A/N: Holy crud! I haven't updated since. like. ummmmmmmmm.. errr.. Hmmm..
Now, this isn't full proof, but I tried my best, and I may re-update this later this weekend.
Summary: You all should know this by now, but.
It's four years after the gang graduates from Hogwarts and Harry, Ron, Hermione, Seamus, and Dean are working with a few famous American aurors trying to earn a living. They are taking a break from work when they happen to literally bump into four teenage American girls. The boys quickly make friends with them in hopes of getting better aquainted with Los Angeles, but there is some thing slightly familiar about those girls..
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The characters that you don't know, mostly the people not from Hogwarts, are owned by me, though the people they are based off of are real. Every character in this story is based on someone I know and even some people a few of the readers know.
~~**~~
It's A War
~~**~~
Torrance and Other Odd Matters
~~**~~
Torrance McKinley sat in a hospital room, absolutely silent. Her brandy colored eyes raked over the pale face in the hospital bed next to her.
The hand resting limply on the white sheets stirred, and Torrance grasped it gently.
The young girl's eyes flickered open and she gazed up at Torrance. "Torri?" She asked quietly. Her voice cracked and she winced.
"Hey there kido, how ya feeling?" Torrance asked brushing the girl's curly black hair out of her face.
"Tired and my throat hurts."
Torrance turned to the stand by the door and poured water into a clear goblet. Both she and the young girl knew it was laced with the dreamless sleep potion, but neither said a word about it.
When Torrance returned to the girl's bedside, the girl's face was a mask of confusion, Torrance put the goblet on the nightstand and slid her hand into the young girl's. "What is it Choral? What's wrong?"
It was a minute before she spoke. "It's my legs, I can't feel them, I can't even move them. My Legs aren't working anymore."
"Oh Choral." Torrance pulled her into a brief hug, then handed her the potion-laced goblet. The young girl drank it silently, then handed it back and folded her hands in her lap.
Suddenly, Choral spoke. "I'm going to die, aren't I?" She raised her eyes to Torrance. "It's okay, you can tell me."
Torrance eyed her, then said softly, "Yes.They've- they've given you until the new year."
Choral sighed and looked towards the window. It wasn't open, but she knew that outside that glass pane, the leaves of fall were spiraling towards the ground signifying that winter is coming. "That's not a very long time." She said dejectedly.
"I know." Torrance said choking back a sob.
The young girl wrapped her slender arms around Torrance's neck and went limp. The potion had taken effect.
The sleeping draught in it's highest form was a basic sleeping potion, perfect for the completely healthy. However, in Choral's case, the potion, even as dilated as it was, could be dangerous to her system.
Though the child was now in a deep sleep, Torrance continued to hold her, content to be with her last living relative this one last time.
That's how the medi wizard found them when he knocked softly on the door half an hour later.
"Miss. McKinley?" He said softly so as not to rouse the sleeping child.
"Oh, hello Dr. Stewards." Torrance said laying her sister down on her pillows. She stood and shook the medic's hand.
Medi Wizard Harold Stewards was a balding man in his fifties. He was the type of man who would have been the perfect grandfather had he ever married.
Stewards never pushed on the fact that it was kept so dark in young Choral McKinley's room. The blinds were always kept shut, and only a single flickering candle was allowed to stay lit. He simply went along on his business. He had a sort of sympathy for the two sisters. When the older sister had only been twelve, their parents, along with their two other siblings had been murdered, he didn't know how. They'd then been sent to live with a grandmother in the south of France for two years, then she'd died, and they'd been taken in by a godfather, a Professor Michael Sanders. Since then, Stewards had been in charge of their health, along with the rest of the Professor's wards. An entire ward had been given to them in the west wing of the hospital. The children under his protection seemed to be out of regular health more that was usual with average children, but then again, these particular kids were not average children.
Stewards nodded at the woman he'd watched grow up from the young age of fifteen. "May I talk to you in the hallway?" He asked softly.
She glanced out the semi open door and winced at the sunlight streaming down the hall. Nodding curtly, she stood placing a pair of sunglasses in front of her eyes. She walked out behind him adjusting her glasses.
