Chapter Thirty-Six

Daisy,

I'm glad to hear that news of your fragility has been greatly exaggerated. I must say I was surprised to be the recipient of the essay you call a letter given that we (your adoring public) have been led to believe that if you weren't so weak you'd be knocking at death's door.

My mother insisted on sending over a week's worth of meals because she does not believe your mother is feeding you. So now you have a week's worth of food. Feel free to throw them in the bin (or alternatively, tap them with your wand and the containers should grow to their full-size, warmed and ready to eat – no, I would not poison you) and I will learn one of these days not to tell my mother anything, but she is my mother and I have yet to learn the skill of lying to her face. You will have to teach me someday.

I'm afraid I can't send you the article you requested because I received an owl on the day of its publication from one Maître Levi-Strauss. Apparently I would be a considered a "danger to your sustained health" and legal action would be taken, and if necessary I would then be in charge of "financing your long-term rehabilitation in an appropriate facility". I'm not sure - this is just a wild guess - but I think they might be slightly worried about your mental health.

However, I can tell you that Skeeter was surprisingly complementary consider her usual vitriol. Trust me. She called my mother an 'Italian harlot' with designs 'to sink her claws into any eligible wizard that crosses her beady-eyed path' when their engagement was announced. I personally think you should be glad that the only thing she did was portray you as a fragile flower walking the line between life and death, sanity and insanity, Muggle and witch. I see no lie in that. Everyone exaggerates. Don't act like you've never exaggerated in your life.

On a final note, Stepfather says that Caesar is not a spy or a tracking device or whatever paranoid ramblings were included in your letter – Caesar is just an owl. I'm not sure why you suddenly think Snape is out to get you but I hope I'm able to hear your theories before the start of term. Try and get out to Diagon Alley before the end of summer. I promise you that it will be fun.

Please take care of yourself even though from the sounds of it you have an army of people taking care of you. Be grateful for that and stop complaining.

Blaise.

Daisy read over the letter twice, absentmindedly stroking Caesar's head as she did so. He wasn't a friendly owl by any means, but he seemed to like Daisy, allowing her to fuss over him whereas he bit almost everyone else who got a little too close for his liking. Dudley thought he was creepy, which was understandable; Caesar had these big round black eyes that appeared to always be watching you. Dudley had the feeling he was being x-rayed, a comment that had set Daisy on edge and had her demanding pen and parchment so that she could send her newly-acquired owl to Blaise. She was glad he was just an owl; she would have hated to send him away just because Snape had gotten him for her.

Harry hated Caesar solely because he was from Snape, though Daisy couldn't help but look past that. The dark grey owl seemed like the perfect choice for her, and given the way he had ruffled his feathers when she'd named him, he seemed to agree. She smiled as he nipped her finger affectionately before flying over to the open window; he held a marked disdain for his cage, and preferred instead to sit on the windowsill, his head under his wings and sleep until Daisy softly called to him, presenting him with another letter to send. He also wasn't one for owl treats, which was great since Daisy wasn't one for giving them either.

Caesar was perhaps her most useful gift out of the quite sizeable loot she had acquired despite her protests to that she didn't want any presents at all this year, though Blaise's gift did compete. Her eyes had widened with unrestrained excitement as she realised that the monogrammed leather writing folder had more than the standard expansion charms and protection charms – the note within it had explained that it required only a drop of her blood brushed against the golden D.D. embossed into the dark green leather to make it hers and hers alone. Now she would be able to carry around her research rather than hiding it within a classroom that wasn't hers with magic that the average wizard could break through with a little persistence and determination. Though not entirely surprised, Daisy had been devastated to find that her entire Chamber of Secrets research had disappeared from its hiding place within Classroom Three.

She didn't know where word had gotten out that she liked books, but she'd received enough that a bookcase had been added on the list of progressive furniture to be acquired for her room (the estimated time of delivery was currently: some time before graduation). On the stool which currently served as her bedside table sat 'Gellert's Crusade: The Comprehensive History on the Rise and Fall of the Dark Wizard Grindelwald', another gift that Harry liked to glare at because it had been a gift from Vincent. Daisy had dived straight into it, intent on discovering why it was exactly that Vincent seemed to be intent on her finding out more about Grindelwald and the Old Supporters. Still in the chapters concerning his origins, so far, Daisy suspected that the reason that Grindelwald had been expelled was for the very experiments that Vincent was now trying to pursue.

Harry had offered her a much lighter read: A Seeker's Destiny, the signed autobiography of the Seeker for England National Quidditch Team and Tutshill Tornadoes, Ian Cartwight, who happened to be a Muggleborn who had left Hogwarts with only a few OWLs to his name, no experience on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team ('because Quidditch is politics, even at that age') and worked as a barman to pay his way through training camps and tryouts until one day someone opened their eyes and saw the raw potential he possessed – all before the age of twenty-five, which for a Muggleborn was quite a feat. He'd been her favourite player for a while now, but he'd gone up in Daisy's esteem when he'd refused to return home to England to play if he was going to be subjected to registration, choosing instead to let England try their luck against the likes of Aiden Lynch and Viktor Krum whilst he remained in Spain.

