Disclaimer:  I am not JK Rowling and I do not own the world of Harry Potter.  Anything you recognize is hers; anything you don't is mine, including Kali and the plot.

Falling Chapter Twelve:  Wandering Without a Cause

A soft smile crossed Kali's face as she felt a set of fingers slipping into her hair and rubbing at the scalp.  Yawning, she rolled over to look up at Ron gazing down at her with a far-off look sparkling in his eyes.  From somewhere to her left, she could vaguely hear Harry ragging on Hermione for doing Potions homework on Polyjuice Potion when it was a Saturday night.  Laying here with her head in Ron's lap, Kali was having a hard time believing that they had just got together that day.  They had been spending so much time together lately that it felt much longer.

"Honestly, Hermione.  It's a Saturday.  And it isn't like you haven't had. . ." Harry gave a brief glance around the common room, "experience with the Polyjuice Potion before."

"I know that, Harry, but this is a very important part of the seventh year curriculum and Professor Snape isn't going to be easy on us."

"If Snape were easy on us, he'd have gone nutters, but that isn't the point.  The point is that if you continue like this, you're going to turn into a bushy-haired version of McGonagall."

"And just what is wrong with Professor McGonagall?"

Harry bit his tongue, afraid to dig himself in deeper than he had already just dug when mentioning Hermione's favorite teacher.

"I didn't say anything was wrong with McGonagall-"

"But you insinuated it."

Ron gave a soft laugh from above her and Kali nestled her head further into his warmth.

"Hermione, it's a Saturday night.  Can't you just give your homework a break for one day?"

"Most certainly not.  I'm Head Girl and it's my responsibility to set a good example for the younger students.  How am I supposed to do that when I'm falling behind in Potions because you won't let me study?"

"Ron's Head Boy and you don't see him laboring over a Potions text.  He's quietly enjoying an evening with his girlfriend.  Speaking of which, you could really use a boyfriend to loosen you up."

Hermione gave Harry a very stern look before she turned back to her Potions text.

"Hermione," whined Harry.  He dropped his voice a notch lower and said, "You've already successfully made Polyjuice.  Why do you have to study?  Come play wizard's chess with me."

"Harry, be careful where you speak of that."

"There's no one in here but us, Ron, Kali, and a bunch of first and second years playing a game of exploding snap."

"What is this about successfully making Polyjuice?" asked Kali.

"In our second year, the Chamber of Secrets was opened.  Everyone thought it was Harry but we knew better.  Hermione, Harry, and I - well, it was mostly Hermione - made Polyjuice Potion when we were trying to prove that Malfoy was Slytherin's heir so we could sneak into their common room."  Kali arched her eyebrows.  "Hermione swiped ingredients from Snape's private stores so that we could make it but it wasn't him."  Ron's eyes darkened at this.  "Anyway, that's the story."

Despite knowing how angry her father had probably been when finding that someone had stolen ingredients from his private stores, she couldn't help but think that he'd be proud, if only in the slightest, that one of his second year students had successfully made a potion reserved for seventh years.  Hermione was still arguing with Harry over the subject of doing schoolwork on a Saturday night and they both had gripped opposite sides of the Potions text and were struggling to gain control of it.  With one quick move, Hermione let go of the book and the inertia sent Harry reeling backward and tumbling over.

"Do you concede?" he asked, still gripping the book.

"If it's that important to you, then I guess I do," said Hermione rather wanly.

"Guys -" whined Harry, causing Hermione to shove him.  "I'm bored.  I want to do something."

"Wizards chess?" suggested Hermione.

"Exploding snap?" said Ron.

"I was thinking more of a walk."

"But, Harry," said Hermione in a rather impatient tone that sounded a lot like a mother scolding a small child who didn't know any better, "it's after hours.  You know that."

Kali squealed and promptly jumped up from her spot on the couch and Ron's lap.  "Jailbreak!" she hissed.  "Finally.  I was beginning to get restless by following all these rules."

"Harry," said Ron as Kali jumped from foot to foot, "I was comfortable there.  Couldn't you have waited till later."

