"The weak disappear from this world...that is how life works.
It will continue doing so...for the sake of one man!!"
Naruto Vol. 17 Chapter 146
"I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat. "We're all mad here."
Lewis Carroll
"Not a demon. Not a human either. No place to belong. So...I thought the only way was to carve out your own place, by force. That's how I survived.
And by the time I knew what was happening, I was all alone."
Inu-Yasha: A Feudal Fairytale
Volume 12
by Rumiko Takahashi
"He had taken the highest seat amongst the devils of the land-I mean, literally. You can't understand. How could you?-with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy
terror of a scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums-how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude-utter solitude without a policeman-by the way of silence-utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor can be heard whispering public opinion? These little things make all the great
difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong-too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil: the fool is too much of a fool or the devil too much of a
devil-I don't know which."
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad pg. 82
Chapter 5: Changing of the Winds
She gazed thoughtfully down at the silver pool as her Penseive flowed almost to the top. Now she relied on her own memories to dwell on. Dumbledore once told her that his old mind was so full of memories that sometimes he felt submerged as the thoughts retouched around his graying head. At the time, she didn't understand but now... Laughing, she understood now why she had been drawn to the flame, Him. Despite the instinct to stay away, she found to her dismay that invariably she needed him. Some people love with restraint...
For all his arrogance and darkness that hung like tangible curtains in his wake, she saw him as...still didn't know. Someone who was more revealed to her than all her possible companions and friends. Someone deeply flawed and scarred, with more than a little blindness in his rage...at others, of course. As if they were someday to hate...
He couldn't be wrong, be the one wrong in his existence for if he was, he would unravel. Sure, the whole time from start to finish, he thought he had her fooled, blinded, and strung on the web of his all so powerful words. He believed and still does no doubt that he tricked her like he had her mother and so many wandering sheep. Not so... although he had control, he did not have what he wanted for she had known what he was. She saw through him. But we hated gently, carefully...
When he had gathered the last bits of his scattered and acidic memory, (the memory of a past not worth remembering) he must have laughed at the déjà vu, at the revenge handed so eagerly towards him on a platter.
The fiasco years ago was merely a delay of the inevitable. That boy couldn't escape him. No one could. Hadn't he said so? Now what should have been will be. Some would have coined the term fate by now. Not him. (Because only the weak believed in such trash)He knew that his power, his presence was the source of their undoing and his new beginning. He was power. What fools they all were...walking into death....to think he would be banished by a child with a toy sword. Here he was with control over another red-headed innocent, except this time, she had those eyes, those eyes that he would make sure reflected that pain that he had been failed to be the cause of before.
Harry Potter gained some of the immortality that belonged to me...stole from me... through his own fool of a daughter, I will have it back and those left will remember me as I decide who deserves to breathe...they will know only...
She cut him off there in media res. Oh, yes. How very rude of him indeed to leave such thoughts to her as a parting gift, some mockery of a valentine. How could she not pity him? As if we were someday to love...
Venus Trines at Midnight by Linda Goodman
A persistent stinging drags her dutifully from her sleep, her mind floundering like an overgrown fish on a hook. The first facet of reality she was aware of was that her hand had fallen asleep and now was being pinpricked by tons of needles. Then, like an on-coming train wreck, hit the other truth, her ignorance. For, she did not know where she was.
Elizabeth flung herself upright from the couch she had been placed, tangled in a mossy green covers, breathing without drawing in any air. She drowned in the darkness. The few torches gave the illusion that the whole room was moving or was it an illusion at all? She felt her body tilt in step. Looking at the undulating motion made her sick.
She was startled as she heard someone whimper and even more so when she realized that she was that someone. Trying to gather herself, her hand gratuitously flew to her neck in order to clasp—
Her mother's necklace was gone.
For what must have been only a few minutes but what seemed like eternity, she stared at the vacant indention in her neck as though expecting the small bird to fly back to its proper place. She felt her thoughts becoming more disoriented, her composure looking for the nearest exit. The closest tangible connection she had with her mother was gone; the something her mother and father both held in their hands, the one thing that made them exist with her rather than be print in a book or names on a stone had been taken from.
Nausea assaulted her. Grasping the covers tightly, so tightly she thought her fingers would fall off, despair and something ineffable began to float up from the well within. Her crying echoed throughout the dungeon. She knew it was ridiculous but without her small necklace which she had began to fancy as a ward against the maliciousness of her past, a promise of happiness in the future, and an embrace from some part of her parents that had not left quite yet...without her necklace, she felt helpless.
Something was dripping in the corner, a continuous and steady laughter at her. Something crouched in the corner, waiting...
It was quite possible I won't move from this spot that I'll just fade here.
She was in trouble and was not dealing other kids. Maybe not even the ghost guy who she thought she saw. Whoever had brought her here was real; he was real enough to steal from her.
She was only a first year, only a kid. She did not understand.
Nymphadora Tonks flew towards Hogwarts at break-neck speed.
Can't Apparate, couldn't get in through Floo Powder!
The barrier around Hogwarts was weakening rapidly though, might be able to... I wish Moody was here!
He would have figured it out quicker...he would have seen through....
But Alastor Moody was not here nor was he anywhere she could reach him. He survived it all; that guy survived the whole war. He took on masses of Death Eaters, turned Aurors, even challenged You-Know-Who although he was half dead at the time. Thank Goodness that Potter had been there.
The point where Old Mad Eye grew tired was when Potter and that poor, little boy disappeared. He had been the first one at the Potter house in Devonshire, the first one to banish the two (or was it three?) unaccounted for Dementors. He was the first one to dig through the rumble and see seven- year old Elizabeth Potter illuminated by that thing only he saw in the sky, crying and grasping her mother's body. When Remus appeared, the thing in the sky was gone.
Remus was the one to take the hysterical child to St. Mungo's.
The tragedy took away a part of them all. The Weasleys...the Order...Dumbledore, oh, the look on his face when he was told! Harry Potter had been like a son to him, although he was careful not to act like he had any sort of bond. He kept his distance for Harry's safety and for his own health. Tonks didn't blame him. Dumbledore's real and only son died very young.
Mad Eye Moody himself was also close to Potter in a similar and yet very different way.
Moody shaped Harry to become a warrior. A quite gifted one at that! Also, he feared for him in a way that many of them could relate to. In war, Right and Wrong become confused; you had to think...no, know what you were capable of doing and know how far you could go and still come home, sleep at night, live with yourself, and cherish the simple things. That was the hard part most of the time, to know who you were and not become what you fought against. She had long ago banished the idea of black and white, good and evil...truth or evil. That wasn't the way the world worked. There were shades of gray, and she had tight-walked most of the variations of the familiar, non-descript color. Gray always reminded her of a moth coming to eat away at the fabric of your life. She made a point of wearing vivacious color. She had felt herself slip; it would be fascinating to any outsider to observe the gradual changes of character in the Ministry. It would be a fascinating read.
At first, Moody was suspicious of the boy and suspicious of the man he would become. If anyone knew about slipping, it was Alastor Moody. Tonks trusted him but never truly knew him. He kept his distance under his leadership. She was always with a Moody who was constantly...She couldn't imagine who he was before he became an Auror.
The one person who crossed the miles of barricades, curses, and rabid Manticores was Harry Potter. Potter knew Moody, and Moody knew Potter.
During the summers spent training, an understanding grew between the two men as well as Harry's skill. Moody became Harry's mentor, a standard, and a figure of respect. Of course, it wasn't like Remus's and Harry's relationship or the Weasleys's and Harry's relationship or any mere camaraderie in the face of battle. Moody always said that in battle, that is when you know a man. But then again, the only thing close to describing Potter and Moody was their understanding of each other. Yet that word only or any word at all couldn't describe it. It seemed that Harry Potter was Mad Eye's last chance for redemption; if Potter turned out decent, then he helped create something good.
When Potter died, Moody died inside.
The only good thing near the end of his life was the way he died...no, Moody himself would have been enraged. He claimed he would die in the mist of a great battle, the Battle. That's the end he thought he deserved and what his lifestyle called for. The end he got was a peaceful one, soundly asleep for once in a chair in front of the hearth. Even his magical eye was closed and still.
If only he was here now...
Tonks was at Grimmauld Place after the attacks increased.
Kingsley had left after debriefing them about Dumbledore's latest orders, to prepare to be infiltrated into the Hogwarts's community of students. Of course, Remus was obviously exempt from the group. The idea was to take frequent doses of aging potion, then some polyjuice potion (good recipe for a stomach ulcer in Tonks's opinion), then become a student in order to guard the children more effectively without disrupting the learning process. The other order for Remus and Fletcher struck a horrified chord in the midst of the trio.
Dumbledore said guard the Wizarding cemetery with that tomb.
Shacklebolt left Remus there with her alone. His...condition...had been getting worse for him, physically and mentally. He thought he was a burden. If only he knew that he was what was keeping her going, really. This war would never end. Dumbledore had known that, Moody had known that, and now she knew. Her only fond time was sitting and talking with Remus about books mainly. Funny, she had never been much fond of books or words or language before. She had begun to truly read when she met him. She began to appreciate the beautiful sound and power of words especially his words. She wished she could communicate. She really wished she wasn't so clumsy; her "condition" increased ten-fold when he was around. Maybe that's why he thought...
Then, Mundungus Fletcher Apparated with a bang, followed by the crash of the cup she dropped in surprise. Damn...
"They're goin' to attack Hogsmeade!"
Well, not really. Now she knew.
Mundungus had heard the word from the words of a young nineteen year old boy, fresh out of Hogwarts and drunk as hell. Mundungus and the said boy were at the biggest breeding place of scum and lowlifes in Britain, sometimes called the Pit, the Lair, or the Spider; the blemish of the Wizarding World is correctly called the Necro for Necropolis. It was such a fitting name for a place that gives false hope and lies to a lost bunch. A place that stood for excused violence on a grand scale and people who mulled around blind-a common state for those among us taking on extreme darkness. Ironically, it was very well-hidden near the Ministry of Magic. Mundungus called it his office.
Yes, his sales always skyrocketed there. There, they had fights. Not among the humans, but among animals. The favorite was a battle between a fatally normal stray and a Runespoor or a Manticore. Tonks saw it as an articulation of the desired relationship between the Magical World and the Muggle one.
Mundungus didn't even want to be stationed there at first. He became acclimated to the place, whatever its pull was. Sometimes, he made excuses to go to the Necro.
But it was vital because not all Death Eaters were affluent and well-set in life. Loads were hidden in the Ministry and in mansions but even more were hidden in the underworld. Such places like the Necro had taken off when Grindelwald began to recruit those out of the loop in society for whatever reason; this trend continued even more fiercely under You-Know-Who's reign. These people, mostly youth, in the Necro believed they had not been given their proper dues by the current community. Most claimed that Mudbloods and half-breed trash had taken opportunities and dreams that belonged to them by birthright. The magical community was corroded with contamination, and they would be the ones to banish the scum who had persecuted their ancestors.
In actuality, their words were hollow. Among her recent readings, Muggleborns were scarcely considered in a Ministry fraught with prejudice. Thus, the problems that lot howled about had no direct correlation with Mugglified infiltration but with intrigues and scandals deep-rooted in the Ministry. The papier-mâché Minister chose blindness.
Muggleborns had a fleeting moment of great respect when a great number fought against the Dark Lord. With Harry Potter as their supporter, they gained influence unimagined before despite the Ministry's frequent yet futile attempts to silence them. Silence them in the most dignified methods possible without resorting to any acts of unpleasantness. False charges against the most reputable of Muggleborns arose with incriminating letters communicating and plotting with the brutish Muggles on the other side. The Daily Prophet was the biggest supporter of these ridiculous falsities, keeping the community in a panic and the prejudice brewing. When Potter disappeared, the Muggle-born respect flittered away like the brief, brief candle we all hear about.
She remembered her mother, Andromeda Melphomene Freya Tonks. A dark woman always filled with light and a fierce independence. The woman who wasn't enslaved by old ideas. The real person in a family molded by Pride, the original sin.
As a half-born, Tonks had experienced prejudice. Somewhere along the way, she became apathetic towards the whole situation. It was a presence without any image but an idea to it. Her first day of pre-witches training school was full of old ideas. She was only five, only two years younger than the Elizabeth Potter who clung to her mother's body that dark day in the future.
Young children tend to be less aware of the ideas but more impacted by them. The world is so bright and blessedly blurry when you're young. Then you trade your plastic rose colored glasses in for the real deal, grown-up pair of sharp lenses. The world becomes strident and harsh. You saw every blemish and disease, but by the time you figured out that you've been cheated, there's no going back. You didn't read the fine print on your binding contract with adulthood.
In the small village, pre-witch training fliers made their mark on every wall and crevice. She picked a pink sheet up with her small fist and begged her mother to enroll her. Mother looked at her small child in surprise. Her Nymphadora was rather timid and constantly attached to the end of her robes. Her husband told her to go ahead and give the program a try. Nymph was gifted only a little clumsy but that was nothing age and the accompanying grace wouldn't fix. Look who she had for a mother, the epitome of grace and finesse.
Indeed. In Tonks's memory, her mother would forever be linked to the feline qualities she possessed. Her fluidity and supple grace was only matched by her cleanliness and aristocratic nature. Her midnight black hair framed her sapphire eyes that could be watchful, somewhat judgmental at times, and deeply understanding. It was strange that her mother embodied a sort of innocence and yet could have a worldly and commanding air.
Andromeda grew enthusiastic about her little Nymphadora becoming refined and more sociable with children her own age.
