bloods we snatch to this location. It seems you've been left out of the loop." Explained the snatcher, his brown eyes sparkling as he suppressed a sly grin. "So I'll ask once more, where are my galleons, Malfoy? You wouldn't like to see me get upset, I go ugly when I get upset. "
All that asking for her mother's necklace back had done was get Darcey thrown out of the house for the night after her guardians and her had engaged in a rather nasty row with her aunt refusing to give up the cherished keepsake. Darcey strolled the lane as dusk began to descend upon Privet Drive. It was growing dark and just when Darcey considered casting a 'Lumos' to light her path the street lamps sprang to life, igniting the street in patches of yellow light.
Darcey lie in the grassy meadow near the park, the only place she was familiar to other than than her aunt and uncle's house. The stars twinkled dimly above her, though much duller here being closer to the city. Back home, in the English country, the stars were so crystal clear and bright that Darcey could easily spot over a dozen constellations, but here the sky was too hazy with smog to see hardly anything but their faint, dim glows.
"Lilly…" Whispered Darcey, still staring up into the heavens, as she lied sprawled out, spread eagle on her back. The dark grass blew gently in the cool night breeze all around her, encompassing her.
"Mother… I promise I'll reclaim your necklace. I'm sorry that filthy muggle is wearing it, defiling your memory…" Darcey trailed, anger piercing through her chest.
"Oi! Did you hear that mate? Sounded like a girl." Came suddenly an unfamiliar male voice.
Darcey sprung up from the ground, crouching in the grassy null as she clutched her holly wand tightly. Her blue orbs locked on three shadowed male figures staggering towards her. One of them dropped the glass bottle he had been clutching and kicked it obnoxiously out of boredom. It rattled with a clank beside her.
"Ay! I see her there. In the grass, see?" Called another.
Darcey rose, stowing away her wand as she realized they weren't wizards, merely harmless, pathetic muggles.
"You've spotted me. I was under the impression that I was alone." Darcey replied coolly as they neared, now standing in a small semi circle around her. It was difficult to make out their faces in the darkness, but Darcey was certain they were all male and at least one of them were intoxicated, the smell of alcohol rancid on their breath.
"A fit girl like yourself shouldn't ever be left to feel lonely. Where's your boyfriend at, eh love? Is he around?" Asked the boy who had kicked the empty bottle, he was thin as a stick but towered over her in height and his short, light hair glistened in the moonlight. From what she could tell he wasn't very attractive, though that didn't matter, just an objective observation.
"He's left to piss, went off that way." Darcey pointed to the tunnel behind her. "I'd leave before he sees you flirting with me, he's the jealous sort." Darcey warned despite casting the boy a small, charming smile. "Perhaps we could meet up later, in an hour? In the tunnel, just you and I." She added softly.
The boy smirked at her as a symphony of whistles filled the air, coming from the two blokes who stood beside him. They wore cheeky, immature smiles.
"My names Piers, I don't think I caught yours?" He asked, closing the gap between them so that he was now standing right before her.
"Pansy." Darcey lied. "So I'll catch you later, Piers?" She added smoothly.
"Looking forward to it." He assured, moving in to kiss her. Darcey turned her cheek at last minute so that the filthy muggle was met with the corner of her lips. She seethed inwardly with rage at him for daring to be so bold with her and would have loved to curse him, but she shouldn't and she needed to leave. She had been smart to use flattery to appeal to the boys, allowing her to safely evade them.
"You're lucky your fit." Breathed Piers, rage flashing before his eyes, their color undetectable. "I don't normally handle rejection so well."
"Not rejection, simply a bit of teasing." Darcey sung. "Wouldn't want you to lose your appetite. You'll need it later." She seductively assured him, moving to brush between him and his two cronies.
"Sixty minutes, Pansy." He called after her retreating form, the flirty quality of his tone failing to mask the firm threat beneath it. Wouldn't he be raging as a madman when he realized she had stood him up, she thought with a wicked smirk. Honestly, these muggles were so daft...
Darcey's name being whispered against her earlobe broke her from her hazy dreams. Her eyes snapped open, looking wildly around the bedroom once she realized no one was there.
Harry lie asleep in his bed, they had yet to discuss their steamy encounter as they seemed to have mutually and silently agreed upon proceeding as if nothing had happened, for now at least.
'Darcey, wake up.' The voice echoed again inside her sleepy mind.
'Draco?' Darcey thought in alarm. It hadn't been more than forty-eight hours and she had already forgotten of him. Though, she knew she had no reason to feel guilty, still she did even though he had made it quite clear that there was nothing serious going on between them, they were simply a friend to shag when feeling blue, but somehow he had become more to her than that, he was her best friend and she had felt that she had betrayed him somehow by sleeping with her brother.
Merlin, that sounding so revolting, though she didn't see Harry at all in a brotherly light, he had always been the glorious Chosen One, a boy who had no connection to her at all and it was still hard to wrap her mind around the fact that they were siblings when they had been raised as strangers. In her mind she had shagged Harry Potter and not her brother.
Suddenly foreign images that didn't belong to her began to invade Darcey's mind. She was lying in Draco's bed, gazing down at her pale body in the low light, though the body wasn't hers it was his, half naked wearing his satin boxers and he was clearly aroused.
'What are you doing?' Darcey wondered, though she couldn't ignore the fact that she was becoming turned on at the sight of him. She remembered with fondness their intimacy and supposed she would always feel this sort of tenderness in regard to him, being the one she had lost her innocence to and it had been amazing, he had been amazing.
'Help me, I need a distraction.' He thought huskily, his hand moving to stroke the outline of his hard prick tenting in his boxers.
'Why? What has happened?' Darcey couldn't help but feel alarmed and she could hear, even in his thoughts, that he was quickly growing annoyed.
'Merlin, Darcey why are you always so bloody difficult? I thought you'd be pleased to hear from me so soon...' He grumbled.
'I am.' Darcey thought weakly, though it was only in part true. Instead it left her feeling oddly hollow knowing that Draco existed so far away, it didn't seemed real and this sort of teasing only made the distance between them worse. She was happy to forget him for the summer. It was easier that way and Darcey vowed she wouldn't go longing for him like some pathetic, clingy lover. She was stronger than that.
'I really am.' Darcey thought once more, though she wasn't sure who she was trying to convince more, herself of Draco. 'I just wasn't expecting to hear from you so soon…and besides, I was sleeping.'
The connection between them shifted suddenly negative as Draco's mixed emotions seeped through the line. 'Well then, I won't make the mistake of bothering you again. Have a nice holiday.' He thought curtly, violently severing the mental connection between them.
Draco wasn't about to let some worthless half-blood string him along like a pathetic, love struck puppy. He had dignity and pride, often too much for his own good, and wouldn't tolerate being rejected when he had needed her and risked vulnerability by reaching out to her. Wasn't that the point of their relationship, to distract the other through sexual release? It seemed, Draco realized with spite, that Darcey only wanted him when she saw fit and that wasn't acceptable. Draco mentally cursed her as a selfish, lousy bitch before grabbing his flaccid prick and stroking it back to life to images left solely and frustratingly to his own imagination. A piercing, agonizing moan echoed through the manor interrupting and killing the mood. It was that lousy Belby bloke, he'd been howling all evening after Greyback had paid him a visit and bitten him in light of the full moon...