Alongside the numerous books, she had also been gifted with a lot more sweets and chocolate than she was ever going to eat in her life, but that seemed to be the signature gift for young people to give in this world. Expecting Gregory to send her some (they weren't as close as she and Vincent had grown) she'd been surprised by the selection of cashmere jumpers she'd received instead, wrapped neatly with packaging from his family's firm. It always surprised her to find out that some Pureblood families were rich because they continued to work in the industry that had made their families rich in the first place. The thoughtfulness of it had taken her even more by surprise, but she supposed that she hadn't dubbed him one of the most observant people in her year without reason; if anyone was going to spot her discomfort of going into the new school year without new clothes to wear for the new school term, it was going to be him.

Not that she thought that the Malfoys gift was equally as thoughtful, even if it was rather similar. They'd gifted her with a set of school robes, complete with the Hogwarts uniform, currently locked away in her mother's bedroom after Daisy had thrown them in the bin with thinly-veiled disgust. Whilst she could appreciate the expensive material of the black robes, she didn't feel the same way for the Malfoy crest embroidered in fine silver on the inside of the green silk lining, or on the cuffs of the white school shirt. In what universe had they thought that she would wear something proclaiming Sanctimonia Vincet Semper? Did they really think that she would walk down the halls of Hogwarts stating her allegiance to a family that she hated with every fibre of her being?

Sighing, Daisy filed the letter away in her writing folder. Though she was glad to hear that the slumbering Caesar wasn't a threat to her, she'd wanted to know what Rita Skeeter had written. Had the article really been that bad? Or were they merely afraid of her reaction if she read it? Perhaps they reasoned that once she was back at Hogwarts and far harder to control (even The Daily Prophet themselves had refused to send her a copy) she would have forgotten all about it.

"Did you change your mind?"

Daisy turned to where Marcus was stood, wishing not for the first time that she had a bloody door. It could only be calculated cruelty on her mother's part that they had put in new floors whilst she'd been at Hogwarts but she still had to put up with people randomly showing up in her doorway without so much of a knock to let her know. Most of the time she could tell when they were coming, but sometimes she was deep in thought or just too tired to remain alert. As far as she was concerned, it was their fault she was still so bloody jumpy.

"About painting the door?" he expanded, holding up the can of paint he had in his hand when she didn't answer straight away.

Daisy shook her head. "Caesar's back – I got distracted," she said, nodding her head in the direction of her sleeping owl. "I was looking for a headband – hate it when my hair gets in my face when we're painting."

"I think it's cute," he stated as she looked the item in question. "Your face gets all scrunched up and confused when you have no idea what we're laughing about."

"You guys are jerks," Daisy huffed as she walked past him, remembering her annoyance when she'd realised that the boys had let her spend the entire afternoon with blue patches all over her hair and face where she'd brushed it back absentmindedly as she helped paint the front door. She hadn't been too annoyed though since she preferred to be laughed at than given pitying looks as she was allowed to do nothing more than sit and watch them carry out renovation projections taking place all over 12 Firth Street.

It was one of the reasons why she didn't press her questions as to why Marcus was suddenly here when just under a fortnight ago he'd been scheduled to spend the entire month playing Quidditch: whenever Marcus was over, her mother let her do things that when he wasn't Petunia considered an absolute no-go, which was just about everything that involved Daisy leaving her bed. It had been a couple of days since her embarrassing collapse in front of Rita Skeeter though, and they were beginning to relax around her a little.

It probably had something to do with the fact that she was less wound up. Daisy remembered waking up angry and disorientated, making demands about Skeeter – she'd wanted nothing more than to see the woman again, the woman who had known the real Gilderoy Lockhart and said nothing instead enjoying some sort of love affair, which – as Daisy had bitterly noted – had yet to grace the pages of any front cover. Her mind had been in overdrive as she tried to both formulate a plan on what to do next and to push away her thoughts, which served only to make her irritable, rob her of her appetite and deprive her of her energy as she lay awake for hours unable to still the raging thoughts in her mind despite the fatigue in her body.

Most of her energy was spent on trying to not think about Tom. The name was so simple and yet it echoed through her mind over and over again until she screamed into her pillow in frustration, pushing away her mother's attempts to calm her and find out what was wrong. She tried to file him away in a dark recess of her mind but he remained stubbornly at the forefront. Every time she thought of Skeeter, she thought of the woman doing that with Lockhart – with Tom - and remembered the good-looking aristocratic face of the young man within the Diary. Whenever her mind questioned the extent of her father's evil, she thought of Tom and his advice on revenge, and the way his dark blue eyes lit up with anger on her behalf. When she thought of Dudley, she remembered his comments about the Nick and shuddered as she felt the ghost of Lockhart's thumb on her lips.