She gripped her mother's hand tightly, becoming queasier as the approached the small house that seemed to grow into a fire-breathing beast that craved children. The blue flowers in front were doxy fairies in disguise. The seemingly harmless yard gnomes were locked in a conspiracy that would commence as soon as her mother disappeared around the corner.
The first day was wonderful. They learned some Latin and read a lot about the greatest witches and wizards who ever existed. Best of all, her clumsiness had taken a day off! Mrs. Lockhart, an older, wizened witch adorned in a gaudy, forget-me-not blue dress not meant for wear, instructed her young pupils grandiosely, constantly waving her bejeweled hands and imparting proverbs of wisdom in a sing-song voice. Nymphadora thought she was pretty and kind. The day came to an end much too soon. Nymphadora was near the rear of the excited line of scrambling children, holding on to the moving picture her mother had given her of the two of them together in case she got homesick. Someone tapped her shoulder sharply. The small girl looked up to see the blond teacher looming over her. Her blue eyes were slightly yellowish on closer inspection and not as sparkling as previously believed.
"Sweets, would you mind terribly if I kept you for a minute or two?"
By Merlin, no! No doubt her mentor was going to praise her for her extensive knowledge of Morgan La Faye whom her mother told her the Black family was related too! Or maybe it was a comment on her advanced reading skills. Or her surprisingly organized, tidy appearance!
"My dear, what was your last name? I'm afraid I must have misheard you before".
"Nymphadora Tonks, Mrs. Lockhart." The curly headed brunette child beamed up at her teacher.
"Tonks." The bubbly blonde's voice lowered drastically from its former falsetto.
"Yes, ma'am!" Nymphadora beamed even wider.
"Oh...dear me. Sweetheart, you didn't read the fine print, did you?"
She floated over to her desk, plucking a familiar pink flier from her pink bag. Returning to loom over the thoroughly confused girl, she shoved the flier into one of the girl's small hands and pointed out a previously unnoticed bunch of miniscule letters that looked more like scratches than a message of any sort.
"You see here, then, sweets."
The 'sweets' had taken on a different tone now. She tensed as she realized it was condescension. How she knew she couldn't say because she had never been put down or patronized before. Her awareness was simply an instinct awakening in her.
"No..." She couldn't make out the words even squinting as hard as she could.
"It states quite clearly that only pure-blooded children are allowed to attend my program. I suppose your mother must have missed the listed requirements, bless her."
"Pure-blooded?" She hadn't heard the term before in her home. What was wrong with her blood? Was it tainted? Was she sick?
"My pet, you don't know what....hmmm, I see." The woman had started to laugh in disbelief.
Tonks was becoming alarmed about the state of her blood, already feeling it coursing diseased through her body. She wished her teacher would articulate and tell her what was wrong and how she could fix it. She'd do anything.
Mrs. Lockhart carefully secured the flier in the girl's hands after she had underlined the dreadful yet clear message with her peacock-feathered quill.
Tonks hesitated at the door way covered with violent flowers, shocked at the declaration of her lack of purity and rightness.
Mrs. Lockhart grasped her trembling shoulders before pushing her forward.
"Your mother will explain it to you, sweets. Now hurry home. I'm sure she's waiting for you."
She had never run faster in her life, home-made spotted cloak flapping behind her. She had to get home and inform her mother of her terrible condition. Would her mother be disappointed though?
Breathing heavily through her sobs and clasping her chest, Nymphadora stopped a little ways from her house which was on the outskirts of the village. Her house that was once cozy and fully of nice scents changed into a being of a dreadfully dark and forbidden nature. How could she go home and tell her parents that there was something horribly wrong with her, something so bad that it couldn't be risked for her to be around other children?
She crouched down by the walkway, concealed in some shrubbery. She slipped away in her staring at the treacherous village, the monument to her now- broken life. She was going to run away! She couldn't be a burden to her parents, and besides what if they caught what she had?
Nymphadora Tonks cried. Soon, though, she would have to get up and find somewhere else to go. She saw the pink flier through blur of her tears. How she hated the color!
The light was disappearing from the sky as she crawled out from under her hiding place, ready to set out. Abandoning the strikingly pink message of doom, she grasped the picture in her hand and looked at the two smiling faces one last time.
"NYMPHADORA EUPHROSYNE TONKS! WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, YOUNG LADY!" A shrill voice broke her silent goodbye.
Her mother stood over her, angrier than she had ever seen her. She must know! Nymphadora Euphrosyne Tonks knew she should flee for her mother's safety, but she couldn't. As selfish and dirty as she felt, she wanted her mother to hold her.
Andromeda Tonks carried her hysterical child towards the house as fast as her legs would carry her. She had to contact her husband for their Nymph must be ill to cry so.
The pink flier snagged on the thorny branches flapped in the wind, refusing to yield and remaining to serve as a reminder. It would remain there for awhile afterwards until an older version of the small hand that had clenched it so before discovered it and threw it away in the rubbish bin.
As she grew up, she preferred to go by her surname although she allowed her mother to call her Nymphadora during the last years they had together. Her mother cooed that the name Nymphadora had been in the Black line forever, at the very beginning in fact. Tonks spared her beautiful and proud mother the knowledge that she didn't give a Kneazle about that side of her. Why be a part of people who wouldn't be a part of you?
Andromeda strived to banish her parents and her sisters from her head and begin a new life with Ted Tonks, the man her showed her true happiness. Though Tonks remembered seeing her gloomy at certain points of her life, bogged down by memories of the past, she remembered more her cheerfulness and kindness. Andromeda never let her child see her remorse for her lost sisters especially her twin. Tonks was always supposed to have been tucked away in her bed when her parents stayed up. It helped to know her mother's remorse wasn't another word for regret. Her parents were two drowning people who had taught each other to swim.
Yet, though Andromeda forgot her sisters, her sisters did not forget her. At the beginning of the Dark Lord's reign, the small house she knew as a child with pleasant scents and memories engrained in the wood would be cinders.
Tonks became an Auror like her father.
She also became a philosopher of sorts. Not really. She kept her thoughts to herself. True, she talked quite a bit and saw herself as the support system of any tag team she was placed in. Well, she could lighten the mood before people got crazy under the pressure that comes hand in hand with being an Auror. But, when things grew quiet, she was alone; she couldn't help but wonder at them all. The shear madness of everyone today and not just Death Eaters but Aurors as well! Maybe she was a little mad too. Her father, on the other hand, was not. Whenever she was at the breaking point, she conjured up his face in her head. He had the brightest eyes that she, a Metamorphmagus, couldn't even mimic; they were such an endless blue, a forget-me-not blue. He questioned them all.
Here's a theory, Dad.
The conflicts that simmered since the before time of Salazar Slytherin cemented a link with the Muggle World; in the Muggle World, violence and madness broiled constantly, the same as the Magical one. Her mother was the one who told her about the well. Somewhere inside every man and woman is a well of their spirit. A well so deep it can not be fathomed. Magical people feel it though; it is the source of all their power. If you close your eyes, you could envision that well, become in tune to the gentle water within. Muggles can't hear the well; they had grown apart from themselves. Now, some magical people have lost touch with the rhythm too; although they perform acts of magic, they do not perform magic, no matter what they decide to call their acts.
Muggleborns are those who were destined to be Muggles but heard the well. Now, as the spirit corrodes, the precious contents in the well begin to sour. And when hard times are upon you, you could fill that it begins to simmer and becomes the indomitable human soul. But humans with desire to control and surpass the spirit of the well become poisoned. In their search for the truth they want to see, they feed upon lies of their own egotism. The poison is through the ground all humans share when a man wants to prove his importance by destroying his fellow men. It is the ultimate act of godhood, to control another life. Yet there is the anchor of mortality in false godhood. In the process, they can no longer hear the well. Poison is what doomed them all. Each well has the ability to become poisoned; it is harder to maintain order then it is chaos.
When you see all these Death Eaters or anyone else for that matter commit such atrocities that you become obsessed with distancing your self, claiming that they are inhuman. The distance keeps your relation to them foreign. But the idea that they are human...well, that idea will keep you up at night, wondering about yourself.
Hogsmeade was an inferno, echoing all the rage felt by the Death Eaters. The Apparated Tonks felt the heat before she even saw the flames. She felt the pain first.
"Gaaaaa!!!!"
Every muscle was one fire. Down she went, her nails digging in her shoulders as she held herself, begging that the pain went away. She went even further down, almost blacking out. Dots swarmed around the corners of her eyes. Distantly through the fog descending rapidly on her, she heard other yelps and screams beside her as her fellows fall into the same trap, her unable to warn them.
Can't breathe, can't think!
As she shut down to the pain, she felt the silken melody of her mother's voice. The words were unreachable but singing her some lullaby buried in her past. Then came Moody's voice.
Are you that weak to let them beat you?! Haven't I taught you anything at all? Get on your feet, Auror!
It felt as if a scratchy blanket was on her, smothering her. She had to throw it off. But it was so heavy. She was so tired. It would be so nice...not to worry...to give in...
ON YOUR FEET!!
Pulled downward, she told him to piss off. He got to leave, so what the hell did he know? Sinking through layers of comfortable... familiar water... freshly dried blankets warmed by the sun... cinnamon-like, home where something was cooking...
She's getting close to the well, close enough to hear it murmuring. What do you know, Mum was right...
Not yet...go back.
Back to the pain again! The pain had her on a hook, pulling her back towards the surface of her now inflamed consciousness. Tingling running throughout her body, she struggled and felt the blanket slip...almost there! It hurt even worse when the pain was gone. Its aftermath still weakening her body, she stumbled to where Remus and Fletcher were lying prone on the ground.
Remus!!
"Finite Incantatem!"
Nothing...Fletcher's chest wasn't moving...Remus...
Drastic times called for drastic measures.
"Mucronis acutis!" Tonks roared, aiming at the softest place the spell would do the least damage.
"BLOODY HELL!" Fletcher jerked awake, frantically rubbing his backside. "WHAT IN—"
Tonks pushed him to the side; he fell face-first on the ground, dirt billowing around him.
Leaning over the gray-haired man, she lifted his head gently, gazing at him so intently his face started to blur in front of her.
"R-Remus," she whispered as if not to wake him from sleep, not if he was...
"You stupid idiot! You're goin' to smother him!"
Mundungus grabbed Remus from her embrace. Tonks felt her anger rear up. Remus groaned.
"See! He's breathing!"
Mundungus looked up as if to scold then froze, gaping.
Tonks spun around, almost falling over. A vision of Death! The Death Eater was illuminated against the flames, tilting his head to the side. She could feel his smirk through his mouth less, marble mask. How unreal it was to see humanity through that unnatural mask!
Moving to her hand to her side, she grabbed for her wand—nothing!
Looking away just slightly, she spotted her wand; the Death Eater placed his boot on it and crushed it into pieces.
He raised his own wand with flourish.
"Stupefy!"
The dark-clad figure dropped to the ground. In his place stood Madam Rosmerta, standing haughtily with her hands on her hips, bun collapsed and hanging around her ears.
"You lot dare harass my customers! You've got another thing coming!"
Rosmerta limped forward, one of the heels on her lime green shoes splintered, bellowing and waving her hands hysterically.
"You, Aurors! Are you daft?! Come by this morning, promising some new barrier, good for business, he says! Customer friendly, he says! JUST LOOK AT THIS! I DEMAND COMPENSATION FOR THESE DAMAGES! WE WERE FINE WITH THE OTHER DAMN BARRIER! FIRST DEMENTORS, NOW—YOU WON'T BE SATISFIED TIL YOU RUN ME OUT OF BUSINESS! IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!"
"Silencio, you old bat," Mundungus said in an urgent voice, finally locating his splintered wand with his fumbling hands.
"Wait! What new protection barrier?!"
The gnomes weren't out of the garden. Something was up. She wasn't informed about any new barrier.
"It's a bunch of nonsense! She's gone nutters on us."
Mundungus glared with unusual ferocity at the haggard witch who kept motioning rude gestures at him and mouthing something promising violence.
The look in Fletcher's beet-red eyes gave her a fierce uneasiness. Tonks slowly got to her feet, trying to act composed.
She walked to the blown about fragments of her now-desired wand, shaking slightly on her weakened legs.
"Fletcher, come on!"
Mundungus flinched, seemingly startled by the order.
"Come now, let's not be hasty! Shouldn't we go to the Ministry first?"
Remus appeared with healing herbs in his hand.
"They most likely know and have sent re-enforcements there."
"Maybe we should go to Hogwarts!" Tonks saw a pair of trust-filled green eyes.
"No! I mean—no, you guys should go on to Hogsmeade. Hogwarts got Dumbledore and his staff, not to mention the strongest barrier in all of Britannia. Think of all those poor people." Mundungus forced a big, cavity-friendly smile, his tired eyes showing fresh fear.
Oh for—there isn't time for this! Tonks was about to introduce Fletcher to her fist.
Remus, sensing the danger, quickly said, "No matter how emotional we are, we must be professional. Hogsmeade is the first priority, then Hogswarts." He caught her eye. "She'll be alright."
"Then it's all settled then! Go get them!" Mundungus started to slowly shuffle backwards.
Tonks grabbed Fletcher by the cloak, brandishing her wand menacingly.
"Look here you!"
Fletcher put up his hands.
"Okay, okay! Keep your hair on! I'm goin'."
Mundungus...
Tonks changed her course towards the fallen figure. His wand was still in his gloved hand. She glanced behind her.
The Madam had completely advanced upon Mundungus, gritting her teeth and balling her fists, dancing around him as best she could on one heel.
