Author: Elora Dark, email eloradark@hotmail.com
Title: Harry Potter and the Trials to Come
Rating: R for language
Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling (because if I were I would not have killed Sirius in the first place), nor do I make any money from this story. All characters, except Roan Draven, belong to Ms. Rowling.
Chapter 4: Her Dark PastSeveral hours later Harry had still not fallen asleep, so he decided to venture into the kitchen and see if anyone else was awake. Low mumbles came from the kitchen. A single candle lit the large room. Two huddled figures sat at the end of the long table furthest from Harry. They were deep in conversation, faces inches from each other.
"Um…hmm," Harry mumbled.
"Ah, Harry join us!" answered Sirius. Roan, who was sitting crossed legged on the table, smiled and waved her hand. The chair on the other side of Sirius backed up for Harry. Roan seemed very interested in a spot on the table and fidgeted restlessly.
"I couldn't sleep," Harry mumbled. He knew he had probably interrupted something between Sirius and Roan but didn't really care. After all, Sirius was his godfather and Roan was no one.
"Have a butterbeer, maybe that'll help," Roan said as she conjured a mug for Harry.
"So did you want to talk about the meeting," Sirius asked smiling sideways at Harry.
"How'd you know I listened?" Harry asked surprised.
"Remus saw those…extendable ear thingy's crawling under the door," Roan grimaced slightly and began looking at anything but Harry and Sirius, "They really are disgusting looking, you know…." She trailed off now looking at a spot on the ceiling.
"I…um…was just wondering about the…uhm, what's your connection with Voldemort?" Harry asked looking straight ahead of him. Just thinking that she had been a supporter of Voldemort's was making his anger rise.
Roan looked at Harry's profile then at Sirius, she bit her lip contemplating. "Just tell him, it'll be worse if someone else does." Sirius told her.
She smiled incredulous, "Sometimes it sucks to be me…" she muttered.
"I know how you feel, " Harry answered her, now looking at her.
"Yeah, I know you do." She met his brilliant green eyes for a second, "My parents, Chrystalla Fowl and Artemis Draven, were Tom Riddle's closest friends. They knew him as Lord Voldemort before the rest of the world. The three of them, they were brilliant. My mother was in love with Tom, but he disappeared after Hogwarts. And then one day He sent her a letter telling her to marry Artemis, but to have no children."
"When Tom returned he was unrecognizable to everyone but my parents, he'd been so corrupted by the Dark Arts. They helped him extend his life, their life. Tom gave them permission to have a child and Chrystalla pledged my allegiance to the Dark Lord. My mother offered me to Voldemort as a vessel. I was born, as were several other children, for the sole purpose of becoming a body that Vodlemort could take over and use. There's only one Voldmort but with us, he could be all over the world at the same instant. He accepted and I was only a few days old when he gave me this." Roan showed the Death Eater tattoo on her wrist. "By giving me this, he was bound into a magical contract, one that could only be broken if I were killed. Anyone who wears this mark is connected to Voldemort, he knows where we are and what we're doing….Of course he would kill me and my parents if he ever felt anything but undying loyalty; So to make sure I followed Voldemort they placed all sorts of curses and hexes on me. A warning, a threat of what would happen to me if I ever turned my back on the Dark Lord." She smiled slightly.
"But when he disappeared the night he killed your parents, it was like the world had ended. My mother and father went ballistic, they had given up everything to follow him and for him to be defeated by a baby…. They killed so many people that night…before the Aurors got to them."
"Are they still in Azkaban?" Harry asked.
"No there wasn't even enough of them to bury."
"And the curses?" Harry asked
"When I arrived at Hogwarts 6 years later, I knew that I still had his power in me. If the Sorting Hat saw that I'd be put in Slytherin, just like my parents. I fought with the Sorting Hat for a while and then finally it screamed 'Gryffindor' and I knew that my fate wasn't sealed. I could be whoever I wanted to be and no one would need know that I was once destined to be exploited by the Dark Lord. It was the happiest time of my life, until the next morning. I got a howler from my mother she had written it years before, just in case ya know? It went on for ages…I was disowned, I had forfeited all of my inheritance, it went to the Malfoy estate like they needed it, said I'd be better off killing myself because no one would ever take me, blah ,blah, blah. Anyways I turned wolf the next full moon, that was just the beginning. My first kiss, Bill, he got these giant boils all over his body, luckily Madame Pomfry had a stockpile of bobutber pus. But Dumbledore, he's helped me find counter curses for the 'others'."
Harry was still not looking at Roan, he seemed to be poised at the edge of his chair, muscles tensed like a cat ready to spring. "How do you know you can't still be taken by Voldemort and used against us?" Harry asked turning viscously to face Roan and Sirius.
"I don't, but like I said if sense any interference I'll disappear. I'm selfish, but not so much as to put hundreds of students at risk. I'm not being sent to Hogwarts because I'm the most qualified person for the job. I being placed there so Dumbledore can make sure I don't do anything stupid. And I'm the closest thing he has to a true seer, Trelawney has two prophecies to her name. I dream, I sense and more likely than not it happens. …Voldemort's going to kill me, I've dreamt about it a hundred times; They've gotten more vivid this past year, it's only a matter of time, I take a shortcut, stay out after dark, he'll find Me; Dumbledore and Snape just want to make sure I don't go looking for confirmation." She stayed very calm, but Sirius slammed his fist into the table.
"Will you quit fucking talking like that, nothing is going to fucking happen to you." He whispered furiously. Roan looked at him sideways, studying his face. She smiled slightly, sadly. Sirius wanted to sound like he cared deeply for Roan, but she could feel that the only person he could love right now was Harry. He wanted nothing more than to be a father and friend to the young man
"Harry, Voldemort fears you. He didn't need the prophecy to tell him that…" she paused, shook her head, it seemed to be getting harder for her to speak, "you're going to be the death of him." Roan stopped talking, she grasped her head in her hands and sat for a few seconds hunched over, and small shivers shook her frame.
"Roan, kid what's the matter?" Sirius asked, trying to shake her leg.
Roan rolled her head up to slowly look at Harry and then Sirius. "Voldemort just wanted to know why, why you," Roan slid off the table onto shaky legs, "What is so fucking special about you?" she slowly walked towards Harry, "How could a child continue to defeat the Dark Lord?"
Harry backed up so suddenly he lost balance and toppled off his chair, his scar had begun searing with pain. Roan's black eyes shined malevolently in the near darkness.
"Sirius….help…" Harry grasped the table for his wand, his head feeling like it would be torn in tow if Roan took another step towards him. Sirius jumped up from his chair and tackled Roan to the stone floor. Harry fell on his knees, shaking, willing himself not to throw up. Roan was screaming and convulsing under Sirius, thin trails of blood had begun to run down her nose and eyes.
"What the bloody hell!!!" Remus said running into the kitchen. And just as suddenly Roan stopped fighting and went completely limp under Sirius. "What happened in here? She almost woke up the whole house!" Remus said helping Harry back into a chair.
"Voldemort…he…I'm gonna be sick," Roan's pale, shaking form murmured. Sirius helped her stand and walk to the sink. "I'm so sorry Harry. He's so strong now, I can't…block those memories."
"That was a bloody memory!?" Harry demanded. He grasped his wand so tight his knuckles had gone white.
"Oh…Merlin…please don't tell Severus, he'll…I'll never be allowed to leave the house." Roan said miserably, she wiped furiously at the blood staining her face.
"I…I'm going to bed." Harry muttered, turning irritably and leaving the kitchen. Sirius and Remus sat down on either side of Roan, who was sobbing angrily into her arms.