All right all right… For those of you who have read the update on my bio page, you know that I have taken a break from fanfiction writing to concentrate on some original work. (which, btw, is going quite splendidly, I'm happy to report!) I really hadn't planned on adding to any of my fanfiction stories for a while.
Well, as it happens, I was reading some fanfiction [The Insanity of Hogwarts trilogy by Spam Warrior… if you haven't read it, go do so now. Forget about this piece of garbage here, Spam Warrior's stuff is some of the best I've ever read…. It's not only creative and totally awesome, but it's so froopin' funny!!!!!!!! So go read it!!!]
Oh, yeah, so I was reading that for the millionth time, and I was suddenly inspired to add to my own pitiful story, which really pales in comparison, but ah well! And plus, I think if I put off writing for another day, Kelly would have had me cursed so badly that I wouldn't even've been able to type… either that or she'd put the Imperious curse on me and make me write… *shudders* Yeah, so, here it is, the next chappie of Harry Potter and the Song of Deception!
Disclaimer: I am the creator of Adele, her family, Kelly's family, and I am the /unfortunate/ creator of Kelly/Rachel
Ooh, btw… In this chapter, we really begin to learn about our dear Ms. Banson… hence the title "Explanations" =D I don't wanna give /too/ much away, but I've been keeping secrets from you guys for so long, I figured now would be as good a time as any to clear up some things… ;) I mean, that would be cruel, to just leave the story as is without clearing up some of the things you people have been yelling at me to answer!
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Harry Potter and the Song of Deception
By Hollie
Adele was quite positive that she had never been so utterly terrified in her entire life. She and Draco ran, flat-out, from the Owlry, not even pausing to catch the breath that came in short gasps until they had reached the safety of the Slytherin common room.
Draco slumped panting against the wall, his skin so pale it was almost transparent, and his white-blonde hair plastered to his forehead in sweaty clumps. Fortunately for his pride, none of the other Slytherins were about, and the two were able to collect themselves peacefully without snickers or cries of, "what the hell happened to you?!" Adele was thankful that there was no one else around; she didn't think she could bare the looks of horror shock or any other emotion that her peers would look upon her with.
Once he gained control of his breath, Draco looked up at his trembling cousin. Adele looked as frightened as a rabbit when cornered by a large and fearsome predator. Her hands shook, her eyes were wide as diner plates and her chin trembled uncontrollably. Her knees shook, getting terribly weak, and Draco felt as if he could practically see the strength draining out of the girl.
"Sit," he croaked, his throat suddenly hoarse. She sat obediently, her body still quivering unceasingly. Briefly Draco hoped that he didn't look as terrible as she did. Then he scolded himself for being superficial; it wasn't as if his father was there to lecture him on appearance. "I suppose I can't get rid of him ever… not even in my own head," Draco thought bitterly.
"Draco?" Adele's voice, barely above a whisper, wavered. "Draco," she started again, "what're we going to do?"
Draco realized that she had been depending entirely on him to get her out of the mess she, well, the both of them now, were in. "Since when did I become the big protector? The one who has to fix all the problems!" he though angrily, clenching his teeth. "When did I, Draco Malfoy, coldest boy at Hogwarts, become the dependable one?!"
He took a deep, calming breath. He was thinking like a spoiled brat, and he knew it. Adele looked up to him, depended on him because he was the only friend she had in the entire world. It was unnerving to know that he was Adele's only hope, and if he wasn't able to get them out of the mess, it was doubtful that either of them would live to see their sixteenth birthdays.
Draco felt Adele's eyes staring at him and he wracked his brain to think of an answer to her question. Finally, he was forced to settle on the truth.
He looked up and met her gaze steadily.
"I don't know."
"What happened?!" Harry looked at his best friend, his emerald eyes widened in shock. Hermione had just finished recounting the unusual behavior she had witnessed in the Gryffindor transfer student several nights ago, but it was a bit too much for Harry to process.