Once in the hall, the door slid shut and the medi wizard slid his hands into his pockets while she leaned casually against the door. She flicked a stray piece of short black hair away from her eyes and looked imploringly at him. "Well, what is it?" She said.
After six years with the sisters, he was used to their cold disconnected attitudes towards everything but each other. It was just the way they were, but sometimes it could be disconcerting.
He avoided fiddling with the trinkets in his pockets and looked her in the eye. "Miss. McKinley- Torrance, I'm afraid I have some bad news."
She said nothing, but over the tops of her dark sunglasses, he could see a perfectly arched eyebrow arch in question as if to say, "And."
He cleared his throat and continued. "I'm afraid that her death s closer that we eared. " He took a small silver and blue box off of a shelf near the door and tapped it with his wand. The contraption opened, the sides lying flat on his palm and the top fading away. An image hovered in the once concealed space, one of Choral's body. "This monitors your sister's progress towards death. The black haze in certain parts of her body is the virus that's eating away at her. As it progresses towards the rest of her body, the parts it leaves behind shut down- that's the red haze. As you can see, the haze has progressed to her hips, consuming her legs much faster that we could have ever anticipated."
His voice faded as Torrance tried to grasp what he was saying. Halfway through his explanation, she interrupted him. "How long?" She asked desperately.
The tone of her voice threw Stewards off for a minute, he had never heard her sound so anxious, so confused, so lost all at once. "Excuse me?"
"How long? How long does she have?" She said leaning her head against the wall.
"Until Thanksgiving, but it might be before then."
"That's next Friday." She said softly coming to reality. First mother and father, then Dorien and Daniel, then grandmother, and now Choral, what's wrong with me am I a walking curse?
The rest of the medic's words faded as she slid to the floor and buried her face in her hands. She waved him away impatiently, she wanted to be alone for a moment, to just think. She didn't need to hear about all of that.she'd all ready heard it five times before, no use hearing what she all ready knew.
The medic nodded and walked slowly back to his office feeling very sorry indeed for the last McKinley child.
~~**~~
Three hours later, and Torrance hadn't moved an inch. She hadn't shed a single tear, not that she could. Vampires don't cry.
She had been sitting there for another hour staring silently out of the window, when she heard a soft voice singing in the room. She couldn't make out the words, but she knew the melody, had heard it five times at five funerals.
She stood intending to go back into her sister's room, but as soon as her hand lighted on the door opening device, she heard a faint whisper in her head. "Help." It said over and over again.
She gasped and disapparated in a cloud of black smoke.
~~**~~
Harry and Ron backed slowly back the way they had come.
"Maybe if we walk slowly enough, it won't see us leave." Ron whispered.
"I don't think so." Harry said as the rapidly growing monster stalked after them. "Run!"
They took off at a fast sprint down the corridor, but stopped at a junction between the deserted side of the mall, and the openly populated.
There was a large cloud of black smoke on the floor below them, they could see straight down onto the bottom floor through a large opening in their floor.
They ran to the other side of the opening and leaned over the railing looking down. The smoke cleared and there stood a girl who looked to be their age dressed in black leathers with a sword strapped to her belt, bow in her hand, and a sack of arrows strapped to her back. She jumped into the air and hovered in the open space facing the hallway where the monster would come from.
Ron and Harry looked at each other with confused looks. "Um. Excuse me, but who are you?" Harry said.
She looked down at him over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "Torrance. Who are you?" She shot a glance over their heads. "Where are Lilah, Danni, Lor, and Tally? They were supposed to be watching this place."
"Danni and Lilah went to the food court, and I don't know where Tally and Lor are." Ron said. He gestured to her feet hanging in the air. "How are you doing that?"
"I'm part vampire, part elf. It's a gift." She whipped around as a jet of silvery light sliced her cheek open. She faced the monster. "Ah this is why you needed help. Well, this can be remedied." She raised the bow and loaded an arrow. The tip was gold and silver, and the rest was entirely bronze. "Namir, I told you last time, go find your litter box like a good kitty and stay there!" She let the arrow fly and it connected with the monster. It gave a piercing howl and disappeared.
