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CLAWS
OF A RAVEN
by Tyde
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Chapter Eight
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Halloween that year was bitterly cold. Looking out the window behind her Sorora noticed small swirls of snow were making their way through the air. It was as if Voldemort was sucking the warmth out of the world and the weather was the first to suffer. She turned back to the table to make a start on her dinner.
Chicken legs and vegetables stared up at her. Pushing the peas around on her plate for a while she speared a potato and popped it into her mouth. It was rather too large to comfortably chew and she almost choked on it. It was at that moment that she noticed the Slytherin Prefect sneering at her. She couldn't help wondering if after the Quidditch game his father had told him all about what had happened those years ago.
How was it possible that a son could almost be the exact replica of his father? Draco, whom she'd been regarding with loathing ever since she'd bumped into him in Diagon Alley, seemed identical to Lucius. At first it had annoyed her, he was after all shorter than her and she still lived by the credence that if they were shorter than you they couldn't harm you, but now it had become a personal crusade of sorts to make his life a living hell.
She'd heard about the antics of the pretend Mad Eye Moody last semester when he'd turned Malfoy into a bouncing ferret. That thought kept her smiling during the toughest times, but she knew there was nothing that could stop the memory flashes that happened now almost every day. They would come in spurts and often just patches of a memory would rear up in her mind, the others would sit in the back of her brain, as if binding their time.
In fact as she watched the little Lucius eating his dinner and making nasty comments (no doubt about her apparent inability to eat) it slipped her mind back into those nightmarish memories and she sat in her chair, her body in the physical world – her mind in utter terror.
"Are you really that stupid, girl?" A malicious smile spread it's way across Lucius Malfoy's face. "You think you can come into my house with a silly idea in your head about saving us? I would have thought a Ravenclaw like you would have had more sense"
His booming laugh sent shivers through her spine. She crouched at his feet, shaking slightly under his gaze. A wound on her forehead was bleeding profusely and she tried to blink the blood out of her eyes that were beginning to sting. She tried not to cry out as his boot crushed down on one of her hands, several of the bones snapping under his weight.
"Severus and I don't need to be saved, we know exactly what we're doing, serving the Dark Lord in his work. I think you'll find it's you that needs to be saved"
She gulped as his wand issued a stream of icy silver light that hit her in the stomach and then she was doubled up in pain. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before. Pain like white-hot needles poked itself up and down her arms, nestling in her chest and it felt like someone was trying to cut out her heart with a spoon. Sorora's eyes rolled back in her head as her own screams filled the air.
Images flashed before her eyes. They were all of her, when she was a child. But the difference was she wasn't striving to gain the attention of her parents, she already had it. They were playing with her, praising her, bursting with pride as she graduated from Hogwarts. They were smiling and they were hugging the Sorora of their reality and she could feel the love in the air just beyond her reach.
She was wallowing in something beyond that, a sea of despair, an ocean of torture. Sorora cried out in pain, he wasn't just torturing her with physical harm, he was getting to her mind as well. All the perfect thoughts she'd had growing up, the way she wanted things to be, they were being dangled in front of her cruelly.
As the spell started to crush her heart with it's heaviness she felt it shoot up little tentacles to her brain, what felt like electricity buzzing through her brain cells. Sorora was flailing about on the rug in front of Lucius and he was smiling. He was smiling down at her. The bastard. Just when she thought she would die he would lift the spell and she'd breathe again. Her head throbbing and her chest aching. And then as soon as the reprieve kicked in it seemed to start all over again. Ripping and tearing pain through every muscle and bone.
He tortured her for 11 hours straight. Not as long as he would with the Longbottoms, but long enough to make her a bit off kilter.
She liked to think she was tough, honestly she did, but those memories always proved otherwise. Why hadn't she hit him back with a simple hex, something to disorient him long enough for her to escape, but she hadn't. Sorora had been taught by her parents to stand up to bullies and the like and she'd tried her hardest but they'd always walked all over her. Her hopes of her big brother standing up for her had been wiped out the first time she was pushed into a mud puddle by the village children, and he'd just turned his back on her.
She hadn't been at all surprised when the letter came from Hogwarts to inform her parents that Severus had been placed in Slytherin. Everyone else was shocked by it but Sorora just put it down to them not really knowing what he was like. He had been their favourite for so long, excelling at Potions like his mother, and destined for great things.
The day the Ministry told them what Severus had chosen as a profession was the day their golden boy became tarnished. There had been the initial shock and disbelief (which she'd expected, it's not every day you find out your son is a supporter of Voldemort) and then the numbing feeling as they had accepted the truth.
His about-face a few weeks before the Potters were murdered did nothing to lift their bad opinions of him and he hadn't seen his parents in over 20 years. When Sorora went to their house for dinner two weeks before she left for her duties at Hogwarts she mentioned that she would probably run into Severus because he taught there. Her mother had simply blinked a little harder than normal and pretended like nothing happened. Her father, Paxen, had grunted and clenched a fist but said nothing.
