Someday, I will own something of great value. This will not be Harry Potter, as J K Rowling already owns it.

Yet Another Homecoming

There was exactly one good thing about going home. Since they had tried to kiss Harry, the dementors had been sent back to Azkaban, so the train didn't have to go under them. Other than that, the outlook was bleak.

Her marks were not bad my most standards. Actually, most students would be thrilled by them, DADA and Potions had top marks, Transfiguration, Care of Magical Creatures, and Arithmancy were nearly that high, and History of Magic was Above Average. Charms, however, Ryua's worst class, was Average, and she suspected Professor Flitwick had been marking her easy. She seemed to have a block against the class. Some charms she could work easily, especially ones that could be used for dueling, torture, or illegal purposes. Many of them worked, but just barely. And, about a third of the charms set her, she simply couldn't work. She didn't know why, and neither did Hermionie, who had started tutoring her last term. Even Flitwick couldn't coach her to use some of them, after she'd swallowed her pride and asked for help. But that wasn't even what she was worried about most.

Father, for reasons that made very little sense to Ryua, had decreed that quidditch should never be played by women. Ryua happened to be very good at quidditch, and had managed to join the Slytherin house team as a keeper. Father would have been angry if their team had managed to win the House Cup. Unfortunately, thanks to injuries, and a much more ferocious opposition than any of them had expected, they had lost the cup by ten points. The fact that Ryua had been injured badly by the match wouldn't engender any sympathy in Father. Actually, it might make him even more furious. She rubbed her still-tender shoulder at the thought, dreading having to leave the train to meet her parents.

All too soon, the Hogwarts Express pulled into Platform 9 ¾. She saw Harry off talking to his relatives (Yeesh! I don't think he enjoys summer any more than I do), Hermionie walking over to her parents, and Ron, Ginny, Percy, and the twins hugging Mrs. Weasley. Ryua sighed, picking up Parsyl, and joined Draco on their way over to their own parents. Mother embraced them both, and gave them little pecks on the cheek, and Father put a paternal hand on Draco's shoulder. What a perfect little show for everyone at the station.

At home, it all changed. Father and mother took up their customary positions on the couch in the private family room, while the children placed their report cards on the round walnut table and stood at attention while their marks were reviewed. Draco had slightly worse marks than his sister, although his annual frantic studying to pull his mark up at the end of term had gotten them to a decent level. Got to love those final exams... Or hate them. It all depended on which things the teachers tried to test you on. Something new this year had occurred however, as Father was about to tell them.

"Now children, I have been sent a copy of your midterm marks as well." Draco blanched at these words, because his midterm marks had been horrendous. "And it has shown me some fascinating things. Draco,"

"Sir?" Draco replied in a small voice.

"I'm quite impressed at the way you have improved your marks in such a short amount of time. You are to be commended for your effort."

"Wha- Thanks, Father!" Draco was not one to let such a chance pass by.

"Ryua, on the other hand, your marks have dropped."

What? Ooh, that arrogant, unfair, favoring, biased... "Sir, if I may, that's because of the exams..."

"You would give me excuses? I want to see results, not pathetic one-sided excuses. Although," Lucius continued smoothly, "That is not the main reason I am upset with your performance at school."

Oh, Salazar, here it comes, "Sir?"

"I have also been informed that you are still on the quidditch team."

Something in Ryua snapped. All her life so far, Father had berated her, and she had taken it like a meek, subservient female should. For some reason, Ryua just couldn't act like the accepting little child she had been before. She raised her head, meeting his cold, angry gaze with her own hot, prideful one. "Yes I am, Father. And I don't intend to stop either."

She noticed Draco and mother flinching at that statement, but ignored them. Lucius rose, face filled with anger that his daughter would dare speak to him in that tone. He gestured for her to follow. She waited just long enough to be insolent, then followed, stalking almost as angrily as he. Draco and Narcissa just looked at each other, then with an unspoken agreement, left in the other direction.

"I am very displeased at your attitude with this whole business, Ryua." She glared back at him, stubbornly fighting down the first trickles of fear.

She kept her voice cool and steady, not really wanting to incense him more. "Father, this is not the twelfth century anymore. I am not going to just lie here and take your patronizing rules. Every other team in the school has girls on it. I have proven my worth on a broom, and I will not stop playing just because you say so."

