Chapter 5
Death and a New Beginning
A clocked figured walked into my direction holding a wand. My room was a mess. The papers lay all over the place. My cloths were taken out from the shelves and thrown to the floor. My diary was open upon my desk.
The figure slowly walked towards me. Seelvin flew upon its head and drown away the hood. I saw a middle aged man. His eyes were piercing black. I saw his long nose that stretched over his mouth. I could see his yellow teeth under his upper lip. He looked like an animal. His skin was gray, unnaturally gray. It was as if he had no blood within his veins, no hint of red. Amazingly he had no hair.
He muttered something and pointed his wand at my owl. She fell to the floor, and I gave out a shriek. I heard my mother's feet pounding on the tiled floor. The man gave a cold laugh. I remembered that I had my wand within my hands. I pointed it at him and screamed, "Expelliarmus!" He muttered a counter spell, and all I saw were sparks of bright light.
Without another thought I turned around and ran downstairs. While glancing back, I collided with mother that quickly stood before me.
"Run!" She screamed. I couldn't just leave her, so I gave a tug on her dress to indicate that I want her to run with me.
"Run, I said!" She screamed once again. I gave her a last look and began to descend to the first floor. I heard mother putting a Shield charm on herself.
Moments later a raspy cold voice shouted, "Avada Kedavra!" Green lights filled the house, and someone fell to the ground. I was nearing the bottom of the stairs when he appeared right before me with a loud snap. I wanted to scream but my vocal cords were paralyzed. I was backing away from him but tripped on one of the stairs. He was covering me, bending down over me, and smelling my hair. I too, got a bit of scent of him. He smelled of fire and blood. His robes were soaked with water and they were covered by dry grass.
All of the lamps turned off. We were covered by darkness. I felt his breathing upon my face, and tears ran down my cheeks. I knew the curse that gave off green lights. I saw it once before, and it meant only one thing, my mother was dead. I was left all alone, and maybe had only minutes to live myself.
"Lumos," the figure said. The tip of his wand began to glow with a silvery light. It gave a hint of pink at times. His wand must have experienced ages of killing. It was drenched with blood that even a simple spell gave of the shades of violent scarlet.
He raised his wand towards my face, examining me closely. His hand slowly began to rise to move away my hair from my eyes, and at that moment I felt so weak that I couldn't move or even breathe. It felt like I was slowly slipping away to my death, or fainting.
"I can't be scared," I thought. But I wasn't dying or loosing consciousness. My body slowly began disappearing. I was dwindling into the thin air. Before he realized what was happening, I was fully gone. He gave a growl and stepped away from the foot of the stairs. I couldn't understand what was going on. I could still see him, but he had no idea I was there.
"Blasted, where did she go!"
Another figure apparated besides him. He had the same black clock as the first one. He took off his hood, and I saw a man of around thirty. He had long blond hair, and dark blue eyes.
"I only know one other that has the eyes just like you."
"Really? I never though my color was natural either. Kids at my school always tried spells on me to remove whatever charm I had put to make my eyes this blue. They were always angry with me that I never told them the charms that I used. Even my friend got a bit harsh with me at times."
"Well, Lucius Malfoy has your eyes. I thought you would know. You look quiet like him. Although his son is very charming and is an unmistakable Malfoy, his eyes are of his mother, light gray but cold they are. Yes they are."
The conversation passed through my mind again and again. I saw Madam Malkin talking to me and smiling. It was he, the one she was talking about. Those blue eyes were frightful. They showed no mercy or pardon. They were cold and passed no kindness. He had my eyes, or better I had his. I had his hair, his shape of face, his lips; however, my lines were softer, my skin was crimson, his was blue and pallid. Still, the similarity was astonishing. Who was he? How was I connected to him? I had no idea.
I watched the two men arguing among one self. Finally the one that I thought to be Lucius Malfoy grabbed the other by the upper portion of his robes.
"You've let her escape!"
"I didn't! She just disappeared!"
"People don't go into the thin air without muttering a spell. She couldn't disapparate, as she does not know how. Someone called her out of the house!"
How could he have known that I can't apparate? Obviously they didn't want me dead. All they wished for was to take me somewhere. Someone needed me for something, but for what? I also realized that someone was protecting me, as I couldn't have disappeared on my own.