Sometimes she'd spend ages buried under the duvet, trying to reason with herself as her mind insisted that Tom was good – Tom was her friend, Tom was the one who had come to visit in St. Mungo's to make sure she was alright, Tom cared about her well-being and her happiness, Tom thought they should be together – and that Lockhart was bad because all the bad things were associated with cruel, laughing, light blue eyes and that obnoxious mop of blond hair and the gleaming row of perfect teeth. Her mind was of the opinion that it was Lockhart's evil that had infected Tom, that Tom would have never had to hurt her was he not in Lockhart's body, but she knew that her mind was wrong. Daisy had gone through the same process after her father's death, trying to understand how someone who had loved her longer than he had hated her had come to try and kill her. How could Tom from the world within the Diary have come to do such cruel things outside of it?

Though she was wary of Marcus' motives for being there, she had to admit that being out of bed provided a worthy distraction from herself, and instead she threw herself wholeheartedly into helping make the shithole that was 12 Firth Street seem less…shit.

"Why are you doing that?" Daisy asked as Marcus picked up his own pair of scissors, large kitchen scissors that fit his hands comfortably, and began to cut the grass, occasionally glancing at Daisy for ways to improve his technique.

"Why are you doing it?" he retorted, looking pointedly at where Daisy was sat carefully cutting the patch of grass before her. They were sat in the shade of the large tree at the end of the garden, enjoying the late afternoon sun and the fact that from this vantage point they could admire their handiwork (and Petunia would only need only look out of the window to see them). Marcus had wondered why the grass in the garden was so uneven, but it suddenly made much more sense.

"Because it calms me."

"Well then."

She paused in her own cutting to watch him as he hacked at the grass with none of the grace that she and Harry possessed whilst carrying out this task (it still annoyed her that Harry's technique produced a much neater, more even finish no matter how much she concentrated). Though she tried to ignore it, the question continued to nag at her: why was he here? Did he like her? Her conversation with Tom came back to her before she even had a chance to stop it, and she found herself blushing, blushing even deeper when Marcus looked up at her. She picked up her own scissors again, casting him furtive glances as she tried to work out the enigma before her. Did she like him? She'd never thought about it really. She liked him, of course – he was the first person in House Slytherin to be remotely decent to her, even if they had only been thrown together because they shared similar destructive tempers – but she didn't like, like him. The way she felt about Marcus wasn't the same way she felt about Blaise.

Daisy grimaced at her thoughts. She didn't like Blaise – she couldn't like Blaise. Or Marcus, for that fact. They were both Purebloods from upstanding Noble House families and she was…Muggleborn. Her only chances of marrying a Noble House Pureblood probably lay with Vincent who seemed up for anything that would piss of the Malfoys and Daisy figured Mrs. Crabbe would just be overjoyed someone was interested in her son, even if it was only for the Crabbe family seats on the Wizengamot that Vincent would reclaim once he was of Age. Or perhaps she could try and stay clear of the Slytherin nutters and go for someone like Zacharias Smith, an obnoxious Hufflepuff Daisy thought she might get on with quite well or even one of the five hundred Weasleys to choose from. She threw aside her scissors in disgust at her thoughts. Why on Earth was thinking of who she might eventually marry so much easier than thinking about who she actually liked?

"Stupid Pureblood witch logic," she grumbled to herself, "It's bloody contagious."

"You alright there?" Marcus asked, glancing up from his task. She was right – this cutting grass stuff was actually quite calming.

"Yeah, I'm just talking to myself."

"I'd be worried if that wasn't normal for you."

He smiled at her and Daisy noticed that his teeth gleamed white in their crookedness. Marcus' terrible teeth were one of his character traits, but she'd never paused to notice the details of his oral chaos – he had too many teeth for his mouth and they were odd, as if Nature hadn't quite been sure of what kind of teeth would serve him best and tried to shove all of them in at once. Daisy wondered why the wizarding world didn't have dentists to fix this kind of thing. She reasoned that they probably did and they were called something ridiculous like Oral Healers.

"You sure you're okay?" Marcus asked, his brows creasing as she blushed again when he caught her watching him. "You're acting odd."

"You're acting odd," Daisy huffed, her cheeks only reddening further. "You're the one cutting grass with scissors."

He said nothing, knowing when she was itching for an argument and settled into watching her from the corner of his eye as she begun to encourage flowers to grow around her. She'd graduated from growing daisies from the palm of her hand and had spent a good three days memorising the structure of a daisy so that she could imitate its growth just right.

"Are you sure you should be doing that?" Marcus asked when the number of flowers sprouting about them grew unsettling.

