A/N: Still no replies? Well maybe this chapter... (wink, wink)
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters affiliated with the Harry Potter series. They all belong to J.K. Rowling and her brilliant mind. I only own the plot of this story... well actually Marissa does.
Summary: One big secret can change everything. Enemies since they were born, they both come together to defeat the Dark Lord all because of her. They both loved her. They still do. She brought them together in a way that she didn't even know.
Rating: R for adult situations and language.
When the Grinch's Heart Grew
Chapter 2: The Last Beginning
It was a bright, sunny morning on September the first. For a bright, sunny day one girl wasn't in such a great mood. She lied in bed as the sun crept through her windows at around 9 am and shown in her eyes. She squeezed them tightly shut wishing to go back to sleep. Wishing to re-enter her dream world to escape. 'Why bother trying?' she thought with a huff. She sat up in bed and was blinded by a horrible throbbing in her head. She opened her eyes and rubbed them with the palms of her hand to rub away the drowsiness. She ran them up her forehead into her hair twisting and pulling in every direction trying to make her head feel better. She scratched her scalp feeling the dry gel she had in it the previous day and dead skin collect underneath her nails. She tried to pull out some of the knots with her fingers until the ends of her long red hair were one big knot. "Oh God damn," she grumbled. Pulling the sheets from her curled form she sat on the edge of her bed looking around her room turning her head to the left, then to the right. She looked down at her pajamas noticing the black make-up stain on her red tank top. She placed her right hand on her thigh covered by gray sweat pants and took her left hand and fingered at the stain on her blouse, sitting there for about 15 minutes. Continuing to just stare at the stain she felt a tear trickle down past her eyelashes dripping onto her left cheekbone. She raised the piece of shirt she had in her hand and dabbed at her cheek. Lowering the piece of garment, she looked at a new black stain next to the one obtained last night still wet. She sniffled as she got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. She opened the door, flicked on the light and looked at herself. Her hair was a mess and she didn't want to think about the knots she was going to have to comb out and the pain it was going to take. Her red blotchy face was covered in streaks of dried, powdery black make-up also smeared around her green sapphire eyes. She crinkled up her nose in disgust. Not because of how she looked, but because she couldn't believe she cried herself to sleep last night. That was just unacceptable. Thoughts of last evening ran through her head.
( Flashback )
She sat in the kitchen in her pajamas picking at the food on her plate. She looked up into the eyes of her mother. "What?" she asked annoyed. She just kept looking at her until, "I have to tell you something." Melissa watched her mom in silence, while she fidgeted around in her seat trying to look at something else other then her daughter. "Just tell me already." She didn't have time for this. Her mother looked up at her nervously, gave a heavy sigh and began to explain...
"MELISSA!" She didn't care if her mom was calling her. She had to get out of there... fast. She ran up the stairs two at a time, down to the end of the hallway into her bedroom slamming and locking the door behind her. 'Lies! All of it lies!' she thought frantically. She scanned her room wildly looking for something, anything, everything to find some relief. She ran over to her night stand and pulled it out from against her wall, her red curls bouncing behind her. 'Want it, need it, where is it, where is it?' Thoughts flying around in her head as she pulled up the loose floor board underneath the night stand. 'Yes.' There it was. She grabbed one of the many bottles, put the floor board in place and pushed her night stand over it. She sat on her bed staring at the full vodka bottle in her hand debating. Throwing caution to the wind she twisted the cap off and chugged half of the bottle down. She pulled the bottle down from her mouth wiping her chin. Her head started to spin and felt the start of the effects the liquid would cause. A stupid smile flashed across her face as she felt her head get heavy and lean forward, slowly but surely starting to forget that evening. She held what was left in the bottle eye level and looked into the swirling alcohol. Throwing back her head she downed the rest of it. The bottle fell out of her hand smashing onto the floor. Her head spun as she looked around her room with tunnel vision watching her room go in and out of