I wanted answers to my questions, but I didn't wish to stand there and ask them about it. I crawled down the stairs, as quietly as I could manage. The two of them were standing quite close to the door, so I had to slip behind their backs in such a manner so I wouldn't touch them.
Within five minutes I was outside and felt the light breeze upon my skin. I had no time to loose. I began running, not fully aware where I was going. As I was enlarging the distance between the two figures and myself, my body was loosing the fright that it had received. My mind began thinking more clearly, and then the thought of my mother came into focus. My eyes were overcame by useless tears. No droplet of salt water that I shed will bring her back, I knew that. I experienced it on my own self just this spring, and again it confronted me.
My vision became blurry. I pushed her out of my mind and thought about the place I should go to.
"Leaky Cauldron!" I thought. That is the only place in London that I was aware of possessing witches and wizards. I also remembered Harry, Ron and Hermione. They were staying there too. All I had to do is get their help, but I had no idea of how I'll manage it. How could I get their attention when I can't be seen? It was impossible, but I had to give it a try.
Leaky Cauldron was twenty blocks away from my house. I was already tiered of walking the whole day, the disappearing thing must have taken allot of energy out of me, because I felt like I was working for a month nonstop. My eyelids were shutting, as I ran. I think I was sleeping while I ran, and I awoke while flying down to the ground because of bumping into someone.
The hit between my butt and the cemented sidewalk was not pleasant. I was happy that no one would see me. The though that they will think that they are going insane was comforting; however, I wanted to know who I stopped. As my eyes rose to look at the figure before me, I saw the figure's eyes looking back at my direction. It was a man of sickly appearances. He was of middle height, with light brown hair, blue eyes, and a mustache, dressed in jeans and a green T-shirt.
"I believe you are the one we're looking for." He gave me his hand to help me up.
"You can see me?" I asked him.
"Of course! Why wouldn't I? I got to admit I didn't see you running into me even
though I was looking your way." He chuckled.
"Well, I was invisible." His smile was wiped out from his face and he gave me a
serious look.
"Professor Lupin, Remus Lupin. I teach Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts."
"Nice meeting you. I'm Katie Mal." I met his hand and shook it. His seriousness was gone just the same as it had came. He gently looked at me, and I remembered mother with her soft smile. I couldn't hold back the tears that appeared in my eyes and slowly rolled down my cheeks.
He embraced me, and his embrace was warm and inviting. I was lost within his hug. It reminded me of my father, and how he held me when I was little. I often fell asleep in his hands, as I did within the hands of my professor.
"I do not know why, but Voldemort wants her for something. We need to keep her safe. There is only a week left before the start of term. I can take her to Hogwarts now, but..."
"I don't want to go to Hogwarts before everyone else," I declared. The four men that stood before the door to the room I was residing in looked at me. One of them that was talking just moments earlier smiled. He had a long silvery beard, and his hair hang low and fell to his back. He gazed at me from his half moon spectacles and slowly walked to my bed. The other three, one of them was Professor Lupin, just watched the old man.
"For how long were you awake?" He asked. His appearance was of an old wizard, his voice, however, was of a young man.
"Not long, but long enough to hear that you want to take me to Hogwarts before everyone else."
He motioned me to move a bit, and so I did. He placed his body at the side of the bed. He sat there for a long time not saying anything. He examined me closely. His eyes moved from my hair, to my eyes, and to the rest of my face.
"I don't want to take away a week of happiness from you, my dear. I found out that you made friends with Ron, Harry, and Hermione. Nice little bunch, are they not?" I nodded and he continued, "I will gladly leave you here until the first of September and meet you at the Start of Term Feast, but you have to promise me that you won't enter the muggle world nor leave Diagon Alley."
"Why?"
"You see, as you experienced today the tragedy of your mother's death, you yourself are not save anywhere where you can't be seen."
"My mother!" I screamed, "I need to see her!"
"It's three o'clock in the morning, missy," a hushed voice had said. I turned from the old man to see who droped the words to me. A tall man with greasy black hair and black eyes walked up to us. I hadn't seen him before. He wasn't one of the three men by the door. However, they were not by the door still, but gathered about my bed.
"Severus cut the girl some slack," one of the three had said. Severus didn't say anything back, but just gave them a look of contempt. He grabbed a near by chair and sat upon it by my side.
"Well, maybe I should introduce you to these four lovely gentlemen, and myself included," the old man had said. I didn't know how the other three would be, but Severus was definitely way from lovely.