Torrance smiled, shook her head and slowly drifted to Harry and Ron. "Well, shall we find the others? I have some news for them." She walked off, leaving Harry and Ron to sort out the past nine minutes in their heads.
~~~**~~~
"What do you mean by 'They're coming back'?" Hermione said glancing around the food court.
"They as in the Undria'im. They attacked here, and they don't seem to be finished. All we can to is wait for them and hope for the best." Danni said.
"And hope that the blasted medic's get here before most of these people die." Lilah said hoisting the little girl into her arms and stanging to pace around the food court.
Soon enough, the little girl woke up. She looked up at the girl who held her and stared. "You helped me."
"Yes, I did, and so did they." She pointed to Hermione and Danni who waved in a friendly manner.
The girl turned to look at them, then looked back at Lilah. "Who are you?"
"Delilah Farstone, but you can call me Lilah. Those are my friends Danni Higgins and Hermione Granger."
The little girl nodded and looked around. She looked so forlorn for such a young age.
Lilah asked her, "What's your name?"
The little girl looked back to Lilah with empty eyes. "Wendy Gunther." She said softly.
Lilah looked surprised. "Gunther? As in Stephanie Gunther?"
Stephanie Gunther had become famous in the past three years as a celebrity clothing designer. In the past year she had been working on making her designs available to the public. She had opened a store in that very mall only a month before. She had a daughter, but her husband was dead, as were the rest of her relations, and now, so was she.
Wendy nodded. "My mummy owned a store here, we were only coming to see how they were doing, we weren't going to stay long, but then." Her voice trailed off and she shivered uncontrollably.
Lilah looked to Hermione and Danni who were both on the verge of crying. "How old are you?" She asked.
"Mummy says I'm this many." She held up four fingers and a thumb, then reached up with her other hand and folded her thumb halfway. "She says I only get half of this one because I'm not five yet." She looked around the waste of the food court. "Where's my mummy?" Her eyes locked on the prone figure of the blonde woman. "She's dead isn't she?"
Lilah nodded sadly, but didn't say anything.
"Oh." Wendy nodded forlornly and rested her head on Lilah's shoulder. "Lilah?"
"Yes?"
"Can I stay with you? I don't want to see that mean man again."
"What mean man?" Lilah asked urgently.
Wendy shook her head and buried it between Lilah's neck and shoulder. For a moment, Lilah was reminded of another small girl of the same age.
Danni walked up and put a reassuring hand on Wendy's back. "Wendy, we need you to tell us about this man. Did he kill your mother and all these people?"
The child nodded, but didn't say anything.
Danni looked up helplessly at Lilah who shrugged. "Where did he go?"
Wendy pointed up to the roof where a large hole was made in the skylights.
"Well, that explains the hole then."
~~~**~~~
Torrance, Harry, and Ron encountered Tally, Lor, Seamus, and Dean a few minutes later. They conversed about what they had found, then continued on.
The group was silent for a moment, then Tally and Lor were whispering fiercly about who should ask Torrance about her sister. Finally Lor gave up and tapped the other girl on he shoulder.
"What?" Asked Torrance without looking around.
"How is Choral?"
"Dying."
"We know that, but how was she today?"
"She figured it out, and the medics changed her date."
"Longer or shorter?"
"Shorted. much shorter."
'How shorter?"
"Next Friday or before."
"Oh Torrance, I'm so sorry." Lor made to rest a comforting hand on her shoulder, but the other girl shrugged her off. She kept walking on silently, her boots clacking on the ground.
Seamus looked after her, then at Tally and Lor. "What's up with her?"
"Her little sister's dying. The medics think it's tuberculosis, but it's got other symptoms that are confusing them. We think it's because of her heritage, but no one's sure." Tally said. "She's lost both parents, both brothers, and a grandmother, and now her little sister is dying too."
"I know how she feels." Ron said thinking about his own dead siblings, three brothers and a sister. "I lost four of my siblings in the war."
"Ron, we don't really know what happened to Ginny." Harry said softly. He didn't want to accept her death, and probably never would.
"She's dead Harry, face it." Ron turned and followed Torrance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
A/N: I know, it was REALLY lame, but the next one will be better, I promise!