focus. Giggling insanely she stood up on her bed and started jumping until she was full out laughing her head off. She fell to her knees and crawled to the edge of her bed and peered over at the floor. The shards of glass of the empty vodka bottle laid a couple of feet away from her bed. She flipped over the side and landed with a loud thump on her floor next to the glass. Her stomach churned as her head spun and her eyesight was anything but clear. She closed her eyes and lied there for a couple of minutes. A knock sounded from her door and her eyes shot open, her body going rigid and her neck snapping towards the door. "Melissa, are you all right?" her mother asked from the other side. Her eyes shut tightly. "I know you don't want to talk to me but I heard some noises and –" "I'm fine mother." "Ok," her mother replied hesitantly. "I'll leave you then." "Yea, fine, whatever. I just want to go to bed" she slurred. Her mother's footsteps faded away and Melissa could feel the alcohol twisting and churning in her stomach. She felt the taste of it in her mouth and felt it as it made its way up her throat and into her mouth. She jumped up and ran as fast as she could into the bathroom and threw up the entire bottle into the toilet. She lifted her head and raised her hand onto her head feeling the sweat dripping down her forehead. Her back slumped into the cabinet next to her toilet. After taking some deep breaths to calm her nerves she got up and tried to walk back to her bed, swaying back and forth as she moved holding her hand onto the wall to guide her back and to keep her from falling. She finally reached her bed and collapsed onto it pulling the covers over her. "What did I do? Why me?" she cried into her pillow and fell asleep.
( End Flashback )
"Melissa you're going to be late for the train! Let's go!" She lifted her trunk and walked down the stairs with it to the car. Her mother sat in the driver's seat and she put the trunk in the back seat and she hopped in the front next to her mom. They drove down the street heading for London to catch a train at 11 o'clock.
"ALL ABOARD!" the conductor called as smoke billowed out from the red engine behind him bearing the golden lettering 'Hogwart's Express' across the body of it. Everybody was on board by now talking, and laughing, and catching up on gossip and talking about their holidays... except one person.
"Now are you sure you have everything?"
"Yes, I do," she said dully for the umpteenth time this morning to her... well 'guardian,' I suppose you could call her now. To think all the times she called her 'Mother' was all a lie. For the past 17 years she never really did know what a mother was. She was deceived, deprived of that, but she didn't know it until just last night. From now on she'd call her guardian because of the shocking news that felt like a thousand ton of bricks laying on her shoulders, a thousand knives stabbing her at once. 'Why now? Why me?' she asked herself again as her guardian's rambling on about making her proud and remember all that she taught her and what she did for her faded away into the distance as she looked around the platform. She took in a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. She watched a boy with messy jet black hair and glasses, a red headed boy, and a girl with wavy golden brown hair with some kind of a badge pinned on the front of her shirt waved to a little pudgy woman in shabby robes. 'It must be the red head's mother, ' she thought enviously as she saw the bright red hair shared by the boy on the train.
She didn't know it but a certain boy with blonde hair was looking at her from a window inside the train. He knew he saw her somewhere but couldn't quite put his finger on it. Of course thoughts like 'She's really cute' and 'I wonder what house she'll be going into' went through his mind. What else would you expect from a 17 year old boy? He looked to the direction that she was looking and saw the golden trio. 'Merlin, are they still here? I thought they would have been killed by now!' and he turned back to the girl. He saw her face give a light sneer as she turned back to whomever she was talking to, her mother he figured. How wrong he was. He liked this girl already as he saw her smirk. 'My type of gal.' He wouldn't let this one get away so easily. And yet at the back of his mind he could have sworn he met her before, maybe a couple of years ago. He needed to know for certain but thought it could wait. After all, she was new and who better to show her around the school than the new head boy? He turned back around to his moronic friends stuffing their faces with pastries and cakes and to a group of girls chatting away. "Well, another year has begun," he said to himself as he felt the train give a jolt and start moving. "and the last!"