"Do you want to go out or not?"

"Well of course I do -"

"Ron Weasley," screeched Hermione.  "You are Head Boy.  What would Dumbledore say if he knew you were encouraging rule breaking?"

"I'm more worried about Snape," muttered Harry.  "He's probably already scoping the halls for us.  Must have this little alarm in him that gives him indigestion when he knows we're about to break rules.  He always seems to know these things before even Dumbledore."

"How do they do that, anyway?" asked Ron as he pulled Harry away, apparently to get the invisibility cloak and Marauders Map because when they came back and headed out into the hall, both items were clasped tightly in Harry's hands.  He threw the cloak over them and they began to shuffle down the hall.

"I'm so excited," whispered Kali.  "It's been too long since I've snuck out."

"I thought you didn't live at your school," said Hermione.

"That doesn't mean I can't sneak out of my Aunt Serena's."  Kali gave them a sort of wicked smirk.

"Wow -" breathed Harry.  "That's the same look Snape gives me just when he's about to suggest I partner up with Neville."

Kali pondered this as Harry and Ron discussed the sheer fear that had apparently run through Harry's veins at seeing Kali perform the patented Snape smirk.  She shrugged slightly to herself.  It must be hereditary.

"This cloak was not meant for four grown teenagers," scolded Hermione.

"My dad used it lots with his friends in school and there were four of them," pointed out Harry.  "And Pettigrew was a plump, little, stumbling fool.  Professor Lupin and Sirius are no small people either."

"Professor Lupin?" asked Kali.  "What's Professor Lupin got to do with anything?  And Sirius Black?"

Harry quickly explained the full origin of the marauders map and his relation to both Sirius Black and Professor Lupin.

"So that would mean that Professor Lupin knew my mum, too," pondered Kali.  Harry nodded and gave a sort of awkward half-shrug.  "I wonder why he never mentioned anything."

"Maybe he just doesn't want to bring it up," suggested Ron as he slipped an arm around Kali's waist.

"Yeah," said Harry.  "He didn't really mention knowing my dad, either, and they were practically best friends.  Probably just doesn't want to drudge up memories of your mum for you. You know, clearly reminding you that she's dead."

"Probably," said Kali.

"Wait," hissed Hermione.  "Shut up for a second, Harry.  I think I hear something."

They all paused and a shadowy figure moved in the distance up ahead.  Harry ever so cautiously extracted the map and his wand whispering, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."  As the lines spread, Harry searched for their position on the map.  The little dot on the map said, Severus Snape.  "Bugger," hissed Harry and shoved the map at them for long enough for Ron, Kali, and Hermione to see.  "Mischief managed," he said and the map went back in his pocket.

It was with bated breath that they tried to inch away from Snape stalking down the hall.  They were just about in the clear when Harry stumbled, crashing into Ron and causing a domino effect leaving all four sprawled out across the ground half covered in the cloak.  Snape appeared over them and Kali had to try not to laugh as Harry's words came into her head.  He's like this large bat flocking about and waiting for you to fall so he can kick you when you're down, he had said and now here he was looming, indeed, like a bat while they were down.

"And what, exactly, are the four of you up to?" inquired Snape in an icy, silky tone.

"We - we were just," stammered Harry.

"Harry Potter, once again thinking that rules are beneath him, and with both the Head Boy and Head Girl.  Not the best example to set for the other students, is it, Miss Granger?  Mister Weasley?"

"No sir," they softly chorused before Snape's eyes fell on Kali.

"And Miss Strauser . . . someone has apparently forgotten to inform you of the curfew at this school.  You should have been in your common room hours ago.  Potter's esteemed friendship will do very little to get you out of this one."

Harry gave her a look that simply said, I told you so.

"We were just on our way back there," said Kali.  She only hoped he wouldn't ask where they had come from.

"And where, exactly, were you?"

"The owlery," she quickly answered.  A blatant lie and from the flicker in his eyes, he knew it, too.

"On what business?"

"Sending a letter.  The matters of our letter are our own concern."

