Thank you so very much for all of the birthday wishes. It was amazing, and it blew me away, and your guys' support has been instrumental to this getting finished. So, thank you again, you will never know how much I love to read your comments and write for you guys.
Huge ginormous thanks to Mango for helping me with wording at one point, and thank you to all of you who commented, because it wouldn't have turned out this way had you not commented.
Also, thank you to sara92 on AO3. One of your comments about twenty chapters ago helped me figure out some plot hole loops and a huge problem that I had. It took me about two weeks of thinking about how to fix it that I figured out the solution, but this chapter and the rest of the story would have turned out completely different if you hadn't.
Saturday, June 24, 1995
Quidditch Pitch
"Alastor."
Barty turned and looked at the old geezer and tried to ignore the horrid headache that thumped in his head due to the magical eye that currently jabbed into the empty space that shouldn't be empty.
He hated this mission, but it was for his Lord, so he would grin and bear it.
He could only thank Morgana that it was nearly done.
"Yes, Albus?"
"Come with me."
He followed the old fart to a corner of the pitch. "Did something happen? I thought one of the Champions got the Cup?"
The man inclined his head. "Noah Potter did. She's been taken." Glee filled his bones, and it was near impossible to not smile. His Lord would be proud of him; he did not smile.
"How?"
"Someone turned the Cup into a portkey. I've tried Tracing it, but someone hid it very well. It took her to just outside of the school grounds, and then to three other places before I lost the Trace."
And it had been bloody hard to do that too. "What are you going to do about it?"
An antique silver brush with a few strands of long black hair was pushed into his hands. "Take Severus and find her. I don't care what you do to do it, but find her, before Voldemort uses her to get to Leif."
He bit his tongue to keep from hexing the man at the disrespect. "I will, Albus. Don't worry. We'll find her."
"Thank you, my old friend. Truly, thank you."
He turned and started to limp away from the Headmaster. "I don't know how to protect Leif if Voldemort uses his sister against him."
He let his face curl into a sneer.
If only the old fart knew.
Little Hangleton Graveyard
Everything swayed when Eden's eyes flickered open.
There was as harsh ringing in her ears that was simultaneously low-pitched and high-pitched. Something oozed down her left hip, and down the right side of her face. Her magic was Bound tightly within her—like usual—but the air reeked of sweet ozone.
She mentally Scanned her Core, and even though she had about two-thirds left, she still felt as if she were completely Drained, or, if not completely, about to be Drained.
She closed her eyes tightly and groaned softly when the world tilted to the side. Her head tipped forward and her throat pressed against a smooth stone pole. Her eyes flickered open once more, and on either side of her body were stone hands. She figured she must be pinned to one of the statues in the graveyard.
How . . . pleasant.
The ringing dulled to the point that it was barely worth paying attention to, and her focus shifted to the nausea that currently pounded through her veins. She coughed, gagged, and saw stars. Her knees weakened with the force, and she would have fallen to the ground beneath her had it not been for the pole pressed against her neck. Granted, it cut off her air supply, but still. It was a huge plus to not fall into the open grave in front of her—at least, she thought it was an open grave.
She wasn't too sure what was going on yet.
A spell hit her from her front of her, and her legs straightened before her knees locked. Her head tipped forward as the world swayed again. She clumsily broke the spell on her legs, which caused a painful pop, and a deep scratch to form next to her knee. Her knees unlocked and the world stopped tilting, but she was still beyond nauseated.
She looked down at her hands, and her right hand started to glow with a gentle red heat until the tips of her fingers had small yellow flames. She pressed the tips to the deepest part of the gash from the eight-legged spawn of the devil and groaned softly when she pressed the palm against the semi-healed gash from the manticore. She hated the Cure of Fire, but it was the only healing spell that she knew that she could cast on herself without having full movement of her body.
"What did she just do?" The words didn't process in her head, and she pressed her now-cooled right hand against her forehead. She pulled it away and was pretty sure at that point, that the wet blood on the heal of her dirty palm was in fact her own blood.
She wasn't going to risk scarring her face by healing it with anything other than Medela Aer or Cure of Obsidian—while she wasn't truly vain, she would do almost anything to prevent scars forming on her face.
"She healed herself." Tata.
The betrayal raced through her once more as she choked on her despair. What was going on?