The wizard with the long beard pointed his index finger at a bolding man with hazel eyes. Although he was loosing hair, some of his red locks still showed.
"This is Arthur Weasley. He works in the Ministry of Magic. Maybe you can help him. He's fascinated by muggles."
"Hello," I said shyly.
"This is Sirius Black," a man of thirty-five stood before me. He was still young, but his hair was almost fully silver. He had brown eyes, and they were melancholy and tiered. He gave me a smile.
"Nice meeting you," he said.
"I think you already met Professor Lupin," I looked at him once again, and our eyes met. Every time I looked at him a warm wave passed my body.
"This is Professor Snape, and he's the potion teacher." I looked at the man that was sited before my bed on a wooden chair.
"Nice meeting you," he growled.
"You know Professor, I don't even know you, and you're treating me like I'm responsible for all your misfortunes. It's not nice to greed your future student in such a manner," I said matter-of-factly. He looked at me dumbfounded, as did all the others. I saw Harry's head pocking out of the doorframe along with Ron's. They smirked at me with glee. I suppose they hated the potion professor.
"Well, young lady, you'll find out that I'm most unwelcome with my new acquaintances," Professor Snape had said to me, looking rather disturbed.
" That's a pity. I'll take that into consideration," I simply answered. He raised off his stool and walked to exit the room.
"Severus, we still have to discus the matter!" Mr. Black said to him. The potion's professor leaned against the wall by the door, and with a wave of his wand closed it to the great disappointment of Harry and Ron.
"Well, I see you have a mind of your own. I'm Professor Dumbledore." I looked at him with surprise and eager. He was the man mother wrote the letter to. He was the man who answered "Don't Worry."
"Albus Dumbledore!" I exclaimed.
"It's nice that you know the man," Severus rolled his eyes. I ignored his comment.
"Mother wrote you a letter, this very night. Is it the same night?" I asked quickly.
"Yes, yes, it is. I did receive a letter from your mother."
"You said that there was nothing to worry about!" I was beginning to feel angry.
"Yes I did. I didn't think that Voldemort would attack your house tonight. She said in her letter it was only a cat that startled you two."
"You knew that someone was after me, and still you took no precautions until it was too late! You could have placed a protective charm or something of that sort. You are the greatest wizard of the century, are you not?" The whole room looked at me with concern.
"We did place charms at your house," Mr. Weasley said, "however, Voldemort had other means of entering that we didn't take into consideration."
"You should have sent us away some place!"
"We did and he found you anyways!" Professor Snape shouted, "you are the most arrogant witch on the planet. You think all the work we did here was for nothing?"
"I wouldn't know, no one filled me in. Perhaps if I knew, everything would have turned to be different." It was pure hatred that shined in the pupils of my eyes when looking at Snape. He looked at me for a long time and then retrieved, as if he saw someone in me that he never expected.
"I'm sorry," I apologized, "and I'm just confused and scared. Something as this only happens in the movies. I never expected something as this happening to me." I gathered my face within my hands and placed my head upon my knees. The warm tears poured out of my eyes. I felt a hand upon my shoulder and looked up. It was only Dumbledore that remained with me, everyone else departed.
"Take rest, and we'll talk about everything in the morning," and with this he left me in the darkness of the night. I berried my face within the pillow and sobbed. Suddenly my door opened and I saw Harry and Rom creeping towards me.
"Wow, that was bloody brilliant the way you told of Snape," seeing me his smile went off and he looked worried, "what's wrong?"
I couldn't hold back the pain and anger that build within my heart. This was the final straw. My crying became louder and my breath was uneven. He gently pooled away my hair and embraced me.
"Shhh, calm down. Don't worry, you'll be fine."
In a couple of minutes my door opened once more, and Hermione entered. She walked to the bed and looked at us with concern.
"Here I brought you some water," she said handing me a cup of clear water. I took a sip and tried to even out my breath.
"She looks dreadful," I heard Harry say to Hermione.
"What happened?"
My breathing was finally restored to its normal state and I told them every thing that happened to me that night. They listened to me carefully, not missing a single word or phrase that I had spoken. We sat silently for a while, and then out of nowhere Harry exclaimed,
"What does Voldemort wants with you? He wants me that I'm positive with, but why you?" I was puzzled.
"What do you mean, he wants you?"
"He wants me dead!"
"But why?
