Anna burst into the room in a blaze, her robes spreading out behind her like wings. "I'm sorry, Yaxley," she said, sweeping into the seat in front of his desk, "But I've got something good."
"You'd better," growled Yaxley, clearly not appreciating the interruption. "I'm have fifty attacks to plan and fifty attacks to cover up, and no time to deal with your rubbish."
"Oh, you'll like this." Anna pulled a copy of Hermione's ill-fated letter out of her robes and slammed it down on the desk. "Remember Ella Stilt? The attack I botched last year? Well, she's back for working for the Order, and this is where she'll be in a week." Anna pointed at the address on the letter.
Yaxley stared down at the letter. "Are you sure this is it?"
"Positive."
"Good. Well, we'll plan a full attack. The day she moves in; next Sunday. You'll lead it, and you'll finish it."
"There'll be Aurors there." Anna pointed to the letter; Hermione's neat cursive clearly wrote, The Order will help you to move in, of course. They are happy and excited to have you back among them.
"Well, I'll come along too, then," said Yaxley. He smiled; a long smile, stretching from ear to ear. "We'll bring along some of the best we have. But you're to finish her, okay? You're to polish Stilt off."
"Are you sure?" Doubt tinged in Anna's mind. "You sure you trust me to do that?"
"This will be the final test," said Yaxley. "The final test to prove that you are ready."
Anna laughed; a cold, high sound. "You said that getting Hermione eating out of my hand would be the last test!"
"Get out of here," cursed Yaxley. "I don't want to see you again till Sunday, kapeesh?"
"Rubbish," said Anna, and got up to leave, her robes trailing behind her.
Yaxley shook his head, and looked at Hermione's letter again. What perfect timing, he thought, licking his lips.
/
"Harry. We have to do something."
"I know, Ron!"
The Weasley house was empty, except for Ron and Harry, pacing in the living room. Molly was out for the day in the city, and Arthur was at work. The once busy house felt strangely desolate. Harry would have preferred for them to seek refuge somewhere else, but according to Ron, there was nowhere else. "They won't look here," he had said. "It's too obvious."
And so Harry and Ron were hiding from the Aurors in The Burrow.
"She wasn't right," said Ron, shaking his head. "She just wasn't right."
"Her eyes were glassy," said Harry, after a moment.
"If that woman drugged her – " Ron cursed under his breath.
"We need a plan," said Harry. "A plan to get her out."
"Easy. Go in and shoot up everything and grab her and go."
"We just tried that," pointed out Harry. "It didn't exactly work. All that happened was that we got arrested and then resisted arrest, making us now wanted criminals."
"Fun times," muttered Ron. Then he burst into a tirade of cursing. "Bloody hell, Harry, what's that Anna woman gone and done to my girlfriend?"
"I don't know. But we need a plan!"
"I'm trying to think!" bellowed Ron. "It won't bloody work! Hermione – she makes the plans, not us!"
There was an echoing silence, broken only by the solemn ticking of the old clock.
"I know, mate," said Harry at last. "But I just don't know what we need to do."
Ron shook his head, muttering curses under his breath. Suddenly, he froze. "Harry …"
There was a loud banging on the door. "Open up!" came the cry. "Open in the name of the Ministry!"
There was a crash as the door came flying down. Ron seized Harry's arm, and with a crack the two of them apparated away –
They landed, stumbling, in a large clearing. Birds erupted from the trees, protesting loudly; the sun beamed down. It was a happy, warm day. Harry looked up into the sky – the place felt familiar …
"It's near where they had the World Cup, back in Fourth year," said Ron, leaning down after the effort of apparating. "The first place I thought of."
Harry nodded. The place felt serene; not an obvious hideout of wanted criminals. "You know," he began, "I feel like by running away, we made things a whole lot worse."
"Why don't you just use those The-Boy-Who-Lived powers?" demanded Ron. "Get us out of this stupid hole that we're stuck in? Prove that Anna was lying?"
"And that will do what, exactly?" returned Harry. "We know that Anna is probably an old Death Eater or something. She probably has plenty of spies in the Ministry and in the Daily Prophet. Getting out of this arrest won't help at all."
"Then let's bloody blow something up," said Ron, face red, hands clutching his wand.
The world grew brighter. Harry felt his Gryffindor blood soar through his veins; he clutched his wand tightly, and straightened his glasses. "Let's go and get Hermione."
Just then, there was a yell from the distance. A loud laugh echoed its way through the trees. Ron looked at Harry; Harry darted his eyes around him, and then jumped up a tree, pushing his way through the branches. In a moment, the two of them were safely perched in the tree.
The laughing got closer. The light dimmed slightly, and the birds flew up from the trees as one.
A man stepped into the clearing. Harry looked at Ron, terrified; the man was wearing a dark mask. Ron slowly put his finger to his lips, and Harry nodded. He turned back to the clearing.
It was slowly filling with people in masks. Soon, there were about twenty of them, talking in hushed voices. The man who had arrived first – the one with the loud laugh – was hovering between groups, occasionally letting his laugh out, before being hushed.