Fletcher looked coldly at her, shaking his head vehemently at her silenced accusations. Remus had pushed himself up on his elbows, his eyes glazed.
She did something Moody always advised. She looked around.
Through the smoke, she spotted the dark cloaks and flashes of white of the Death Eaters, but they were growing smaller. They were leaving. At the height of the chaos, they were leaving. When the force of the Aurors had been successfully, they were leaving.
Her mind churned painfully, aware of nothing else. Why Hogsmeade? It was obvious why, to cause fear. But when Aurors were about with more force and infiltrating the underworld, why risk petty attacks? To divide and conquer...to distract from the real quarry!
She reached the still figure and picked up the wand.
Fletcher raised his wand at Rosmerta who had retreated, her pink mouth an o in surprise.
"Expelliarmus!"
Fletcher flew over Remus, his wand twirling in the air.
"ARE YOU KIDDIN' ME, YOU LOONY?!" Fletcher charged towards her.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Mundungus fell heavily onto Remus and the two tumbled to the ground.
A hand struck her from behind, a foot on her back! The whistling of something green flying through the air!
Smack!
The Death Eater returned to his place in the dirt. Rosmerta rushed over to retrieve her one-good shoe, mouthing desperately.
Tonks waved the wicked wand.
"-SNEAKY SNAKE IN THE GRASS! THE ONE WHO SOLD US ALL ON THAT-FALTY-!"
"I know, I KNOW! DO YOU HAVE A BROOM I CAN BORROW?" Tonks shouted.
"Don't you dare raise your voice to me, you violet-haired-?! I've been through a horrible ordeal!"
She was cut off by the look on Tonks's face. Rosmerta weakly motioned towards what was left of her tavern.
"Mine's in the closet behind the bar."
"Help Remus. Keep the Death Eater Stupified. Don't let Fletcher go."
I have to get to Hogwarts.
She stood. That was a start.
Within the minutes, the hours, or however long she had sat there, Elizabeth Potter had made a decision. I'm going to survive!
There was simply too much she would leave unfinished. The mystery behind her past...
She was left behind for a reason, without a memory and marked. Her whole body was a story if one knew how to look. She dealt with pain from these marks which separated her so from any of her peers; now she wanted some answers. Her parents tried to protect her; that was a fact. Now she was the avenger; she could not die yet. Her father endured what she will have to, the torch had been passed, no matter what his intentions for her future had been. Most likely, he had hoped for the best. But all that he had built had been stolen. And she would bet everything, even her invisibility cloak (which she had loaned to one of her companions...Sandy maybe, her mind was jumbled up), that the person behind her family's suffering had a hand in her kidnapping. Perhaps, one of the burnt and withered hand prints on her body belonged to the hand that had placed her here. This knowledge was her fuel, and what made her move from the safe bed.
There was her family, her grandmother mainly, who found such joy at her appearance. Her grandmother who had been through such losses! How could she not try and spare her another?
Faces swam in her head of all those whom she met and allowed her to have a place even if it was less than flattering. Snape was in front of her, sneering, and telling her she was too weak to make it. She would show him she was much more than a name! Yeah!
Yeah....
Her wand was gone too. Of course!
Duh! She hit herself in the head with the palm of her blackened hand. She wasn't going to be able to do much if she didn't start thinking faster.
The walls...they glinted so strangely in the light, seemed to move. Biting her lip, she remembered the cause for her previous dizziness. Approaching closer, Elizabeth reached out curiously to obey her sudden impulse, to touch a protruding stone. It scratched against her sensitive skin. Snake! Recoiling in horror, hand tingling, she realized the walls were covered in snake-skin, not unlike that book she found.
There was an angry hiss as the flames flickering in the torches went out.
She stood in the dark! It was pitch black! Before she realized it, she was on the cold stone, her knees having given away as her system suffered a huge jolt. She couldn't catch her breath. Her lungs were being crushed. She felt something with a freezing hand with rubbery skin reach for her.
Her phobia—
Something is...
Her whole being cringed, collapsing on herself, thinking she heard a step.
Got to get out of here!
Elizabeth tried to hush her breathing which gave the impression of a train. She took one stone at a time, crawling on her hands and knees.
Trying not to vomit, she struggled as the cold from the stone seeped through her limbs
She ran head-long into someone's leg. Oh!
"Lumos."
McGonagall raised her wand for order among the frightened melee of pajama- clad children.
"Attention! Act like Gryffindors! Prefects, check off names of the list immediately!"
She shoved the list in a flustered Indira Patil's hand and lifting her robes, she hurriedly climbed the steeps, leaving the shouting and crying behind her. Her sharp eyes had already noticed four people in particular missing from the group after she gazed around, trying to spot a mane of red- hair. Oh, gods!
As she opened the hid door behind the tapestry of Ignatius the Great, something she couldn't see knocked her over. A silver cloth flew through the air.
"What on— Finnigan!"
A mutter from the pictures on the wall.
"That's what you get for running in the halls."
With surprising strength for her age, she jerked the frightened, crying girl up by the arm.
"S-s-sorry! I was-we were-got locked out and c-couldn't remember the-."
"WHERE'S POTTER?!"
"So...you're awake then. I thought the child of the great Harry Potter would have awoken sooner from a simple stunning charm. Just a thought..."
A mousy brown-headed man with dark eyes fitted above a weak chin studied her. She was surprised as she had expected a more sinister entity appearing from the dark. This man was one you could pass on any street corner in the world and be none the wiser to his existence.
His non-descript face was arranged in such an expression of emptiness that held no anger, contempt, or joy. It held a smile which was not a smile but an expression of curiosity that you could easily find on a child's doll and stuck deep inside you because it gave uneasiness. Then he changed masks. His features contorted intensely, almost making him unrecognizable from before.
The fiend moved suddenly and gripped her arms so hard his fingers clamped down on the bone; she cried out in pain. Her arm was going to be ripped out of her socket.
"Be quiet, brat!" he spat in her face. "It's time for us to go. You're going to love...well. I won't ruin the surprise for you."
He grabbed the same stone protruding from the wall that she had ventured to touch earlier. Every inch of snake-skin began to shift, gliding in the light of his wand, and revealed a hidden corridor.
Damn, if only I had pulled it!
She examined her captor out of the corner of her eye. With the malicious glint in his eyes, she realized why she had mistaken him for ghost boy earlier. His grip had not loosened, and her arm was going numb. Her feet were some good two inches off the ground. He didn't stupefy her again; she guessed he didn't see her as a threat. Anger bit in her heart.
"Who are you? WHY ARE YOU-" Elizabeth was slammed against still-moving wall violently. Her head banged on the stone, and she lost her breath.
"I told you to be quiet. See what you made me do."
His voice was so apologetic and sugar-coated it made her sick. This man was a loose canon; if she wasn't careful, he would kill her before completed his mission whatever it was.
He carried her in the corridor. It was noxiously humid like a jungle would be from centuries of stagnant water and the air weighed down on them both, him especially as he was slightly overweight.
Expecting another act of violence, she winced as his sing-song voice broke the silence.
"I guess I should let you know...who I am, I mean. Why not? It's not like you'll be telling anyone."
Someone please help me! Oh, please!
"My name's Smith. Average sounding, right? Think about how many Smiths are in the world. Hufflepuff-ish to a sickening point, am I right?" He broke off in to peals of maniacal laughter. His grip, if possible, increased. She remained silent.
"My first name is even worse. Zacharias...bloody hell! But, let's think about it. So average. But I'm powerful in my invisibility, Potter. Potter...another unremarkable name, right?!" He shook her hard. Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded.
"You agree. Wonderfully sensible of you! How very unlike your father! Yes, everyone knew your father's name. Thought he was so bloody wonderful. Let me tell you, he was a sodding idiot...a swelled-up git!"
She felt the hate radiating off him in vibes. She was in so much trouble!
"Then there were the Slytherins."
Where did that come from?!
"They wouldn't accept me for what I was. Walked around like they were gods, and I was supposed to lie down and take that! That bloody hat...I was supposed to be in Slytherin. It told me so...it did! But I was shunted into Hufflepuff because I was a Muggleborn-I wasn't smart enough to be in Ravenclaw. I didn't bury myself in a damn book, so no Ravenclaw for me! They were the most annoying, sodding...thought they were so-but your bloody father was the worst!"
He looked at her expectantly, smirking, daring her to say something.
"Uh-Hufflepuff isn't so bad." Even to her ears, that sounded weak. So much for calming this guy down!
He stared at her, so she hurried on.
"I mean-they're hardworking and loyal. That counts for a lot! A-at least, I- I think so," she muttered weakly.
He laughed again, eyes bulging and she prepared for the violence to follow.
"Oh, yes! Hardworking! Well, Potter, you're right. I am hardworking-in fact, I am part of something much greater than your so-called father...so great that You-Know-Who couldn't get within cursing distance...so great that the legendary Dumbledore is a weakling, a speck on my shoe. Isn't that hilarious?!"
It wasn't hilarious at all. But she felt oddly fascinated by the display of absurdity in front of her. What the longing for a place in the world, longing for recognition, done to this man! He became a part rather than a person because if that part was greater than himself...he was hollow.
So, here she was with a brain-washed lunatic who was dragging her away to kill her.
No!
I will do something! I'm not about to be beaten by a Smith.
She buried herself deep within, trying to find that power that had allowed her to escape from Westley, another fairly average person.
He shook her again, annoyed by her lack of attention.
"Nothing to say..."
"Yes, I do have something to say. Did you take my necklace?!"
"Your what?!" Smith snarled, his eyes opening wide at the offense of changing the subject. He twisted her arm behind her back, making her gasp as needles shot up into her shoulder. They traveled like this for what seemed like an eternity.
"We're here!" He was obviously having a great time.
There were in the infamous mirror room where Tonks had taken her before on her first visit to Hogwarts.
If he thought he could escape with me here, well, hah! He's the idiot!
Then she saw the quicksilver mirror that the fingertips had grazed in the middle of the floor, filled with a deep red.
What?!
Elizabeth was relatively sure that mirror was doing that the last time she was here.
Before she realized it, he had hauled her across the room, gracefully missing the other enigmatic mirrors. She caught a glimpse of her many selves, each undergoing the same form of humiliation in their universes. One Elizabeth turned towards her, sneering, waving her away with kisses, and giving her plenty of rude gestures in a remarkably short length of time. Another clone was just laughing hysterically like she was told the funniest joke in the world-that she was going to be done in by a Smith.
Just what I need...
Smith lowered her down where her feet touched but held her head in a head- lock and her arms clasped behind her. To her chagrin, her ruddy reflection showed fear etched on every line of her petite face. Smith loomed over her more a creature than a man, and his eyes danced with glee at this picture.
Her eyes followed Smith as he raised a curiously shaped dagger, engraved with a bagger fittingly enough. But, on the hilt, sacrifices of small figures...children no less...was taking place apparently for the bagger. And the words were pethro.
A grin covered Smith's randomly contorting face.
"Don't worry...this will hurt."
He pierced her arm, scrapping the bone, and she screamed the sound echoing in her head. His gloved hand completely covered her mouth.
He lowered her with mock gentleness to the ground like a rag doll. Shock
"I need your blood. Otherwise, you won't be able to travel in between."
Through the digging pain and fear that was reaching back into her, she had to wonder what that meant, in between.
Smith dabbed her blood off the knife with his finger and drew a symbol on the icy surface of the mirror which pulsed angrily, then greedily absorbed her blood.
The Thorn.
The Thorn burnt in the sky, the mirror, the book...and his ring...I saw it...
With this same hand, he grabbed a fist-full of her hair to pull her up, making her hiss.
"Step lively now."
The mirror was now rippling as if it was going to overflow. It seemed to have grown accustom to the taste of blood.
No way! No way am I going in there!
As Smith stepped up behind her to push her into the river of blood, she kicked out, catching him right in the groin.
In response to the acute pain and shock, he fell forward, knocking into her and effectively making her lose her balance.
When a thing is red, you think it's going to be burning hot like lava. The pool of liquid even behaved like lava, congealing behind her. But the pool...it was like falling into an ice-bucket, numbing for an intense home- made surgical procedure, the theft of a kidney.
Even the roots of her hair froze, and her mouth opened as a reaction when she really didn't desire to ingest any of the garnet...time. Time was flowing by, intertwined with the morbid offering of entry. She was aware that her pale hand floating, reaching up above and that somehow the ability to breathe didn't leave.
Watching the graying cook from behind the door, hoping for a hand out since she was locked up last...pretending to sleep, seeing faces in the cracked, plaster ceiling...biting cold with holes in the mittens...a woman with red hair, her red hair, cinnamon eyes, smiling....
In the Great Hall, full of students in pajamas covered in the standard cloaks, whispering...
Death Eaters...heard that You-Know-Who's back...think they'll get in...Potter's missing...
Malfoy was right by her, practically breathing on her neck, but he didn't deliver his trade-mark glare. Pyrrhus's eyes were merry, amused at the whispers around him. The wispy boy swaggered with his hands in his pockets around various clusters of children, towards her. Elizabeth already opted to ignore him as the situation was dire; if she could find a professor to warn them about Smith. She turned around to look over the crowd's head...when warmth like a dagger pierced her back. It was the worst experience of her life, a living nightmare.
Malfoy's arm was in the middle of her stomach, and then he was in front of her, ambling away towards his fellow Slytherins after walking through her.
"You little-I'll make you suffer for that!"
Smith wrapped a hand around her neck, jerking her up to look him straight in the eye. Madness simmered behind his irises.
No one noticed his sudden appearance. They looked through them both, voices at a dull roar.
Am I dead?
