I do not own Harry Potter. All rights go to J. K. Rowling as well as Warner brothers (For the movie rights).

Daughter of Darkness

Chapter Twenty-Four

Izzy woke up shivering the hardest she ever had in her life. It wasn't that she was cold that had woken her up, it was the wet thing sniffing around her ear. With chattering teeth, Izzy slowly turned her head to look into the large yellow eyes of a huge black dog. Izzy sucked in a breath at the teeth this thing possessed, but it did not bear them at her. Instead, the dog grabbed her by the hem of her robes and began tugging.

"N-No," she muttered. "St-Stop. J-j-just l-let m-me sl-eep," Izzy stuttered. "S-so ti-tired," she whispered. Snow fell off her body as the dog kept nudging her along. Whenever her energy seemed to flag, the dog was there as she was slowly guided to the front entrance hall.

By the time she reached the frozen fountain in the courtyard, Izzy could no longer feel her hands. Or at least, she could barely feel them. She stumbled to the ground until the dog shoved its way under her arm and pushed her up.

She collapsed to the ground just in front of the giant pendulum. Closing her eyes, Izzy intended to go to sleep, but she felt hands on her that seemed to be searching for something. She didn't have the energy to even panic as the hands found her wand and withdrew it from the dueling holster on her wrist. She cracked open her eyes, only to see nothing as warmth began to flood her body, starting from her chest and spread to her extremities. As her eyes closed again, she heard her wand being tossed to the ground beside her before she heard the sound of barking and sprinting feet as the dog ran away.

Harry and Ron came back to the common room to an uncommon sight. Hermione was on the table pointing her wand frightfully at Izzy's two-and-a-half-foot long snake that seemed to be enraged with her.

Harry could barely make out every other word, such was the snakes ire.

"What's going on?" Ron asked incredulously.

"I-I upset Izzy when she was trying to help! Umbra's her familiar, she feels what Izzy feels and reacts accordingly!" Hermione explained.

"So Umbra is angry because Izzy's angry?" Ron asked as Harry tried to focus more on what Umbra was hissing.

"No," Harry said. "She's angry because her master is hurt, and Hermione isn't looking for her. She's worried about Izzy, something is wrong." Hermione blanched at Harry's translation.

"We have to find her!" she shouted as she ran out of the common room. Ron ran out right after Hermione while Harry grabbed Umbra.

"Where would she go!" Hermione asked as she turned down several hallways. She turned and caught sight of Luna and a girl she had seen Izzy talking to a few times outside of class walking out of the library. "You! Have either of you seen Izzy?" she asked frantically.

"No? Why, what's happening?" Daphne asked as Luna seemed to space out before their eyes.

"She's run off! I-I said some very hurtful things to her when she hid my books and now she's gone. I've never seen her hair so blue," Hermione sobbed as the guilt began to build.

Daphne for her part wanted to comment but held her tongue. It wouldn't do to berate the girl as she was likely already punishing herself. Izzy had been rather forthright about her friends, and Daphne felt like she already knew enough about the bushy haired Gryffindor to just nod.

"I saw her earlier in the library. I was the one that suggested she try and get through to you since you were ignoring her worry," Daphne replied coolly. "What does Umbra say, Potter?" she asked, turning to the Potter heir.

"She's not making any sense. Just keeps going on and on about the cold. I probably should've left her in our common room by the fire but I was worried about her being alone where a first year might find her and get scared," Harry explained.

"She's feeling what Izzy's feeling, both on an emotional and physical level. That's the nature of a true familiar bond. My uncle told me that since he has a similar bond with his dog," Daphne explained.

"I suspect," Luna broke in with a curious focus now taking over her features "that we'll find Izzy somewhere outside," she surmised.

"Why would she go out there!? It's bloody freezing!" Ron exclaimed.

"We'll have to ask her when we find her, which we still need to do. Come on, let's try the front gate," Harry ordered. The group ran off, a hesitating Greengrass heiress behind them. She didn't exactly want to be seen running after a group of Gryffindors, she did have a reputation to maintain, but as worry for a girl she considered her friend pooled in her gut, Daphne found she didn't care all that much. Besides, if any of her fellow Slytherins found issue with the friendship, she figured she could easily explain it as an alliance, as Izzy was somewhat of a natural when it came to runes. She joined the three Gryffindor's and lone Ravenclaw in their search for Izzy.

