A.N.: I think I'm going to start thanking everyone who reviews, so now I'll start by thanking all people who reviewed parts one and/or two; thanks go to RavenLady, brokenflower, Lily White, Demon Child, and =Skade=. Oh, and you know Pierre DuPoint? You know, the French guy who helped out Voldemort? I didn't mean to make his name sound so much like the inventor Pierre DuPont...it just sort of happened. I didn't find out about DuPont until my dad recently told me. I guess I just had the name deep deep deep in my subconscious and it rose out when I needed a French name...hehe. Posted very early in the morning on Easter because I had to get up at 4:00 because I have to go to Sunrise Service this morning and be there at five to help with the preparing stuff...bring stuff back in because they were taken out for Maundy Thursday and stuff like that. Anyway, on with the third, action-packed and somewhat twisted, part of this fic...after the disclaimer, anyway...
Disclaimer: I love cats. My cat belongs to me. So does the twisted plot of this thing that isn't even really that twisted compared to some plots I've seen. However, the Harry Potter characters and related stuff do not belong to me. Duh.
Parvati walked out from her room as she heard the slam of the door, signifying her fathers entrance. Her father had left, saying something like, "I'm going on errands." Parvati didn't bother to question him further; he had to be telling the truth. After all, he WAS her father.
But she couldn't help but wonder when she saw him sitting in the living room, head in hands and looking entirely distressed. "What's wrong, Daddy?" she asked gently.
"Nothing, Parvati," he answered warily. "Nothing at all."
But the truth was there was far more than nothing at all on his mind that moment. Because he had just witnessed It for the first time. A Death Eater meeting. It was...eerie. Something he had imagined too many times to count, but was so different from whatever he had imagined. The atmosphere seemed to be so thick it crushed you, the aura around Voldemort frightening enough to drive even the most innocent person who didn't know who -- or what -- the Dark Lord was away.
And there was his wife, right in the middle of it all and looking all the more happy for it.
The memory was clear and vivid in his mind then. They were assembled in a circle. A lot of men and someone he knew was his wife and Voldemort. But that wasn't what really scared him. What really scared him was the last figure.
Because it was Parvati. Unmistakably, undeniably Parvati. The same hair, the same eyes, wearing those familiar plain black robes. Who else could it be BUT Parvati?
He sighed. It was all giving him a headache and a heartache as well. His wife and his dearest -- or formally dearest -- daughter plotting to kill a man...who was the man? He wanted to know so bad. The man had to know. He couldn't have this knowledge that somebody was about to be killed and just do nothing!
And his wife! Much as it panged him to remember, he could still recall the love he had had for her which had been shattered into a million pieces when he found out the truth about her and the Dark Lord. And one of those million pieces, just one but significant nonetheless, remained. The edges of it were sharp, piercing his very soul. It was only a remain, but even small remains can wound our hearts.
But who were they going to kill?
It was driving him mad.
Who could it be? Then he realized. He shivered in realization that the man who lived just across the street was about to be killed...and with the aid, he realized, of the girl standing in his company just now. He swore aloud. Then, "Morrison!"
Parvati seemed worried. "Daddy, tell me what it is!"
But all her father did was cursed her and called her names so vulgar that she had never heard them and then stormed out of the room after saying, "You traitor. You God-cursed betrayer." He then crossed the street to the house of his best friend.
Padma was cracking up with laughter about the silly drama which the man was creating. A little misery was enough to cure her doubts and fears about the Dark Lord torturing her mother -- at least for a while, anyway. Tears of laughter were streaming down her face as tears of sorrow simultaneously streamed down her sisters.
For the man to think that it was Morrison that they were out to kill -- really! Her father was very stupid, but really. For the man to not realize that they were talking about HIM? Even if he didn't hear the beginning, he should have been able to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Silly of Mother to send her out just to find out what the man knew. Mother should have known that her ex was too stupid to figure it out anyway.
She caught herself. Never think Mother is less than perfect. Thoughts can become words and actions far too easily -- she had witnessed this enough in her life -- and if this thought became word or action, the consequences...well, quite frankly, she didn't even want to think about what the consequences would be.
