A/N: A few things: For some reason, italics and bold lettering never stay
in my chapters once I upload them onto ff.net, and I don't know why. If
anyone has any suggestions on why this might be happening or on how to get
the italics and bold lettering to stay, please let me know! (The song below
the chapter title should be in italics, as should the artist and the song
title.) (Also, any spells that have been typed in this chapter and all
chapters previous to this one and following this one should be in italics.
So just so you know, it's not my error, it's the computer :))
Thanks to AgiVega, Cherie, and Chinese Fireball for reviewing!
Here's where the story gets moving..
Voldemort's Worst Scandal
Chapter Four
Malachi and Allegra
And now I'm lost,
And now I run from you,
And now I see,
Just how I bleed from you,
And all the lies, all the lies,
How could I let you in?
But now it's clear,
I went along for the ride.
~Vanessa Carlton, "Swindler"
...For them, the world commenced to collapse.
~^~^~^~
Ginny Weasley stirred uncomfortably. A strange scent reached her nostrils as she breathed in deeply, trying to detect what it was. Eventually she stopped wracking her brain for ideas- thinking gave her a headache. Her whole body ached; and she was too tired to even open her eyes.
She flinched as something small and moist hit her face. Raindrops! One fell onto her parched lips and Ginny licked them gratefully. Whatever she was laying on was soft, yet felt rough and scratchy against her skin, unlike her bed at Hogwarts, which was composed of the softest feather mattresses and pillows.
If Ginny had been well enough, she would have been able to touch her forehead and determine that she was burning up with a fever. If she had been well enough, she could have looked into a mirror and seen that her cheeks were a deep crimson. She coughed hoarsely, then cringed-her throat hurt terribly. Then she realized that her mouth was excessively dry-she was dehydrated.
The rain began to fall harder, and soon she was soaked through. She moaned pathetically, and cried out in her delirium, "Mum? Mum?" before passing out in a dead faint.
"Milady? Milady, please wake," cried a boy slightly older than Ginny. He was tall, with longish brown, curly hair that barely grazed his broad shoulders. He had heard Ginny moaning on his way into his cottage from the privy and had come to see what had happened. Ginny, of course, did not stir. The boy looked wildly around, feeling inside his pockets and patting himself. "Rats! My wand is in the cottage!"
"Oy! Over here!" shouted a voice that would have been familiar to Ginny, had she been conscious. The boy quickly looked over in the direction that the shout had come from. Vaguely, he could see a red head sticking up out of one of the haystacks in the field. He squinted-with every passing moment, the storm got worse, making it harder and harder to see clearly.
Torn between going to see what the redheaded person wanted and saving the young maiden, he finally picked up the maiden and brought her with him to go see what the redhead needed.
"Ginny!" shouted the redhead as soon as the boy came over with her. "Thank God, I was worried sick. Ginny?" he frowned as she didn't stir. The redhead turned his attention to the boy holding Ginny. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"I could ask you the same thing," the boy replied, "For this be my own field, and I have every right to know what be goin' on inside it."
"I have no bloody idea how I got here," the redhead (Ron) said. "But I'm Ron Weasley, and this is Ginny, my sister. And this-" he gestured to a figure lying on the ground, "is Hermione Granger. All of us got to this field by strange means, and I for one don't know where we are. But it appears that Hermione and Ginny need medical care, and I have it under good authority that my friend Harry Potter might be here, too. He usually ends up in the same messes as the rest of us."
"Sorry, sir. I had no idea. I am Malachi Antwerp. And welcome to me humble field. Come now; let us bring the maidens into the cottage. Me sister may watch over them while we search for your comrade."
Ron nodded his soaking wet head in agreement, and stooped to pick up an obviously unconscious Hermione. He followed closely behind Malachi and momentarily they reached a small cottage. Through the rain, Ron could make out that the roof was made of thatched straw and there was a thin trail of smoke coming out of a chimney.
Malachi somehow opened the wooden door to the cottage while still holding Ginny and he and Ron quickly went into the cottage, slammed the door, and stood, dripping wet, with water trickling onto the hard-packed dirt floor.