"I thought you said that you healed her," a whiny voice hissed. Wormy.
"He must have just missed a spot, lighten up, Worm-Boy."
Who was that?
She forced her eyes open once more and tilted her head back and saw three men staring at her. Tata, Wormy, and a thin man who seemed to have the same nervous tick that Crazy-Face had with licking his lips. The new arrival now held the baby-thing that Wormy had been holding when she arrived.
"Good," a weary, sleep-filled high-pitched voice spoke. Cold shivers shook her spine, and she pushed her back against the stone monolith that held her captive. "You're finally awake, Noah. Let us now begin."
Before she could protest her dislike of her name, the men stepped away from the foot of the open grave. The creature was held over the cauldron, and she adverted her gaze and closed her eyes. "I want her to watch."
Dammit.
With those horribly sibilant words, her head was forced forward, and her eyes were spelled open. She watched in terror as the thing was dropped into the simmering cauldron. She was able to advert her gaze—thank Circe for that—and decided to try and be somewhat productive, so she started to look for her missing wand.
Her attention was diverted from her search when something glimmered in her peripherals. Never before had she cursed her obsession with anything that glittered more than she did in that moment. She couldn't help herself and glanced towards the cauldron and watched Wormy reach into a small container with a glittering, silver chain, and pulled out what looked like a lock of dark colored hair.
She adverted her gaze and attention once more, and instead of looking for her wand—surely she could do whatever would be needed without it—looked for an escape route. She wasn't the best (compared to Tom) when it came to wandless magic, but she could manage until she could cast the spell to summon her wand to her when she was back at school and had access to tata's wand—wait.
Oh.
Despair ate her.
Right.
She pushed the thoughts out of her mind and began to count the amount of escape routes. She counted five direct, three indirect, and one that would be completely useless unless she was running from someone, when she was stopped.
She met Snakey-Snape's sorrowful eyes, and she couldn't help but look at the dagger in his hand that reeked of ozone. "Tata?" she whispered, "what's going on?" she begged of the man who stood on a conjured stone over the open grave.
"I'm so sorry," he begged.
"What did you do?"
He swallowed. "I saved you."
Wormy snickered, and Tongue elbowed him in the stomach. "Who was that? Was that the Dark Lord?" When he nodded—Wormy whimpered when Tongue hit the back of his head—a sob tore out of her throat. "Tata, I was joking when I told you to resurrect him." She ignored the gasps behind her father-figure.
He lifted his free hand, and shakily stroked her cheek, and she leaned into it. He wiped away her tears, and pressed a kiss to her forehead—figures, even on a statue he was still taller than her. "I had already started before we had that conversation. I had to get you out of the Coma, and he helped me. I figured if anyone would know anything about it, it would be him. I followed the signs, and I was right. He had a working theory and recipe for a potion that would jumpstart your magic into thinking you were in danger in the Coma. We worked on it for nearly a month before we deemed it ready. I am so sorry that I did this, my darling daughter. I did it for you."
She lifted a filthy hand and pressed it against his face. "It's alright, tata. I forgive you."
He smiled a soft—bitter stinging mournful heartbroken—smile. "I don't think you will." He bit his cheek. "I'm fulfilling my end of our bargain now." He pulled his hand from her face before he lifted the knife.
No matter what he did, she'd forgive him.
He saved her.
He adverted his eyes from hers and lifted her right arm. He cast several cleansing charms on it and her hand—she found it strange that he focused on her thumb the most—and rubbed his thumb along her Ring before he dug the knife into her forearm as he spoke.
The moment the knife touched her skin, fire, more visceral and painful than she had ever felt before began to burn in her arm. The moment her blood was drawn, it flushed through her veins with a dizzying speed, and her vision spun as bloody bile stung the back of her mouth.
No, no, no—please, no. Stop.
"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken."
He held the knife in the cut for a few seconds as blood pooled on the Dark knife and trickled down her arm. The blood stopped at her wrist, where he held it, and he stepped back. The blood began to ooze down her hand. He shot a Light Gray healing spell at her arm, which only healed it half-way. Her head tilted slightly. He refused to look at her before he stepped off of the stone and walked away as it melted back into the monolith.
Something grew taut in the air, almost as if it were a warning, telling them to stop.
Goosebumps prickled on her arm.
Tata held the knife over the cauldron and tilted it.