But the really funny part was when he thought that she was Parvati. Ordinarily she'd be angry -- to take her for an idiot like Parvati was just the kind of thing that could stir her up -- but this just made her laugh. She loved seeing the Enemy hurt and, of course, Parvati WAS the Enemy. There was no mistaking that.
Momentarily she wondered why Parvati was the Enemy. She wasn't bad blood or anything, and really, she hadn't done anything against the Dark Side. All she had done was failed to be enlightened to the truth -- and what crime, really, was that when she had no control over it?
Padma pushed the thought away. That Parvati was the Enemy was a thought ingrained in her mind long ago by Mother and the Dark Lord. And you never, ever, reject what either said. Take it without thought, and never contemplate it. Contemplation could be dangerous, Padma knew, so she just avoided the act completely. Better safe than sorry, they always said.
She smiled. She knew enough from the few times she had spied on him that Father was, indeed, the idealistic, silly man which Mother had said he was. The type that could be so easily shattered when they found out something they didn't want to believe about a person just because they had put their trust so foolishly, their love so stupidly, into such a volatile thing: a person.
And when these people were shattered, they went...almost insane. They did things which they wouldn't believe they could do if they had foreseen it. She supposed it was like Peter. He put his trust in a person -- himself --, trusting that he would do right at all times. So when he was shattered by the people's inquiries as to whether he knew Jesus, he denied that he knew the man three times. But before it, he didn't believe that it could happen. [Sorry...I think I've been hearing the Passion a little too much since Easter's coming up so it's sort of seeping into my stories...hehe.]
She shook her head. No time for the Bible now. She had to get home now. She looked around for her normal Portkey. It wasn't their. She inwardly cursed. Her mother had forgotten it, but if something went wrong with it Mother would blame her anyway. That was how Mother was. She'd just have to apparate. Mother wouldn't be angry...
...Unless she messed up. And that was the only catch...and the entire problem. Because she did just that: mess up. She splinched. And she groaned and cursed rampantly; first, as she was just remembering now, she had forgotten to get the wretched location of the place, which was her prime -- her only -- mission in going there.
And then, her head -- the only part of her body in the vicinity of her mother -- saw her mother's angry, infuriated face screaming at her. And she cursed and let a single tear enter one of her eyes, only barely managing to hold it back. Now there would be hell to pay. And her mother looked at her, anger in her eyes, and said, "You splinched. You SPLINCHED! Stupid girl...you will pay for this. Oh yes, you will. Do not doubt that." And that was when Padma really became scared.
Parvati stared out the window, tears falling freely down her face. Great. Just great. Now her father had turned against her.
She had fared the last few days bravely, she thought, but the bravery was beginning to crack, her facade of cool understanding shattering to pieces before her very eyes. How could it be happening now?
And what in blazes was he saying, her being at a meeting of the Death Eaters? She had thought that her father's trust, her father's love, for her was one thing that would surely remain no matter what. So much for that thought.
How could he? The thought screamed out in her mind, blocking out all others. How could this be happening to HER, Parvati Patil? She recalled the thoughts she had thought just a few hours ago. She thought she was blessed. Well, so much for that thought too. Now she knew: she was cursed.
She groaned in emotional agony, an agony she had never known existed. The whole world as she knew it was crumbling before her very eyes. Was this how it would look when the world ended -- however it ended, by apocalypse or by the end of the sun? Was that how they would feel?
She looked across the street at her father. He had knocked on the door across the street...who did it belong to again? Ah yes -- the Morrison family, of course. An old friend of her fathers. Why did Father think that she was going to kill them? Or that they would get killed at all?
She realized she was calling her father Father now instead of just Daddy. Did that mean anything?
But she didn't have time to wonder about that. All she could wonder about now was why: why her father hated her now and what led him to think SHE consorted with the Death Eaters; why he thought Morrison was going to be killed; and what the truth was about everything.
He pounded on the door anxiously. "Andrew, Andrew! Open the door for me, for God's sake!" His heart pounded anxiously in his throat as one thought ran rapidly through the crazy highways that were his mind: Could he be dead already and I'm too late?
Mercifully, he was not. Andrew opened the door. "For the love of Christ, Timothy, what is it?"