"It's fine," Daisy dismissed, "the Muggleborn Trace is only on my wand which I haven't even seen since I woke. Do you know where it is? Never mind – of course you don't. I bet you don't even know where your wand is. It's your fault, you know."

"What's my fault?"

"That I have no idea where my wand is – and that I don't care. Spending too much time with someone who hates their wand is contagious. I don't even get why you hate your wand so much. Maybe if you were nicer to it, it'd perform better. Aren't wizards meant to polish it and stuff?" She paused in her ranting, ignoring the way Marcus glared at her. "Well, I suppose it didn't help that I didn't have it for months either. And the fact that Mum seems to hide it every time I'm a little unwell. Oh, and there was the whole "no using it against Purebloods" thing which kind of stopped me from reaching for it instinctively." She sighed. "Oh well. It's fine. It's just a few flowers."

Marcus wasn't convinced that she should be doing that much unfocused magic, but he had no interest in being snapped at, especially not when they were having a good day and good days were far from being guaranteed. Besides, Dudley would be home soon which meant that Marcus would be making his way back to the Manor, leaving the siblings to spend time together, and it wouldn't be fair on the younger boy if he then had a wound up and irritated Daisy for company. Marcus did all he could not to encroach on the time the twins had together, though he got the sense that Petunia had no qualms about Harry and Daisy spending no time together at all. It wasn't the first time he'd noticed it.

Daisy was trying to figure out how to form a petunia, a deep pink one like the ones her mother used to tend to in the garden at Privet Drive when she felt a wave of fatigue. She stopped what she was doing, steadying herself in the ground, focusing instead on the feel of the grass under her palms, but it was more than exhaustion. The suffocating sensation was back, and panic rose in her chest as the edges of her vision begun to darken – a memory was coming, and she wanted to stop it, to fight against it, but she also knew that the more she fought them, the more likely she was to faint later on and next time she knew it would probably be in the middle of the Great Hall or somewhere equally embarrassing.

"Marcus," she gasped, reaching blindly for him. She felt dizzy, nauseous and weak, but mostly it was the pressing wait of the darkness that she hated. "I don't…"

It was too late. She felt herself go under, swallowed up by the inky darkness as she struggled against it as if she was struggling to rise for air.

She was stood on her tiptoes, the only way she knew how to lessen the pain in her arms, her breathing shallow to reduce the stinging pain of her breaths against her throat and the dull ache she felt every time she breathed in too much or breathed out too long. Every inch of her throbbed with pain, so she focused elsewhere instead. Where was he? She looked around the room, letting out a painful gasp of pain as she twisted as far as she could go to each side, but she couldn't see him anywhere in the room. Hope bubbled up in her chest, and her mind snapped out of its fog to stare up at the bindings keeping her in place.

She imagined her hands free as clearly as she thought of the daisies growing in her hand, and let out a yelp of pain and surprise as she suddenly crashed to the ground, her knees carrying the brunt of the fall, blood rushing painfully to her extremities. The world spun around her as she lay there, and for a moment she was afraid that she would pass out and he would punish her severely for daring to attempt to escape. She pulled herself up, holding on to the stubborn thought that she would not go down without a fight, and ignored the fear lodged deep in her chest as she checked the bathroom to be sure he wasn't there. Maybe he'd had a meeting or decided to go out for a stroll while he left her passed out. Wherever he was gone, she didn't care. All that mattered was that he wasn't there, and this was her chance.

She reached into the rickety wardrobe where she knew her cloak hung and grimaced triumphantly when the door unlocked with only a little prompting from her magic. The emptiness of the corridor gave her energy, her limbs feeling less stiff with every step that she took down the narrow stairs until she was almost running out of the building. She paused at the sudden assault of the sun on her eyes accustomed to the dark of the room and the inn in general, pulling the hood of the cloak tighter over her face before heading away from the bustling sound of the main street. She didn't know where to go, just that she had to.

"I thought it was just exhaustion but I think she's remembering," Marcus told Petunia urgently. She'd come running out the moment she'd heard Marcus' call and saw him gently lowering Daisy onto the grass, accepting Petunia's apron as a makeshift pillow to support her head. "Daisy? Daisy, can you hear me?"

"Perhaps she's just fainted," Petunia said, nervously biting her nails.

"Maybe, but – Daisy?" Daisy had opened her eyes, and for a moment she was staring right through him but then her eyes focused – and the panic set in. "Daisy? Daisy, can you – Daisy! Daisy, what-?"

Marcus stumbled backwards as Daisy took a swipe at his face. "Get away from me!" she snapped, scrambling backwards as she did so, struggling to get to her feet. Her eyes fell on her mother, and she paled. "Y-you're not real. You can't be."

"Daisy-bear," Petunia tried, her heart breaking with every step backwards Daisy took to her own step forwards. "Of course, I'm real. It's me, Mummy. You're safe here."

