This chapter was sooo hard to write! Tell me what you think?
**ATTENTION!**
I just got a part-time job! My writing time will be severly limited! I've got about four or five chapters written ahead of time, but how long the rest will be...
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Viktor Krum. I do own Leigh Ann, though, and all of her family!
July Fifth, eleven o'clock p.m.
The room was dark, feelings of loathing and spite running throughout the walls. Nothing was in light, and fires burned throughout the Muggle town surrounding it. The sounds of screams rang, making her sick. She wanted to run, but she was already in to her neck, she couldn't pull out now, they'd kill her.
"I don't think that I can do this." Her sister was lying on the ground, barely conscious. Just looking at her made the girl sick.
A man, her mentor, stepped out of the shadows. His thick hair was full of white and a slight amount of brown, and his dark, almost black eyes were held in a sick smirk. His black robes made him swallow and sickly-looking. "You have to, or you'll be a traitor to Our cause and your family will never be safe from Us."
"What do you mean, my family will never be safe?" the girl shouted, throwing her arms around, running her hands through her hair. "I'm looking at a part of it right now!"
"The Order needs to know that We can trust you." He placed his hands on her shoulders, gently rubbing the tension out of her shoulders. She knew that he could snap her like a twig if he had the mind to.
"If my own family can't trust me, how can you?" Tears sprang to her eyes, but she made them disappear. Any sign of weakness was another reason she could be killed. Death was always surrounding her.
He squeezed her shoulders, letting her go. "Either you do it, or I'll do it."
"She's my sister." The girl felt as if her heart would beat out of her chest, and she turned away from the unconscious girl on the floor, and her mentor standing over her.
She knew that her mentor was frowning. "Jessica, you won't be a part of the Order, of Our perfect society, until you prove that you will do anything to rid the world of Muggle filth. You are lucky you are able to look upon one such as me, with that filth in your bloodstream. You do want to clean first the United States, then the world, don't you?"
She hated everything to do with Muggles, and hated Muggle-borns who stole her powers away. As a witch, they were rightfully hers. And she may have loved her father in her heart, but in her mind he ruined their family. "I...I do."
"Then say it."
She felt her arm lifting, felt his influence was over her. "...C..."
His voice became stronger. "Say it, Jessica."
Her arm was shaking, and she took a deep breath to calm herself. It took a moment, but she said it. "...Crucio." The girl on the floor, her sister, gasped and turned over, shuddering in her unconsciousness. It hurt to see it, but it had to be done.
Her mentor grabbed her arm and steadied it, squeezing just hard enough not to break her arm. "Say it like you mean it!" he shouted, creating a heat of magic around them that put a fire into the girl.
"CRUCIO!"
The screams that Leigh Ann made would forever be burned into Jessica Nelson's memory.
July Sixteenth, six o'clock p.m.
"Viktor, sweetheart, you need to rest."
"He should say the same for you, Mom."
Rene turned her tired eyes onto her son, her exhaustion making her anxious and angry. She wanted to strangle him, cry against his shoulder, and fall asleep on said shoulder all at the same time. She'd been up for three days straight, and before the eighteen-hour sleep the day before the three days, she'd been up for another three days.
It'd been a week and a day, and they still hadn't found her daughter.
Viktor had kept almost the same schedule, only once pulling a four-day run. They'd checked everywhere they could think of; England's Ministry, Viktor's Bulgarian contacts, and as Rene had all of the contacts in the world in America, but there was nothing. By now the world knew of Leigh Ann's disappearance during the Bulgaria versus America game, and it was becoming a big hype. Bill Weasley, in Egypt, was looking everywhere he thought to look, and Charlie was doing the same at his Dragon Reserve. Molly didn't even take a breath when she heard the news before she was searching on foot.
"I vill noot rest oonteel I find her," Viktor said in mixed English and Bulgarian. Rene could understand a little bit of Bulgarian, but now that both of them were so exhausted, they were getting mixed up with their second languages. "I had her...een my hands. I had her, and she vaneeshed."