Anger—similar to when Tom Promised he'd never hurt her—filled the air.
Her blood slipped off of the knife.
She felt she was about to choke as whatever stirred in the air tightened once more.
Her blood landed in the bubbling cauldron.
The moment that the two liquids mixed, the air seemed to explode, and something tightened in her chest, right above her heart. Visions of royal purple, blood red, and ocean blue filled her eyes, and a pounding filled her ears.
The Aether.
Her breath caught in her throat as a voice began to speak. It was a voice she had heard only a few times before, but never had she heard it as clearly, or as loudly as she had in that moment.
It was angry—as was to be expected by the swirling and raging colors around her—it was a loving father's voice. It was as gentle as an early spring breeze, but had a harsh edge, like a bitter blizzard. It had a warning of fiery wrath, hidden below the surface of a sparkling stream deep in the Autumnal Woods found in the heart of Faerie Land.
It was heartbroken.
If the one who loves you, calls you his enemy, my child, my precious daughter, then he shall be Punished for his foolishness.
Fingers ran through her hair and unbound it. It tumbled over her shoulders and into her face. Even though she knew she was being held by some statue or other, she felt warm arms wrap around her and a kiss land on her forehead.
The voice spoke once more, only it had changed into something she imagined one of the Olde Kings would have sounded like. Let it be Known to All, that a Price has been Paid.
The voice echoed, and she somehow knew that the Aether had just spoken through all of Time and Space.
The words made no sense to her, and the tight feeling in her chest tightened to the point that she cried out in pain.
It snapped.
A soul-shattering, wailing shriek, and gasping sobs—more like screams begging for relief—left her throat. She felt simultaneously lighter and heavier. She felt as if a key part of her very existence was gone—absent vanished faded missing.
A kiss was pressed to the top of her head, and her vision cleared. She was once more back at the graveyard, and tata pulled the knife away from the cauldron before he wiped it on his robes and threw it far away from him with a look a pure disgust on his face.
Did it not happen? Was I hallucinating? Or did it happen, and time just stopped here?
(she barely registered the fact that she seemed to be reenergized, and the burning from healing herself was gone)
She twisted her aching arm and met Snakey-Snape's eyes, and smiled softly as she inclined her head—her unbound hair fell into her shoulders (so it did happen). He seemed to stumble for a moment before he, too, nodded with a relieved smile on his face.
She took a deep breath and tried to recall what she had been doing before her blood was stolen. A familiar warmth blossomed on her hand, and the strange Aether-vision was forgotten as the actions of her father before he cut her made sense. She tore her eyes away from the gruesome and horrifying sight in front of her. She hid a smile behind her hair when the fire died and silence reigned. She kept her eyes adverted, and when the spells keeping her eyes and head hostage released her, looked down at her hand.
She had a plan.
It was dangerous, and probably-most-likely wouldn't work, but it was a plan, nonetheless.
She quickly mapped out her escape route before she glanced up to see if she was in the clear. In the once semi-empty clearing were now ten men in robes and pointy hats, Snakey-Snape, Wormy, Tongue, and a tall, bald man who looked to have pale blue skin—it could have been gray, or even white, and the horrid lighting of the dying sun made it seem blue.
Blue Man—that must be her executioner: Voldemort—was talking. It appeared that he was mainly grandstanding and chastising the men in robes. She wasn't entirely too sure what he said due to how quietly he spoke.
She met the eyes of Snakey-Snape, and he minutely nodded as the Dark Lord began ripping masks and hats off of people. She glanced around at the other men, and accidentally met the eyes of Noah Smith. He smirked and twitched an eyebrow at her, and she knew that he knew she was a time-traveler. She couldn't help but pull a face at him, and he chuckled softly before he fondly rolled his eyes. She pulled her eyes away from him and met a silvery gaze.
Lucius.
"My Lord," he spoke. His eyes never left hers, and a deep fear filled them, "why is the girl here?"
Voldemort turned towards her and spoke. "This, my friends, is the real child who defeated me those thirteen years ago." She shivered at his weak voice, and he smirked before he walked towards her. She bit her lip and flinched away and hit her head on the statue behind her when a cold hand touched her own. Her hair fell into her face as she began to manipulate her magic, and she grinned through it when he pulled back with a hiss. "She's quite powerful as well."