The whole cottage was only one large room, and up above them was a room that took up half the space of the large downstairs room. There was a wooden balcony up there, implying that if you were up there, you could look over the balcony and onto the room below. You could see the thatching of the roof, and there were herbs and dried flowers hanging from the thick wooden rafters that separated the sections of thatching.
Downstairs, there was a fireplace directly across the room from the door. There were shelves lining the walls, topped with strange-looking jars full of powders and undistinguishable liquids, and foods, too. A square wooden table was in the room, and there were four wooden stools surrounding it. On it was a pewter vase full of huge purple flowers. There was a wooden washstand with a washbasin on top of it, and a cloth hanging from the wall next to it.
"Wow," Ron said. "We are so not at Hogwarts anymore."
There was a rather pretty maiden around Ron's age carding wool in a corner of the cottage. She had long brown curly hair like Malachi's only much longer, and she was of medium height. She was extremely skinny with intoxicating green eyes. She had stood up quickly as the door was thrown open. "Malachi," she exclaimed, "where have you been? I was so worried when you didn't come back from the privy, what with this cursed storm. And," she continued, "Whom have ye brought with you?"
"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron said. "This is Hermione Granger, and my sister, Ginny. Who are you?"
"Allegra Antwerp," she replied, smiling, blushing slightly, and curtsying. "It's a pleasure," she added shyly. Ron blushed, also. Snapping back to her senses, Allegra said, "Hurry, then, lay those poor maidens down. We'd better not put them on the beds in the loft, 'tis much too cold and drafty up there. Wait a moment and I'll get some blankets, then I'll put the blankets on the floor by the fire for them."
Allegra disappeared up a staircase lining the far wall and soon returned with several quilts, two of which she spread onto the floor by the fireplace. Malachi laid Ginny on one and Ron laid Hermione on the other.
"Allegra, we have to go back out into the storm. Ron here has lost a friend." Malachi announced. "I'll just get me wand and a charm then we be leavin'."
He went to one of the cupboards lining the wall and looked around in it, mumbling and shoving things aside, until finally he triumphantly drew out what appeared to be a dried onion on a string. "For good luck," he explained. Malachi then retrieved his wand from a chair in a corner. "Would ye like a coat? 'Tis chilly out there, and who knows how long we may be searchin'." He started up the staircase as if already convinced that Ron would want a coat.
"Yes, that would be nice." Ron said, shivering a bit as he waited for Malachi to come back downstairs with the wrap. He watched Allegra putter around the cottage.
First, she had taken out her wand and transformed Ginny's and Hermione's clothes into dry robes, and then she had hung their wet robes in front of the fire in the fireplace to dry. She had hung a cauldron from a chain extending down from the chimney over the fire, and was busy making a potion. Every once in a while Allegra would go back to the cauldron and stir the bubbling liquid in it or add a new ingredient. She bathed Hermione and Ginny's faces with water from the washbasin.
Malachi came back downstairs with a heavy green cloak in his hand, and he was wearing one of deep blue. He tossed the cloak at Ron. "Come," he said, and opened the door. Ron, after putting on his cloak, followed him out, and Allegra closed the door behind them, whispering, "Godspeed."
Outside, it had become pitch black. The storm was much worse. The wind howled, whipping out their cloaks. The rain pounded harder and harder, almost as if someone in the heavens had decided to dump buckets of water toward the Earth.
"What be your friend's name?" Malachi shouted over the storm.
"Harry. Harry Potter," Ron shouted back, hoping to be heard.
"Harry! Harry!" thundered Malachi. "HARRY!" Ron soon joined him in the cries.
They headed toward the field of haystacks first, because that was where Malachi had first found Ron, Ginny, and Hermione. They searched and searched, but Harry was nowhere to be found. As they searched, Ron pondered inwardly why he thought Harry was here. If Harry turned out not to be here after all, then he was wasting both his time and Malachi's. But if Harry was here, and they just went back to the cottage, then Harry might get sick.