"Believe me, Viktor, I wasn't too far behind you," Rene said with a small sob before she sobered herself. I can't become distressed. I've gotta keep looking up, I'll find her. I always do. Rene remembered the time when Anna was seven, when she had gotten her first real broom, and she'd run off. She'd been gone for almost eighteen hours before she'd come back, claiming she'd gone to Alex's house for dinner. Rene's heart had burst out of her chest.
But this wasn't a measly eighteen hours. This was a week and a day, almost two. And if she didn't find her baby, there would be hell to pay.
"I've got something!" came Jessica's voice from the other room, where she'd been using a computer to try and track something. Rene, Jason, and Viktor moved as fast as they could with how tired they were. Jessica was reading off the description as they went into the computer room. "...one female suspect, two men, seen walking out of an abandoned house. Female screams could be heard one Monday night, but when police officers arrived at the scene, no evidence could be found."
"That could be anything," Jason groaned, but he was already leaving. He'd been to about twenty of these police report sites so far, but nothing had come up.
"I have a feeling that this one is right," Jessica said, and even Rene's perfect little daughter was exhausted, big black bags under her eyes. "I know that Anna is there."
"Jason," Rene said, seeing the determination in her daughter's eyes, "take Viktor with you."
Jason looked as if he'd rather eat a horse's rear end, but he obliged his mother's wishes. "Come on, Viktor. Let's find my sister."
Viktor Krum
Being awake for three days straight and sitting on a broomstick was not Viktor's cup of tea, but he was about to do anything to get Leigh Ann back. He could only imagine what horrors she was going through, what dark wizards had captured her. If this had anything to do with his work in Bulgaria...
Viktor had to shake his head and dodge out of the way of a tree that had been in his path. Both he and Jason were flying around California's coast after taking a port-key, and they were about ready to give up when they saw the house that had been described in Jessica's report. It was three stories high, in the middle of a Muggle suburb. Obviously it had been magically guarded, because none of the Muggles around it were paying any mind to the screams coming from inside. Viktor and Jason could hear them, though, and they quickly sat themselves on the ground and moved closer.
It's her, Viktor thought with a small pang to his heart. Her soul-wrenching screams tore at him from every angle, and he felt sick inside. "Vhat do ve do?"
"We bust in there with all the might we can and we find my sister," Jason said through clenched teeth. If Viktor was ever put up against this man, he knew that he would lose if it involved his family. He was very glad not to be on the opposing side of his fury.
"No. Ve moost do this vith stealth."
"I'm going to tear up whoever did this to my sister, I—"
"No. Ve vill do this my vay. Ve do noot vant them to keel her."
Viktor pulled Jason out of the light and into the shadow of a Muggle house, making them submersed in darkness. He then cast a few spells about them to test the strength of the wards around the house, but there were barely any there.
"Idiotilor."
"What?"
"They are idiots."
"Oh. ...Why?"
"They half only put up silencing wards and Moogle-repellant. They vill noot knoo ve are cooming."
Jason held his wand up a little higher, a determined look spreading over his features. "What's the plan?"
"I vas joost going to use the back door."
"...Oh."
"Boot ve moost be quiet."
"No shit, Sherlock, I don't want my sister dead, alright?"
Viktor shushed his partner, moving slowly through the grass until they reached the back door of the modern-suburban dwelling. The back door was even open, as if they'd been expected, and Viktor didn't like it. But his magic didn't sense anything else awaiting them. So either they were dealing with a very powerful wizard, or the damn idiots didn't think that they'd ever be found.
"Expelliarmus!" Jason suddenly cried, and Viktor pointed in the same direction and cried, "Stupify!" thereby stunning whatever enemy Jason had attacked. They walked up to a small body on the floor, staring into dark blue eyes that narrowed whenever they approached. The man was small and half bald and smelled like alcohol.
"Vhere ees she?" Viktor asked menacingly, placing his foot in the stunned man's stomach.
"Why should I tell you?" the man asked, his mousy little eyes glaring up at the Quidditch player. "Search the house yourself, you miserable Bulgarian. I've had her around my little finger this entire time, oh, yes, and she was very good to me, oh yes she was—"
Viktor aimed one good kick at his ribs before Jason wiped the man's memory and knocked him out. "Let's keep going," Jason said through clenched teeth. They searched the rest of the seemingly-perfect house, at least until they heard sobbing down in the basement. "I have your back."
