DISCLAIMER: i shouldn't need this since anyone reading my story knows i own NOTHING. so there will be no suing of me. all i could pay in is, maybe, chocolate chips....

Prologue continued.....

As Alyena came to, she realized someone had moved her to her bed. Glancing around quickly, she stood. "Celeste?" she called, hoping her friend had not been found while she lay useless under her covers. Alyena ran from room to room, poking her head into the spare, searching frantically, but not calling out again. If You-Know-Who knew Celeste was gone, he would have people out searching for her. He might even have remembered Alyena from that summer in Bulgaria, just after school, and sent spies to her home. She couldn't take the risk that someone might learn Celeste had been to visit her.

Alyena felt her pulse quicken with fear. Celeste was not in the apartment! Running an anxious eye over her front parlor, she noticed a slip of paper lying under a half-empty teacup. Grasping the note with trembling fingers, she carefully read her friend's neatly clipped handwriting.

"Have gone to pay a visit to that Healer. Do not worry. Back soon."

As her eyes scanned the final word, she heard the door open.

……………………………………………………

Celeste walked into the room to see a very flustered Alyena.

"My dear friend, didn't you get my note?" but she continued without giving the other witch a chance to reply. "After you passed out I realized the Healer might have recognized me. I couldn't allow him to fall into Voldemort's greedy hands, so –"

"Celeste! Tell me you didn't kill the man!"

"Of course not! I performed a very strong memory charm on him. Hopefully it's strong enough that not even Voldemort's torture can break it. What's wrong with you?" she gave her friend a befuddled look.

"I don't….I don't like hearing the……" she took a breath and then hissed out, "Name!"

"Well, if that's all," and once again Celeste was all business. She had her hard won freedom; now all she had to do was make sure her children would have the same. "I have worked out the memory charms we will need when the twins come, and in the next few months I will be preparing some charms and spells to Transfigure their appearance. He," she said, looking pointedly at Alyena, "is clever enough to send out a search for anyone who resembles either of us if he finds out I'm…pregnant," she sighed and sank down to a cushioned chair.

…………………………………………………

Over the next few months, Celeste spent all her time working on the spells she needed. A former Ravenclaw, she was talented enough to write her own, which is what she did. Every hour of her day she could, she was at it in the spare room. It was a tight fit for her and all her spell components, and if she had not been distracted by her work she would have noticed the despicable hue of "rose" someone had painted the walls. Then she would have felt it necessary to place a little charm on the walls for the duration of her stay. As it was, however, the walls remained a putrescent pink. Celeste barely ate or slept, her whole being devoted to protecting the life inside her.

Alyena began to worry. From the baby room she was preparing for her twin, she could hear the never-ending stream of ideas flowing from Celeste's mouth. It wasn't long before the pace Celeste set herself began to affect her health. Up from before dawn, until the early hours of the morning the next day. But no matter what arguments Alyena made, she wouldn't slow down. Before much time passed, a feverish look crept into her eyes. That's when Alyena knew she had to step in, or neither mother nor children would survive the pregnancy.

Choosing her time carefully, she slipped a sleeping draught into Celeste's tea one afternoon during the fifth month they'd been sharing the apartment. Normally, Celeste would have known something was going on, but she hadn't been completely there for the past month, and her senses seemed dulled. After only a few minutes, the draught began to take effect. It would have been faster if it weren't diluted in tea, but Alyena wanted to make sure Celeste did not just collapse on the floor. She wanted time to get her friend to the bed before the other witch slipped into a peaceful (and if the bottle didn't lie, a fifteen hours long at the least) sleep. She had decided to speak to Celeste again after the woman got some decent rest. If she tried before, one of those scary looking spells now in the spare room just might be used against her!

…………………………………………………

There were voices in the darkness. She seemed to have come in the middle of a heated conversation.

'Find her!!" came a harsh, throaty growl.

'We have been trying mas- aaaah!' the second voice broke off in a wail of anguished pain.

'Trying?' a peal of cold laughter seemed to echo from the depths of the foggy blackness, it came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, then, abruptly, it……stopped? What happened? she wondered. Did he choke? But then the voice resumed and she knew she'd been much too hopeful in thinking he might have been dying.

'That wench could cost me everything I have worked for, and you tell me you're trying? Trying is not good enough. If that is the best you can do, perhaps you don't belong in this line of work Malfoy,' the name came out as a sneer, the man with the cold laugh was mocking this Malfoy person. 'Maybe you should join Rosier…'

'That will not be necessary. We have narrowed the field of our search. It is only a matter of time before she is found master,' he fervently said. She could tell he was hoping with every fiber of his being, that the other man would leave this topic at that.

She never heard the rest because the blackness began to fade, the fog started to clear, and the darkness was becoming instead a bright light.

……………………………………………….

Her eyes opened briefly, but quickly fluttered closed again, unable to withstand the whiteness surrounding her. As she lay there, examining her eyelids for light leaks, she realized this was not the last place she remembered being. She had been drinking tea with Alyena, then there were those voices, and now she was in a bed. Instantly suspicious, she steeled herself to open her eyes a second time. Very slowly, she opened her left eye a crack. Then when she could stand that, she did the same with her right. She placed her feet on the cool wood floor, while squinting around, trying to divine her whereabouts. By the time she had managed to stand erect, she felt she could open her eyes further. What she saw when she did shocked her.

It. Was. PINK! Everything. It was all some cursed shade of pink that only a colorblind fool of a tasteless man might pick out, and even then, they tended to have more sense. Suddenly she was afraid that she had been captured and placed here for the sole purpose of driving her insane. It might work at that.

Just as she was getting ready to fight her way out, kicking and screaming, maybe pulling hair-but only when absolutely necessary of course, she noticed all the spell components, the stacks of parchment covered in very familiar handwriting. On closer inspection, she came to the conclusion that it was her own handwriting. Her eyebrows rose in surprise, and she looked closer at the actual furniture, then grinned sheepishly at her reflection in the slightly dirty mirror. It was her room at Alyena's. How could she not have noticed those walls before? Or the sheets? Or the pillows? They were all a matching shade of puke pink. She had always prided herself on her fashion taste, but if she hadn't even noticed such a dominating color for, what was it, five months? What happened to me? I haven't been myself in so long!

Celeste moved to the trunk hidden behind a self-boiling cauldron in the far corner to find something neat to replace her rumpled outfit. But everything she pulled on felt much too loose everywhere but around her stomach. Have I really lost that much muscle mass? Why didn't Alyena do something? If I don't fill out a bit soon, I could die from starvation!

Just then, from down the corridor she heard Alyena's voice calling out, "Celeste? Is that you?"

………………………………………………..

so. that is my second installment! thank you dragonwing for your review. believe me i WOULD have forgotten i'd written a story at all without that wonderful email saying i had a review. lol. i actually jumped up from my computer and ran/pranced around my house, stopping next to anything with sufficient brain capacity to understand my gibberish, bounced about while giving a delighted squeal and explaining why i was acting so strangely! hehe my first ever review for my first ever fanfic! -author glances around hoping no one noticed her confession to 'prancing' or 'squealing'- hmm. anyway.....i then sat right back down and started writing this chapter

i am a fickle person prone to short term memory loss. this means i need reminders that i have forgotten to update, that i havent even thought about my story in some time! i regret to say you may need to yell at me to keep the chapters coming. and i havent even gotten to the REAL story yet. im still in my prologue. so review!