What they found, wasn't what they expected.

Izzy was curled up in a ball by the front gate, just under the pendulum for the clock tower. She was barely moving, and snow that had blown in was gathered around her, but strangely not on her at all. It was as if the snow was repelled by her.

"Oh my god!" Hermione exclaimed. "Please don't be dead!" tears ran down her face as she rushed to her best friends' side. Daphne, trying to keep a level head, ran and got Madame Pomfrey.

Many a Slytherin would later say they weren't sure what they saw. After all, the Ice queen of Slytherin did not simply sprint down hallways.

Elsewhere in Britain, two witches were having a small crisis of their own.

"Mother, she needs to be told before Sirius goes after Harry and realizes who she is! You were the one who always told me a Black recognizes their own!" Tonks shouted.

"No, Nymphadora! Sirius won't know who she is, he's never met her! He hated Bellatrix and wanted nothing to do with her before he was kicked out of the family. Besides, she's safe! If she doesn't know, she won't go looking for answers, answers that nobody has or are willing to give!" Andi shouted back at her daughter. "Can you honestly tell me that that girl isn't driven enough to want those answers, to chase after them? If she is anything like Bella, and everything I've seen points to it, she won't stop no matter what. If we tell her, she's going to wind up hurt or dead, or worse, manipulated by Bella's 'friends' when she inevitably goes to them to find out what happened to her!"

"Izzy's smart, she wouldn't do that!" Tonks shouted again.

"That girl is smart, smarter than she knows and impossibly clever. The stories you've told me of her, her idea to take down a basilisk by focusing ten piercing hexes on the back of a basilisk's head, her story about the fire walking potion. How she figured out that it refilled by itself? Tell me that girl isn't too smart for her own good, that if she knew the truth of where she came from, she wouldn't do anything to figure out how she wound up an orphan in muggle London?" Andi asked. Tonks hesitated as a scowl took over her features.

"She still deserves to know," She whispered. "It would mean everything to her."

Two days after finding her nearly frozen to death (again), Izzy still hadn't woken up even though a normal color had returned to her formerly unnatural blue lips, and Hermione hadn't once left her side. It spoke volumes that she now had time to sit and read with Izzy's unconscious form because the bushy haired girl had withdrawn from divination and muggle studies (Divination was useless and muggle studies was stuck in the early twentieth century). Minerva allowed her to continue taking the other conflicting classes however, like Arithmancy and Runes.

Hermione sat, reading aloud from the runes textbook, lost in thought as she absently read the words on the page. The time turner, as wonderous as it had been when she'd first gotten it, now seemed to be more of a curse on her life than anything. It had cost her her friends at different points in the year.

Now, with clearer eyes since she'd had a good amount of sleep, Hermione could say that she hadn't…handled certain situations in the correct way.

She admitted to Harry and Ron after they'd stayed for a few hours in the hospital wing that how she went about the situation with the firebolt was entirely her fault. She should've never went behind Harry's back like she did, she admitted that. She also resolutely defended herself however in that her reasoning was sound. Sirius Black was still on the loose and could've easily stolen a firebolt, rather than bought one like Wood had suggested to Harry, and sent it to the boy.

Harry, for his part, admitted that he had been petty. He loved flying more than anything, how freeing it felt. He apologized to Hermione for his actions and vowed to apologize to Izzy as well. All of them had unintentionally pushed her away, each of them believing she'd simply go and talk with the other.

Ron apologized to Hermione as well. He knew things had been tense for her, could see it in the stress lines on her face or whenever she seemed to be freaking out over homework or studying. He admitted that he hadn't made things any easier on her, and that blaming her for simply looking out for his best friend when he felt he should've been was a mistake that he intended to correct.

When Izzy woke up, one could say she was confused. The last thing she remembered was being freezing cold and then comfortably warm, but that was after she had felt someone take her wand and use it. It had to have been a warming charm, her mind deduced as she fought through the fog of unconsciousness. She let out a little groan as the bright winter sunlight flooded her vision. Someone shuffled by her side and she heard them speak to her.

"Easy, Izzy. You've been out for two days. Don't try to open your eyes just yet," Hermione said. Izzy shook her head. No, she had to. Izzy, while not afraid of the dark, hated the isolation it inspired. "Alright then. Give me a moment to close the shutters behind you. Oh, here comes Madame Pomfrey."

Izzy heard a wand being waved, and heard several sheets being conjured around her.