"Do you think the headmaster would say the same if I were to take you to him right now?"  Kali paled.  "I didn't think so.  There is no matter that is so important that it couldn't wait until the morning.  Twenty-five points from Gryffindor."  Kali and the other three scowled.  "Each."  Her eyes widening, Kali's jaw dropped and Snape's eyes flickered just long enough to see Ron's hand resting on Kali's back.  "And all four of you will receive detention with me on Tuesday evening at seven p.m.  I do not suggest you be late.  Now go back to your common room."

They turned to scamper down the hall but Snape's words interrupted.

"Not you, Miss Strauser.  I'd like to have a word with you."  She turned back slowly.  "And Mister Potter. . ." Snape tossed him the invisibility cloak.  "I believe this belongs to you.  Do not let me catch you using it again or I'm going to have to confiscate it."

"Good luck," mouthed Ron before they hustled back toward the seventh floor and the safety of Gryffindor tower.  Kali watched them retreat before soundlessly following Snape down the long route that led to the dungeons.  Once they had finally arrived and entered his private rooms, he dropped into a chair and stared rather pointedly at her.

"Well?  What do you have to say for yourself?"

"You should be getting more sleep, Daddy.  I thought we talked about this."

"You're scolding me?  That's rich."  Kali rolled her eyes.  "Really, Kailah.  What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Nothing, really.  Harry thought it would be fun to sneak out and I agreed.  I used to do it all the time at Aunt Serena's."

"This is not Serena's, Kailah, and I don't want to catch you breaking curfew again."

"Was taking one-hundred points really necessary?"  Snape scowled at her.

"Kailah, I don't think you understand.  I am not going to go easy on you.  You have to learn and as your father and your professor, it is my job to teach you.  You are being punished for breaking curfew and I expect you to be there.  Just because I'm your father doesn't mean that you are exempt from punishment when breaking rules.  On another note, I noticed that you and Mister Weasley were a little closer this evening than you were this morning."

"I'm sorry, Dad.  About the rule thing, but I love the thrill of doing something I'm not supposed to and as for Ron," she sighed and collapsed onto his lap.  "Well.  I asked him to be my boyfriend and he said yes."

Snape grimaced.  "You know what this means."

"That you want to talk to him and give him your scary, 'I'll hex you with my wand if you hurt my baby daughter' speech."

"Indeed.  The Halloween Ball.  Parents are invited so he won't be tipped off when you tell him ahead of time.  May as well prepare the boy as much as you can prepare him, anyway."

"That's two weeks away."

"Unless you want to do it sooner," he suggested.

"No.  Of course not."  He sighed as Kali's arms came around his neck and she rested her head on his chest.  "Are you mad at me?" she asked as she began to play with the cuff of his sleeve.

"Now why would I be mad at you?"

"Because I was a bad girl and went out after curfew."

"Oh."  A weary laugh escaped him.  "No.  I'm not mad.  Just have some respect for the school rules.  I want you to have the same respect for them as you'd have for any rules I'd make at home."

"Okay."  He was only aware of her thumb rubbing the skin of his forearm when, very softly, she asked, "What's this?"  Kali's thumb skirted back to show the faint outline of where the Dark Mark had been burned into his arm.

"Nothing," he answered too quickly to be nothing.

"No . . . really.  Daddy?  Isn't that . . . the Dark Mark?"  The words were breathed out as she searched his eyes for answers.  Snape didn't answer and she took his silence as admittance.  "Were you. . ."

"I was," he said just as softly.  "Can we not talk about this, Kailah?"

"I want to know."

His sigh was heavy and nothing like the sighs she had heard come from him before.  "It's complicated."

"I'm a big girl.  I'm sure I'll understand."

"Kailah . . . yes.  It's the Dark Mark.  I was a Death Eater."

"You supported Voldemort?" she said, louder than her words before.  "You really did?  Is that why you hate Harry?  Is that why I really had to go live with Aunt Serena?"

"Kailah, calm down," he said, still as soft and even as he had before.  "You didn't let me finish.  I was a Death Eater until-" here his voice got choked up, "-until your mum, Dru, died.  Lucius-"

"Draco's father?"