"I told you," Hermione said, increasingly impatient. "She opened up her trunk, then lifted up this compartment in the bottom, and she took out his little purse thing. Then, and this was the part that was rather unnerving, she started chanting in this weird language… I've never even heard one like it! It didn't seem to follow any of the usual structures when.." Hermione began to ramble on and on about this new language.
"Trust Herm to be an encyclopedia even when she's going nutters," Harry thought. After several moments, (Hermione was beginning to explain about how Latin was derived) Harry realized that if he let her go on, she'd be explaining how each and every language had come into being in as much detail as she could, and that that could take months, knowing her.
"Uh, Herm?" he interrupted her just as she was getting into sentence structures.
"Yes?"
"You were telling me about Kelly," he prompted her.
"Oh! Yes, right. Well, so after she was done chanting, she took a picture out of the bag. I didn't see it, because my bed was too far away, but she was talking to it," Hermione made a face to show that she was unsure if Kelly had all her wits about her before continuing, "and she mentioned Dante, that great bird-thing…"
"He's a halcon," Harry interrupted.
Hermione looked sourly at him, and Harry decided that it would be best to not interrupt again.
"Well, anyways, she mentioned him, some girl named 'Kamy,' and someone she referred to only as 'him.' She didn't seem to like this Him fellow, she was practically yelling when she talked about him." Harry nodded, his mind trying to figure out who each of those people could be. A disturbing though popped into his mind when he thought of who Him might be, but he pushed it aside; he didn't want to think of the possibility that Kelly could be in anyway involved with the him Harry was thinking of.
Apparently the same possibility had occurred in Hermione's mind. "Harry…" she trailed off uncertainly. He looked up at her, his face growing pale.
"You don't think…?"
Hermione's brows furrowed. "I don't know what to think anymore Harry," she whispered miserably. As much as she had disliked and mistrusted Kelly Banson, she had wanted with every bit of her soul to find out that her fears were way off base. Now that they had seeming proof that the girl was up to something… Being right usually made Hermione feel good, but now she only felt worse.
Harry took a deep breath. "We don't know anything for certain. You said she didn't like this Him fellow, so, if he is who we think he might be, then that's good, right?" Hermione shrugged her shoulders.
"I suppose, but then there's this Kamy she spoke of. She mentioned spells, potions and a rescue. I mean, say Him captured Kamy, and then Kelly and Dante are on a mission to rescue her. That would be something good, right?"
Harry agreed, uncertain where she was going with this.
"Well than why hasn't she told anyone?" It was more of a comment than a question, and it made Harry's heart plummet to the floor.
If it was a heroic rescue she had planned, then why had she kept it from them? Surely she knew that Harry, Ron, Ginny and even Hermione would have volunteered immediately to help, one part of Harry pointed out.
But maybe that was it, another part of him said. Maybe she didn't want to put anyone else at risk, if it was going to be a really dangerous mission.
Well… That response flustered the first voice a bit. That's no excuse for lying and being all secretive. And why does she have such heavy security on her trunk? Surely one little photograph can't be worth all that. What else is she hiding?
Harry's head began to hurt as the voices in his head continued to bicker. When he glanced over at Hermione, it looked as if she might be having the same problem.
"Well, for now, we should just keep an eye on her, I s'pose." Hermione nodded her agreement, rubbing her temples gingerly.
"Please let me be wrong about this girl," Hermione prayed silently as she got up and headed for the girls' dormitories, "please!"
Over the next several days, Kelly began to notice several unmistakable changes in some of the Hogwarts students. The first was that Hermione seemed to have completely changed her mind, well, that or she had lost it. Suddenly she was smiling and talking politely to Kelly, something she hadn't been inclined to doing in the past. Hermione and Harry began to spend an increasing amount of time together as well, something Kelly noted with a smirk. Ron hadn't seemed to share her pleasure in the discovery, and he quickly became prone to extreme mood swings and talked nonstop with Kelly about everything and anything, excluding the subject of Harry and Hermione. His obvious jealousy was another piece of information Kelly tucked away in her memory. She decided to further her knowledge by going to her primary informant; Ginny.