Now, this isn't full proof, but I tried my best, and I may re-update this later this weekend.
Summary: You all should know this by now, but.
It's four years after the gang graduates from Hogwarts and Harry, Ron, Hermione, Seamus, and Dean are working with a few famous American aurors trying to earn a living. They are taking a break from work when they happen to literally bump into four teenage American girls. The boys quickly make friends with them in hopes of getting better aquainted with Los Angeles, but there is some thing slightly familiar about those girls..
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The characters that you don't know, mostly the people not from Hogwarts, are owned by me, though the people they are based off of are real. Every character in this story is based on someone I know and even some people a few of the readers know.
~~**~~
It's A War
~~**~~
Torrance and Other Odd Matters
~~**~~
Torrance McKinley sat in a hospital room, absolutely silent. Her brandy colored eyes raked over the pale face in the hospital bed next to her.
The hand resting limply on the white sheets stirred, and Torrance grasped it gently.
The young girl's eyes flickered open and she gazed up at Torrance. "Torri?" She asked quietly. Her voice cracked and she winced.
"Hey there kido, how ya feeling?" Torrance asked brushing the girl's curly black hair out of her face.
"Tired and my throat hurts."
Torrance turned to the stand by the door and poured water into a clear goblet. Both she and the young girl knew it was laced with the dreamless sleep potion, but neither said a word about it.
When Torrance returned to the girl's bedside, the girl's face was a mask of confusion, Torrance put the goblet on the nightstand and slid her hand into the young girl's. "What is it Choral? What's wrong?"
It was a minute before she spoke. "It's my legs, I can't feel them, I can't even move them. My Legs aren't working anymore."
"Oh Choral." Torrance pulled her into a brief hug, then handed her the potion-laced goblet. The young girl drank it silently, then handed it back and folded her hands in her lap.
Suddenly, Choral spoke. "I'm going to die, aren't I?" She raised her eyes to Torrance. "It's okay, you can tell me."
Torrance eyed her, then said softly, "Yes.They've- they've given you until the new year."
Choral sighed and looked towards the window. It wasn't open, but she knew that outside that glass pane, the leaves of fall were spiraling towards the ground signifying that winter is coming. "That's not a very long time." She said dejectedly.
"I know." Torrance said choking back a sob.
The young girl wrapped her slender arms around Torrance's neck and went limp. The potion had taken effect.
The sleeping draught in it's highest form was a basic sleeping potion, perfect for the completely healthy. However, in Choral's case, the potion, even as dilated as it was, could be dangerous to her system.
Though the child was now in a deep sleep, Torrance continued to hold her, content to be with her last living relative this one last time.
That's how the medi wizard found them when he knocked softly on the door half an hour later.
"Miss. McKinley?" He said softly so as not to rouse the sleeping child.
"Oh, hello Dr. Stewards." Torrance said laying her sister down on her pillows. She stood and shook the medic's hand.
Medi Wizard Harold Stewards was a balding man in his fifties. He was the type of man who would have been the perfect grandfather had he ever married.
Stewards never pushed on the fact that it was kept so dark in young Choral McKinley's room. The blinds were always kept shut, and only a single flickering candle was allowed to stay lit. He simply went along on his business. He had a sort of sympathy for the two sisters. When the older sister had only been twelve, their parents, along with their two other siblings had been murdered, he didn't know how. They'd then been sent to live with a grandmother in the south of France for two years, then she'd died, and they'd been taken in by a godfather, a Professor Michael Sanders. Since then, Stewards had been in charge of their health, along with the rest of the Professor's wards. An entire ward had been given to them in the west wing of the hospital. The children under his protection seemed to be out of regular health more that was usual with average children, but then again, these particular kids were not average children.
Stewards nodded at the woman he'd watched grow up from the young age of fifteen. "May I talk to you in the hallway?" He asked softly.
She glanced out the semi open door and winced at the sunlight streaming down the hall. Nodding curtly, she stood placing a pair of sunglasses in front of her eyes. She walked out behind him adjusting her glasses.