"There, slowly open your eyes. That's it," Madame Pomfrey encouraged as the lights dimmed.

Reddish brown eyes opened slowly before they slammed shut. A moment later they opened again, this time to less severe pain even as the lowered light still bothered her eyes. She powered through it and looked up to see a concerned Madame Pomfrey and Hermione Granger.

"Good to see you awake, Miss Verona," Madame Pomfrey said as she waved her wand over Izzy's prone form.

"What happened?" Izzy croaked.

"You nearly froze to death. Again. This time was a near thing, however. An hour longer and you would've died. The warming charm you managed to cast on yourself however saved you," Madame Pomfrey explained.

"I don't remember doing it," Izzy groaned as she sat up on the bed.

"I'm not surprised, young lady. You would've been near delirious with your low body temperature and shaking so bad that it would've been near impossible to speak the correct incantation," Madame Pomfrey said. Izzy put her hands to her temples and rubbed them, screwing her eyes up as they finally cleared.

"What about the dog?" Izzy asked.

"Dog?" Madame Pomfrey asked.

"Yeah. There was a dog. Kept nudging me along whenever I wanted to stop," Izzy explained.

"Well I don't know about a dog, but it might have been your mind recognizing what was happening to you and pushing you to live. Never discount the power of your own mind. Speaking of, I should leave you to relax. You've been through a lot. You don't need to sleep right now but I will be back in an hour to give you a potion that will help you sleep normally. Also, as your core seems to have drained itself to keep you alive, I would prefer you not morph yourself in any way. Remember, rest is bet for the body and mind," the matron of the hospital wing explained. Izzy nodded as she left to go do whatever it was she did when she wasn't watching over the students in her care, leaving Izzy alone with Hermione.

"I'm so sorry," Hermione whispered. She held out her arm for Umbra, who Izzy hadn't noticed was wrapped around Hermione's shoulders, to slither off before the snake settled down in Izzy's side. The witch absently stroked along Umbra's scales with the pad of her thumb as she studiously did her best to not look at Hermione.

Despite the fact that what Hermione had said came from a place of anger and frustration (Izzy understood that, she really did), the words had still cut deeply and she didn't know if she could look at Hermione right now.

"I understand if what I said hurt you, Izzy. And I can't apologize enough. You were right. The number of classes I was taking were piling up and the stress was killing me. The last two days…I've had a good look at myself. I've lost fifteen pounds and I feel like I haven't slept in days. I…I went to Professor McGonagall; I withdrew from muggle studies and divination. I don't know why I even bothered taking those classes…" She whispered. Izzy still said nothing.

"I want you to know that I understand if you don't want to talk to me, Izzy…I remember your boggart, how afraid you looked as Ron, Harry, and I all said those awful things to you. Then we did exactly what you feared. Because of me, because I wanted to prove I could do it and take all those classes, I put our friendship at risk by pushing you, all of you, away. It was never my intention, but I still did it. Ron and I have made up…we talked about what I did. He felt bad about snapping at me not that I blame him. I could've handled the firebolt situation so much better…probably handled Crookshanks and Scabbers better too," She muttered as she finished rambling. "The point is, I'm so sorry, Izzy. Please…can you forgive me?"

"You knew what I was afraid of…and in your anger you used that against me. I used to stand for that with some arguably bad home placements because I thought I deserved to be spoken to like that…deserved their fists and poisoned words," Izzy said in a hushed whisper. Hermione looked like she wanted to object but held silent. "You hurt me, Hermione…Just…give me time," she said, looking at Hermione for the first time since she woke up. Hermione looked to have been crying for hours on end, and that pulled at Izzy in a way she couldn't describe. She pressed on however and turned away from her best friend.

She heard the sounds of sniffling but did her best to ignore them as feet shuffled out of the hospital wing. Izzy let the tears she'd been holding slip when she turned back to where Hermione had been sitting and saw her runes textbook, left open where Hermione had stopped reading when Izzy begun to stir.

The doors of the Hospital banged open the next day, a glaring Madame Pomfrey staring at the offender, to reveal a bubblegum pink haired witch walking at a brisk pace to a single occupied bed. Said occupant smiled as the woman she looked up to like an older sister.

"I came as soon as I heard! Are you alright?" Tonks asked as she ran her hands over the now morph free girl.