"You're a liar! You're not real!"

Marcus grabbed her as she tried to run past and into the house. Daisy's heart stopped. He would catch her if she stopped. Heartbeat thrumming in her ears as she struggled forwards, she reached for the closest thing she could find and swung the paint can hard, relieved when he was no longer holding her and she ran, stumbling as she headed for the exit. Daisy knew to stay away from the people she loved. They were lies – figments of her desperation and he would make them disappear just as surely as he made them appear. He was not to be trusted. Tom was a liar.

She was even more desperate because she was tired, unsure if she could take another step. Though the dull ached continue to throb through her body, it was a steady reassurance; if he hadn't taken the pain away, he couldn't inflict any more. Not if she got away.

"Daisy?"

She stopped at the all-too familiar voice. Only a few feet from her stood Dudley, watching her, an odd expression on his face. She backed away, but her body moved frustratingly slower than his urgent steps.

"Get away from me," she said, stumbling backwards. "You're not real."

"Daisy, what are you talking about?" Dudley demanded. Why was she even out here on her own? "I am real. Daisy, would you stop running away from me?"

"No you're not! I know you're not!" She struggled against him, feeling the last of her energy ebbing away. "You're just a way for him to catch me! You're not real!"

The only thing she succeeded in doing was bringing the both of them crashing down onto the hard pavement beneath them, and she found that she couldn't even struggle against the spectre that was calling her name. She let out a deep sob as she realised what had happened – what was happening: none of this was real. It was all in her head, and when she woke up, Lockhart's face would be smirking at her, asking her if she'd finally learned her lesson. She'd be sure to spit on him.

"Daisy – Daisy, look at me," Dudley demanded, adjusting them so he could force her to look at him. "Look at me carefully. Touch me – I am real. I am your brother, Dudley. I'm your twin."

As she looked at him, mainly because she had no energy to struggle against the hand on her chin forcing her to do so, she noticed something odd. Dudley hated his hair short like that – he said it made him look like their cousins Lucas and claimed that the other boys at school always called him moon face for, but his face had thinned out since she remembered and – Daisy reached for his tie, her fingers shaking as she fingered the material, her mind confused by this. Dudley went to Smeltings and they didn't wear ties, they wore bowties and maroon knickerbockers she liked to tease him about but this – this was the blue and green tie for St. Benedict's, the comprehensive an hour bus ride away from the house. He always added the insufferable bus journey to their almost nightly rants about how much they hated Cokeworth, neither of them ever openly saying they missed Privet Drive…

"You're real," she said slowly. "It's really you."

"That's what I've been trying to bloody tell you," Dudley snapped, regretting it when she flinched. "Christ, Daisy – I'm sorry. I-" His sister was going insane. He'd been warned it might happen, but to witness it was another thing. Dudley didn't know what to do with himself. He wanted to shake her, to demand that she snap out of it, that she go back to being normal so that he didn't have to bear the brunt of being the last sane one in the household. Instead he stood up, helping her up with him, glad for the first time that the only other inhabitant on Firth Street was an old man who only left the house on Sundays to go to church. "Come on, let's get you home."

Dudley's anger at being the one to have stopped his unhinged sister from running off to God Knows Where in her state dissipated slightly when he realised why the other occupants had been occupied: Marcus was sat at the kitchen table whilst Harry hovered nearby, his face pale as the older boy tried to convince him that he was fine despite the amount of blood seeming to be coming from a gash on his face that the gauze he was holding to it was barely stemming.

"Daisy," Marcus said the minute he saw them walking through the door. He made to get up, but changed his mind almost instantly. "Thank Merlin you're safe. Are you alright?"

"I'm-"

"If the next words out of your mouth are fine, I will hurt you," Dudley growled as he moved Daisy to a chair, helping her gently down onto the seat despite his building anger. He turned a sharp eye to Harry. "Where's Mum?"

"Trying to get through to someone about Marcus and Daisy," Harry explained.

"What happened?" Daisy asked, leaning into Dudley as he stood protectively beside her. He was real. This was real. "Why are you bleeding?"

"You happened," Marcus said. "You hit me around the head with a paint can, remember?"

"She didn't do it on purpose though, did she?" Dudley snapped at Daisy's horrified face. "Potter, get him a bloody tea towel. That thing's making him look worse than it is. Look, Daisy, it's fine. You weren't yourself."

"Yeah, it's just a scratch," Marcus added at Dudlley's glare, accepting the tea towel that Harry gave him gratefully. He knew he looked a mess and it was only thanks to years of being hit with Bludgers that had stopped him from passing out. He really hoped he didn't have a concussion or something equally irritating. "It was my fault. I shouldn't have grabbed you when you were…"

"In the middle of losing the plot?" Daisy offered.