Then, unexpectedly, Malachi tripped over something on the ground. He took out his wand and muttered, "Lumos." Who his wand illuminated was someone Ron never would have expected to come across in...wherever this place was, in the middle of a storm, when he was expecting to find Harry Potter. This person, in fact, was the exact opposite of Harry Potter.
Draco Malfoy lie in the mud next to a soaking wet haystack.
~^~^~^~
Back at the cottage, Allegra was almost finished with her potion. She stirred it feverishly, casting a backward glance at Hermione and Ginny. As she did so, something gold glinted and caught her eye-it was glimmering just a bit over the collar of Ginny's deep green robe.
Allegra pulled back Ginny's collar and saw that a gold chain was hanging from her delicate, cool white neck. Allegra gently tugged on it and drew out a necklace of a most beautiful quality. It was a golden deer, so intricately designed onto the gold of the necklace that hairs were visible on its back. There was so much detail that you could see gentleness in the deer's eye. And in the middle of the deer's back rested a deep pink- colored stone- a rhodonite. Allegra was amazed at the fine quality of the piece-she had never seen anything so luxurious on all of her life, even out of all the things in her mother's jewelry box.
Curious, Allegra decided to see if Hermione, too, had a necklace of wealth. She pulled back Hermione's royal blue collar and there was a silver- colored necklace in there. Her good senses told her that it was platinum. Only on Hermione's, there was an owl carved into the platinum, and into the owl was placed a jade gemstone. Allegra was amazed that these two strange girls had acquired such wealth.
Then she turned the owl necklace over and on the back was inscribed a deer, a dragon, a lion, and a hawk. Allegra was puzzled. She went back to Ginny's necklace and turned it over: the same thing was inscribed on the back of Ginny's necklace, only in the place of the deer that was on Hermione's, there was an owl.
Allegra shook her head, sighed, and stood up. She would tell Malachi and Ron when they got back. For now, she was going to focus only on helping to bring these two sick girls back to health. By now her potion was complete, so she got two cups from one of her many cupboards and ladled portions of the potion into each. Then Allegra poured some into both Ginny and Hermione's mouths.
All she could do now was wait.
A/N: Thanks for reading, please leave a review! (With any suggestions if you have them about the italics thing, please.)
nt
Thanks to AgiVega, Cherie, and Chinese Fireball for reviewing!
Here's where the story gets moving..
Voldemort's Worst Scandal
Chapter Four
Malachi and Allegra
And now I'm lost,
And now I run from you,
And now I see,
Just how I bleed from you,
And all the lies, all the lies,
How could I let you in?
But now it's clear,
I went along for the ride.
~Vanessa Carlton, "Swindler"
...For them, the world commenced to collapse.
~^~^~^~
Ginny Weasley stirred uncomfortably. A strange scent reached her nostrils as she breathed in deeply, trying to detect what it was. Eventually she stopped wracking her brain for ideas- thinking gave her a headache. Her whole body ached; and she was too tired to even open her eyes.
She flinched as something small and moist hit her face. Raindrops! One fell onto her parched lips and Ginny licked them gratefully. Whatever she was laying on was soft, yet felt rough and scratchy against her skin, unlike her bed at Hogwarts, which was composed of the softest feather mattresses and pillows.
If Ginny had been well enough, she would have been able to touch her forehead and determine that she was burning up with a fever. If she had been well enough, she could have looked into a mirror and seen that her cheeks were a deep crimson. She coughed hoarsely, then cringed-her throat hurt terribly. Then she realized that her mouth was excessively dry-she was dehydrated.
The rain began to fall harder, and soon she was soaked through. She moaned pathetically, and cried out in her delirium, "Mum? Mum?" before passing out in a dead faint.
"Milady? Milady, please wake," cried a boy slightly older than Ginny. He was tall, with longish brown, curly hair that barely grazed his broad shoulders. He had heard Ginny moaning on his way into his cottage from the privy and had come to see what had happened. Ginny, of course, did not stir. The boy looked wildly around, feeling inside his pockets and patting himself. "Rats! My wand is in the cottage!"