"I'm fine, Tonks. Just a little frostbite, nothing a potion or two can't fix. Well, plus a bit of magical exhaustion but that's to be expected," Izzy said with a cheeky grin and a shrug.

"Magical exhaustion. That would explain why you look so different. Not enough magic in you for you to morph," Tonks commented. It was true. Tonks had thought she'd seen Izzy in her base form. Apparently not.

In her true base form, Izzy's hair was no longer jet black and unmanageably curly. Now, while still curly, it was a dark chestnut brown with red highlights. Her eyes were the same color as Tonks had seen them, but they were shaped a bit differently and spaced just slightly further apart than Tonks had known them to be. Her nose, while not large, was noticeably bigger. Her lips were thinner, and her cheekbones ever so slightly lower, giving her a more rounded face. Her jawline had sharpened, enough to cut diamonds, honestly.

If her mother had thought she'd looked like a younger Bellatrix the last time she'd seen her…well, she certainly looked a lot like Bellatrix now. Oddly enough, Tonks was also reminded of her boss, though she couldn't figure out why.

"Do I really look all that different?" Izzy asked. Tonks wordlessly conjured a mirror and enjoyed the wide-eyed look the girl was giving herself. "Why do I look so different?" she asked.

"It's called unconscious morphing. All metamorphs do it, even me. We just see something we like on another person and think 'damn that'd look hot on me!' and then we subconsciously incorporate it into our looks," Tonks explained. "Apparently you changed a lot," she teased. Izzy hadn't actually changed all that much, which was good but not at the same time. It was good that she didn't look more like her mother on a daily basis, but it was bad in that she subconsciously changed a lot of things about herself.

"I don't think I've ever seen my normal looks," Izzy marveled. "Definitely changing the nose and jaw line back though," she determined with a grin. Tonks laughed and nudged the girl in the shoulder.

"Don't ever change, kiddo," she said.

"Yeah alright. Tell the metamorph to quit changing," Izzy snorted after her sarcastic response.

"Hush you," Tonks teased before she calmed down a bit and looked at Izzy. "I think…once you recover from this, I want us to meet during your next Hogsmeade weekend so you can show me how much you've improved, and maybe I'll give you my notes on bone-morphing. Madame Pomfrey will have to supervise you of course, but I think you could handle it," Tonks explained. It pained her when the girl lit up like Christmas, and only Tonks and her mother knew the truth about the girl in front of her.

"Next Hogsmeade weekend isn't for another month. Are you sure I couldn't convince you to give me your notes now?" Izzy asked with a grin. Tonks chuckled and shook her head.

"No. You need to recover first. I promise, though, I will send those notes and you can practice with Madame Pomfrey. Bone-morphing isn't an easy lesson. Took me until I was in third year myself until I got it, and you remember that I've known what I was since I could walk," Tonks said. Izzy crossed her arms and pouted. "I'm just trying to keep you safe. Besides, if you get bone-morphing down, I think we can move onto other stuff over the summer. Whaddya say?"

"I say hell yeah!" Izzy cheered.

"Awesome. I know Mum'll be happy to have you over again," Tonks said. 'And maybe tell the truth,' she thought. Tonks grew serious as she looked at the kid she thought of as the sister she had always wanted. "So," she started again, putting on her most serious face causing many of her morphs to fade away. "Wanna tell me what had you running into a Scottish snowstorm in January?"

Izzy sighed and came clean. She told Tonks everything; what Hermione had said, how bad it hurt, how angry she felt for just a split second before the sadness took over. Tonks listened without saying a word until Izzy was done. Tonks nodded when Izzy was done.

"It's understandable," she said softly, taking Izzy's hand in her own. "From both of your perspectives."

"I know," Izzy whispered. It spoke to how magically drained she was that not even her eyes changed color.

"Still, I think you handled that remarkably well, Izzy. You didn't yell, or scream, or cry. You didn't say anything purposefully mean to hurt her in retaliation. That shows remarkable maturity, Izzy," Tonks said.

"Then why do I feel childish for telling her to leave? Why do I feel like an awful friend for not forgiving her?" Izzy asked.

"Because you're still a kid. Kids are supposed to be childish," Tonks said, slowly turning her nose into that of duck. Izzy giggled, causing Tonks to crack a smile. "You're a kid still, no matter how much you've been forced to grow up. You're bound to have a few fights with friends, say hurtful things. Friends do that, and they either survive it and are stronger for it, or they fall apart."