He was impressed.
Oops.
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, and she tried to bite him, and he chuckled before his attention was moved towards her still bleeding arm. He grasped it, and before she could force him to let go, healed her, and then he walked away and continued to speak with his followers.
She tuned out of the conversation and transfigured her thumbnail into a knife point and cut the side of her pointer-finger. Snakey-Snape somehow got everyone's attention on him, and Lucius did the same. It was almost like a game of Quidditch the way they rapidly switched and worked off of each other to keep attention away from her. She smeared the blood against the Ring as she returned her thumb back to its natural state. She disappeared from view and wandlessly healed her pointer finger.
Lucius and Snakey-Snape seemed to both breathe a sigh of relief.
She pushed against the stone staff, and when that did absolutely bloody nothing, pulled her chin and neck back as far as she could, and turned her head to the side.
She slowly bent her legs and held her breath as her cheeks scraped harshly against the stone on either side of her face. She lifted a hand and held onto the staff, and her cheekbones wailed with pain, and then she was free. She breathed for a moment and waited until her eyes stopped watering before she slipped off the statue. She expected to sink a foot, maybe a bit more, and then be on the grass after she let go of the staff.
Nope.
She had forgotten about the open grave because Voldemort could walk on air. Because Snakey-Snape conjured stones to stand on.
Because she was so scared, she didn't know what to do with herself.
She landed in the open coffin and heard Snakey-Snape once more drag attention to himself, and the verbal game of Quidditch began once more with Noah joining the bat and the peacock along with another voice she didn't really recognize. Eden bit her lips to keep from screaming or vomiting as she stared at the skeleton next to her and let a few tears and quiet whimpers escape as blood flooded her mouth.
She carefully stood, whispered a near-silent apology, and then climbed out of the coffin. She shakily stood on the edge of it and put her hands on the grass and jumped up. She used Battle Magick to give her arms and legs more strength, and when her feet silently hit the grass, used it to silence her footsteps.
She stayed curled at the edge of the grave for a moment and let silent tears shake her body for a short while before she slowly pushed herself to standing and moved from the grave.
She did her best to not trip, but Potter Luck struck, and she tripped over a rock, and when she heard someone speak and approach her, hastily crawled behind a nearby headstone. She put her hands over her mouth, grimaced, and then swiped invisible hair out of her face before she put them back over her mouth.
She didn't like eating hair.
Footsteps stopped next to her, and she stopped breathing all together. "There's nothing here. It must have been a bird hitting something."
"Come back here, Noah."
"Yes, my Lord."
The feet next to her turned, and the stone next to her was kicked softly before faint words hit her ears. "Get out of here, Eden. He doesn't know it's you." What the hell did that mean? "He'll kill you before he figures it out."
What the hell did that mean?
Before her will to stay hidden broke and before she could demand answers, the older man left, and she slumped with quiet relief, and raging confusion.
She needed to forget about crazy, middle-aged men and focus on getting out of the graveyard. She moved from behind her hidden stone and made it three more headstones towards the cup before she realized that sneaking about without her wand wasn't ideal.
She leaned against the current headstone and pressed her face into her knees and tried to deal with how hopeless the entire escape-from-crazy-blue-psychopath was without her wand. She began to cycle through numerous ideas and plans, hopes and dreams before she realized that they all focused on one thing.
Her wand.
She opened her eyes and stared at a dead mouse hidden at the base of a large hulking angel statue and thought. She would find her wand, or any wand—she wasn't picky at that point—and she'd get out of the graveyard, go back to school, try and forget that the whole thing happened, and try to get Lord Smith some therapy—because clearly there was something wrong with him.
She nodded firmly before she stood and began to creep around the graveyard and quickly started to lose all hope. There was no wand in sight that wasn't being held by someone else. She moved towards the men, and towards the Cup to see if her wand would be over there, since that was the last place she remembered having it.
She walked behind Lucius, and because she was a clingy little thing, poked the palm of his hand. His Mask was impeccable—as always—and he didn't flinch. The only sign that he knew she was there was the curling of his fingers around her own. He squeezed the digit tightly, as if he were trying to convince himself that she was there and okay.
She wasn't okay, but she would be.
She pressed her head against his back, and his tight muscles relaxed slightly. He squeezed her finger for about a minute longer before he let go slightly. He grabbed her hand and manipulated her fingers into pointing towards Snakey-Snape, with a slight incline of his head.