"Well," Ginny had bit her lip when asked about what was going on between the three Gryffindors. "I, well, I think Ron's jealous."
"Really?" Kelly faked curiosity expertly, with the ease of someone long practiced in the art of deception.
Ginny nodded. "I know that he has feelings for Hermione, he's just too stubborn to admit it, even to himself. And I thought she had feelings for him too, but I guess I was wrong." Kelly didn't miss the barely noticeable hint of anger and resentment. Kelly had a strong hunch that Harry and Hermione's meetings were not romantical; rather the two were trying their hardest to figure her out. Kelly had realized some time ago that Harry's trust in her had been swayed, and he had become increasingly wary; he was no actor and had difficulty masking his thoughts.
Kelly knew that playing the sympathetic friend to Ginny would work out more to her favor that it would for her to blurt out her opinions and relieve the girl's worries that she had even less of a chance with the Boy Who Lived than she had previously. She had decided right when she realized that Ginny had very few close friends that she would mold herself to be the younger girl's shoulder to cry on, the friend she could always count on for a laugh, or for advice, or simply for concern and compassion. No one would ever suspect her of using the girl if she was always so kind, Ginny herself least of all.
"Oh, don't worry Gin, I'm sure he doesn't think of her in that way. I mean it's the bushy brunette against this ravishing red-head!" Kelly accentuated her sentence with a hunchbacked impression of Hermione, then a supermodel strut for Ginny. She was able to gain a tiny laugh out of the girl, which escalated to a fit of giggles. Kelly brushed a strand of red-blonde hair from her face, tucking it behind one ear.
"I miss having friends," she thought sadly, trying to remember that last real friend she had had. None came to mind after that December morning fourteen years earlier when she had been visited by Cian Zalika Virote, Queen of the Ancient Ones, a divine race of immortal beings who had once inhabited the earth, before the arrival of mortal men. Cian had set a mighty task before Kelly, who had accepted after a lengthy deliberation with her long time companion, Dante of Kellesian Peak, the last Halcon lord. That was the day that Kelly's life had changed more drastically than she could ever have imagined possible, the day she took charge of Kamali Asha, daughter of the king and queen of the Ancient Ones.
Both Draco and Adele had come to the agreement that they would not tell any of the teachers about Kelly, because they knew if they did that, she would spill their secret about the charm. And as long as she had Adele's charm, they were trapped. Neither of them had the desire to approach her again, though it would be inevitable if ever they were to regain the charm. And Kelly knew that. Next time, she would be prepared for them, that was for certain.
It had taken much effort on Draco's part, but he had finally convinced Adele that they needed to go find Kelly again, and soon. In his mind, the longer they waited, the more time that witch had to prepare for their next attempt to reclaim what was theirs, and he wasn't about to give her any more of an advantage than possible.
The problem was, they didn't know how they were supposed to find her. Since the incident in the Owlry, Kelly seemed to keep to Gryffindor Tower when she wasn't at meals or classes. Draco knew very well where the Gryffindor Tower was located. But there was no way he would lower himself to actually going there. And even if he did, he would never get inside. For one, he didn't know the password, and for another, it wasn't as if the Gryffindors would just let him in. He knew exactly what their opinion of him was, just as they knew what he thought of them. No way would he go there.
But, there was nothing to prevent him from waiting hidden outside the common room, on the chance that a certain Gryffindor would make her exit from its safety. Then he would be able to follow her, then corner her and take back Adele's charm. It was a sketchy plan, that he knew, and there was a whole number of things that could go wrong, but for the time being, he had no other options.
His mind was set; by the month's end, he would have that charm.
Kelly was becoming increasingly frustrated. Hermione's sudden friendship had made her laugh at first, but now it was just plain bothersome. Hermione suddenly was acting like the two of them were best friends, and she practically refused to leave Kelly's side. They now ate lunch together, studied together, sat next to each other in class… Kelly thought she'd go mad by the end of the week, provided she lived that long. Her fingers were just itching to cure Hermione of her incessant nice-ness, but the sensible part of her (which Kelly began to suspect was not her at all, but was Dante) held her back. By Thursday, her entire mouth hurt from days of forced smiles, and the sensible part of her mind and the rest of her were in a fierce shouting match that gave her headaches. She had no idea what Hermione's game was, but she knew that there was something up.