Elizabeth didn't fight as Smith pulled her through the crowds of solid bodies and gradually became accustomed to the sensation.
The professors were outside the doors; Dumbledore was outside the doors. Dumbledore...
The wizened, concerned wizard didn't blink as her livid captor hauled the object of frantic search pass. As a last ditch attempt, she grabbed at her only hope's moon-covered cloak...to see her hand pass through him.
The old man turned his head slightly...then walked through the old oak doors to address his panicked charges.
The ghosts whom she feared so much floated past to listen to what Dumbledore was going to say...even the dead didn't see her waving frantically and screaming at the top of her lungs.
Smith was glowing with arrogance; he looked over his shoulder to leer, to gloat, and enjoy her helplessness. How she hated him.
Past the numerous portraits...past the tapestries...the glow of floating candles ahead...
If she didn't think of something fast and escape her isolation, she was doomed; they were a stone's throw away from the main doors.
She drug her sore feet against the stone floor, face twisting as she made a sudden move towards freedom.
Smith turned. Crack...her head flew back as his hand made contact with her face, his emblem ring leaving a mark.
"Don't tempt me. I promise I'll make you lose your mind before you die. I know how. Then you won't be able to join your dear little brother."
Her mind hurt so dreadfully now, tingly.
What'z that-said you-my brot-
Through her strands of hair, she saw the boy leaning against the banister, in a bored position as if he had been waiting there forever. His eyes became focused as he spotted Smith who didn't see him quite yet, still glowering at his captive. His face became livid and more animated than Smith's could ever be.
Smith snarled at Elizabeth, wanting to see fear and an attention in those eyes he had hated in his youth and he got his wish, but to his rage, the brat dared to ignore him, looking over his shoulder. He glanced back...looked again.
Who the dev...
Zacharias Smith didn't get the privilege to finish this thought before he was flung into oblivion. The devil had moved quickly and his last awareness was the hand on his chest and the whistling of air rushing pas-
Rubeus Hagrid yelped, dropping his crossbow in alarm as a man appeared out of the thin air and hit the floor directly in front of his feet.
"WHAT IN-DUMBLEDORE, COM' QUICK. THERE'S-!"
Elizabeth gaped at the place where Smith once stood, alive and well, on the steps, clasping her arm.
In his stead stood her very clear and defined stalker whom she had just witnessed commit murder. His garnet eyes took on a whole new meaning as her eyes flashed over to see the blood of her former-
The boy made a rapid motion with his hand, reaching for her face. Her back hit the wall as she scrambled on her hands and knees to avoid his touch.
His youthful face, painted in innocence if one happened not to meet his gaze, appeared strangely apathetic as he slowly climbed the steps in pursuit.
Elizabeth kept him in her sight as she struggled one-armed up the step, just painfully realizing that her other arm had been broken.
The boy halted, his mouth twisting in a smirk as he turned towards the sound of running.
Once again, Dumbledore rushed past, actually through, the missing girl lying on the steps. The boy laughed at the sight; Elizabeth grimaced, preferring Smith to this new terror. His laugh was so high-pitched it jolted her, chilling her bones more than the defiled mirror. It was a laugh that spoke of thin branches scratching at window panes and graveyards. It was unnatural.
A sting of adults trampled and clicked by, all blind. Elizabeth gave up. She remained sprawled out like a broken doll on the cold stone. She couldn't escape. But she wasn't going to look at him.
Insolently, she focused on the gathering children around the balcony who had apparently slipped past the flustered Prefects. Each face was a mask of fear and awe for most of the lot had never been confronted with death, such a foreign thing. Resentment...she resented their innocence and their safety. The isolation was killing her; the boy didn't have to lift a finger.
She felt him kneel down to study her better. He had time now, all the time in the world.
Long, china fingers traced the side of her face and neck teasingly. Elizabeth wouldn't flinch, but she was angered by his mockery of gentleness when she knew full well he was planning to do her harm. She clenched her jaw.
"I see...no word of thanks."
There it was, one of the first impacting moments in her life where time truly stood still without any magic involved or illusions.
His voice was low and infuriatingly calm as if he didn't have a worry in the world. As much as she despised him, she couldn't help but marvel at the sea-like quality the murmuring of his tone carried. Like an ocean, his voice gave a strange comfort with its vastness and reflection of light. Yet the surface broke as a monster lurked underneath. What a paradox...what an entity of potential chaos.
He gripped her chin and forced her to look at him. His eyes were an ocean of blood gathering from what he had done....perhaps, that is why the rest of him was so spotless, that where all the proof of the pain he has caused soaks in.
He knew many things...his eyes burned with fierce intelligence, with ferocity.
But unlike Dumbledore, he only seemed to know so much; his gaze lacked something vital she had seen present in others.
Then the boy did something unexpected; he smiled at what he saw, seeming pleased, and raised his fingertips to her forehead.
She saw herself paralyzed, tasting the salt tears in her mouth. His fingers left a tingling sensation in their wake. Her mind buzzed as she tried to figure out what was the shape he was tracing on her, into her.
It was a lightening bolt.
Elizabeth opened her mouth to scream; he pushed on her temple, hard, and she received a jolt of intense energy, making her gasp in air that felt different from before, crisp and-
"POTTER!"
This just wasn't her day. The first face she saw above her was hook-nosed Snape who had the gall to glare at her as if she had caused it all to happen and ruined his night.
Then....oh thank you...
Tonks was there, lifting her head, helping her breathe.
"You'll be okay."
But first she had to find him, find out where he went.
She twisted the best her arm and body would allow her to in Tonks's motherly embrace.
He was gliding smoothly past the crowding bodies even though he could have gone right through them without causing a stir.
He glanced over his shoulder and waved jauntily. Something golden and radiant flashed in her eyes.
There, glinting in the candlelight, intertwined between his slender fingers was her mother's phoenix necklace.
"Potter, enough of this foolishness! Explain."
She hated the sound of his greasy voice. It had been sliding over her for an hour.
That git...she would explain if she could but somehow the words wouldn't come.
Dumbledore sat directly in front of her bed, hands folded gently. He studied her over his half-moon glasses, and this action had a far worse effect on her than Snape's voice.
The morbid demise of Zacharias Smith loomed over the room and on everyone's tongue. How did it happen? What happened? How did a man who had disappeared nine years ago suddenly appear dead on the floor and shortly there after, the missing girl appeared above the place where he would have fallen?
Elizabeth admitted it didn't look very good at all. But she had a feeling that no one should know about the boy who walked in-between. It was his words, you see.
No word of thanks.
Who knows where Smith had planned on taking her? She wasn't stupid. True, the boy might be planning her future harm but for the moment, he saved her life and let her go. He sent her back when he didn't have to.
Thus, keeping him out of notice would be returning his kindness (using the word lightly and a broad of context as possible) the best she could.
Tap...tap...Tonks drummed her foot nervously; she stopped when everyone quickly turned towards her.
Tonks jumped up, an air of determination about her.
"I-I think Lizzy's tired. We shouldn't push her like this-it's-Fletcher had a hand in what happened, I swear it. We should be questioning that traitor, not the child."
Snape hissed under his breath, his excitement at the up-coming interrogation stolen.
Dumbledore sighed.
"That will not be possible, I'm afraid."
Silence.
"Why? He didn't escape, did he?!"
"No. He...put an end to himself through means which I will not go into detail. The Death Eater, Mr. Gregory Goyle, is also..." Dumbledore trailed off.
Tonks covered her mouth, collapsing back in her chair.
"And Remus-is he..."
"Oh, no! He is recovering quite well at St. Mungo's, thankfully."
Snape snorted in disgust.
"Sadly, our only source of enlightenment is young Ms. Potter. If you wish it, Ms. Potter, we could discuss the matter privately, you and I..."
"No...I can-they can hear it, too."
A pause.
Snape sneered.
"Well, then, get on with your story."
"Severus, please."
Elizazbeth hurried on, not wishing to hear Snape if she could help it.
"Smith stupefied me during the attack on Hogsmeade."
Snape crowed, "When you were out of your House dorm, sneaking around, plotting to do who knows what kind of damage!"
"SEVERUS!"
Snape and Elizabeth both their staring contest, jerking in alarm. Tonks gaped. Madam Pomfrey peeked slowly, wide-eyed, around the curtain.
No one had ever heard Albus Dumbledore shout in anger. Ever...
His blue eyes blazed at Snape who backed away with his head bent in an attitude of shame.
"Continue. There will be no more interruptions."
Elizabeth sought to gain her breath, not wanting to keep the old irked wizard waiting any longer than he had to.
"I-I woke up in this...snake room. (Snape looked at her sharply, eyebrow lifted.) I mean-th-the walls were covered in all this snake skin. I got up- you know- trying to find a way out but Smith came and...he was...insane."
She recalled the deceased man's twisting, yellowing mouth. She knew that part of Smith would stay with her for awhile.
"He touched this stone, he knew to touch this stone, and a corridor opened. He just-ke-kept (her voice was failing) yelling about Houses, of all things, and how he was greater than my-f-(she couldn't barely talk about her dad in the same sentence as the disgruntled, straw Smith) and You-Know- Who and-all. Then we got to the room full of mirrors (Dumbledore nodded) and the one in the middle was blood red...it was soaked in blood."
Snape moved forward suddenly, only to retreat back towards the wall at Dumbledore's sharp look. Tonks remained frozen, mouth opened slightly, focused on Elizabeth.
"Smith stabbed me."
Tonks gasped brokenly, hand covering her heart. Elizabeth had the strange idea that Tonks blamed herself for what happened and took on Elizabeth's pain.
Dumbledore held up his hand, motioning quickly for her to keep talking, just to keep talking.
"He drew this triangle with my-my- with the-I think...the Thorn."
She stopped again. Dumbledore's face was covered in lines of intense thought...he gazed at her wildly but wasn't looking at her at all. He moved to rise then gave up the idea and like Tonks, sort of collapsed in his chair.
The effect this had...this man of such strength and order suddenly seeming to collapse...
Tonks stood, pushing her chair back with a harsh, grating noise. She moved towards Dumbledore, arms outstretched as if she planned to embrace him and to shield him in some way. Snape appeared to be trying to blend in with the wall and looked at the headmaster in a blank manner, head tilted in observation.
Dumbledore gained his composure and held his trembling hands up to ward off assistance.
"And what else?"
Elizabeth knew she needed to...
"We went through the mirror and into the Great Hall. No one saw. Everyone was-li-like smoke; we went through everyone and into the main entry. Smith said something about meeting my-my brother (if possible Dumbledore seemed to sink even lower in his chair) then he s-slipped," she finished weakly.
Severus Snape tried to maintain control; she saw the physical effort in his face, his mouth twitching spasmodically. He clenched and unclenched his fists. He shifted from side to side. But his mouth popped open despite all his sincere efforts.
"The man just suddenly slipped, did he?"
Nymphadora Tonks lost it.
"YES, SNAPE! YOU BLOODY HEARD HER!! THE MAN SLIPPED, DAMNIT!!!! LIKE YOU'LL FIND YOURSELF-"
Tonks cut off.
Dumbledore bent over and held his white head cupped in his hands.
Before a second had passed, he got up abruptly and left the room.
Madam Pomfrey stared after him, close to tears, and her hand clasped to her chest.
"The both of you...leave now and let the child rest...please," the old nurse whispered.
Perhaps, that Smith was right. Maybe he was part of something greater than Dumbledore, judging by the old wizard's reaction. That meant that the old man can't protect me.
The ceiling was alight with twinkling stars as if one was outside on a camping trip. Madam Pompfrey did not dare try floating candles again. But, in an act of kindness and forethought, she remembered Elizabeth's acute distrust of the dark. Now, Elizabeth was afraid the aged witch saw the reasoning behind her misunderstood logic.
Ignorance is not bliss. You have to know what is coming at you.
She didn't dare close her eyes. If she did, she would probably see a shocked Smith flying over that balcony again.
Elizabeth hadn't desired such a means to her escape. Oh, how she hadn't...
In some way, she felt responsible for the upset...he was so upset with his place in life.
Maybe I could have fought back and stunned him. At least he would be alive.
And then...sleep wasn't such a bad idea. She hurt all over from Skelegrow. If she ingested much more of that stuff, she was sure she would become immune and then what would she do.
If she slept, she would see her mother. She saw her mother tonight. Smith gave her something precious even though he had meant to harm her so. He had inadvertently gave her a moment with her mother...a forgotten memory.
The trip through the mirror illuminated and reflected a distant piece of her subconscious. The woman with the cinnamon eyes and the love that was tangible-
Elizabeth blinked.
Love! That's what his eyes were missing. Kindness...caring...he had no reflection of any such thing.
Professor Dumbledore has a reflection of genuine love although it is a distant glimmer but love is indeed there...a respect for life.
Tonks...she made me feel loved...cradling my head, so happy I was alive.
He was so cold...even helping me, he was so very cold.
So very alone...
Elizabeth awoke, not believing she actually drifted off. Vaguely, she reached for her wand as a reflex and at the very moment giggling hysterically since she knew her wand was-there. The elder wood warmed at her touch and sparks skidded across the bedside table, almost igniting the washcloth.
How? "Lumos," she whispered, hoping to shine so light on the situation.
A message written in a cursive hand in the dust covering the table stood out boldly.
I believe I have something that belongs to you. Meet me alone during the Halloween Feast. You'll know where to go.
It will continue doing so...for the sake of one man!!"
Naruto Vol. 17 Chapter 146
"I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat. "We're all mad here."
Lewis Carroll
"Not a demon. Not a human either. No place to belong. So...I thought the only way was to carve out your own place, by force. That's how I survived.