Suddenly, there was a great crack. In the middle of the clearing appeared a man, holding a twisted wand. Rather than smooth and straight, this one was more like a branch – it had three twigs branching off the side, and was shaped in a spiral. Small sparks puffed off its ends.
Silence filled the clearing. Harry's breathing felt loud; he tried to hold his breath and clutched tightly to the tree.
The man in the middle of the clearing deliberately placed his wand high in the air, above his head.
A great funnel of sparks and smoke came out of it in a whoosh, heading straight for the sky.
A Death Eater's Mark appeared in the sky, hovering above the clearing.
"The Dark Lord has returned!" hissed the man, his voice carrying through the clearing and into the woods beyond.
"All hail his name!" returned the people in masks, in perfect sync.
"Prepare yourselves," said the man. "This time we shall be victorious."
"Victory is ours!" said the masks in unison.
"He will call on every one of you to make his name known!"
"He will be known!"
"He is great, he is power!" and with that, the man apparated with a crack. One by one, the rest of the masked people apparated.
The clearing was empty again.
Harry and Ron looked at each other in horror. The Death Eater Mark hovered in the sky, gently shimmering in the wind.
"We have to leave," said Ron.
"Where to?"
"I don't know. But we need to hide for a bit. Stay out of sight. We'll be blamed for this."
"I agree," said Harry. "Let's go to … um…"
"Hog's Head," said Ron.
"Good," said Harry.
With a crack, the two of them apparated away.
/
Anna sat up straighter. She pushed and pushed herself to sit up as high as she possibly could.
The tea she had made was now sitting in front of her, waiting to be drunk.
Hermione was sitting in the office next to her, slowly working away at her letters in a stupefied, drugged state.
Anna should have been proud of her work.
She should have been proud of the way she had brewed an obedience potion from scratch and fed it to Hermione, with no possible way of it every being traced back to her.
She should have been joyful.
But instead, she just felt … empty.
She felt as if she was in a trance.
She slowly shook her head, and she gave in.
She thought back to her life Before. She had told everyone that she remembered nothing from it.
Well, that was a lie.
Here she was, sitting at a desk that she hated, in a Ministry that she hated, working for a mudblood that she hated, and she was lying to herself.
She allowed herself to go back there. Just for a moment, to go back to the memories she neglected.
The memories she still had …
The first memory:
It was happy.
There was a flash of red hair and a smile from a faceless person. She didn't know who this person was; only that it must have been her friend from Before, and that it was a happy memory.
There were only two other memories.
The second memory:
It was still and cold. Something was crawling, sweeping, dashing into her chest.
She was choking. She was dying.
And then, she was still…
Anna blinked, and was surprised to find her face was wet. She wiped the tears away hurriedly, glad that she was alone in the foyer. She had found herself crying a lot lately. "No more tears, no more tears …" she whispered to herself. "No more tears, no more tears, no more tears, no more tears …"
With a breath, she let herself sink into her third memory from Before.
The third memory:
A smooth, dark stone. It holds meaning that she does not understand.
A figure, cloaked in black. A promise made, a promise she'll keep.
A deep dark hole; colour swirling in the air.
A great big clearing, in the middle of the forest. Slow chanting in the sky.
A fallen boy.
She kneels beside him. He is dead …
But then he opens his eyes.
And all is well again.
Anna brought herself up out of the memory with a gasp. Tears were streaming out of her eyes, uncontrollably. She cursed herself – why did she have to give in? Why did she have to revisit that moment? She closed her wet eyes.
Mentally, she opened the door in her brain marked 'Before'. She threw in all three memories, and closed the door. She locked it. She threw away the key.
She opened her eyes –
And water dripped down her face, into her tea.
Her drink was now cold, and she sighed.
Come on Anna. She cursed under her breath. No more tears.
/
It was Saturday night, and The Hogs Breath was slightly chilly. Harry, darkly hooded, was sitting at a table in the corner, staring at the wand in his hands. It was a good wand; it worked well. He put it in his pocket and took a sip of his gin.
He shouldn't have ordered the gin. it was taking him back to places that he didn't want to return to. To people … to a person … He cursed, and pushed the drink away.
Ron was upstairs, fast asleep already. Alberforth had given them a place to stay until the Prophet died down; until it ceased its daily yellings of "How Long has Potter been Corrupt?". The Hogs Breath was starting to fill with people; darkly cloaked people, whispering people, just-needing-a-drink people. Harry knew he shouldn't be down here, but it was fine – as long as he didn't into trouble. No one would recognise him. He sunk further into the dark corner of the pub.
The door opened; just one glance up was all it took Harry.
It was Anna.
And she looked terrible.
Her eyes were dark, and it looked like she had recently been crying. She obviously had not slept in a very long time. Her robes were pulled around her in an uncharacteristic mess, and her hair was a bird's nest of unbrushed blonde strands. Harry watched as Anna made her way through the pub, hands deep in pockets, eyes slightly vacant. He shuffled further back into his corner, praying she wouldn't recognise him.