Their "friendship" became more than an annoyance on Friday, however; it suddenly became life-or-death serious. That morning, while sitting in History of Magic and pretending to listen to Professor Binns, Kelly sat next to Hermione, twirling her quill in one hand, propping up her head with the other. After a few minutes, Kelly had noticed that Hermione was staring curiously at the still twirling quill.
"What?" Kelly whispered tartly, her nerves stretched as far as they could go. Hermion continued to stare, as if she hadn't even heard the question.
"What could possibly be so damn interesting about a stupid qui---" she cut herself off in mid-thought. On her palm, she noticed a circular scar, slightly larger than a half-dollar coin. In the center of the circle was a triangle, also made up of scarred flesh.
Kelly's heart almost stopped in her chest. It took every ounce of self-control she possessed, every piece of her skill as an actress to keep from screaming and bolting out of the classroom. She forced a casual smile at Hermione, pretending that she hadn't noticed anything, and switched the quill from one hand to the other, back and forth, keeping her left hand in constant motion. After a few moments, she began to take notes on the professor's lessons, acting very nonchalant about the whole situation.
Inside her head, however, she was not so collected.
"Dante!!!" her mind voice screamed frantically. "Dante, where are you!?"
"What's wrong," his voice was calm and reassuring in her head, like a cool cloth being pressed against a feverish head.
"The sign, the sign, it's back!"
"What?"
Kelly took a deep breath, collecting herself. "The sign is back. On my hand, it's visible. And…" She wasn't sure how to tell him.
"And what?" he asked sharply.
"The girl, the nosy one… I think she saw it."
Dante swore in his own language, then moved to rattling off curses in other tongues. After a few moments, he finished. "This isn't good, Rachel."
"Oh really?" her voice dripped with sarcasm, "I had no idea that it would be a problem if anyone was to see it! Thank you for clearing that up!" On the other end, Dante was silent. Kelly felt immediately ashamed, knowing that she had hurt him. "I'm sorry," she spoke, her mind voice much softer. "This has been an awful week, but I shouldn't have taken it out on you."
"That's fine, I understand that this hasn't been easy. You need to be able to release your energy every one and a while." They were both silent for a moment, then Dante snapped back to business. "We'll have to perform the Song again, and soon. I though it was supposed to last longer than this."
"So did I, maybe we didn't make it strong enough. But your right, we have to re-do it, and soon. We should have a month before it's worn off entirely. When do you think you'll be ready?"
"Four days?"
"Okay, I think I can manage that. Four days it is."
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dun dun dun!!! ~tee hee hee~ so, how was that? Not as many explanations as I had planned on, but I kinda changed around some of my plans, because I decided that it's still too early for Kelly's entire story to come out! You know a fair bit more bout Kamy though!
Ooh, and as always, I've got some lovely people to thank…Quiet One- Ah, my dear ol' pal! How things going? Guess what! My story is up to five pages! (did I tell you that already? I forget…) and it's going pretty well! I have so many ideas bouncing around in this crazy head of mine… =D all right, once again thanks for being so awesome!!! You are the one person in this whole fanfiction place that I can just start to talk to about totally random things… (:
How's your story going? Have you started to write it yet? And what about TtEoaSF, I've been checking and checking for the update!! (see, now I can bug you bout that, since I updated this… hehehe!!) Ooh, and we can't forget bout Elvish Strength, more of that would rock too!! (as long as Legolas doesn't kiss her again!!! The frogs are ready, I swear!!! I bought some catapults, and they are all set to fire!!!)
Yes, Ginny /IS/ under a spell. Sorta. Kelly does have a spell placed on her, but not a very strong one. Mostly, Ginny is just very trusting and Kelly kinda takes advantage of that and uses her own charm (not the magical kind J) to become her 'best friend.'