"You aren't losing the plot," Petunia said as she walked in, swooping down on Daisy the moment she could. "You were just having an episode, that's all darling." Petunia looked up from her crouching position at Dudley. "Where was she?"

"Stumbling up Firth Street," Dudley said. "I thought these two were meant to be keeping an eye on her. I only stayed in school because-"

"Because you need the scholarship," Daisy finished, reaching out to hold his hand. "I know I'm not fine, but this was just a one off – it won't happen again. At least I don't think it will." She sighed, closing her eyes, wishing she could just forget everything – for good. What was the point of magic if Memory Charms were fallible? "He used you against me. It was – it was a sick game of his. I thought you were real, but you weren't and… I couldn't tell. Where we were, you couldn't have been, so if I saw you, you had to be fake – dangerous. I just – for a minute – I just couldn't tell what was real and what wasn't."

Even as she spoke, Daisy was looking for details that would anchor her such as the way that her mother's blonde hair now curled past her ears, brushing her shoulder in soft wisps. The new length softened her mother's sharp features in a way that Daisy had never known them to be before her father's death. Her heart clenched as she realised that the one sure way of knowing that this was real was because in this reality, she would never see her father again.

Her mother wiped away the tear that rolled down her cheek without permission. "It's okay, darling. What matters is that you're okay now. Severus will be here any moment."

Daisy stiffened. "Why?"

"Because Marcus is getting blood all over the kitchen floor," Petunia said simply. "Are you hungry? Since you're down here anyway, I could make you something to eat before you get some much needed rest – how does that sound?"

It was an odd scene, sitting around the kitchen table sharing out sandwiches with Marcus covered in blood, though the bleeding appeared to have stopped. She ate dutifully and without protest, knowing that she had probably frightened her brother to death and so he couldn't be blamed for sitting so close to her they might as well have been sharing a seat. Also her mother was acting as if nothing had happened and that was always a terrible sign.

Daisy watched Snape warily as he stepped into the kitchen, getting straight to healing Marcus without any small talk. He'd healed her before so she knew that though his movements seemed quite brisk, his touch was nothing less than gentle. She also knew that his presence here confirmed beyond a doubt that this was real; he and Professor McGonagall always felt real to her.

"How are you feeling?"

It took a moment to realise that Snape was talking to her as he smoothed the last of the balm across the angry red line on Marcus' forehead. It always amazed her how quickly magic worked. "Fine," she said, ignoring her brother's glare. "I feel better now I've eaten something."

"Hmm," he said, contemplating her as if she was a puzzle. "Perhaps it would be a good idea to begin monitoring your blood sugar levels. Perhaps they will be an indication as to what triggers your episodes. Are you in any pain?"

"I'm just tired."

"May I do a quick check?"

"No," Daisy said, stopping him in his tracks as he began walking towards her in the deliberate manner that he had after one of her…episodes, if that's what they were calling it now. "You're not a Healer. What are you even checking?"

"I'm checking to see whether you need to see a Healer. Your refusal to accept your need to see one, does not negate the importance of Psyche Healers in your recovery. If I-"

"I said no." She was up on her feet, body tense and alert despite the residual ghost pain that she felt on top of the tiredness. "I don't want you anywhere near me."

He was a liar and liars were dangerous. If he could lie about the Chamber, then he could lie about everything. She could imagine him and Lucius sat in a plush drawing room somewhere in the Malfoy Manor, nursing tumblers of whiskey as they laughed at how gullible she was. How could she have believed anything that he said? How could he have really not known about anything? What they did to her – he had to have known - he had to have seen – he was Head of House Slytherin. He had known and he had probably laughed as she suffered at the hands of his House, and she had believed his sad excuses, overwhelmed by everything they were telling her. How could her mother even trust him?

"Daisy," Dudley tried, reaching over to calm her. "It's just Snape. You know him – he's your legal guardian and all that. He teaches you Po-"

"I know who he bloody well is, Dudley!"

"Daisy, where are you going - what's the problem?"

"The problem is him!" Daisy snapped, wrenching her arm out of her brother's hold as he made to stop her. Guilt flashed through her as she recalled picking up the paint can, but it quickly dissipated as she caught sight of Snape. "He is the problem!"

Leaving the rest of them to figure it out, she was out of the kitchen and running up the stairs fast as her feet could carry her. She cursed at her door-less bedroom and momentarily contemplated taking over Harry's room so she could have some privacy for once, or barricading herself in the bathroom, but that was just asking for trouble. Daisy was grateful for the cool air that came in through the open window, and smiled at Caesar as he poked his head out of his wings to stare at her.

"Don't worry, you're staying with me," she said softly. "Daddy would have never given anything back. Even if he hated the person who gave it to him. You don't give back gifts. That's just plain rude."