And by the time I knew what was happening, I was all alone."
Inu-Yasha: A Feudal Fairytale
Volume 12
by Rumiko Takahashi
"He had taken the highest seat amongst the devils of the land-I mean, literally. You can't understand. How could you?-with solid pavement under your feet, surrounded by kind neighbors ready to cheer you or to fall on you, stepping delicately between the butcher and the policeman, in the holy
terror of a scandal and gallows and lunatic asylums-how can you imagine what particular region of the first ages a man's untrammeled feet may take him into by the way of solitude-utter solitude without a policeman-by the way of silence-utter silence, where no warning voice of a kind neighbor can be heard whispering public opinion? These little things make all the great
difference. When they are gone you must fall back upon your own innate strength, upon your own capacity for faithfulness. Of course you may be too much of a fool to go wrong-too dull even to know you are being assaulted by the powers of darkness. I take it, no fool ever made a bargain for his soul with the devil: the fool is too much of a fool or the devil too much of a
devil-I don't know which."
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad pg. 82
Chapter 5: Changing of the Winds
She gazed thoughtfully down at the silver pool as her Penseive flowed almost to the top. Now she relied on her own memories to dwell on. Dumbledore once told her that his old mind was so full of memories that sometimes he felt submerged as the thoughts retouched around his graying head. At the time, she didn't understand but now... Laughing, she understood now why she had been drawn to the flame, Him. Despite the instinct to stay away, she found to her dismay that invariably she needed him. Some people love with restraint...
For all his arrogance and darkness that hung like tangible curtains in his wake, she saw him as...still didn't know. Someone who was more revealed to her than all her possible companions and friends. Someone deeply flawed and scarred, with more than a little blindness in his rage...at others, of course. As if they were someday to hate...
He couldn't be wrong, be the one wrong in his existence for if he was, he would unravel. Sure, the whole time from start to finish, he thought he had her fooled, blinded, and strung on the web of his all so powerful words. He believed and still does no doubt that he tricked her like he had her mother and so many wandering sheep. Not so... although he had control, he did not have what he wanted for she had known what he was. She saw through him. But we hated gently, carefully...
When he had gathered the last bits of his scattered and acidic memory, (the memory of a past not worth remembering) he must have laughed at the déjà vu, at the revenge handed so eagerly towards him on a platter.
The fiasco years ago was merely a delay of the inevitable. That boy couldn't escape him. No one could. Hadn't he said so? Now what should have been will be. Some would have coined the term fate by now. Not him. (Because only the weak believed in such trash)He knew that his power, his presence was the source of their undoing and his new beginning. He was power. What fools they all were...walking into death....to think he would be banished by a child with a toy sword. Here he was with control over another red-headed innocent, except this time, she had those eyes, those eyes that he would make sure reflected that pain that he had been failed to be the cause of before.
Harry Potter gained some of the immortality that belonged to me...stole from me... through his own fool of a daughter, I will have it back and those left will remember me as I decide who deserves to breathe...they will know only...
She cut him off there in media res. Oh, yes. How very rude of him indeed to leave such thoughts to her as a parting gift, some mockery of a valentine. How could she not pity him? As if we were someday to love...
Venus Trines at Midnight by Linda Goodman
A persistent stinging drags her dutifully from her sleep, her mind floundering like an overgrown fish on a hook. The first facet of reality she was aware of was that her hand had fallen asleep and now was being pinpricked by tons of needles. Then, like an on-coming train wreck, hit the other truth, her ignorance. For, she did not know where she was.
Elizabeth flung herself upright from the couch she had been placed, tangled in a mossy green covers, breathing without drawing in any air. She drowned in the darkness. The few torches gave the illusion that the whole room was moving or was it an illusion at all? She felt her body tilt in step. Looking at the undulating motion made her sick.
She was startled as she heard someone whimper and even more so when she realized that she was that someone. Trying to gather herself, her hand gratuitously flew to her neck in order to clasp—
Her mother's necklace was gone.
For what must have been only a few minutes but what seemed like eternity, she stared at the vacant indention in her neck as though expecting the small bird to fly back to its proper place. She felt her thoughts becoming more disoriented, her composure looking for the nearest exit. The closest tangible connection she had with her mother was gone; the something her mother and father both held in their hands, the one thing that made them exist with her rather than be print in a book or names on a stone had been taken from.
Nausea assaulted her. Grasping the covers tightly, so tightly she thought her fingers would fall off, despair and something ineffable began to float up from the well within. Her crying echoed throughout the dungeon. She knew it was ridiculous but without her small necklace which she had began to fancy as a ward against the maliciousness of her past, a promise of happiness in the future, and an embrace from some part of her parents that had not left quite yet...without her necklace, she felt helpless.
Something was dripping in the corner, a continuous and steady laughter at her. Something crouched in the corner, waiting...
It was quite possible I won't move from this spot that I'll just fade here.
She was in trouble and was not dealing other kids. Maybe not even the ghost guy who she thought she saw. Whoever had brought her here was real; he was real enough to steal from her.
She was only a first year, only a kid. She did not understand.
Nymphadora Tonks flew towards Hogwarts at break-neck speed.
Can't Apparate, couldn't get in through Floo Powder!
The barrier around Hogwarts was weakening rapidly though, might be able to... I wish Moody was here!
He would have figured it out quicker...he would have seen through....
But Alastor Moody was not here nor was he anywhere she could reach him. He survived it all; that guy survived the whole war. He took on masses of Death Eaters, turned Aurors, even challenged You-Know-Who although he was half dead at the time. Thank Goodness that Potter had been there.
The point where Old Mad Eye grew tired was when Potter and that poor, little boy disappeared. He had been the first one at the Potter house in Devonshire, the first one to banish the two (or was it three?) unaccounted for Dementors. He was the first one to dig through the rumble and see seven- year old Elizabeth Potter illuminated by that thing only he saw in the sky, crying and grasping her mother's body. When Remus appeared, the thing in the sky was gone.
Remus was the one to take the hysterical child to St. Mungo's.
The tragedy took away a part of them all. The Weasleys...the Order...Dumbledore, oh, the look on his face when he was told! Harry Potter had been like a son to him, although he was careful not to act like he had any sort of bond. He kept his distance for Harry's safety and for his own health. Tonks didn't blame him. Dumbledore's real and only son died very young.
Mad Eye Moody himself was also close to Potter in a similar and yet very different way.
Moody shaped Harry to become a warrior. A quite gifted one at that! Also, he feared for him in a way that many of them could relate to. In war, Right and Wrong become confused; you had to think...no, know what you were capable of doing and know how far you could go and still come home, sleep at night, live with yourself, and cherish the simple things. That was the hard part most of the time, to know who you were and not become what you fought against. She had long ago banished the idea of black and white, good and evil...truth or evil. That wasn't the way the world worked. There were shades of gray, and she had tight-walked most of the variations of the familiar, non-descript color. Gray always reminded her of a moth coming to eat away at the fabric of your life. She made a point of wearing vivacious color. She had felt herself slip; it would be fascinating to any outsider to observe the gradual changes of character in the Ministry. It would be a fascinating read.
At first, Moody was suspicious of the boy and suspicious of the man he would become. If anyone knew about slipping, it was Alastor Moody. Tonks trusted him but never truly knew him. He kept his distance under his leadership. She was always with a Moody who was constantly...She couldn't imagine who he was before he became an Auror.
The one person who crossed the miles of barricades, curses, and rabid Manticores was Harry Potter. Potter knew Moody, and Moody knew Potter.
During the summers spent training, an understanding grew between the two men as well as Harry's skill. Moody became Harry's mentor, a standard, and a figure of respect. Of course, it wasn't like Remus's and Harry's relationship or the Weasleys's and Harry's relationship or any mere camaraderie in the face of battle. Moody always said that in battle, that is when you know a man. But then again, the only thing close to describing Potter and Moody was their understanding of each other. Yet that word only or any word at all couldn't describe it. It seemed that Harry Potter was Mad Eye's last chance for redemption; if Potter turned out decent, then he helped create something good.
When Potter died, Moody died inside.
The only good thing near the end of his life was the way he died...no, Moody himself would have been enraged. He claimed he would die in the mist of a great battle, the Battle. That's the end he thought he deserved and what his lifestyle called for. The end he got was a peaceful one, soundly asleep for once in a chair in front of the hearth. Even his magical eye was closed and still.
If only he was here now...
Tonks was at Grimmauld Place after the attacks increased.
Kingsley had left after debriefing them about Dumbledore's latest orders, to prepare to be infiltrated into the Hogwarts's community of students. Of course, Remus was obviously exempt from the group. The idea was to take frequent doses of aging potion, then some polyjuice potion (good recipe for a stomach ulcer in Tonks's opinion), then become a student in order to guard the children more effectively without disrupting the learning process. The other order for Remus and Fletcher struck a horrified chord in the midst of the trio.
Dumbledore said guard the Wizarding cemetery with that tomb.
Shacklebolt left Remus there with her alone. His...condition...had been getting worse for him, physically and mentally. He thought he was a burden. If only he knew that he was what was keeping her going, really. This war would never end. Dumbledore had known that, Moody had known that, and now she knew. Her only fond time was sitting and talking with Remus about books mainly. Funny, she had never been much fond of books or words or language before. She had begun to truly read when she met him. She began to appreciate the beautiful sound and power of words especially his words. She wished she could communicate. She really wished she wasn't so clumsy; her "condition" increased ten-fold when he was around. Maybe that's why he thought...
Then, Mundungus Fletcher Apparated with a bang, followed by the crash of the cup she dropped in surprise. Damn...
"They're goin' to attack Hogsmeade!"
Well, not really. Now she knew.
Mundungus had heard the word from the words of a young nineteen year old boy, fresh out of Hogwarts and drunk as hell. Mundungus and the said boy were at the biggest breeding place of scum and lowlifes in Britain, sometimes called the Pit, the Lair, or the Spider; the blemish of the Wizarding World is correctly called the Necro for Necropolis. It was such a fitting name for a place that gives false hope and lies to a lost bunch. A place that stood for excused violence on a grand scale and people who mulled around blind-a common state for those among us taking on extreme darkness. Ironically, it was very well-hidden near the Ministry of Magic. Mundungus called it his office.
Yes, his sales always skyrocketed there. There, they had fights. Not among the humans, but among animals. The favorite was a battle between a fatally normal stray and a Runespoor or a Manticore. Tonks saw it as an articulation of the desired relationship between the Magical World and the Muggle one.
Mundungus didn't even want to be stationed there at first. He became acclimated to the place, whatever its pull was. Sometimes, he made excuses to go to the Necro.
But it was vital because not all Death Eaters were affluent and well-set in life. Loads were hidden in the Ministry and in mansions but even more were hidden in the underworld. Such places like the Necro had taken off when Grindelwald began to recruit those out of the loop in society for whatever reason; this trend continued even more fiercely under You-Know-Who's reign. These people, mostly youth, in the Necro believed they had not been given their proper dues by the current community. Most claimed that Mudbloods and half-breed trash had taken opportunities and dreams that belonged to them by birthright. The magical community was corroded with contamination, and they would be the ones to banish the scum who had persecuted their ancestors.
In actuality, their words were hollow. Among her recent readings, Muggleborns were scarcely considered in a Ministry fraught with prejudice. Thus, the problems that lot howled about had no direct correlation with Mugglified infiltration but with intrigues and scandals deep-rooted in the Ministry. The papier-mâché Minister chose blindness.
Muggleborns had a fleeting moment of great respect when a great number fought against the Dark Lord. With Harry Potter as their supporter, they gained influence unimagined before despite the Ministry's frequent yet futile attempts to silence them. Silence them in the most dignified methods possible without resorting to any acts of unpleasantness. False charges against the most reputable of Muggleborns arose with incriminating letters communicating and plotting with the brutish Muggles on the other side. The Daily Prophet was the biggest supporter of these ridiculous falsities, keeping the community in a panic and the prejudice brewing. When Potter disappeared, the Muggle-born respect flittered away like the brief, brief candle we all hear about.
She remembered her mother, Andromeda Melphomene Freya Tonks. A dark woman always filled with light and a fierce independence. The woman who wasn't enslaved by old ideas. The real person in a family molded by Pride, the original sin.
As a half-born, Tonks had experienced prejudice. Somewhere along the way, she became apathetic towards the whole situation. It was a presence without any image but an idea to it. Her first day of pre-witches training school was full of old ideas. She was only five, only two years younger than the Elizabeth Potter who clung to her mother's body that dark day in the future.
Young children tend to be less aware of the ideas but more impacted by them. The world is so bright and blessedly blurry when you're young. Then you trade your plastic rose colored glasses in for the real deal, grown-up pair of sharp lenses. The world becomes strident and harsh. You saw every blemish and disease, but by the time you figured out that you've been cheated, there's no going back. You didn't read the fine print on your binding contract with adulthood.
In the small village, pre-witch training fliers made their mark on every wall and crevice. She picked a pink sheet up with her small fist and begged her mother to enroll her. Mother looked at her small child in surprise. Her Nymphadora was rather timid and constantly attached to the end of her robes. Her husband told her to go ahead and give the program a try. Nymph was gifted only a little clumsy but that was nothing age and the accompanying grace wouldn't fix. Look who she had for a mother, the epitome of grace and finesse.
Indeed. In Tonks's memory, her mother would forever be linked to the feline qualities she possessed. Her fluidity and supple grace was only matched by her cleanliness and aristocratic nature. Her midnight black hair framed her sapphire eyes that could be watchful, somewhat judgmental at times, and deeply understanding. It was strange that her mother embodied a sort of innocence and yet could have a worldly and commanding air.