"Yes.  He was my best friend and he convinced me that joining Voldemort was a good idea.  I - I couldn't say no.  What he was saying made so much sense.  Dru begged me, pleaded with me not to do it.  Broke up with me when she first saw the mark burned into my arm but I couldn't lose her.  We weren't even together when I proposed and I'm damn lucky she said yes.  And then you were born and she died and we never had a chance to get married . . . I couldn't lose you, too, so I sent you to Serena.  I knew how much Dru hated what I was and so after she died, I felt so guilty.  I went to Dumbledore and I became a spy for the light side."

"You - did - what!?" screeched Kali.  "You could have been killed.  What if they had figured you out?"

"All the more reason to keep the person most precious to me away from the war," he said, stroking her hair.  "I was a spy until the Dark Lord's first fall and I resumed my position when Voldemort regained his body two years ago.  It was a bad position to be in but every time I got angry at Dumbledore for asking me to become a spy again, I would see this mark on my arm and know I brought it on myself.  If I would have just listened to Dru. . ."

"I love you," Kali whispered and tightened her grip around his neck.

"I love you," he responded while returning her hug.  Silence hung in the air until the breathing of both sleeping resounded through the room.

~*~

Draco hugged his torso as he stared at the ceiling of the empty boy's dormitory.  He was the first one to come back from dinner so far and he didn't feel much like sleeping.  There was a sick, metallic taste in his mouth and he pulled a blanket closer around his body as he shivered.  At the other end of his bed sat his dagger, the two seemingly staring each other down daring the other to act first.  After all, in a school like Hogwarts, it wouldn't be that incredibly strange for the dagger to act first but it didn't and when it got to be too much, Draco picked it up and buried it in his trunk before returning to his bed.

GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME YOU COCK-SUCKING HOMO FAGGOT!  Hadn't that been the exact words that Draco had used just after spitting in Blaise's face and stalking from the hall?  He knew it wasn't fair.  Blaise was already receiving enough torture from the other houses, mostly his own and the Ravenclaws as the Hufflepuffs wouldn't dream of being rude (they were too stupid to realize that not all people had good in them) and Blaise was friends with Potter, bloody Prince of Hogwarts, Gryffindor especially.

Out of all the things to throw at Blaise, why had he been so low enough to pick the one he knew would hurt the most?  Draco guessed that it was the Slytherin in him that made him do it.  What he hadn't anticipated was his own words coming right back at him to hurt him over ten-fold.  A lot of the kids giving Blaise grief over his sexual preference had congratulated Draco on giving that queer bastard the treatment that his actions warranted.  He was now, through his own stupidity, an advocate for gay bashing.  What they didn't know was that he, himself, was gay.  Draco sighed.

Of all the things to attack him with, it had to be the most personal.  The one that would hurt Draco even after the guilt had ebbed away.  Despite how scared he was, he actually liked Blaise.  Oh fuck, he didn't like him.  Even Draco had to admit to himself that he loved the boy with desperation.  How many times had they snuck away from the Slytherin dormitory and made love in some remote part of the school only to lay there together for many hours after in silence, enjoying the other's mere presence?  He never had said it back, but he did love Blaise in all contexts of the word.  True, he was moving on, and they were over for good, but it didn't change that he loved him and it was just wrong to taint the love that they had shared by throwing it in his face.  It was wrong and Draco hated himself for it.

He meant to retrieve his dagger but the heavy lid of his trunk hadn't been propped up properly and it came crashing down on Draco's left hand.  Howling in pain, Draco jumped back to investigate the damage.  Maybe a cracked bone, but nothing more.  Hesitating, the search for the dagger was lost as Draco channeled all of his strength into crushing the bones in his hand and fingers.  His teeth nipping at his lips in savage bites began to draw blood from the flesh as his mangled hand from his trunk.  Tears streamed down his face and he cradled his arm into his body, mind racked with guilt and desperation before he headed off to see Madam Pomfrey.  This wasn't something he could fix on his own.  How had this gone so far?

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