"Who is being possessed?" Lucy asked herself as she paced in the training room.
Carver was stretching across from her, "Less time worrying, more time stretching. You'll feel it later if you don't."
She huffed as she flopped to the ground and started pulling on her right leg.
"I just don't see who it is. Like I can't tell," she complained.
"In the end, you know it is truly Voldemort. Does the rest matter?" Carver asked as he stood up and pulled her to her feet.
She scowled at him, "It'll matter to whoever is being possessed! The sooner we can stop it, the less damage done to them."
Carver swung at her; she hastily and sloppily blocked it, "Arms up! Still, you need to consider the fact that it might not be like last time. This time around, it could be a loyal follower who considers it a blessing. They might not think you're saving them if you destroy the diary."
She shrugged and fiented towards his chest. He easily blocked it and pushed her on the defensive. In two well placed swings of the wooden sword, he had her flat on her back.
Once she had caught the breath that had been knocked out of her, she said, "Children think timeouts are bad, but parents should still put them in timeout.
He paused, "Did you just compare saving a child from possession from an evil diary to giving a misbehaving child a time-out?"
"If the shoe fits…."
They practiced for an hour in the training room. Around the edges, plenty of angels were lined up, silently judging her. She huffed as she continued to lack the ability to perform even the simplest of angel magic.
Finally, Carver sent her off with instructions to get some supper, "And a shower, you stink."
"Yeah, at fighting," some angel in the room muttered.
She thought about turning around and saying something, but she was too tired.
In the Great Hall, Lucy made a beeline to Hermione. She loaded her plate with mounds of potatoes and carbs and started digging in.
Hermione's nose crinkled, "Why do you smell like that?"
"Leave me alone, I'm off to the showers next," Lucy said. She devoured her food faster than a Weasley on a cheat day.
As she was finishing up, she noticed Hermione chewing on her fingernails and sending guilty looks around, "What on earth did you do?"
Hermione's hand was clamped over her mouth, "Is it that obvious?"
"Well, yeah, you're acting like you're about to get expelled," Lucy said, reaching for a piece of treacle tart.
Hermione grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the dining hall. Lucy looked with great desire at the rapidly disappearing desserts.
"Those horrible, terrible beasts called in their deal and now I really am going to be expelled," Hermione's face was entirely too close to Lucy's as well as being pale with those brown eyes too big. Lucy coughed a bit and subtly tried to move away slightly. The girl looked a little creepy when she was panicking.
"Now Hermione, you're not gonna get expelled. And the only way you'll get caught is if you keep acting like this. What did you guys even do?" Lucy asked.
Hermione tugged on her curls, "We mixed a potion into the pudding that makes people laugh! Now everyone's going to be laughing, and they'll figure out we did it, and I'm sure they probably have rules against pranking, and then I'll be expelled!"
She groaned dramatically and dropped her head into her hands. Lucy rolled her eyes and grabbed Hermione's arm.
"What...wher-where are we going?" Hermione tried to pull away from the smaller girl, but Lucy's hands were surprisingly strong.
"So you can see the results of your prank. Just be quiet and don't look guilty!" Lucy commanded her as she pulled Hermione back into the Great Hall.
What sort of chaos starts when several hundred children laugh at the same time and cannot stop? A joyfulness.
Laughs are more varied than a person's first ever attempts at making pancakes.
Some are big enough to fill the Great Hall, heard from side to side and easy to pinpoint to a wide open jaw and big eyes. Other laughs are smaller than mice, delicate things hidden behind carefully placed hands. A few laughs are funnier than clowns and cause the kids around them to point good naturedly and laugh even harder.
At the Hufflepuff table, Alex had stood up and crossed both arms over his chest. His likeness to an angry McGonagall was a bit startling as he tried to give a thorough Scottish scolding to Cedric through his peals of laughter.
"Now -haha- Mr Diggory, that -hahaha- is not the app- -haha- approp- -HAHa- appropriate way to wear a tie!" He crowed.
He had the students around him holding their sides and falling onto the ground.
The Head Table was apparently not immune as Professor Flitwick pointed out Alex to McGonagall who seemed startled by her own laughter.
Hermione and Lucy were hidden in the crowd of people who had stood up to leave the room only to start laughing and not want to miss the spectacle. Hermione peaked out from between her fingers, only to drop her hands in amazement, "No one seems mad!"
Matching freckled arms dropped onto her shoulders, "Course not,"
"we just made them laugh,"
"and everyone can always"
"use a good laugh." Lucy's head bobbed back and forth as the twins talked.
"But do stop looking so guilty Granger," one who could be Fred hissed from the corner of his mouth.