Draco's my favie too… just ask T.H, she'll tell ya… hehehe…
Yea, it was really short. This chapter is longer (I think). Hopefully it's better too.
Thanks for absolutely everything, you rock!!!!
ps. Farin Farin Farin Farin Farin!
Lian: WHERE?!?!?!?!
Hollie: whoops….
T.H- Thank you so much! And I'm glad that you liked the title… I do too! It actually has a special part in the story… but that part is yet to be explained! Don't worry, Kelly's reason will be explained, eventually anyways. I don't really know when, probably in a couple of chapters… I dunno….
Aargh, I'm so sorry that I didn't get to read chapter 16!!!!! I really meant to, but then today I got bitten by the writing bug, and I just /had/ to write more… you know how that is. I will get to it sometime soon… promise! I know that it's excellent though J !!!!
Again, thanks so much for being you, every time I get one of your reviews, I can't help but smile! Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PinkPineapple- That's such a cooli name. I dunno if I mentioned that before, but that's really an awesome name. J Anywhoozle, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! All your comments make my blush!
Well, I /sorta/ explained stuff… well, not really. I dunno, did I kind of? I tried, but I had to shift stuff around, so things didn't work out quite like I'd planned… I hope /some/ things got explained!
Woo-hoo!! In your face Aryonth… Sira and Seleth are 2gether… not you and Sira!!! So there!!!! Hehehehehehehehehehehehe!!!!! The good guy won! The good guy won!!!
I can't wait for the next chappie of The Lady of Rohan… !!! *is still dancing over the fact that Seleth won Sira's heart, finally* !!!!!!! I hope you update it soon!!!
WhetherRose- Rose! Ma amie! Thank you sosososososo much! You always have the most wonderful comments and reassure me that my work is not as deplorable as I sometimes wonder if it is! THANK YOU SOSO MUCH!!!!!
I'm so glad about everyone's reactions to Kelly! (even though she is an /evil/ OC, I like her in the story)
Kelly: Ha! I heard that!!!
Me: Oi vey… will you go away, I'm trying to thank Rose!
Kelly: Well, fine. Since it's Rose. You always say nice things about me, so I suppose I can let Hollie have the computer to thank you…
Me: Thank you! Anyways, I'm really glad that you like Kelly, despite the fact that she's kinda using Ginny. I was really worried when I added that bit. I was like, "aw man, all the Ginny fans are gonna hate me!" so I'm extra glad to know that you don't!!! I'm really glad that you liked the story, it's good to be able to return the favor! I enjoy your story, then you enjoy mine… it's a happy little circle! I really wish I could answer you questions, but I can't, not yet! Hehehe.. this chapter had a lot of those nasty little switches you and I are so fond of, I hope it didn't drive you too crazy! I really can't wait for more of your fic, please update it soon!!! And again, thank you Rose!
Kelly: *in background* yea, thanks Rose!
Me: I thought I told you to go away!!!
Kelly: *giggles insanely, then runs*
Me: Aaargh!!!!! J
Nepal- Well, firstly, I have to thank you for being honest. And also, thank you for giving my story a chance, and going beyond the first chapter. Your criticism is appreciated, even if it did hurt a little at first. I did have a bit of a problem thinking of you as a flamer, only because your comments are so civil. Most of the flamers I've encountered are rather… well, just not as civil or considerate of another person's feelings. So thank you for that. And I'm really glad that you came to like this. Thank you.
Twisted-Monster- Thank you! I'm so glad that you liked it!!!
Fawkesnflame and Moony- Cool new name! Perfect for you! *wink* I'm sorry that there wasn't any Filly, Star, Remus and the rest of them in this chapter, I had to rework all my plans, so now they will be in the next chapter. (well, probably not Remus… he's not coming till closer towards the end… )
Ah, I can't believe they too it down!!! That's just too mean!!! I'm glad I can still read it, at least. That's good!
I think that's everyone… thanks again guys!!!
Always,
~Hollie