Anna was walking without thinking. If she had tried really, really hard, she probably would have been able to discern that the fact that she couldn't think may be related to the fact that she had felt in a dream all day; that she felt ill, that she had been having nightmares. That she couldn't look Yaxley in the eye. That her confidence was sapped. It felt as if her emotions were having a battle that was outside of herself.
She trudged through the bar, trying to think, trying to think something, anything …
Merlin, Anna, think!
She realised she had stopped walking. She was standing in the middle of a pub; she could feel eyes staring at from all directions. She cursed under her breath, and mindlessly sidled into a seat –
Only to realise that there was someone already sitting at the table, across from her.
She cursed again. "Sorry, Merlin, I don't know why I sat here."
The stranger was looking down, avoiding her.
She peered at him from through the fog of her brain. Then she cursed again. "Harry Potter. I was just leaving."
He looked at her then – she could just see the rim of his glasses from under his hood. His green, green eyes. The thin white scar on his forehead. "Why are you doing it?"
It took her a moment to remember what he was talking about. Oh, the merciless mind-washing of his best friend. But even that thought, that should have made her proud and joyful, brought nothing. She thought nothing; she couldn't physically think of anything.
"Why?" Harry repeated.
Anna looked at him, wishing that her cold blue eyes would do their job; they hadn't failed her yet. But instead of being intimidated, Harry was merely looking blandly back at her.
She had no energy. She was simply numb.
"The Dark Lord is returning," she said. "You know this yourself."
"Why don't you call him Tom?" said Harry, bitterly. Anna shuddered despite herself. "That is, after all, his actual name."
Harry looked at her, and Anna felt herself shrinking under his gaze. She tried again. "He will destroy you, Potter, once and for all. And you will wish that you had never been born."
Although these words should have brought her comfort, they only brought her … emptiness. Or, rather, the absence of anything.
"That's already been done before," said Harry. He smiled; sarcastically, Anna thought. "There's nothing new under the sun."
"I could tell the authorities that you're here," said Anna, frantically. She was losing control, she could feel it. "They'll come and get you, before you can go."
"Don't bother with the anti-apparation spell," said Harry. Anna bit her lip, and ceased casting it. "I won't leave. But you won't call the authorities."
"You may be the Boy-Who-Lived, but you can't escape trial."
"I am the Boy-Who-Lived," said Harry. He leant forward. Anna could almost feel his breath on her face. "I've been on trial before. I don't bloody care."
He leant back, and took a sip of his drink, his eyes remaining on Anna's.
She tried to think of a response, but there was nothing. Nothing in her mind that she could bring forward. So she leant back, and folded her arms.
Harry was raising his eyebrows at her. She blinked back at him.
"So?"
"So what?"
"Can I get you a drink?"
Anna blinked at him. The arch enemy of the Dark Lord, buying her a drink? How the turn tables… I mean …
"What do you want?"
"Um … a tonic water?"
Harry looked at her oddly, and she thought that he wasn't going to do it. But he finally clicked his fingers. "One tonic," he said to the notepad, which was floating next to his ear.
One moment later, a tonic arrived in front of Anna.
She took a cautious sniff.
"I don't know what you're scared of," grinned Harry. "It's just a tonic."
"How do I know that you're not trying to kill me off?" returned Anna. She took a sip of the drink, and felt it tickle her tongue. The numbness was still there, but it was slowly being overpowered by something stronger. Something …
"I ordered a gin," said Harry suddenly.
Something tingled in the air. Old memories snatched at the corner of Anna's brain. She could feel her locked door of Before shaking and rattling away.
Harry was still looking at her. He was leaning forward. There was a rush of cold air, and Anna felt herself gasping. "What …"
He was close to her nose now; she could count his freckles. One, two, three, four …
His lips were on hers.
She was kissing. Harry. Potter.
It was an urgent kiss, desperate, filled with something that she couldn't explain. She returned it harshly, teeth clanking -
Harry pulled away. "You're crying," he said.
"No I'm not," said Anna, but it came out in a whisper, her voice caught in her throat. She felt her face. Tears were falling, uncontrollably, out of her eyes. She gave a gasp, and a hiccup. Water fell. "I can't stop!"
"Something's wrong," said Harry. "Are you okay?"
Anna couldn't feel a thing; her world was falling around her. Things dropped down on the edges of her vision, and Harry was becoming a blur …
His face twisted, and she imagined that he was laughing. Everything was upside down. Nothing was normal; everything was wrong.
With a great effort, she pulled herself away, and landed with a thump on the Malfoy's driveway.
Anna knelt, and she cried; uncontrollably.
Something within her ached so much that she could do nothing but cry.
Tears ran in a river down the gravel, and out, meeting the sea…
And then there was nothing.
/
Okay so either you know exactly what is going on, or you have no clue! I, the writer, have no clue, and you may join me if you like! Let's have a partyyyyyy
Review? xx