This just made Hermione look more like a convicted felon than Sirius used to look. It made the twins laugh.
"Snape's not laughing," Lucy announced glancing around the room.
The twins shared equal scowls before shrugging. One who could be Fred huffed, "Never caught him in a prank before."
"Certainly not one like this,"
"His big nose and being a proper master at potions,"
"Though pants of a teacher"
"But still brilliant, means he can smell a potion a mile away"
"And students must've made attempts on his life because he always casts detection spells on his food"
"One day though!"
"We will prank him!" The twins declared the last phrase in unison as they smacked their tight fists against open palms.
Lucy shook her head and headed towards the door, "Well I'm heading out before anyone accuses me of anything."
It was the day before Halloween again. While she wondered if Harry and Ron would get sucked into attending Nearly Headless Nick's DeathDay party again, she had bigger worries. Undoubtedly, Voldemort would be making a move tomorrow. Before that, Lucy wanted to check in on the other Horcrux she knew about.
It was far enough into the school year that Voldemort should have checked on it if it was part of his plans. Last time, he hadn't removed it, so she wasn't worried about it being missing. This way he wouldn't be suspicious of it being gone and create another one if he had checked on it at the start of the year or even last year.
Up to the seventh floor she marched, then she marched in the corridor until the Room of Requirements showed her the room of lost things. As always, the piles of junk were slightly disorientating.
Squaring her shoulders, she headed through the rows to where she knew the diadem would be.
There, balancing at an angle on a basketball, was the priceless artifact.
Voldemort's Horcruxes had always felt dangerous.
A whisper, almost a hiss, that spoke of great power and knowledge. The rise and fall of kingdoms. Knowledge to rival the lost library of Alexandria.
This time though, her angel inheritance rose up in her and her stomach rolled inside her.
"I'm gonna be sick," she muttered, holding a pale hand in front of her mouth as though it would hold back the throw up.
She leaned as far back from the diadem as she could, but the wrongness of the item still swept over her.
"So this is what they meant by not going around dark items," she said.
Then she whirled as Carver's voice said, "Indeed, and a Horcrux is certainly one of the darkest items out there. I wanted to check on you, but I'll leave it to you."
She shuddered a little at the waves of evil coming from the diadem as Carver teleported away. How had she never noticed before just how bad the Horcruxes were.
"So, how do I destroy it?" She asked herself.
She ran through her options. She had no idea what the flaming magic of the angels would do to it, but she couldn't summon the magic yet and Carver had already said that he wouldn't be allowed to interfere by destroying the objects himself. Something about the balance.
Fiendfyre was always an option, but she definitely didn't trust that she had the control to not kill herself. Power to start the fire, yes. Power to put it back out, ehhh.
She didn't have the sword of Gryffindor and had no idea how to even begin to go about retrieving it.
No basilisks fangs, but maybe she could get the basilisk to help.
She huffed as she stared at the diadem. It was still here at least and should remain there until she figured out what she was going to do. Leaving the diadem there felt wrong, but there was no way she could overcome her instincts enough to touch the diadem, even for storage.
Complaining to herself about patience, she left the room and headed to the Hufflepuff common room for some sleep.
The next day dawned bright, birds chirping heard from the windows at the top of the Hufflepuff dorms.
Susan and Hannah were laughing as they got dressed and prepared themselves for the feast in the evening.
Lucy groaned at those two and the other girls before pulling her soft quilt up over her entire face. The girls gave each other bewildered looks before leaving their grumpy dorm mate.
Grumbling, Lucy eventually got out of bed herself.
"Freaking Halloween, something always happens on Halloween," she said, walking to her trunk and pulling out an elaborate assortment of weapons.
Daggers strapped to her thighs and stomach and back. Her black pleated skirt laid over the ones on her thighs and a thick, loose school sweater hid the ones higher. She even tucked a dagger as thin as a pen but sharper than a fillet knife between the layers of the sole of her school shoes. The black handle appeared as piping on the shoe.
A snort behind her, "Would you even be able to reach that if you needed it?"
She scowled at Carver, "Maybe, maybe not, but at least I have it on me."
Halloween again.
Lucy was on the edge of her seat all day, and Blaise kept raising an eyebrow at her twitching.
"What's gotten into you?" He asked.
"Nothing," she snapped.
Harry came to the Great Hall laughing with his friends, saying something about the food they'd have at the feast that evening. When his eye caught Lucy's though, she spotted the stillness of his eyes, how the smile never even came close to it. She nodded back to his barely perceptible nod.
"What was that about?" Blaise asked, following her eye to the dark haired boy.