"Are you listening to me?" her guardian asked her because of the distant far away look on her face as she stared at three students sticking their heads back into the compartment instead of out the window.
"What? Oh yea." She shook herself out of her trance and concentrated on her guardian. She turned around and saw the train wheels moving ever so slightly. "Oh crap! I have to go!" she called as she jumped onto the step in the doorway closest to her.
"Bye! I love you!" her guardian called but she didn't get a reply. Melissa just looked out the doorway into her guardian's eyes and right before she suddenly disappeared from the platform she could see the pain and hurt in her eyes.
She grabbed her bags and walked down the hall trying to find an empty compartment. She walked towards the end of the train and finally found one to the right side of the train. She opened the door and threw her stuff onto the luggage rack and motioned to close the door. She looked over to the compartment across from her for really no reason, and saw the same boy with the messy jet black hair staring at her while the red head and the girl laughed. She chose to ignore it and closed the door.
"Stupid Harry Potter! I hate him," she scowled to herself while sitting on the seat next to the window. Of course she knew, who doesn't? Those famous green eyes, messy black hair, the glasses, the lightening-bolt shaped scar. The work of Lord Voldemort of course and she laughed. She sat smiling while imagining that night at the Potter's. Stupid James sticking up for the even more stupid Lily. 'Did she really think he wasn't going to kill Harry because she sacrificed herself? ' she laughed. But she came crashing back to reality as she remembered the news her guardian had just told her on the platform. She wiped all thoughts out of her mind that had to do with the Potter's. She was brought up to hate him and no shocking news was going to change that.
She turned to look out of the window as the train sped on the tracks through the countryside. She wished she could stop time all together. She didn't want to leave her old school let alone start in this muggle loving school. Durmstrang was her home, her friends were there and she wasn't. How wrong was this picture? Never in her life did she think she would go to Hogwarts! Her face contorted in disgust at the very thought of it. 'My whole very way of life has just been ruined, ' she thought to herself as she watched the trees go flying past her window.
"Well, I might as well get dressed into my robes." She stood and pulled her luggage down from the rack and searched through it to the very bottom where she found them. She took off her pants and shirt and slipped on the school uniform. She looked around the compartment in search for a mirror, but found no success. 'Oh for heaven's sake! ' she thought angrily as she pulled out her wand, a 12 inch oak, with a hint of red wood and a unicorn's tail hair. She was very found of her wand and kept it in mint condition. She held up her wand facing the wall just above the seat on the other side of the compartment from her. "Mirarse!" she declared while waving the wand in the air. Out of nowhere a thin black line drew the outline of a mirror and soon the whole thing hung there in front of her. Smiling at her handy work she slipped the wand into the inside pocket on her robes.
"I'm good," she complimented herself as she looked up into the mirror. "ARGH! I look hideous!" she exclaimed as she saw her reflection in the mirror. She took out her wand once again as she looked back down at her uniform. A little spell here, a little spell there and, "There!" She looked back up into the mirror and smiled. "There you are Melissa! I new I would find you somewhere in there!" She had dark red hair that hung down to her lower back perfectly straight with a hint of gold highlights in it, tan skin and she looked straight into her gorgeous green eyes, almost like sapphires. She liked her eyes best as she got all her compliments because of them. Her skirt was shorter of course, a must be to her, and they hung to the middle of her thighs. She unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt to show some skin decorated with a silver necklace.
She walked back over to her seat next to the window and pulled up her knee- highs and slipped on her three-inch heels. 'If I do have to go to this school, why not look good and turn a few heads while I'm there' she shrugged. She lied down on the couch and put her hands underneath her head so she could still look up out of the window. They were now crossing a bridge and white fluffy cumulus clouds filled the sky with a bright blue background. She wondered how much farther there was to go and started to examine the shapes of the clouds. She just finished saying that one looked like a snake as her eyes started to get heavy and soon she couldn't hold them open anymore. She let her eyes fall shut as she fell into a deep sleep.