She tensed as she heard the creak of a stair. Someone was coming up. She didn't want to face the questions or demands for explanations. As she contemplated curling up under her duvet and pretending to be asleep, the idea of being under her bed seemed much safer somehow. Under Caesar's curious gaze, she slid under the bed and remembered why it felt safe: Tom had kept her there.

For a moment she could only stare at the rusting frame as a memory of runes being carved into the rusting underside of a bed played in her mind, Lockhart's voice offering an explanation to the proceeding.

"This one is to keep you safe at all times, this one is to keep you from view, and this one is to keep anyone but me from reaching within the bed." She closed her eyes against the image of a bleeding thumb, the unflinching manner in which it traced against the runes. "That way, if anything were to happen – if we were attacked – all I'd have to do is roll you under the bed and tend to you when it was finally safe to do so. Simple yet, effective, don't you think?" She saw those blue eyes smirking at her, Lockhart's eyes but Tom's darkness. "Told you I'd let nothing bad happen to you, didn't I?"

This was new. She'd only ever recalled things in a dramatic manner; up until now she'd always blacked out and woken up in a bed, being fussed over, but she was conscious this time. She knew which reality she was in and that what she was seeing was a memory. She was no longer literally reliving them. Daisy didn't know whether to be worried or relieved that the memories were plaguing her more often and in different forms. All she knew was that she had to find a way to control it or it would drive her truly insane.

"Daisy."

She glared at Marcus from under the bed as he crouched down to look at her. "Go away."

"What are you doing under there?" he asked. "Snape's not up here and he won't be coming up here either. You can come out."

"And why would I do that?"

"Because you owe me. This-" He pointed to the red patch on his forehead. "-hurt a lot. The least you could do is come out."

"If I come out, do you promise to never bring it up again?" Daisy bargained. If he was going to guilt trip her, it would go very much against her House placing for her to not get anything out of it (even if she was very much in the wrong, and very much feeling the guilt).

"I promise not to make you feel guilty about it," he conceded, holding out his hand. He reached for it, and she allowed herself to be pulled out. The last thing she expected was to find herself wrapped up in his arms, overwhelmed by a sensation that she could only identify as... safe. It flooded every inch of her, and she unconsciously curled herself into him, her eyes beginning to close as the tenseness in her body began to ease away under whatever it was – her eyes flew open when she realised the only thing it could be: it was magic.

"Marcus," she said slowly, though she did not make any attempts to move away from the source of her comfort. He was strong against her current weakness, and for the first time in a long time, she found her mind clear enough to just focus on what was going on at hand. "How much troll blood is in your family?"

"I'm half-troll," he answered, the reluctance evident in his voice. She scoured her mind for facts she had read up on awhile back in a bid to understand the constant troll references that were made in his direction. She felt herself growing uncomfortable as her mind refused to stop circling one particular topic. Surely not?

"Trolls mate, don't they?" He was silent. "Marcus Flint, please tell me right this minute that I am not your mate."

His arms circled tighter around her as she struggled out of his hold at his continued silence. "Let me explain," he growled as he took a sharp elbow to the guts.

"Explain?" Daisy demanded. "You lied to me! You came here and you told me you were just here as my friend – you made me feel bad - but all this time you just – you were just-"

"Responding to my natural instinct to make sure I did everything I could to help you stay alive? I don't have much of a choice in this. I didn't lie to you, I just didn't tell you and I was going to tell you, Daisy, I swear, but the Healers and your mother-"

"Mum knew? You all knew that I'm your…mate or whatever and you kept it from me? How the hell did you think I was going to react when I found out, huh? Oh, it all makes so much more sense now! I couldn't figure out why she would even let you in the house – you show up, pay my hospital fees and she's just okay with it? God, how I could have been so stupid? So blind – so trusting?" How dare they make her feel bad for lying when they'd all been lying to her face? She wanted to get away from everyone in this house, but first she'd have to get out from Marcus' hold. "Get off of me, Flint!"

"Not until you listen," he said, pulling her even closer, and tucking her neatly under his chin.

Daisy struggled a little more but she knew she was just doing it for the principle of it, not because she thought she stood a chance of escaping; she was tired and he was strong. He'd always been ridiculously so. It had to be the troll blood. "Why should I listen to a liar?" she spat.

"Because you're a liar too. You lie as easily as you breathe, Daisy. You actually struggle to tell the truth. You've been lying since the first memory came back to you, you were lying before then and you're probably going to keep on lying for the rest of your life. But don't you dare put me in the same category as you. I omitted a truth to protect you, I didn't tell you something at a particular moment so that you could heal – you, on the other hand, have lied to my face all so that you could have Terence Higgs killed."

Daisy stiffened. "I didn't have him killed. He died, and he deserved to die."