"I sent him some flowers to his dorm," Lucy said.
Blaise paused with his fork halfway to his mouth, but the manners his mother had drilled into him prevented his mouth from actually dropping, "Excuse me, did you just say you sent his royal pratness flowers?"
Lucy scowled at her friend around her own spoonful of vanilla yogurt, "Last I checked, it is the anniversary of his parents deaths."
Blaise's mouth formed a silent o as he comprehended what Lucy meant, "I suppose most of us just consider it the day he defeated Voldemort."
"Yes, defeated him at the cost of his family," Lucy snapped.
Blaise raised his eyebrow, "If I didn't know better, I'd almost think you had a crush on him. You certainly never send me flowers on my stepfather's death days."
Lucy reached over and flicked Blaise's nose before he could move completely out of the way, his thick lips already twisted with laughter, "Yeah, like I don't send your mother condolences when another one dies. I think my mother sends her congratulations on her freedom. My father grows more concerned with each one."
Blaise shrugged, "Some people are not meant to be tied down with lessers. Now, I'd let you tie me down if you liked."
Lucy started laughing at that, unable to stop with the visible horror on the young Slytherins' faces who had been eavesdropping, most of them only picking up the second half of the conversation.
"Blaise, must you talk like that?" Draco asked, his pale cheeks even whiter.
"I talk even better in bed," Blaise roved his eyes over Draco's body. The young boy shuddered.
"I don't know what your mother has been teaching you, but I want no part of it. We are twelve. Girls are gross enough; I don't want to do anything with a boy," Draco said, his voice high pitched.
Lucy shook with laughter and ignored the banter happening around her as conversation resumed at the Slytherin table.
Later that day Lucy was returning from another sweep of the castle when she ran into Harry and Ron.
"What are you two doing here?" she asked.
Ron turned toward her, "The better question is what are YOU doing here? Why aren't you at the feast?"
"That's literally what I just asked you. I asked first, answer my question," she said.
"It doesn't matter who asked first, just drop it! We're just coming back from nearly Headless Nicks DeathDay Party," Harry said, looking miserable.
Lucy and Ron both looked down slightly before the trio continued walking.
"Listen, the feasts not over yet, I'm sure we can still get some food. There's were i was heading anyway when I ran into you," Lucy said.
Ron turned toward her and opened his mouth before squeaking and taking several steps backward. Lucy spun around to see what had scared the boy so badly and let out gasp herself.
In front of them, were Percy Weasley and Penelope Clearwater, frozen like statues.
Penelope had grabbed onto Percy's arm, and it appeared like Percy had started to push the girl behind him when they had been petrified. Their eyes were open wide, staring in horror at nothing, unblinking.
Ron took a step toward his brother and his shoe sloshed in a puddle of water, "Percy? Are you OK?"
Lucy reached out a hand, "Ron-"
Whatever she planned to say was drowned out by footsteps. She cursed lightly under her breath as the Gryffindor students marched towards them. It shouldn't have been that late.
Lavendar Brown took one look at the pair and screamed, "They're dead!"
Footsteps came rushing up, and Lucy tried to blend back into the crowd of students, but they didn't part to let her in.
"Quiet please! I'll have you remain calm," McGonagall's voice sounded over the crowd and the murmuring stopped as Snape stepped up to the bodies.
"Where is all this water coming from?" Flitwick's voice asked. Lucy's eyes roved over the area before she spotted the busted pipe above the two bodies. It was even now letting a steady stream of water down on the bodies and teachers. With a wave of Flitwick's wand, the water was diverted.
"They're not dead. They've been petrified," Snape said to McGonagall as he stepped back from Percy and Penelope. The teachers worked together to send the students back to their dorms while others hovered Percy and Penelope to the hospital wing.
"What're you doing with him?"
"Will he be alright?"
"What's happened?"
"Can't believe Percy was with a girl," Fred had a wicked grin on his face even as the Weasley siblings crowded around McGonagall as she transported their brother to the hospital wing.
Before the students could all be dispersed, Snape stepped forward, "Who found them?"
As one, all of the students turned to Harry, Ron, and Lucy.
"Mother-of-" Lucy cursed under her breath as she spotted the frightened looks in the students eyes even as the professors and Dumbledore turned to them. She also caught Blaise's exasperated look and Hermione's wide worried eyes.
Author's note:
Sorry for the long delay. As per usual, I haven't abandoned any of my stories, just keeping life more important. Had a baby and graduated with my bachelor's degree, but I'm back with more. Unless I die, I always plan to update my stories, even if it takes a year or two between updates ;) Please leave feedback and ideas in the comments.