She nodded against his back, peaked out from behind him, and made a hesitant and hasty decision to cut through the clearing while the Dark Lord tortured Gregory's father. She pulled away from him fully and tapped his left elbow as she slipped around him, and he made a choked sound in the back of his throat. She quickly crept across the clearing and stopped when Voldemort suddenly turned and walked back into the center.
Right where she was.
She swallowed and held her breath as he stopped inches in front of her. "Noah, I'd like you to continue your work in Dark Healing Magicks," Voldemort spoke as she slowly started to walk around him. "I've been reading what you've done so far, and I'm very impressed."
The man bowed. "Thank you, my Lord."
Voldemort turned to his right—the side she was slipping around—and she had to hold her breath and take a few steps backwards when he walked forward as he began to talk to Septimus' father, Octavian.
He stopped close enough to her that she felt his breath brush against her hair when he looked down and chuckled softly under his breath.
Why were they talking about careers? Shouldn't they be talking about blood, death, and mayhem?
She shook her head, and stepped back, and accidentally bumped into Noah. "Careful, Eden," he murmured so softly she thought he imagined the words. Voldemort lurched forwards, and she panicked and jumped over his head with Battle Magick. She landed softly on the ground behind him and continued on her way towards Snakey-Snape.
She stood in front of him and tugged on his robes lightly. He visibly slumped as a breath of relief brushed against her forehead. "Get out of here," he whispered, barely audible.
"Can't. Wand," she whispered.
He tilted his head back, so it looked like he was looking down his nose. She got the message. She grabbed his hand, squeezed it, before she moved behind him.
She had just let go of his comforting fingers when a shout rang out from Vincent' father. Traitor. "My Lord! The girl! She's gone!"
She flinched, and stood behind Snakey-Snape for a moment, pressed against his back with her right hand wrapped around his.
"What?" the Dark Lord hissed, "where is she? Where could she have gone? Find her!"
Snakey-Snape stepped back and forced her away from him, and her thumb scraped against the palm of his hand and she stepped away from him. Suddenly afraid that her Ring had been cleaned, she squeaked softly and ran behind a crumbling headstone and hit her head against it as she slipped on the damp grass.
She couldn't help but think that Tom would either be right next to her laughing his head off, or he would be maiming everyone in the graveyard, despite her fondness for most of them.
She looked down at her hands and was beyond relieved to see that she was still invisible.
"Thank you, Lady Soteria," she whispered.
The locket against her chest warmed, and she debated the usefulness of activating the portkey. On one hand, she'd be out of danger, and with Hermione and her family again. On the other hand, there was the lack of wand, Snakey-Snape and Lucius could potentially be tortured for her escape, and once more, the lack of wand.
There was also the fact that Hermione had created a Blood Key. It was a portkey that was not only activated by blood, but also created by blood. Most Blood Keys were only used in the direst of circumstances and . . . they often resulted in death.
Alright, new plan. I can do this.
She'd get her wand, and get the Cup, and then she wouldn't have to use the portkey which would most likely draw too much magic from Hermione, and she refused to have the death of the girl on her hands.
Afterall, the gods never did anything without Payment.
She peaked out from the headstone and saw the man—creature? (thing)—move towards the open grave, and something finally clicked: If that truly was Voldemort, and she believed that it was because tata wouldn't lie to her about something like that, why was she there? Where was Leif? He was the Boy-Who-Lived.
Wasn't he?
This, my friends, is the real child who defeated me those thirteen years ago.
She was freefalling, and no one was there to catch her. He was lying. He must be mistaken. She and Leif were nearly identical when they were babies, and even up until they turned three and Lily forced him to cut his hair. The only difference between the two of them at those ages was how their parents dressed them—oh.
She started to hyperventilate as everything she knew started to not make sense anymore. She rapidly looked around her while Lucius, Snakey-Snape, and even Noah started steering others to the other side of the graveyard. She bit her tongue and frozen when she saw a wand only a few feet to her left.
She crawled to the wand and cried out with relief when she saw it was her own holly and phoenix feather wand. When one of the Death Eaters heard her, she covered her mouth and hid behind a different headstone a few feet to the left.