Andromeda grew enthusiastic about her little Nymphadora becoming refined and more sociable with children her own age.
She gripped her mother's hand tightly, becoming queasier as the approached the small house that seemed to grow into a fire-breathing beast that craved children. The blue flowers in front were doxy fairies in disguise. The seemingly harmless yard gnomes were locked in a conspiracy that would commence as soon as her mother disappeared around the corner.
The first day was wonderful. They learned some Latin and read a lot about the greatest witches and wizards who ever existed. Best of all, her clumsiness had taken a day off! Mrs. Lockhart, an older, wizened witch adorned in a gaudy, forget-me-not blue dress not meant for wear, instructed her young pupils grandiosely, constantly waving her bejeweled hands and imparting proverbs of wisdom in a sing-song voice. Nymphadora thought she was pretty and kind. The day came to an end much too soon. Nymphadora was near the rear of the excited line of scrambling children, holding on to the moving picture her mother had given her of the two of them together in case she got homesick. Someone tapped her shoulder sharply. The small girl looked up to see the blond teacher looming over her. Her blue eyes were slightly yellowish on closer inspection and not as sparkling as previously believed.
"Sweets, would you mind terribly if I kept you for a minute or two?"
By Merlin, no! No doubt her mentor was going to praise her for her extensive knowledge of Morgan La Faye whom her mother told her the Black family was related too! Or maybe it was a comment on her advanced reading skills. Or her surprisingly organized, tidy appearance!
"My dear, what was your last name? I'm afraid I must have misheard you before".
"Nymphadora Tonks, Mrs. Lockhart." The curly headed brunette child beamed up at her teacher.
"Tonks." The bubbly blonde's voice lowered drastically from its former falsetto.
"Yes, ma'am!" Nymphadora beamed even wider.
"Oh...dear me. Sweetheart, you didn't read the fine print, did you?"
She floated over to her desk, plucking a familiar pink flier from her pink bag. Returning to loom over the thoroughly confused girl, she shoved the flier into one of the girl's small hands and pointed out a previously unnoticed bunch of miniscule letters that looked more like scratches than a message of any sort.
"You see here, then, sweets."
The 'sweets' had taken on a different tone now. She tensed as she realized it was condescension. How she knew she couldn't say because she had never been put down or patronized before. Her awareness was simply an instinct awakening in her.
"No..." She couldn't make out the words even squinting as hard as she could.
"It states quite clearly that only pure-blooded children are allowed to attend my program. I suppose your mother must have missed the listed requirements, bless her."
"Pure-blooded?" She hadn't heard the term before in her home. What was wrong with her blood? Was it tainted? Was she sick?
"My pet, you don't know what....hmmm, I see." The woman had started to laugh in disbelief.
Tonks was becoming alarmed about the state of her blood, already feeling it coursing diseased through her body. She wished her teacher would articulate and tell her what was wrong and how she could fix it. She'd do anything.
Mrs. Lockhart carefully secured the flier in the girl's hands after she had underlined the dreadful yet clear message with her peacock-feathered quill.
Tonks hesitated at the door way covered with violent flowers, shocked at the declaration of her lack of purity and rightness.
Mrs. Lockhart grasped her trembling shoulders before pushing her forward.
"Your mother will explain it to you, sweets. Now hurry home. I'm sure she's waiting for you."
She had never run faster in her life, home-made spotted cloak flapping behind her. She had to get home and inform her mother of her terrible condition. Would her mother be disappointed though?
Breathing heavily through her sobs and clasping her chest, Nymphadora stopped a little ways from her house which was on the outskirts of the village. Her house that was once cozy and fully of nice scents changed into a being of a dreadfully dark and forbidden nature. How could she go home and tell her parents that there was something horribly wrong with her, something so bad that it couldn't be risked for her to be around other children?
She crouched down by the walkway, concealed in some shrubbery. She slipped away in her staring at the treacherous village, the monument to her now- broken life. She was going to run away! She couldn't be a burden to her parents, and besides what if they caught what she had?
Nymphadora Tonks cried. Soon, though, she would have to get up and find somewhere else to go. She saw the pink flier through blur of her tears. How she hated the color!
The light was disappearing from the sky as she crawled out from under her hiding place, ready to set out. Abandoning the strikingly pink message of doom, she grasped the picture in her hand and looked at the two smiling faces one last time.
"NYMPHADORA EUPHROSYNE TONKS! WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, YOUNG LADY!" A shrill voice broke her silent goodbye.
Her mother stood over her, angrier than she had ever seen her. She must know! Nymphadora Euphrosyne Tonks knew she should flee for her mother's safety, but she couldn't. As selfish and dirty as she felt, she wanted her mother to hold her.
Andromeda Tonks carried her hysterical child towards the house as fast as her legs would carry her. She had to contact her husband for their Nymph must be ill to cry so.
The pink flier snagged on the thorny branches flapped in the wind, refusing to yield and remaining to serve as a reminder. It would remain there for awhile afterwards until an older version of the small hand that had clenched it so before discovered it and threw it away in the rubbish bin.
As she grew up, she preferred to go by her surname although she allowed her mother to call her Nymphadora during the last years they had together. Her mother cooed that the name Nymphadora had been in the Black line forever, at the very beginning in fact. Tonks spared her beautiful and proud mother the knowledge that she didn't give a Kneazle about that side of her. Why be a part of people who wouldn't be a part of you?
Andromeda strived to banish her parents and her sisters from her head and begin a new life with Ted Tonks, the man her showed her true happiness. Though Tonks remembered seeing her gloomy at certain points of her life, bogged down by memories of the past, she remembered more her cheerfulness and kindness. Andromeda never let her child see her remorse for her lost sisters especially her twin. Tonks was always supposed to have been tucked away in her bed when her parents stayed up. It helped to know her mother's remorse wasn't another word for regret. Her parents were two drowning people who had taught each other to swim.
Yet, though Andromeda forgot her sisters, her sisters did not forget her. At the beginning of the Dark Lord's reign, the small house she knew as a child with pleasant scents and memories engrained in the wood would be cinders.
Tonks became an Auror like her father.
She also became a philosopher of sorts. Not really. She kept her thoughts to herself. True, she talked quite a bit and saw herself as the support system of any tag team she was placed in. Well, she could lighten the mood before people got crazy under the pressure that comes hand in hand with being an Auror. But, when things grew quiet, she was alone; she couldn't help but wonder at them all. The shear madness of everyone today and not just Death Eaters but Aurors as well! Maybe she was a little mad too. Her father, on the other hand, was not. Whenever she was at the breaking point, she conjured up his face in her head. He had the brightest eyes that she, a Metamorphmagus, couldn't even mimic; they were such an endless blue, a forget-me-not blue. He questioned them all.
Here's a theory, Dad.
The conflicts that simmered since the before time of Salazar Slytherin cemented a link with the Muggle World; in the Muggle World, violence and madness broiled constantly, the same as the Magical one. Her mother was the one who told her about the well. Somewhere inside every man and woman is a well of their spirit. A well so deep it can not be fathomed. Magical people feel it though; it is the source of all their power. If you close your eyes, you could envision that well, become in tune to the gentle water within. Muggles can't hear the well; they had grown apart from themselves. Now, some magical people have lost touch with the rhythm too; although they perform acts of magic, they do not perform magic, no matter what they decide to call their acts.
Muggleborns are those who were destined to be Muggles but heard the well. Now, as the spirit corrodes, the precious contents in the well begin to sour. And when hard times are upon you, you could fill that it begins to simmer and becomes the indomitable human soul. But humans with desire to control and surpass the spirit of the well become poisoned. In their search for the truth they want to see, they feed upon lies of their own egotism. The poison is through the ground all humans share when a man wants to prove his importance by destroying his fellow men. It is the ultimate act of godhood, to control another life. Yet there is the anchor of mortality in false godhood. In the process, they can no longer hear the well. Poison is what doomed them all. Each well has the ability to become poisoned; it is harder to maintain order then it is chaos.
When you see all these Death Eaters or anyone else for that matter commit such atrocities that you become obsessed with distancing your self, claiming that they are inhuman. The distance keeps your relation to them foreign. But the idea that they are human...well, that idea will keep you up at night, wondering about yourself.
Hogsmeade was an inferno, echoing all the rage felt by the Death Eaters. The Apparated Tonks felt the heat before she even saw the flames. She felt the pain first.
"Gaaaaa!!!!"
Every muscle was one fire. Down she went, her nails digging in her shoulders as she held herself, begging that the pain went away. She went even further down, almost blacking out. Dots swarmed around the corners of her eyes. Distantly through the fog descending rapidly on her, she heard other yelps and screams beside her as her fellows fall into the same trap, her unable to warn them.
Can't breathe, can't think!
As she shut down to the pain, she felt the silken melody of her mother's voice. The words were unreachable but singing her some lullaby buried in her past. Then came Moody's voice.
Are you that weak to let them beat you?! Haven't I taught you anything at all? Get on your feet, Auror!
It felt as if a scratchy blanket was on her, smothering her. She had to throw it off. But it was so heavy. She was so tired. It would be so nice...not to worry...to give in...
ON YOUR FEET!!
Pulled downward, she told him to piss off. He got to leave, so what the hell did he know? Sinking through layers of comfortable... familiar water... freshly dried blankets warmed by the sun... cinnamon-like, home where something was cooking...
She's getting close to the well, close enough to hear it murmuring. What do you know, Mum was right...
Not yet...go back.
Back to the pain again! The pain had her on a hook, pulling her back towards the surface of her now inflamed consciousness. Tingling running throughout her body, she struggled and felt the blanket slip...almost there! It hurt even worse when the pain was gone. Its aftermath still weakening her body, she stumbled to where Remus and Fletcher were lying prone on the ground.
Remus!!
"Finite Incantatem!"
Nothing...Fletcher's chest wasn't moving...Remus...
Drastic times called for drastic measures.
"Mucronis acutis!" Tonks roared, aiming at the softest place the spell would do the least damage.
"BLOODY HELL!" Fletcher jerked awake, frantically rubbing his backside. "WHAT IN—"
Tonks pushed him to the side; he fell face-first on the ground, dirt billowing around him.
Leaning over the gray-haired man, she lifted his head gently, gazing at him so intently his face started to blur in front of her.
"R-Remus," she whispered as if not to wake him from sleep, not if he was...
"You stupid idiot! You're goin' to smother him!"
Mundungus grabbed Remus from her embrace. Tonks felt her anger rear up. Remus groaned.
"See! He's breathing!"
Mundungus looked up as if to scold then froze, gaping.
Tonks spun around, almost falling over. A vision of Death! The Death Eater was illuminated against the flames, tilting his head to the side. She could feel his smirk through his mouth less, marble mask. How unreal it was to see humanity through that unnatural mask!
Moving to her hand to her side, she grabbed for her wand—nothing!
Looking away just slightly, she spotted her wand; the Death Eater placed his boot on it and crushed it into pieces.
He raised his own wand with flourish.
"Stupefy!"
The dark-clad figure dropped to the ground. In his place stood Madam Rosmerta, standing haughtily with her hands on her hips, bun collapsed and hanging around her ears.
"You lot dare harass my customers! You've got another thing coming!"
Rosmerta limped forward, one of the heels on her lime green shoes splintered, bellowing and waving her hands hysterically.
"You, Aurors! Are you daft?! Come by this morning, promising some new barrier, good for business, he says! Customer friendly, he says! JUST LOOK AT THIS! I DEMAND COMPENSATION FOR THESE DAMAGES! WE WERE FINE WITH THE OTHER DAMN BARRIER! FIRST DEMENTORS, NOW—YOU WON'T BE SATISFIED TIL YOU RUN ME OUT OF BUSINESS! IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!"
"Silencio, you old bat," Mundungus said in an urgent voice, finally locating his splintered wand with his fumbling hands.
"Wait! What new protection barrier?!"
The gnomes weren't out of the garden. Something was up. She wasn't informed about any new barrier.
"It's a bunch of nonsense! She's gone nutters on us."
Mundungus glared with unusual ferocity at the haggard witch who kept motioning rude gestures at him and mouthing something promising violence.
The look in Fletcher's beet-red eyes gave her a fierce uneasiness. Tonks slowly got to her feet, trying to act composed.
She walked to the blown about fragments of her now-desired wand, shaking slightly on her weakened legs.
"Fletcher, come on!"
Mundungus flinched, seemingly startled by the order.
"Come now, let's not be hasty! Shouldn't we go to the Ministry first?"
Remus appeared with healing herbs in his hand.
"They most likely know and have sent re-enforcements there."
"Maybe we should go to Hogwarts!" Tonks saw a pair of trust-filled green eyes.
"No! I mean—no, you guys should go on to Hogsmeade. Hogwarts got Dumbledore and his staff, not to mention the strongest barrier in all of Britannia. Think of all those poor people." Mundungus forced a big, cavity-friendly smile, his tired eyes showing fresh fear.
Oh for—there isn't time for this! Tonks was about to introduce Fletcher to her fist.
Remus, sensing the danger, quickly said, "No matter how emotional we are, we must be professional. Hogsmeade is the first priority, then Hogswarts." He caught her eye. "She'll be alright."
"Then it's all settled then! Go get them!" Mundungus started to slowly shuffle backwards.
Tonks grabbed Fletcher by the cloak, brandishing her wand menacingly.
"Look here you!"
Fletcher put up his hands.
"Okay, okay! Keep your hair on! I'm goin'."
Mundungus...
Tonks changed her course towards the fallen figure. His wand was still in his gloved hand. She glanced behind her.