Izzy took in Tonks' words of wisdom and nodded. She didn't hate Hermione, didn't want to curse her for such hurtful words. No. Hermione was still her best friend, the one she trusted. They'd get through this…Izzy just needed time.

The metamorph duo talked for what felt like hours before Madame Pomfrey came to the bed with a plate of food hovering behind her.

"I want at least half of that gone by the time I come back, and then Miss Tonks will have to say goodbye for now. You'll need to sleep once you've taken your potions," she explained. Izzy nodded and dug in. She was starving.

Izzy woke up a few hours after Madame Pomfrey had shoved the potions down her throat. She hadn't even remembered falling asleep, but she found a note from Tonks.

'Sorry I couldn't be there when you woke up, but you'll be glad to know I went home and sent my owl to Madame Pomfrey with my notes on bone-morphing. I talked to her before I left and she's pretty cool about supervising your progress. I don't think I can stress this enough when I say that if she says not to experiment, you're not to experiment. Bone-morphing is dangerous if done wrong or too fast. It's a tricky skill, one I didn't fully master until I was your age. I don't fancy coming back to the hospital wing to find you've turned yourself into a pretzel. Be safe, please.

-Tonks'

Izzy reread the loopy handwriting a few times, a little disappointed that she wouldn't be able to study bone-morphing at her own pace but understood that if Tonks wanted her to take it slow, then she should. She trusted the older metamorph, after all.

After waking up, reading the note, grinning like an excited idiot, and eating breakfast with Madame Pomfrey, Izzy was released that afternoon thankfully (She really couldn't stand being cooped up and had annoyed the hospital matron enough to get her to make a deal) with the stipulation that she was not allowed to morph for the next two days. She could perform low level magic, but that was it.

When she walked to the great hall for lunch, she was intercepted by Susan.

"I'd heard you-" Susan started as soon as she saw Izzy, only for her to do a double take. "Sorry. thought you were someone else!" she said. Izzy laughed.

"It's me, Susan, don't worry," she said. Susan looked at her curiously before nodding.

"Wow, you look really different without all your morphs. Anyways, I just wanted to tell you that tryouts for the club are going to be held this weekend," Susan said, though Izzy noticed she was staring at all of her base features.

"Cool! I'll be sure to be there!" Izzy said with a smile. Susan nodded and walked into the great hall.

From out of the corner of her eye, Izzy saw Pansy glaring daggers at her, but she ignored her and walked over to the table where she was greeted by tense silence from Ron, Harry, and Hermione.

Lunch ended, and Izzy went to her classes where she met Daphne, and the two worked together for their runes and arithmancy work. Daphne found more and more that Izzy was very clever, probably too much for her own good, and often followed her lead when it came to group projects.

When the weekend finally arrived (and Madame Pomfrey finally cleared her to use higher level magic and morph again), Izzy was sat in one of the unused classrooms in a row of dueling club hopefuls. Harry had opted not to join when she'd told him, saying between Quidditch, studying, and doing extracurricular stuff with Professor Lupin, he didn't have time. Izzy shrugged and found the room they would be trying out in.

The first thing she noticed was the stage. It was not a long thin one like she had first been introduced to dueling on. It was a large square that seemed to dominate most of the room. Izzy also noticed the runes carved into the sides of the stage and was proud of herself when she was able to translate a few and what they could do.

In the center of the stage was Professor Flitwick, looking pleased as punch that so many people had turned up for tryouts. While thirty may not have seemed like a large number, it was far more than he was anticipating. He turned to the gathered students.

"Now, as many of you are aware since you are here, this is the tryouts for our little dueling club. Hogwarts has not had a dueling club since 1892, and we have not been to a tournament since 1881. I'm hoping, that with the rest of this year, and next year, we can hope to change that. Thus, the necessity for tryout. I see we have plenty of students from each year, but only the best will be selected," Flitwick said. His little speech had garnered everyone's attention. They all wanted to be part of the group of students that would get into and possibly win a tournament.

"So, without any further delay, let's begin," Flitwick said.

Red=angry

Gray=nervous/anxious/irritated

Orange=happy/excited

Blue=sad/overwhelmed

Purple=worried/concerned/frustrated

Green=jealous/suspicious

Brown=content/relaxed

Yellow=afraid/shocked

Pink=amusement

Silver=determination

Light blue=embarrassment