"Oy! Over here!" shouted a voice that would have been familiar to Ginny, had she been conscious. The boy quickly looked over in the direction that the shout had come from. Vaguely, he could see a red head sticking up out of one of the haystacks in the field. He squinted-with every passing moment, the storm got worse, making it harder and harder to see clearly.
Torn between going to see what the redheaded person wanted and saving the young maiden, he finally picked up the maiden and brought her with him to go see what the redhead needed.
"Ginny!" shouted the redhead as soon as the boy came over with her. "Thank God, I was worried sick. Ginny?" he frowned as she didn't stir. The redhead turned his attention to the boy holding Ginny. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"I could ask you the same thing," the boy replied, "For this be my own field, and I have every right to know what be goin' on inside it."
"I have no bloody idea how I got here," the redhead (Ron) said. "But I'm Ron Weasley, and this is Ginny, my sister. And this-" he gestured to a figure lying on the ground, "is Hermione Granger. All of us got to this field by strange means, and I for one don't know where we are. But it appears that Hermione and Ginny need medical care, and I have it under good authority that my friend Harry Potter might be here, too. He usually ends up in the same messes as the rest of us."
"Sorry, sir. I had no idea. I am Malachi Antwerp. And welcome to me humble field. Come now; let us bring the maidens into the cottage. Me sister may watch over them while we search for your comrade."
Ron nodded his soaking wet head in agreement, and stooped to pick up an obviously unconscious Hermione. He followed closely behind Malachi and momentarily they reached a small cottage. Through the rain, Ron could make out that the roof was made of thatched straw and there was a thin trail of smoke coming out of a chimney.
Malachi somehow opened the wooden door to the cottage while still holding Ginny and he and Ron quickly went into the cottage, slammed the door, and stood, dripping wet, with water trickling onto the hard-packed dirt floor.
The whole cottage was only one large room, and up above them was a room that took up half the space of the large downstairs room. There was a wooden balcony up there, implying that if you were up there, you could look over the balcony and onto the room below. You could see the thatching of the roof, and there were herbs and dried flowers hanging from the thick wooden rafters that separated the sections of thatching.
Downstairs, there was a fireplace directly across the room from the door. There were shelves lining the walls, topped with strange-looking jars full of powders and undistinguishable liquids, and foods, too. A square wooden table was in the room, and there were four wooden stools surrounding it. On it was a pewter vase full of huge purple flowers. There was a wooden washstand with a washbasin on top of it, and a cloth hanging from the wall next to it.
"Wow," Ron said. "We are so not at Hogwarts anymore."
There was a rather pretty maiden around Ron's age carding wool in a corner of the cottage. She had long brown curly hair like Malachi's only much longer, and she was of medium height. She was extremely skinny with intoxicating green eyes. She had stood up quickly as the door was thrown open. "Malachi," she exclaimed, "where have you been? I was so worried when you didn't come back from the privy, what with this cursed storm. And," she continued, "Whom have ye brought with you?"
"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron said. "This is Hermione Granger, and my sister, Ginny. Who are you?"
"Allegra Antwerp," she replied, smiling, blushing slightly, and curtsying. "It's a pleasure," she added shyly. Ron blushed, also. Snapping back to her senses, Allegra said, "Hurry, then, lay those poor maidens down. We'd better not put them on the beds in the loft, 'tis much too cold and drafty up there. Wait a moment and I'll get some blankets, then I'll put the blankets on the floor by the fire for them."
Allegra disappeared up a staircase lining the far wall and soon returned with several quilts, two of which she spread onto the floor by the fireplace. Malachi laid Ginny on one and Ron laid Hermione on the other.
"Allegra, we have to go back out into the storm. Ron here has lost a friend." Malachi announced. "I'll just get me wand and a charm then we be leavin'."
He went to one of the cupboards lining the wall and looked around in it, mumbling and shoving things aside, until finally he triumphantly drew out what appeared to be a dried onion on a string. "For good luck," he explained. Malachi then retrieved his wand from a chair in a corner. "Would ye like a coat? 'Tis chilly out there, and who knows how long we may be searchin'." He started up the staircase as if already convinced that Ron would want a coat.