"I know," Marcus agreed. "And I should have been the one to do it." He sighed, resting his cheek against the top of her head. "I should have seen what was happening – I'm sorry. I was so focused on convincing myself that you couldn't possibly be my mate that I blocked you out as much as I could. If I wasn't thinking about you, then obviously your magic wasn't calling to me. I had so many excuses, Daisy. I told myself the constant misery I was feeling was because Slytherin was being trounced in Quidditch and not because I could feel your pain, just there in the background, refusing to go away. I had almost convinced myself that I would do the normal Pureblood thing and ask Selena to officially be my girlfriend in our final year when you went missing. I – I thought I was going to go crazy with worry. I could tell you were safe, but had no idea where and then I felt –" He sighed again, pulling her closer, as if she was his source of comfort in the same way that he sometimes was hers. "When you came back I made a vow to tell you as soon as I could. When your father shot you, I made a vow to make sure that you stayed alive."

Daisy said nothing, sitting stiffly in his arms, thinking that Blaise had made the exact same vow, and she found that she was more flattered that the Italian found her fascinating than the fact that Marcus' magic was drawn to her own. Well, she had wanted to know why Marcus was here, but now she knew, she wished he'd just kept it to himself.

"What now?" Daisy asked. "What exactly does being your…mate entail?"

If Marcus felt any hurt over the way she said the word 'mate', he said didn't show it. "When you become of Age, then you and I will be bonded."

Though Daisy wasn't entirely sure what that entailed, she didn't ask because she didn't want to know. There was no point in knowing. She wasn't entirely sure that Marcus would be alive when she was of Age, so why should she bother inquiring about something that she'd never go through? She'd puzzled over why Tom had declared that he would only tolerate Marcus for now – now she realised that he had known the significance of the magic laced within her necklace, known that it wasn't just a tracking charm that had alerted Marcus to the fact that Daisy was in danger. In true Daisy logic, she felt more guilt about hitting Marcus around the head and getting blood on her mother's kitchen floor than she did about calculating the odds that Tom would keep his word. From what she'd gathered he had no qualms about lying to her, but he always kept a promise.

"What are you thinking?" Marcus asked when it had been a long time since Daisy last spoke.

"I'm guessing one of your parent's is a troll then," she stated.

"Mother," he said, with a fondness in his voice that she wasn't used to in his voice. "Story goes that Father refused her at first so she clobbered him over the head with a club and dragged him home." He let out a little chuckle, sighing when Daisy didn't respond. "I know it's a hard situation, Daisy, especially for you. My magic is drawn to yours, but it doesn't work the other way around. Neither of us have the choice, but you have even less choice. I promise that if I had a choice in the matter – if I could ignore my troll side – then I would definitely look for someone who isn't…who isn't you, basically."

"You flatter me."

"I do, actually. Objectively speaking, you're a little shit and I don't know why anyone would want to spend any extended amount of time with you. Chances are you're going to murder me in my sleep the day after we're bonded and be one very rich widow."

She hated it when he voiced her thoughts. "Get off me."

"I'm only teasing, Daisy."

"It's not funny."

"That you're a terrible human being? No, not at all," Marcus joked. "What is absolutely hilarious is how offended you get when I point it out."

"Are you planning on just holding me for the rest of the day?" she demanded, rolling her shoulders to try and push him away, growling when all it did was make him pull her closer. She couldn't deny that she felt better than before, but she also felt suffocated.

"I was actually. It's making me feel better after you clobbered me round the head."

"You promised not to bring that up!"

"I must have lied then. Looks like we're perfect together after all."

"Get off me, you stupid half-troll!"

She didn't know how long they sat on her bedroom floor, oscillating between bickering and long silences broken by a question that Daisy had about her new status as a troll's mate. From what Daisy knew about the wizarding world, this could go one of three ways: either her status would be immediately raised because the Flints were an old respected Dark Pureblood family or she would be hated because he was technically a half-blood, and a half-blood troll at that and so she would be subjected to the same discrimination that he was as a part-Dark Creature or Tom would kill him which would make all these considerations irrelevant.

One thing Daisy knew for certain was that she didn't like this. It reminded her of Nick Mason and his declaration that she was his and he would one day marry her and of Tom's whispered promise that she was his, as if she was a plaything to be squabbled over. She hated the feeling of having no choice; of what little control she'd ever held ripped from her and placed in the hands of boys who wanted things that she did not want.

It couldn't go on like this. She had to take control. She was Daisy Dursley.

"Marcus?"

"Hmm?"

"What would have happened to your parents if your father had been betrothed?" she asked, absentmindedly tracing a pattern on one of Marcus' arm as she spoke. He seemed to like that.

"A breaking of the agreement with the girl's family," he explained, "and if that wasn't possible, then a fight to the death. Nothing stands between a troll and their mate."

"What would happen if I was betrothed?"

"But you're not."

"I am."

Daisy found herself forced to look up at Marcus. "To who?" he demanded, brown eyes dark. She could feel his anger, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up even if she knew, as she had always known, that he would not hurt her.

"Nick Mason."