The Madam had completely advanced upon Mundungus, gritting her teeth and balling her fists, dancing around him as best she could on one heel.
Fletcher looked coldly at her, shaking his head vehemently at her silenced accusations. Remus had pushed himself up on his elbows, his eyes glazed.
She did something Moody always advised. She looked around.
Through the smoke, she spotted the dark cloaks and flashes of white of the Death Eaters, but they were growing smaller. They were leaving. At the height of the chaos, they were leaving. When the force of the Aurors had been successfully, they were leaving.
Her mind churned painfully, aware of nothing else. Why Hogsmeade? It was obvious why, to cause fear. But when Aurors were about with more force and infiltrating the underworld, why risk petty attacks? To divide and conquer...to distract from the real quarry!
She reached the still figure and picked up the wand.
Fletcher raised his wand at Rosmerta who had retreated, her pink mouth an o in surprise.
"Expelliarmus!"
Fletcher flew over Remus, his wand twirling in the air.
"ARE YOU KIDDIN' ME, YOU LOONY?!" Fletcher charged towards her.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
Mundungus fell heavily onto Remus and the two tumbled to the ground.
A hand struck her from behind, a foot on her back! The whistling of something green flying through the air!
Smack!
The Death Eater returned to his place in the dirt. Rosmerta rushed over to retrieve her one-good shoe, mouthing desperately.
Tonks waved the wicked wand.
"-SNEAKY SNAKE IN THE GRASS! THE ONE WHO SOLD US ALL ON THAT-FALTY-!"
"I know, I KNOW! DO YOU HAVE A BROOM I CAN BORROW?" Tonks shouted.
"Don't you dare raise your voice to me, you violet-haired-?! I've been through a horrible ordeal!"
She was cut off by the look on Tonks's face. Rosmerta weakly motioned towards what was left of her tavern.
"Mine's in the closet behind the bar."
"Help Remus. Keep the Death Eater Stupified. Don't let Fletcher go."
I have to get to Hogwarts.
She stood. That was a start.
Within the minutes, the hours, or however long she had sat there, Elizabeth Potter had made a decision. I'm going to survive!
There was simply too much she would leave unfinished. The mystery behind her past...
She was left behind for a reason, without a memory and marked. Her whole body was a story if one knew how to look. She dealt with pain from these marks which separated her so from any of her peers; now she wanted some answers. Her parents tried to protect her; that was a fact. Now she was the avenger; she could not die yet. Her father endured what she will have to, the torch had been passed, no matter what his intentions for her future had been. Most likely, he had hoped for the best. But all that he had built had been stolen. And she would bet everything, even her invisibility cloak (which she had loaned to one of her companions...Sandy maybe, her mind was jumbled up), that the person behind her family's suffering had a hand in her kidnapping. Perhaps, one of the burnt and withered hand prints on her body belonged to the hand that had placed her here. This knowledge was her fuel, and what made her move from the safe bed.
There was her family, her grandmother mainly, who found such joy at her appearance. Her grandmother who had been through such losses! How could she not try and spare her another?
Faces swam in her head of all those whom she met and allowed her to have a place even if it was less than flattering. Snape was in front of her, sneering, and telling her she was too weak to make it. She would show him she was much more than a name! Yeah!
Yeah....
Her wand was gone too. Of course!
Duh! She hit herself in the head with the palm of her blackened hand. She wasn't going to be able to do much if she didn't start thinking faster.
The walls...they glinted so strangely in the light, seemed to move. Biting her lip, she remembered the cause for her previous dizziness. Approaching closer, Elizabeth reached out curiously to obey her sudden impulse, to touch a protruding stone. It scratched against her sensitive skin. Snake! Recoiling in horror, hand tingling, she realized the walls were covered in snake-skin, not unlike that book she found.
There was an angry hiss as the flames flickering in the torches went out.
She stood in the dark! It was pitch black! Before she realized it, she was on the cold stone, her knees having given away as her system suffered a huge jolt. She couldn't catch her breath. Her lungs were being crushed. She felt something with a freezing hand with rubbery skin reach for her.
Her phobia—
Something is...
Her whole being cringed, collapsing on herself, thinking she heard a step.
Got to get out of here!
Elizabeth tried to hush her breathing which gave the impression of a train. She took one stone at a time, crawling on her hands and knees.
Trying not to vomit, she struggled as the cold from the stone seeped through her limbs
She ran head-long into someone's leg. Oh!
"Lumos."
McGonagall raised her wand for order among the frightened melee of pajama- clad children.
"Attention! Act like Gryffindors! Prefects, check off names of the list immediately!"
She shoved the list in a flustered Indira Patil's hand and lifting her robes, she hurriedly climbed the steeps, leaving the shouting and crying behind her. Her sharp eyes had already noticed four people in particular missing from the group after she gazed around, trying to spot a mane of red- hair. Oh, gods!
As she opened the hid door behind the tapestry of Ignatius the Great, something she couldn't see knocked her over. A silver cloth flew through the air.
"What on— Finnigan!"
A mutter from the pictures on the wall.
"That's what you get for running in the halls."
With surprising strength for her age, she jerked the frightened, crying girl up by the arm.
"S-s-sorry! I was-we were-got locked out and c-couldn't remember the-."
"WHERE'S POTTER?!"
"So...you're awake then. I thought the child of the great Harry Potter would have awoken sooner from a simple stunning charm. Just a thought..."
A mousy brown-headed man with dark eyes fitted above a weak chin studied her. She was surprised as she had expected a more sinister entity appearing from the dark. This man was one you could pass on any street corner in the world and be none the wiser to his existence.
His non-descript face was arranged in such an expression of emptiness that held no anger, contempt, or joy. It held a smile which was not a smile but an expression of curiosity that you could easily find on a child's doll and stuck deep inside you because it gave uneasiness. Then he changed masks. His features contorted intensely, almost making him unrecognizable from before.
The fiend moved suddenly and gripped her arms so hard his fingers clamped down on the bone; she cried out in pain. Her arm was going to be ripped out of her socket.
"Be quiet, brat!" he spat in her face. "It's time for us to go. You're going to love...well. I won't ruin the surprise for you."
He grabbed the same stone protruding from the wall that she had ventured to touch earlier. Every inch of snake-skin began to shift, gliding in the light of his wand, and revealed a hidden corridor.
Damn, if only I had pulled it!
She examined her captor out of the corner of her eye. With the malicious glint in his eyes, she realized why she had mistaken him for ghost boy earlier. His grip had not loosened, and her arm was going numb. Her feet were some good two inches off the ground. He didn't stupefy her again; she guessed he didn't see her as a threat. Anger bit in her heart.
"Who are you? WHY ARE YOU-" Elizabeth was slammed against still-moving wall violently. Her head banged on the stone, and she lost her breath.
"I told you to be quiet. See what you made me do."
His voice was so apologetic and sugar-coated it made her sick. This man was a loose canon; if she wasn't careful, he would kill her before completed his mission whatever it was.
He carried her in the corridor. It was noxiously humid like a jungle would be from centuries of stagnant water and the air weighed down on them both, him especially as he was slightly overweight.
Expecting another act of violence, she winced as his sing-song voice broke the silence.
"I guess I should let you know...who I am, I mean. Why not? It's not like you'll be telling anyone."
Someone please help me! Oh, please!
"My name's Smith. Average sounding, right? Think about how many Smiths are in the world. Hufflepuff-ish to a sickening point, am I right?" He broke off in to peals of maniacal laughter. His grip, if possible, increased. She remained silent.
"My first name is even worse. Zacharias...bloody hell! But, let's think about it. So average. But I'm powerful in my invisibility, Potter. Potter...another unremarkable name, right?!" He shook her hard. Not trusting herself to speak, she nodded.
"You agree. Wonderfully sensible of you! How very unlike your father! Yes, everyone knew your father's name. Thought he was so bloody wonderful. Let me tell you, he was a sodding idiot...a swelled-up git!"
She felt the hate radiating off him in vibes. She was in so much trouble!
"Then there were the Slytherins."
Where did that come from?!
"They wouldn't accept me for what I was. Walked around like they were gods, and I was supposed to lie down and take that! That bloody hat...I was supposed to be in Slytherin. It told me so...it did! But I was shunted into Hufflepuff because I was a Muggleborn-I wasn't smart enough to be in Ravenclaw. I didn't bury myself in a damn book, so no Ravenclaw for me! They were the most annoying, sodding...thought they were so-but your bloody father was the worst!"
He looked at her expectantly, smirking, daring her to say something.
"Uh-Hufflepuff isn't so bad." Even to her ears, that sounded weak. So much for calming this guy down!
He stared at her, so she hurried on.
"I mean-they're hardworking and loyal. That counts for a lot! A-at least, I- I think so," she muttered weakly.
He laughed again, eyes bulging and she prepared for the violence to follow.
"Oh, yes! Hardworking! Well, Potter, you're right. I am hardworking-in fact, I am part of something much greater than your so-called father...so great that You-Know-Who couldn't get within cursing distance...so great that the legendary Dumbledore is a weakling, a speck on my shoe. Isn't that hilarious?!"
It wasn't hilarious at all. But she felt oddly fascinated by the display of absurdity in front of her. What the longing for a place in the world, longing for recognition, done to this man! He became a part rather than a person because if that part was greater than himself...he was hollow.
So, here she was with a brain-washed lunatic who was dragging her away to kill her.
No!
I will do something! I'm not about to be beaten by a Smith.
She buried herself deep within, trying to find that power that had allowed her to escape from Westley, another fairly average person.
He shook her again, annoyed by her lack of attention.
"Nothing to say..."
"Yes, I do have something to say. Did you take my necklace?!"
"Your what?!" Smith snarled, his eyes opening wide at the offense of changing the subject. He twisted her arm behind her back, making her gasp as needles shot up into her shoulder. They traveled like this for what seemed like an eternity.
"We're here!" He was obviously having a great time.
There were in the infamous mirror room where Tonks had taken her before on her first visit to Hogwarts.
If he thought he could escape with me here, well, hah! He's the idiot!
Then she saw the quicksilver mirror that the fingertips had grazed in the middle of the floor, filled with a deep red.
What?!
Elizabeth was relatively sure that mirror was doing that the last time she was here.
Before she realized it, he had hauled her across the room, gracefully missing the other enigmatic mirrors. She caught a glimpse of her many selves, each undergoing the same form of humiliation in their universes. One Elizabeth turned towards her, sneering, waving her away with kisses, and giving her plenty of rude gestures in a remarkably short length of time. Another clone was just laughing hysterically like she was told the funniest joke in the world-that she was going to be done in by a Smith.
Just what I need...
Smith lowered her down where her feet touched but held her head in a head- lock and her arms clasped behind her. To her chagrin, her ruddy reflection showed fear etched on every line of her petite face. Smith loomed over her more a creature than a man, and his eyes danced with glee at this picture.
Her eyes followed Smith as he raised a curiously shaped dagger, engraved with a bagger fittingly enough. But, on the hilt, sacrifices of small figures...children no less...was taking place apparently for the bagger. And the words were pethro.
A grin covered Smith's randomly contorting face.
"Don't worry...this will hurt."
He pierced her arm, scrapping the bone, and she screamed the sound echoing in her head. His gloved hand completely covered her mouth.
He lowered her with mock gentleness to the ground like a rag doll. Shock
"I need your blood. Otherwise, you won't be able to travel in between."
Through the digging pain and fear that was reaching back into her, she had to wonder what that meant, in between.
Smith dabbed her blood off the knife with his finger and drew a symbol on the icy surface of the mirror which pulsed angrily, then greedily absorbed her blood.
The Thorn.
The Thorn burnt in the sky, the mirror, the book...and his ring...I saw it...
With this same hand, he grabbed a fist-full of her hair to pull her up, making her hiss.
"Step lively now."
The mirror was now rippling as if it was going to overflow. It seemed to have grown accustom to the taste of blood.
No way! No way am I going in there!
As Smith stepped up behind her to push her into the river of blood, she kicked out, catching him right in the groin.
In response to the acute pain and shock, he fell forward, knocking into her and effectively making her lose her balance.
When a thing is red, you think it's going to be burning hot like lava. The pool of liquid even behaved like lava, congealing behind her. But the pool...it was like falling into an ice-bucket, numbing for an intense home- made surgical procedure, the theft of a kidney.
Even the roots of her hair froze, and her mouth opened as a reaction when she really didn't desire to ingest any of the garnet...time. Time was flowing by, intertwined with the morbid offering of entry. She was aware that her pale hand floating, reaching up above and that somehow the ability to breathe didn't leave.
Watching the graying cook from behind the door, hoping for a hand out since she was locked up last...pretending to sleep, seeing faces in the cracked, plaster ceiling...biting cold with holes in the mittens...a woman with red hair, her red hair, cinnamon eyes, smiling....
In the Great Hall, full of students in pajamas covered in the standard cloaks, whispering...
Death Eaters...heard that You-Know-Who's back...think they'll get in...Potter's missing...
Malfoy was right by her, practically breathing on her neck, but he didn't deliver his trade-mark glare. Pyrrhus's eyes were merry, amused at the whispers around him. The wispy boy swaggered with his hands in his pockets around various clusters of children, towards her. Elizabeth already opted to ignore him as the situation was dire; if she could find a professor to warn them about Smith. She turned around to look over the crowd's head...when warmth like a dagger pierced her back. It was the worst experience of her life, a living nightmare.
Malfoy's arm was in the middle of her stomach, and then he was in front of her, ambling away towards his fellow Slytherins after walking through her.
"You little-I'll make you suffer for that!"