Once in the hall, the door slid shut and the medi wizard slid his hands into his pockets while she leaned casually against the door. She flicked a stray piece of short black hair away from her eyes and looked imploringly at him. "Well, what is it?" She said.
After six years with the sisters, he was used to their cold disconnected attitudes towards everything but each other. It was just the way they were, but sometimes it could be disconcerting.
He avoided fiddling with the trinkets in his pockets and looked her in the eye. "Miss. McKinley- Torrance, I'm afraid I have some bad news."
She said nothing, but over the tops of her dark sunglasses, he could see a perfectly arched eyebrow arch in question as if to say, "And."
He cleared his throat and continued. "I'm afraid that her death s closer that we eared. " He took a small silver and blue box off of a shelf near the door and tapped it with his wand. The contraption opened, the sides lying flat on his palm and the top fading away. An image hovered in the once concealed space, one of Choral's body. "This monitors your sister's progress towards death. The black haze in certain parts of her body is the virus that's eating away at her. As it progresses towards the rest of her body, the parts it leaves behind shut down- that's the red haze. As you can see, the haze has progressed to her hips, consuming her legs much faster that we could have ever anticipated."
His voice faded as Torrance tried to grasp what he was saying. Halfway through his explanation, she interrupted him. "How long?" She asked desperately.
The tone of her voice threw Stewards off for a minute, he had never heard her sound so anxious, so confused, so lost all at once. "Excuse me?"
"How long? How long does she have?" She said leaning her head against the wall.
"Until Thanksgiving, but it might be before then."
"That's next Friday." She said softly coming to reality. First mother and father, then Dorien and Daniel, then grandmother, and now Choral, what's wrong with me am I a walking curse?
The rest of the medic's words faded as she slid to the floor and buried her face in her hands. She waved him away impatiently, she wanted to be alone for a moment, to just think. She didn't need to hear about all of that.she'd all ready heard it five times before, no use hearing what she all ready knew.
The medic nodded and walked slowly back to his office feeling very sorry indeed for the last McKinley child.
~~**~~
Three hours later, and Torrance hadn't moved an inch. She hadn't shed a single tear, not that she could. Vampires don't cry.
She had been sitting there for another hour staring silently out of the window, when she heard a soft voice singing in the room. She couldn't make out the words, but she knew the melody, had heard it five times at five funerals.
She stood intending to go back into her sister's room, but as soon as her hand lighted on the door opening device, she heard a faint whisper in her head. "Help." It said over and over again.
She gasped and disapparated in a cloud of black smoke.
~~**~~
Harry and Ron backed slowly back the way they had come.
"Maybe if we walk slowly enough, it won't see us leave." Ron whispered.
"I don't think so." Harry said as the rapidly growing monster stalked after them. "Run!"
They took off at a fast sprint down the corridor, but stopped at a junction between the deserted side of the mall, and the openly populated.
There was a large cloud of black smoke on the floor below them, they could see straight down onto the bottom floor through a large opening in their floor.
They ran to the other side of the opening and leaned over the railing looking down. The smoke cleared and there stood a girl who looked to be their age dressed in black leathers with a sword strapped to her belt, bow in her hand, and a sack of arrows strapped to her back. She jumped into the air and hovered in the open space facing the hallway where the monster would come from.
Ron and Harry looked at each other with confused looks. "Um. Excuse me, but who are you?" Harry said.
She looked down at him over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "Torrance. Who are you?" She shot a glance over their heads. "Where are Lilah, Danni, Lor, and Tally? They were supposed to be watching this place."
"Danni and Lilah went to the food court, and I don't know where Tally and Lor are." Ron said. He gestured to her feet hanging in the air. "How are you doing that?"
"I'm part vampire, part elf. It's a gift." She whipped around as a jet of silvery light sliced her cheek open. She faced the monster. "Ah this is why you needed help. Well, this can be remedied." She raised the bow and loaded an arrow. The tip was gold and silver, and the rest was entirely bronze. "Namir, I told you last time, go find your litter box like a good kitty and stay there!" She let the arrow fly and it connected with the monster. It gave a piercing howl and disappeared.