The look on his face quailed her inside. "If you will not accept my rules when I give them to you civilly, then we will have to impress the importance of them on you in some other manner."

Ryua set herself, raising her own wand as Lucius drew his. "Incendio!" she snapped, before he could get his own spell ready. He yelped, throwing a freezing charm onto his robes. Knowing she only had a moment to act, Ryua yelled, "Ricto-"

"Expelliarmus!" Lucius had lost what little patience he might have had left. "Staticseia" Ryua bit down a shriek as her entire skin came alive with a sensation between an itch and a burn. "Foolish girl. Foolish, foolish girl. You know the outcome will always be the same, yet you constantly strive to make life more difficult. Your life would be a lot easier if you never forgot your place."

"My place," Ryua gasped, "is not what you decree-"she broke off as Lucius hit her with a different curse, one which left no breath for talking.

"Silence. You would do well to hold your tongue more often. If only," he sighed, sounding for all the world like a reluctant parent withholding a candy from a greedy child, "you would accept that I am the one who makes the rules, we would not have to do this."

In response, she just glared up at his eyes, eyes that betrayed how much he enjoyed inflicting pain. "No!" she managed to gasp out.

He lifted his wand for just a second then, enough for Ryua to nearly collapse from the sudden release. "No? You won't accept my rule? Very well... Frappecia!" Ryua was thrown back across the room with the force of a hammer blow, and slammed into an ornately carved manticore statue. She couldn't suppress a groan as the open mouth filled with cleverly carved teeth dug into her already injured shoulder. She looked up, real fear in her eyes when she saw her Father had noticed her extra pain. He gestured, and she rose up unwillingly in response to his magic. "Now, if you can just agree to follow my rules next year, we can both stop this little session and go our separate ways." Ryua glared at him, clearly refusing to do any such thing. He closed his fist on thing air, and she gasped as a wave of pain shot through her shoulder. "Now, just agree..."

"N-no..." she managed to say. She moaned with pain as she felt her feet leave the floor, supported entirely by her shoulder. She concentrated all of her remaining energy on keeping her gaze level with her Father's. He snarled with rage, and squeezed harder. With a sickening lurch, she felt her shoulder slip out of joint again. Unable to do anything else, she let her gaze drop to the ground, hating herself for giving in. Satisfied, Lucius released her, stalking out of the room. Ryua fell hard on the floor, barely managing to hit on her good side. Left with nothing but an intense, pulsing ache from her shoulder, she blacked out on the floor.

She came to a little later when fire shot through it again. Ryua screamed, unable to focus on whoever was pulling on it. She heard a curse, and her arm thudded back to the floor. "Sorry, sorry, I forgot..." It was Draco. From the angle of the light coming through the window, she'd been unconscious here for nearly two hours. Excited squeaking told her Toppy or one of the other elves must have fetched Draco to get her up to her room. They were forbidden by Father to use their magic to aid the Malfoys after one of his little 'talks', but when she didn't get up, they must have bent the rules enough to find someone big enough to carry her somewhere to rest.

"Draco?"

"Yeah. What can I touch?"

"Anything except that shoulder..."

"Okay." She felt him unsteadily lifting her up, then managed to black out again. She came to on her bed, Draco shaking out his arms after carrying her through their excessively large house beside her.

"Draco, Draco, listen, before you go, I need you to do something else, okay?"

He looked down at her. "Yeah?"

She grimaced. "Put my shoulder back in."

"What? I don't know how to do that!"

"I'd do it myself, but I can't even touch it. You saw Marcus, it's pretty simple. It has to be done soon, or it won't heal right."

"Oh, fine. But, put down your wand first, I don't want you cursing me by accident."

"I don't have it on me. Toppy'll probably find it eventually, if Father's forbidding wears off. Just do it, okay?" Wearing an expression almost identical to Flint's at the beginning of the injury, Draco set about forcing his twin's shoulder back in. What he wasn't prepared for was the wave of pain he felt at the same time Ryua fainted for the third time that day. It had been a long time since he'd felt anything between their link, probably because they'd been at such odds with each other. Well, at least that was fixed now. There had to be some good coming from an incident like this. He pulled the covers over her unconscious form, and slipped out before Father found him being sympathetic.