Smith wrapped a hand around her neck, jerking her up to look him straight in the eye. Madness simmered behind his irises.
No one noticed his sudden appearance. They looked through them both, voices at a dull roar.
Am I dead?
Elizabeth didn't fight as Smith pulled her through the crowds of solid bodies and gradually became accustomed to the sensation.
The professors were outside the doors; Dumbledore was outside the doors. Dumbledore...
The wizened, concerned wizard didn't blink as her livid captor hauled the object of frantic search pass. As a last ditch attempt, she grabbed at her only hope's moon-covered cloak...to see her hand pass through him.
The old man turned his head slightly...then walked through the old oak doors to address his panicked charges.
The ghosts whom she feared so much floated past to listen to what Dumbledore was going to say...even the dead didn't see her waving frantically and screaming at the top of her lungs.
Smith was glowing with arrogance; he looked over his shoulder to leer, to gloat, and enjoy her helplessness. How she hated him.
Past the numerous portraits...past the tapestries...the glow of floating candles ahead...
If she didn't think of something fast and escape her isolation, she was doomed; they were a stone's throw away from the main doors.
She drug her sore feet against the stone floor, face twisting as she made a sudden move towards freedom.
Smith turned. Crack...her head flew back as his hand made contact with her face, his emblem ring leaving a mark.
"Don't tempt me. I promise I'll make you lose your mind before you die. I know how. Then you won't be able to join your dear little brother."
Her mind hurt so dreadfully now, tingly.
What'z that-said you-my brot-
Through her strands of hair, she saw the boy leaning against the banister, in a bored position as if he had been waiting there forever. His eyes became focused as he spotted Smith who didn't see him quite yet, still glowering at his captive. His face became livid and more animated than Smith's could ever be.
Smith snarled at Elizabeth, wanting to see fear and an attention in those eyes he had hated in his youth and he got his wish, but to his rage, the brat dared to ignore him, looking over his shoulder. He glanced back...looked again.
Who the dev...
Zacharias Smith didn't get the privilege to finish this thought before he was flung into oblivion. The devil had moved quickly and his last awareness was the hand on his chest and the whistling of air rushing pas-
Rubeus Hagrid yelped, dropping his crossbow in alarm as a man appeared out of the thin air and hit the floor directly in front of his feet.
"WHAT IN-DUMBLEDORE, COM' QUICK. THERE'S-!"
Elizabeth gaped at the place where Smith once stood, alive and well, on the steps, clasping her arm.
In his stead stood her very clear and defined stalker whom she had just witnessed commit murder. His garnet eyes took on a whole new meaning as her eyes flashed over to see the blood of her former-
The boy made a rapid motion with his hand, reaching for her face. Her back hit the wall as she scrambled on her hands and knees to avoid his touch.
His youthful face, painted in innocence if one happened not to meet his gaze, appeared strangely apathetic as he slowly climbed the steps in pursuit.
Elizabeth kept him in her sight as she struggled one-armed up the step, just painfully realizing that her other arm had been broken.
The boy halted, his mouth twisting in a smirk as he turned towards the sound of running.
Once again, Dumbledore rushed past, actually through, the missing girl lying on the steps. The boy laughed at the sight; Elizabeth grimaced, preferring Smith to this new terror. His laugh was so high-pitched it jolted her, chilling her bones more than the defiled mirror. It was a laugh that spoke of thin branches scratching at window panes and graveyards. It was unnatural.
A sting of adults trampled and clicked by, all blind. Elizabeth gave up. She remained sprawled out like a broken doll on the cold stone. She couldn't escape. But she wasn't going to look at him.
Insolently, she focused on the gathering children around the balcony who had apparently slipped past the flustered Prefects. Each face was a mask of fear and awe for most of the lot had never been confronted with death, such a foreign thing. Resentment...she resented their innocence and their safety. The isolation was killing her; the boy didn't have to lift a finger.
She felt him kneel down to study her better. He had time now, all the time in the world.
Long, china fingers traced the side of her face and neck teasingly. Elizabeth wouldn't flinch, but she was angered by his mockery of gentleness when she knew full well he was planning to do her harm. She clenched her jaw.
"I see...no word of thanks."
There it was, one of the first impacting moments in her life where time truly stood still without any magic involved or illusions.
His voice was low and infuriatingly calm as if he didn't have a worry in the world. As much as she despised him, she couldn't help but marvel at the sea-like quality the murmuring of his tone carried. Like an ocean, his voice gave a strange comfort with its vastness and reflection of light. Yet the surface broke as a monster lurked underneath. What a paradox...what an entity of potential chaos.
He gripped her chin and forced her to look at him. His eyes were an ocean of blood gathering from what he had done....perhaps, that is why the rest of him was so spotless, that where all the proof of the pain he has caused soaks in.
He knew many things...his eyes burned with fierce intelligence, with ferocity.
But unlike Dumbledore, he only seemed to know so much; his gaze lacked something vital she had seen present in others.
Then the boy did something unexpected; he smiled at what he saw, seeming pleased, and raised his fingertips to her forehead.
She saw herself paralyzed, tasting the salt tears in her mouth. His fingers left a tingling sensation in their wake. Her mind buzzed as she tried to figure out what was the shape he was tracing on her, into her.
It was a lightening bolt.
Elizabeth opened her mouth to scream; he pushed on her temple, hard, and she received a jolt of intense energy, making her gasp in air that felt different from before, crisp and-
"POTTER!"
This just wasn't her day. The first face she saw above her was hook-nosed Snape who had the gall to glare at her as if she had caused it all to happen and ruined his night.
Then....oh thank you...
Tonks was there, lifting her head, helping her breathe.
"You'll be okay."
But first she had to find him, find out where he went.
She twisted the best her arm and body would allow her to in Tonks's motherly embrace.
He was gliding smoothly past the crowding bodies even though he could have gone right through them without causing a stir.
He glanced over his shoulder and waved jauntily. Something golden and radiant flashed in her eyes.
There, glinting in the candlelight, intertwined between his slender fingers was her mother's phoenix necklace.
"Potter, enough of this foolishness! Explain."
She hated the sound of his greasy voice. It had been sliding over her for an hour.
That git...she would explain if she could but somehow the words wouldn't come.
Dumbledore sat directly in front of her bed, hands folded gently. He studied her over his half-moon glasses, and this action had a far worse effect on her than Snape's voice.
The morbid demise of Zacharias Smith loomed over the room and on everyone's tongue. How did it happen? What happened? How did a man who had disappeared nine years ago suddenly appear dead on the floor and shortly there after, the missing girl appeared above the place where he would have fallen?
Elizabeth admitted it didn't look very good at all. But she had a feeling that no one should know about the boy who walked in-between. It was his words, you see.
No word of thanks.
Who knows where Smith had planned on taking her? She wasn't stupid. True, the boy might be planning her future harm but for the moment, he saved her life and let her go. He sent her back when he didn't have to.
Thus, keeping him out of notice would be returning his kindness (using the word lightly and a broad of context as possible) the best she could.
Tap...tap...Tonks drummed her foot nervously; she stopped when everyone quickly turned towards her.
Tonks jumped up, an air of determination about her.
"I-I think Lizzy's tired. We shouldn't push her like this-it's-Fletcher had a hand in what happened, I swear it. We should be questioning that traitor, not the child."
Snape hissed under his breath, his excitement at the up-coming interrogation stolen.
Dumbledore sighed.
"That will not be possible, I'm afraid."
Silence.
"Why? He didn't escape, did he?!"
"No. He...put an end to himself through means which I will not go into detail. The Death Eater, Mr. Gregory Goyle, is also..." Dumbledore trailed off.
Tonks covered her mouth, collapsing back in her chair.
"And Remus-is he..."
"Oh, no! He is recovering quite well at St. Mungo's, thankfully."
Snape snorted in disgust.
"Sadly, our only source of enlightenment is young Ms. Potter. If you wish it, Ms. Potter, we could discuss the matter privately, you and I..."
"No...I can-they can hear it, too."
A pause.
Snape sneered.
"Well, then, get on with your story."
"Severus, please."
Elizazbeth hurried on, not wishing to hear Snape if she could help it.
"Smith stupefied me during the attack on Hogsmeade."
Snape crowed, "When you were out of your House dorm, sneaking around, plotting to do who knows what kind of damage!"
"SEVERUS!"
Snape and Elizabeth both their staring contest, jerking in alarm. Tonks gaped. Madam Pomfrey peeked slowly, wide-eyed, around the curtain.
No one had ever heard Albus Dumbledore shout in anger. Ever...
His blue eyes blazed at Snape who backed away with his head bent in an attitude of shame.
"Continue. There will be no more interruptions."
Elizabeth sought to gain her breath, not wanting to keep the old irked wizard waiting any longer than he had to.
"I-I woke up in this...snake room. (Snape looked at her sharply, eyebrow lifted.) I mean-th-the walls were covered in all this snake skin. I got up- you know- trying to find a way out but Smith came and...he was...insane."
She recalled the deceased man's twisting, yellowing mouth. She knew that part of Smith would stay with her for awhile.
"He touched this stone, he knew to touch this stone, and a corridor opened. He just-ke-kept (her voice was failing) yelling about Houses, of all things, and how he was greater than my-f-(she couldn't barely talk about her dad in the same sentence as the disgruntled, straw Smith) and You-Know- Who and-all. Then we got to the room full of mirrors (Dumbledore nodded) and the one in the middle was blood red...it was soaked in blood."
Snape moved forward suddenly, only to retreat back towards the wall at Dumbledore's sharp look. Tonks remained frozen, mouth opened slightly, focused on Elizabeth.
"Smith stabbed me."
Tonks gasped brokenly, hand covering her heart. Elizabeth had the strange idea that Tonks blamed herself for what happened and took on Elizabeth's pain.
Dumbledore held up his hand, motioning quickly for her to keep talking, just to keep talking.
"He drew this triangle with my-my- with the-I think...the Thorn."
She stopped again. Dumbledore's face was covered in lines of intense thought...he gazed at her wildly but wasn't looking at her at all. He moved to rise then gave up the idea and like Tonks, sort of collapsed in his chair.
The effect this had...this man of such strength and order suddenly seeming to collapse...
Tonks stood, pushing her chair back with a harsh, grating noise. She moved towards Dumbledore, arms outstretched as if she planned to embrace him and to shield him in some way. Snape appeared to be trying to blend in with the wall and looked at the headmaster in a blank manner, head tilted in observation.
Dumbledore gained his composure and held his trembling hands up to ward off assistance.
"And what else?"
Elizabeth knew she needed to...
"We went through the mirror and into the Great Hall. No one saw. Everyone was-li-like smoke; we went through everyone and into the main entry. Smith said something about meeting my-my brother (if possible Dumbledore seemed to sink even lower in his chair) then he s-slipped," she finished weakly.
Severus Snape tried to maintain control; she saw the physical effort in his face, his mouth twitching spasmodically. He clenched and unclenched his fists. He shifted from side to side. But his mouth popped open despite all his sincere efforts.
"The man just suddenly slipped, did he?"
Nymphadora Tonks lost it.
"YES, SNAPE! YOU BLOODY HEARD HER!! THE MAN SLIPPED, DAMNIT!!!! LIKE YOU'LL FIND YOURSELF-"
Tonks cut off.
Dumbledore bent over and held his white head cupped in his hands.
Before a second had passed, he got up abruptly and left the room.
Madam Pomfrey stared after him, close to tears, and her hand clasped to her chest.
"The both of you...leave now and let the child rest...please," the old nurse whispered.
Perhaps, that Smith was right. Maybe he was part of something greater than Dumbledore, judging by the old wizard's reaction. That meant that the old man can't protect me.
The ceiling was alight with twinkling stars as if one was outside on a camping trip. Madam Pompfrey did not dare try floating candles again. But, in an act of kindness and forethought, she remembered Elizabeth's acute distrust of the dark. Now, Elizabeth was afraid the aged witch saw the reasoning behind her misunderstood logic.
Ignorance is not bliss. You have to know what is coming at you.
She didn't dare close her eyes. If she did, she would probably see a shocked Smith flying over that balcony again.
Elizabeth hadn't desired such a means to her escape. Oh, how she hadn't...
In some way, she felt responsible for the upset...he was so upset with his place in life.
Maybe I could have fought back and stunned him. At least he would be alive.
And then...sleep wasn't such a bad idea. She hurt all over from Skelegrow. If she ingested much more of that stuff, she was sure she would become immune and then what would she do.
If she slept, she would see her mother. She saw her mother tonight. Smith gave her something precious even though he had meant to harm her so. He had inadvertently gave her a moment with her mother...a forgotten memory.
The trip through the mirror illuminated and reflected a distant piece of her subconscious. The woman with the cinnamon eyes and the love that was tangible-
Elizabeth blinked.
Love! That's what his eyes were missing. Kindness...caring...he had no reflection of any such thing.
Professor Dumbledore has a reflection of genuine love although it is a distant glimmer but love is indeed there...a respect for life.
Tonks...she made me feel loved...cradling my head, so happy I was alive.
He was so cold...even helping me, he was so very cold.
So very alone...
Elizabeth awoke, not believing she actually drifted off. Vaguely, she reached for her wand as a reflex and at the very moment giggling hysterically since she knew her wand was-there. The elder wood warmed at her touch and sparks skidded across the bedside table, almost igniting the washcloth.
How? "Lumos," she whispered, hoping to shine so light on the situation.
A message written in a cursive hand in the dust covering the table stood out boldly.
I believe I have something that belongs to you. Meet me alone during the Halloween Feast. You'll know where to go.