Torrance smiled, shook her head and slowly drifted to Harry and Ron. "Well, shall we find the others? I have some news for them." She walked off, leaving Harry and Ron to sort out the past nine minutes in their heads.
~~~**~~~
"What do you mean by 'They're coming back'?" Hermione said glancing around the food court.
"They as in the Undria'im. They attacked here, and they don't seem to be finished. All we can to is wait for them and hope for the best." Danni said.
"And hope that the blasted medic's get here before most of these people die." Lilah said hoisting the little girl into her arms and stanging to pace around the food court.
Soon enough, the little girl woke up. She looked up at the girl who held her and stared. "You helped me."
"Yes, I did, and so did they." She pointed to Hermione and Danni who waved in a friendly manner.
The girl turned to look at them, then looked back at Lilah. "Who are you?"
"Delilah Farstone, but you can call me Lilah. Those are my friends Danni Higgins and Hermione Granger."
The little girl nodded and looked around. She looked so forlorn for such a young age.
Lilah asked her, "What's your name?"
The little girl looked back to Lilah with empty eyes. "Wendy Gunther." She said softly.
Lilah looked surprised. "Gunther? As in Stephanie Gunther?"
Stephanie Gunther had become famous in the past three years as a celebrity clothing designer. In the past year she had been working on making her designs available to the public. She had opened a store in that very mall only a month before. She had a daughter, but her husband was dead, as were the rest of her relations, and now, so was she.
Wendy nodded. "My mummy owned a store here, we were only coming to see how they were doing, we weren't going to stay long, but then." Her voice trailed off and she shivered uncontrollably.
Lilah looked to Hermione and Danni who were both on the verge of crying. "How old are you?" She asked.
"Mummy says I'm this many." She held up four fingers and a thumb, then reached up with her other hand and folded her thumb halfway. "She says I only get half of this one because I'm not five yet." She looked around the waste of the food court. "Where's my mummy?" Her eyes locked on the prone figure of the blonde woman. "She's dead isn't she?"
Lilah nodded sadly, but didn't say anything.
"Oh." Wendy nodded forlornly and rested her head on Lilah's shoulder. "Lilah?"
"Yes?"
"Can I stay with you? I don't want to see that mean man again."
"What mean man?" Lilah asked urgently.
Wendy shook her head and buried it between Lilah's neck and shoulder. For a moment, Lilah was reminded of another small girl of the same age.
Danni walked up and put a reassuring hand on Wendy's back. "Wendy, we need you to tell us about this man. Did he kill your mother and all these people?"
The child nodded, but didn't say anything.
Danni looked up helplessly at Lilah who shrugged. "Where did he go?"
Wendy pointed up to the roof where a large hole was made in the skylights.
"Well, that explains the hole then."
~~~**~~~
Torrance, Harry, and Ron encountered Tally, Lor, Seamus, and Dean a few minutes later. They conversed about what they had found, then continued on.
The group was silent for a moment, then Tally and Lor were whispering fiercly about who should ask Torrance about her sister. Finally Lor gave up and tapped the other girl on he shoulder.
"What?" Asked Torrance without looking around.
"How is Choral?"
"Dying."
"We know that, but how was she today?"
"She figured it out, and the medics changed her date."
"Longer or shorter?"
"Shorted. much shorter."
'How shorter?"
"Next Friday or before."
"Oh Torrance, I'm so sorry." Lor made to rest a comforting hand on her shoulder, but the other girl shrugged her off. She kept walking on silently, her boots clacking on the ground.
Seamus looked after her, then at Tally and Lor. "What's up with her?"
"Her little sister's dying. The medics think it's tuberculosis, but it's got other symptoms that are confusing them. We think it's because of her heritage, but no one's sure." Tally said. "She's lost both parents, both brothers, and a grandmother, and now her little sister is dying too."
"I know how she feels." Ron said thinking about his own dead siblings, three brothers and a sister. "I lost four of my siblings in the war."
"Ron, we don't really know what happened to Ginny." Harry said softly. He didn't want to accept her death, and probably never would.
"She's dead Harry, face it." Ron turned and followed Torrance.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
A/N: I know, it was REALLY lame, but the next one will be better, I promise!