She looked at her visible wand that shook and silently cursed the fact that it hadn't been on her body when she turned invisible. She dropped it as the Death Eater stood over her. She rested her aching head back against the headstone and ran through all of the spells that she could cast that would create a big enough distraction for her to be able to get away. The Death Eater left at the call of Lucius, and she breathed a sigh of relief and continued to think.
She knew she'd only have one shot once she stood and they caught sight of her wand moving in the air.
If you can't cast it safely, don't cast it at all.
You monster . . . you killed it!
That had a lot of potential.
Death wasn't her aim, but . . . if she shot it in the sky . . .. She nodded her head, as she knew that that would be the spell to, if not save her, at least give her time to run to the portkey about 100 feet away to her right.
She peaked over the headstone once more, and was pleased to see that the Death Eaters and the Dark Lord were all on the other side of the graveyard—which made sense (no one sane would go towards their captors—proof she was now insane)—while Lucius, Snakey-Snape, Wormy, and Tongue were looking a bit closer, but were still quite far away from where she was.
She'd have time.
She grabbed the locket and pressed a kiss to the side she knew that if it were open, it would be Tom's face, before she hid it back in her bra.
She quickly unBound her Core and winced when the trees began to sway with the power, and the sweet scent of ozone grew stronger. A loud banging filled the graveyard. She shook her head—she couldn't worry about anything now—and fell into position and began to channel lightning.
Just as her arm thrust upwards, with the lightning coalesced into a tight little ball at the tip of her wand, she was tackled. She screamed in pain as the light was pulled out of her very being, and the small scratches and large wounds reopened and blood joined in the mix, turning the lightning a harsh blue red. The bolt was just as strong, if not stronger, than the one she used against the dragon. The spell went off course, and instead of going straight up, went at a diagonal at Snakey-Snape who had been running towards her.
"Tata!" she shrieked. "No! Get off of me! Tata!"
She struggled against the heavy form of Wormy and tried to flip him off of her the way that Padfoot had taught her. That failed. She tried to shock him with Raw Magic. That also failed. With a scream of rage, she jabbed her smoking wand into his side with a painful twist of her wrist. "Go to Hell," she whispered.
He paled. "Noah, you don't—"
"Bombarda Maxima."
His large body flew off of her and into a headstone twenty feet away, shattered it, and then landed five feet behind it.
He didn't move again.
She stood and wiped his blood off of her face and one of the pieces of fleshy entrails off of her. She tried to blink the black spots out of her vision from keeping her eyes open while the Lightning Spell ran its course. She had only taken a few steps towards tata before she was tackled again, that time by someone much lighter. "Tata!" she screamed.
He was on the ground, and he wasn't moving.
Voldemort watched with interest while Barty wrestled with something underneath him and tried to wrap his head around what Noah was shouting.
Tata meant father in Latin, did it not?
If so, that would mean that Severus . . ..
My daughter . . . please, my Lord . . . I need your help.
Noah was his adopted daughter. He had known that the man's daughter wasn't related by blood—but he never—
He never would have thought that she could have been Noah.
Everything started to make sense with his once-left-hand man—after all, the man never cried about anything, and over the last seven months, he had seen the man do so many times (he had come to him crying)—and sadly, it was just as Barty seemed to pin the girl down.
By the throat if the choking sounds were any indication.
Eden and Tongue wrestled for a few minutes, and she even got him underneath her before he got her pinned to the ground by her throat. He seemed to be well versed in a type of Battle Magic she wasn't aware of.
Her wand slipped from her fingers when she began to claw at his hands, trying to get him to let go. He did, and he moved his hands to her shoulders, and she took a deep, gasping breath.
She struggled to reach for her wand, and paid no mind to the grass and dirt that moved under her fingers as she clawed at the ground. Her hair was in her face—wrapped around her head like a fricken mummy (really, why her hair floated whenever her Core was unBound was far beyond her)—but it didn't bother her too much. The only thing that bothered her about it was the fact that it continually pressed against the harsh scrapes on her cheeks and hurt her.
She was already in enough pain. She didn't need any more.
(she was going to be quite the sight when she became visible again)
As she reached for her wand, the locket's chain fell out of her bra, and when she scooched slightly to the left to reach for her wand, it wrapped tightly around her neck and began to lightly choke her. The locket slipped out of her bra and rested on her straining chest.