"I'll just try to avoid him then, shall I?" she'd asked but no answers were forthcoming. To have such a seemingly perfect brother fall from grace had not been easy on his sibling.
Sorora tried hard in school and tried her best to get them to becoming loving and attentive again but it was no use. She thought if she went after her brother's school friend Lucius Malfoy and convinced him that he and Severus had been brainwashed it would return things to normal. But of course that plan went out the window. A miserable failure she noted. She only got goose bumps Draco was around, a remanent no doubt of the terror his father struck in her., he was vicious, but he wasn't in the same league as his father. He was acting at being a tyrant, Daddy's perfect little clone. For all the similarities between the two she sensed a vague shift of something in the younger one.
Professor Palgetti had been waiting years to be the school bully and she saw no problem in starting with Draco Malfoy. She called out across the room stopping most of the students in mid-mouthful.
"Ten points from Slytherin" she said pointing at Malfoy.
He looked like he'd just swallowed a stone, or worse, an elephant. He made to stand up in rage but she pushed him down with a wave of her wand.
"You know why, Mr Malfoy". But he didn't and she didn't offer an explanation. Dumbledore looked on curiously, but did not try to intervene.
Snape narrowed his eyes at her and then his gaze fell on Fred and George Weasley who were about to spread Giggling Paste all over Neville's bread roll. As much as he loathed taking away an opportunity to embarrass Longbottom he announced that unless "those insufferable twins" didn't cease what they were doing immediately they would score detentions on top of the ten points he'd just taken from Gryffindor. He looked to his sister; sure she would be fuming but was incensed to find she didn't care. Or worse, hadn't even noticed.
Professor McGonagall however looked ready to whack him over the head with her goblet.
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It started off rather quietly. As a special Halloween treat Dumbledore had organised for a shipment of Butterbeer to be brought in from Hogsmeade. A few Hufflepuffs cracked the lids off of theirs and gulped down a few mouthfuls before they suddenly fell to the floor clutching their throats. Soon chaos started around the room as several more students (Gryffindors and Ravenclaws) also did the same thing.
In the din someone yelled "They've been poisoned". Dumbledore called for quiet and for everyone to "please not panic" in light of the events.
Ron and Harry were eyeing their unopened bottles of Butterbeer warily and Neville was looking at Fred and George to see if it was their doing. They shook their heads in response to him and looked as horrified as everybody else.
Out of the blue Lee Jordan who was sitting on George's right keeled over and passed out on the floor. The bottle he'd been sipping from smashed on the floor next to him and splattered his robes. Madam Pomfrey was flitting between fallen students and she glanced at Albus with a look of concern. It certainly appeared to be a case of mass poisoning.
In all there were thirty-five students unconscious on the floor of the Great Hall or in so much pain they could not talk. They were clawing at the stone floor and gasping like someone had their hands about their neck, choking the life out of them. Not one person in the room missed the fact that all Slytherins were in perfect health.
Stretchers were conjured and the ailing students taken up to the hospital wing with Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall in tow. A deathly silence fell over the people left as they tried to digest this all. The rest of the teachers (with the Head Boy and Girl) had a whispered conference although Hermione noticed Snape seemed particularly alarmed by it all. The Head Boy announced that everyone was to return to their dormitories at once and that Prefects were to try and keep everyone calm.
Hermione sprung into action and gathered up the frightened first year's who had all been looking forward to their first taste of Butterbeer and led them towards the staircase. Dean Thomas (also a Prefect) herded the rest of the Gryffindors behind the first years and they formed a solemn line as they tramped up to Gryffindor Tower.
They were informed that Professor McGonagall would speak to them later with further developments. The Gryffindors sat about the common room haphazardly. The Weasley twins sat in armchairs by the fire staring unblinkingly at the flames. Katie was trying to reassure them that Lee would be okay but as nobody knew exactly what was going on the words fell on deaf ears. Ron and Harry were glumly sitting on a rug, a chessboard in between them.
Hermione seemed fidgety and was pacing back and forth near the portrait hole. She seemed to be debating over the importance of two things. Doing a quick head count she ascertained that all students not affected by the Butterbeer were safely in the common room.
Creating a momentary diversion by making a giant apple pie appear on one of the tables she snuck up to the fifth year boy's dormitory to take something out of Harry's trunk. Returning with her robes bulging and an urgent look in her eyes Hermione gestured to her best friends.
Ron and Harry looking up from their half-hearted game of chess got the hint and followed her to a nook beside the doorway. She removed Harry's invisibility cloak from under her robes and held it out to him. She held something else in her other hand but they couldn't see clearly in the dim light.
"What's going on?" asked Harry.
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Snape coolgirl – patience is a virtue my dear. Things unfurl slowly. If you give the people all they want at the beginning then what is left to give them later?
Colleen and Fish (the fish) – I love getting him all angry and flustered. You know in the second movie how Snape looks when he's telling off Ron and Harry when they are found out about the flying car? That's my favourite look at the moment. Suitably angry and flustered all in one.
Corrie – thanks.