Viktor nodded and slowly moved down the stairs. It was dark, with only slight amounts of light in holsters along the edge of the damp walls. The sobbing got louder as a man yelled, "Legimens!" Viktor held up his hand behind him, signaling for Jason to stop.
Leigh Ann's voice called through the darkness, her voice shaking and full of instability, "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts. There they are just standing in a row…"
"Damn girl," a man's voice growled, low and deep, "where is it?"
"Big ones, small ones, ones as big as your head…"
"She's not going to answer," said a woman's voice, disguised somehow with magic. "We've been at this for a week, we've gotten nothing. Give her a little more time to herself and she'll come around."
"Getting a little sentimental for the captive, Ensign?" Viktor looked back to Jason and mouthed, "Ensign?"
Jason's face only got stonier. "Wait."
"No, sir."
"Good. We have no need for that here."
"We have no need to be here, sir. She has a better will than we expected. We need to break her down more, take away some more food and water, but not so much that we should kill her. We do need her, after all."
"We wouldn't need her at all if she'd just tell us what we need."
"Let's just go."
"I shouldn't have to listen to you, but yes, I agree." With two pops, both of them disappeared. To where, Viktor wasn't sure, but he really didn't care.
He slowly walked closer, casting a silent spell over his eyes that allowed him to see. He looked around the small room, seeing that no one was there. But then…
Viktor almost fell to his knees when he saw her. She was hurt, badly, but she was breathing. In fact, she looked like a cornered animal. Even after a week of what Viktor knew had been torture, she still was alive, still fighting. Her arms were black and blue from where they had tied her down, and she was wearing almost nothing. She was covered in dried blood, her hair burned and singed around her swollen face.
He quickly moved over to her, not able to speak in his emotion from seeing her. But the instant he got near her, her head snapped up, looking around the dark room, trying to figure out who he was. He got close and she lashed out, screaming bloody murder. Her nails raked down his skin, her knees and elbows catching him in different places. He knelt between her knees, holding her wrists in his hands, and whispered, "Leahn, eet ees me."
Leigh Ann suddenly stopped, and with the spell he'd used, he could see her eyes widening. She reached out, touching his face, letting her fingertips gently grace his cheeks and forehead and nose. A sob escaped her lips and she pulled him closer, as close as he could bet with the bonds around her, and they sat like that for a while.
"Viktor," he heard Jason's voice say from behind them, "we don't have much time."
He knew that, but he didn't want to have to move her, to make her hurt anymore. He wanted to wait for the male and female to come back so that he could murder them both slowly. But Leigh Ann's welfare came first. "You are alvight now," he said softly, using magic to break the chains, gently running his hands over her body. "You are safe."
"I'll n-n-never b-b-be s-s-safe," she gasped, trying to wrap her arms around him but failing, as they were so bruised. "V-Viktor, I'll n-n-never be safe. Th-they thought I knew something, but I don't, Viktor, a-and I-I'm trained against Veritaserum, you know that, a-and—"
"I half you...I half you... Hush..."
"Th-they'll never let me live, n-not now, n-no, I-I've got to g-g-go, they've g-got me—"
"I am here, they vill noot harm you again."
"Y-you've got to get out of here! H-he'll be back, and the girl—she was so horrible, V-Viktor! You've got t-to get out of here, before she comes back! Before he comes back!"
Viktor held her close to his chest, letting a few tears come out before he knew that he had to get her out of that hell hole. "Leahn, everything vill be alright. I proomees."
Awww! Tell me what you think?
She looked forlorn, in the corner by herself, staring into the fire. She'd been like that ever since they'd brought her home. The bruises had started healing, the cuts had formed over, but the scars that she would have on the inside were worse than anything that could ever heal.
He walked over to her, sitting away from her on the couch. She didn't even turn to look at him. "Leahn...Leahn, I am leafing."
"Hm," she grunted, pulling up her legs and wrapping her arms around them. "Alright."
"Leahn, look at me?"
She shook her head, now covered in very, very short hair. They'd had to cut it to make it even, without all of the scorches or cuts that had filled it before. Now it was above her chin. "No. I just...I don't know what to tell you, Viktor."
The Search for Leigh Ann