Her fingertips just barely brushed the handle of her wand when a large, bare foot came down hard on her left wrist. She cried out in pain when more pressure was added, and she felt the bones crack and grind together. She stopped clawing at the hands that held her captive and switched her nails attention to the large, gray foot in an attempt to ease some of the pressure on her now very broken wrist.
The locket heated against her chest once more.
Use the portkey, child.
"No," she grunted. Tata. She needed to save tata.
The foot, instead of releasing her—like it should have—pressed down more. "Please," she begged. Her voice was unrecognizable as she continued to beg through her sobs. "Please—tata—please. I need to see him. Please stop."
A high-pitched laugh—at least, she thought it was a laugh (it was far too distorted to tell)—reached her ears. "Look at this, the Girl-Who-Lived, begging the Dark Lord Voldemort for mercy. How pathetic."
A sob tore out of her throat. Yes, she was pathetic. But she would stop at nothing, kill whoever she needed to, to be able to save tata.
Tongue got off of her, stood, but put his foot on her stomach, and pressed down harshly. Voldemort quickly replaced him, and she couldn't help the relieved sob that left her throat as she clutched her broken arm to her chest. Her wand was long forgotten as her locket settled into the hollow of her throat due to her gasping sobs.
"Now, enough playing. Let's get this spell off of you, shall we, Noah darling?"
Rage filled her very soul, and she started to thrash and buck against him until he was able to land a slap against her cheek with his long nails cutting deep into her skin. She turned her head to the right as he began to wave his wand at her.
Lucius was helping Snakey-Snape sit up, and both watched the Dark Lord with tears in their eyes. "Tata!" she cried out. She squirmed against the Dark Lord and stopped when he hissed at her.
"I'm sorry," he mouthed.
"I'm sorry, too."
Blood-tinged sweat dripped into her eyes and blurred her vision and burned her soul. Tears streaked into her hairline as Voldemort became increasingly angrier and angrier with each failed attempt to reveal her—there was only one way to reveal her (hence the reason why it took nearly two years of near constant work to make her Ring),
Snakey-Snape made an aborted move towards her, but Lucius wisely held him back as tears dripped down his face.
Eden would forever blame what happened next on her parents and their filthy Gryffindor blood.
Voldemort had leaned closer to her—as if that would somehow help him see her—and adrenaline filled her veins. It erased all of the pain in her body. She transfigured her fingernails into knife points and wrapped her hands around his throat. She dug her nails into the soft skin and ignored the vaguely pleasant tingling at the contact and squeezed as tightly as she could.
He growled and grabbed her wrists and tugged her hands away from his neck and pinned them above her head with one of his own. The pain in her wrist returned, and she cried out with pain and sorrow.
She didn't want to die.
She wanted—needed—to see Tom again. To tell him that she loved him one last time.
"My Lord, you're bleeding."
"Am I?" the Dark Lord said, terrifyingly amused, "where?"
She blinked her vision clear, and stared at his neck where she had grasped, and was disappointed to find that it was pale and smooth except for a little smudge to the right of his Adam's apple. Despair filled her as she realized that she hadn't done any damage to him, whereas he had done so much to her.
Tears burned her eyes.
Blurred outlines of his pale hand reached up to his neck where her thumb—her Ring—had rested. Voldemort looked down at her and smirked victoriously. "Oh, my dear," he started. He stroked her cheek—how he found it, she wouldn't know. "It seems that I now know how to reveal you, Noah darling."
She tried to bite his arm and failed.
Pity.
He sat up and released her, and before she could make another strangling attempt—not that she could, the adrenaline was long gone—a heavy torrent of water covered her upper body. She would have choked from the strength, but the ability to breathe water and air at the same time was amazing.
The hair in front of her eyes appeared, and she was blinded to what was going on. She knew the rest of her body was visible too, and she feared what he would do to her now that he could see her. Voldemort tensed and fingered her locket. "Where did you get this?" The voice was muted through the water in her ear. She shook her head to try and get the water out of her ears. She sat up and tried to bite him, but he had her pinned down by her throat before she got anywhere close to him. "Well?" he hissed.
"I'm not required to tell you anything, Voldemort," she croaked. Her throat burned with the words as she spoke around the pressure. She reached a knife-tipped hand and clawed at his hand. He moved his hand down, so it pressed heavily against her sternum.