Timothy Patil was shaking like a leaf, shaking as he never had before. Tears and sweat mingled with one another on his face. "They're--they're going to get you!" Timothy finally spoke in a trembling voice.
Andrew's expression was not the scared, shocked, or numb one Timothy had expected but merely one of confusion. "Timothy, you're speaking to me like a child! Now what is the matter, really? Start at the beginning: who is going to do what to me?"
"The Death Eaters!" said Timothy, only calming down a bit. "They're -- they're plotting to kill you! I heard it. I witnessed one of their meetings.
Now the reaction happened. His expression fluctuated between numbness and fear. "Timothy -- you can't be telling me the truth!"
"I wish I wasn't," Timothy said, with a resigned sigh. Somehow he was less fearful, less anxious now that he had told. It was, at least, off his back. He had done all he could now. "But I'm telling the truth, Timothy, I promise."
"Isn't -- isn't there anything you or I could do about it?" he looked anxious, scared. Of course he did. No one -- well, not no one, but few certainly -- wanted to be killed because of the most evil wizard on the planet.
"No, Andrew," Timothy sighed. It was true...unless, "I've got it! How we can protect you!"
"How?" asked Andrew, skeptical. But when he heard the plan, even he had to smile. That would work. Yes, that would certainly work.
When Timothy returned to his home and saw his daughter, his almost-benign emotions at helping Andrew disappeared abruptly. Stupid, dratted traitor! He still didn't understand how she could have done it. He had been so utterly overtaken, so utterly fooled by the girl. How could she?
Finally he managed to speak. "How could you, Parvati?"
"Daddy --"
"Hold your tongue, girl!" He nearly screamed at her. "You've fooled me long enough with your Daddy and I Promise nonsense! I can't believe you. You swear to me that you will be loyal, if necessary you will fight and die for England, and then you don't even fulfill the first!"
"But Daddy --"
"Stop trying to fool me! It isn't going to work!" he was red in the face, angered, cruel. It scared Parvati; she had never seen her father like this. Saddened, yes, scared, yes, but not angered nor cruel. It was something foreign to her father's face.
"Daddy!" she tried to speak, but nothing happened. Or rather, something did, but all it was was another interruption.
"Parvati, I know you're betraying me and us," Timothy growled. "I'm not trying to bring you to trial because I know the stupid people wouldn't convict dear, sweet, "Daddy-ing" Parvati unless their lives depended upon it. And there's still that little bit of love for you." Parvati was surprised. Her father still loved her? She was tempted to interrupt but did not, knowing her attempts would be futile.
"But I can't have a spy, a traitor, one who betrays, staying in my house, being able to spy on the very person who is my best friend. So we will have to do something, won't we? Perhaps to Albringer Summer Camp for Witches?"
"No!" Parvati finally yelled, half expecting to be interrupted. The interruption, however, never happened so she continued: "I'm sure its nice and all but they're all snobs and I only get to be home in the summer and...I just don't want to go!"
She wasn't sure what it was about Albringer, it was just that there was something with it that made her know it was not a place she wanted to go.
"Parvati, don't think you're going to get any sympathy from me, even if I still love you," Timothy half-roared. "You're not. And if you won't go there on your own free will, I'll make you." And he roared the banishing charm at a trembling Parvati Patil.
The first time she had ever seen him use cruelty. But here he was, banishing her like an object? How could he? How could kind, sweet Daddy do that to HER? Even if we do strange things induced by potent circumstances, how could he?
But she didn't have much time when she peered around her new surroundings and her heart sank. Before she just had vague awareness that the place was not going to be good. Now it was as clear as day why. And it was nothing light.
It was something very, very dark.
A.N.2: Can you tell why? Probably most people can...but I won't spoil it for anyone who can't. Anyway, please read Part 3, in which you will learn why Timothy is so sure that Andrew will be killed, what's going to happen to Padma because she splinched, what the idea was about how Timothy was going to protect Andrew, whether Timothy will realize that it wasn't Parvati, what is so awful about this summer camp, and more! Soon to come in Part 4! (Hey, it rhymes...more and four. Hehe.)