"Yes, that would be nice." Ron said, shivering a bit as he waited for Malachi to come back downstairs with the wrap. He watched Allegra putter around the cottage.
First, she had taken out her wand and transformed Ginny's and Hermione's clothes into dry robes, and then she had hung their wet robes in front of the fire in the fireplace to dry. She had hung a cauldron from a chain extending down from the chimney over the fire, and was busy making a potion. Every once in a while Allegra would go back to the cauldron and stir the bubbling liquid in it or add a new ingredient. She bathed Hermione and Ginny's faces with water from the washbasin.
Malachi came back downstairs with a heavy green cloak in his hand, and he was wearing one of deep blue. He tossed the cloak at Ron. "Come," he said, and opened the door. Ron, after putting on his cloak, followed him out, and Allegra closed the door behind them, whispering, "Godspeed."
Outside, it had become pitch black. The storm was much worse. The wind howled, whipping out their cloaks. The rain pounded harder and harder, almost as if someone in the heavens had decided to dump buckets of water toward the Earth.
"What be your friend's name?" Malachi shouted over the storm.
"Harry. Harry Potter," Ron shouted back, hoping to be heard.
"Harry! Harry!" thundered Malachi. "HARRY!" Ron soon joined him in the cries.
They headed toward the field of haystacks first, because that was where Malachi had first found Ron, Ginny, and Hermione. They searched and searched, but Harry was nowhere to be found. As they searched, Ron pondered inwardly why he thought Harry was here. If Harry turned out not to be here after all, then he was wasting both his time and Malachi's. But if Harry was here, and they just went back to the cottage, then Harry might get sick.
Then, unexpectedly, Malachi tripped over something on the ground. He took out his wand and muttered, "Lumos." Who his wand illuminated was someone Ron never would have expected to come across in...wherever this place was, in the middle of a storm, when he was expecting to find Harry Potter. This person, in fact, was the exact opposite of Harry Potter.
Draco Malfoy lie in the mud next to a soaking wet haystack.
~^~^~^~
Back at the cottage, Allegra was almost finished with her potion. She stirred it feverishly, casting a backward glance at Hermione and Ginny. As she did so, something gold glinted and caught her eye-it was glimmering just a bit over the collar of Ginny's deep green robe.
Allegra pulled back Ginny's collar and saw that a gold chain was hanging from her delicate, cool white neck. Allegra gently tugged on it and drew out a necklace of a most beautiful quality. It was a golden deer, so intricately designed onto the gold of the necklace that hairs were visible on its back. There was so much detail that you could see gentleness in the deer's eye. And in the middle of the deer's back rested a deep pink- colored stone- a rhodonite. Allegra was amazed at the fine quality of the piece-she had never seen anything so luxurious on all of her life, even out of all the things in her mother's jewelry box.
Curious, Allegra decided to see if Hermione, too, had a necklace of wealth. She pulled back Hermione's royal blue collar and there was a silver- colored necklace in there. Her good senses told her that it was platinum. Only on Hermione's, there was an owl carved into the platinum, and into the owl was placed a jade gemstone. Allegra was amazed that these two strange girls had acquired such wealth.
Then she turned the owl necklace over and on the back was inscribed a deer, a dragon, a lion, and a hawk. Allegra was puzzled. She went back to Ginny's necklace and turned it over: the same thing was inscribed on the back of Ginny's necklace, only in the place of the deer that was on Hermione's, there was an owl.
Allegra shook her head, sighed, and stood up. She would tell Malachi and Ron when they got back. For now, she was going to focus only on helping to bring these two sick girls back to health. By now her potion was complete, so she got two cups from one of her many cupboards and ladled portions of the potion into each. Then Allegra poured some into both Ginny and Hermione's mouths.
All she could do now was wait.
A/N: Thanks for reading, please leave a review! (With any suggestions if you have them about the italics thing, please.)
nt