"Oh, after all we've been through, I believe you are, Noah darling," he hissed, murder in his voice as he once more fingered her locket.
"Stop calling me that!" she hissed, "and why am I required to tell you anything?" She broke into a violent fit of coughing. "I don't even know why I'm here."
"You don't know?"
Great.
He was mocking her.
She closed her eyes, so she didn't have to see his snakey-face . . . hey . . . a new nickname.
Snake-Face.
It fit him.
"No, I don't. My brother is the one who should be here—not me."
Another high-pitched chuckle reached her ears. She shivered at the distorted sound. "Oh, my darling Noah—" He skillfully prevent the bite aimed at his arm. "—you really seem to not know. Let me show you." The pale tip of a wand that seemed to hum when it pressed against her temple (why was it so familiar!?) and then lost images—soul-defying, reality changing, memories—from her first year appeared.
Why, if it isn't the boy whose taken credit for something he didn't do.
What do you mean? Who are you? Noah, stay back.
Ah, there she is. The Girl-Who-Lived. Step aside, boy. This is a fight you're too weak to be in.
No! I won't let you hurt her!
Leif!
Too bad, that. He was a good kid. As you can see, Noah, I made quick work of your brother—he isn't much. But you however . . . oh, the plans we have for you . . ..
"You're lying!" she cried out once the memories ended.
"Oh, no." Moore mocking that made her teeth ache with the need to bite him. "It appears that you've blocked that . . . event from your mind, Noah Darling." The pain of the slap against her bleeding cheek was worth it to have his slightly sweet blood coat her teeth and tongue. He pinned her by her neck to the ground once more with a single large hand before he leaned in closely. "Now tell me, Noah Darling, ah, ah, ah—no biting, Darling. Where did you get this necklace?"
"Why—should I—tell you?"
"Because it's mine."
She couldn't help the scoff that left her constricted throat. "Considering the fact that my boyfriend gave it to me last week—I'd say it's far more mine than it is yours."
He froze and began to tremble. With more gentleness than she ever thought the man capable of possessing, he let go of her throat and untangled her hair from her face—head. When she turned her face away and stared at Snakey-Snape and Lucius, he gently turned her head towards him.
"Eden?"
"How do you know that name?" She was terrified. Had he somehow read her mind? Unless Lucius or Snakey-Snape had told him . . . had he just been playing around with calling her Noah?
He looked so sad and confused. "Why are you scared?" The ever-present banging grew more desperate.
"You're Voldemort, why wouldn't I be scared of you? You tried to kill me when I was a baby!"
He swallowed as shame crossed his face, and then his appearance began to morph. Within moments, Tom hovered above her. He had long brown hair that fell over his shoulders and bright blue eyes set into a face that appeared to be in its early twenties, and blood dripped down his neck, and there was a large bite on his forearm.
Her heart stuttered to a stop.
"Tom?"
I hoped you guys liked it! Let me know what you think.
Also, I have a conundrum. Two, actually. The first is the next chapter. I don't know how long it will be before I can get it out, because I'm not happy with how it turned out, so, the question for that is, should I just post it, because it's good, don't get me wrong, it's just...I don't even know how to put words to describe my feelings towards it other than I've read it about fifteen times, and every time I read it I'm left wanting but have no clue how to fix it to change it.
The second conundrum is the second half of the book. Some things happened, mainly me realizing that the rest of what I originally had planned was just fluff and borderline crack, and I can't stand crack, and I overall wasn't happy with everything I had planned. So, I replotted the entirety of it. If those on AO3 have noticed, the chapter max has gone up to 101. It was at 58 for those of you who care to know. It's 67 chapters, not including the prologue or epilogue, and I'm going to be honest, I haven't written it. I have a few scenes written down, but they're scattered, so it's not like I can post the chapter. So, what that all lead up to is this: should I write an alternate ending for those of you who don't want to stick around for the year it will take me to get to a point on the second part that I can start posting again.
It would be a happy ending, it would be a pretty straight forward ending. It would be anywhere between 2,000 and 10,000 words.
The real ending I anticipate taking anywhere from 200,000 to I-don't-even-know words to get to, a year-probably more because I need a break from this series and will be working on an original I got from another fanfiction I started to write for Harry Potter and abandoned when I got that idea-and will be...spoilers.
Let me know what you think.