All three of them looked at me like I was from the planet Mars.
"Because Harry is 'The Boy Who Lived.'"
"Didn't you know that?" Ron asked. I looked at him and shook my head.
"Wow! You hear that Harry? You're not famous in whatever country she lived in. People there don't even know you exist." He laughed and so did Harry.
"Well, everyone knows about you, it's just I didn't bother to know your name because I thought it was your mother that vanquished him."
"Really, I think so too." Harry said excitedly. "People don't even know what went on at the time, but because I survived and he didn't they make me famous. That's pathetic."
"This is our last year at Hogwarts, and who knows what will happen. Our lives were a massacre since we entered Hogwarts, but the last two years were especially hectic," Ron told me. He began the story of the years at Hogwarts. He told me about their first Defense Against the Dark Arts' professor. He mentioned that Harry saved his little sister from Tom Riddle and killed the Basilisk. He also said about Black being a murderer, but it wasn't him that killed 13 people with one curse but their other friend. Harry and Hermione save him, but Ron didn't know how. Voldemort came back in their fourth year and killed one student. Harry barely escaped. Ron's dad was attacked at their fifth year, but thanks to Harry's dreams Mr. Weasley was saved. There was some kind of a prophecy that Harry was looking for, and there was a battle, and Black died behind a veil.
"Wait, wait," I stopped him, "what do you mean Black died? Wasn't it Sirius Black that was introduced to just a moment ago?"
"You didn't let me finish the story. Last year Harry and I went to that place. We found the veil, thrown rocks to it and things such as this. They just disappeared within the veil and that was it. However we heard voices and muttering and one of them voices was of Black. We couldn't distinguish of what they spoke of; all we heard were muffled conversations. Before I knew it Harry ran into the veil. I followed him."
"It was like a different dimension!" Harry exclaimed, "it was wicked!"
"Ya! You won't believe of what we saw. There were so many different people!"
"I saw Black and he walked up to me. 'What are you doing here?' He asked me. I was astonished! He was alive and well."
"This is how the conversation went:" Ron had said and Harry began playing the role of Black, and Ron was Harry.
"You idiots! What have you done?"
"We came to save you! I knew you were not dead. I just felt it. The other day I felt the mirror you gave calling me. When I got to it, it lay motionless."
"Harry, do you relies of what you've done? You committed suicide, no better word for it!"
"What are you talking about? We'll just get out the way we came from."
"You can't! There is no veil on this side, only doors that drive one insane!"
" We looked around, and he wasn't lying," Ron commented and they went back to their conversation,
"Wow, what's behind them?"
"Monsters, riddles, other things! I've been here a year and look what happened!"
"What?"
"Nothing! I'm still here."
"We quarreled for a long time and finally made a plan. We opened all the doors and answered all the questions and found the answers to all the riddles."
"We fought bloody battles!" Ron interrupted Harry.
"At the end the veil appeared and we slipped out."
"What about the others?"
"Well, they didn't want to go. They were used to that place, so they didn't wish to leave. They thought it was much more inviting."
"Was it?"
"No way! Are you kidding? It was just a round room with bunch of doors!" Ron exclaimed, "bloody barrel of sardines!"
"Sure, you had anything you wished for, but it got boring after a while."
The boys began discussing their brilliant fights, and how they outsmarted dragons and a werewolf. I wasn't interested in their bragging. However, I got to admit; they did lift my mood up. I was happy, very happy. I shifted my gaze from the boys to Hermione who was sitting in the corner quietly. I came up to her.
"Where were you when all of the saving happened?" I asked her.
"Nowhere!" She answered, "I'm tiered of this and it's nearly morning. I want to go to bad." With this she stormed out of the room.
"What did I say?"
"Nothing, don't worry."
"Well, we were fine just a moment ago. She seemed to like me in Diagon Alley. I thought we could get along."
"Ron's right, Katie, don't worry about it. It's her temper. She gets angry at one moment and sweet at the next."
"Maybe she's bipolar!" Ron laughed. Harry gave a chuckle.
Sleepiness overtook me once again and I gave a yawn.
"Well, we better leave you to sleep. You must be tiered." Ron and Harry went to the door, "We'll see you this morning," Ron added before leaving and they slipped out of the room.
"I know new people are interesting, but you got to let them sleep at 4:30 in the morning!" I heard Snape's voice behind the door.
"Sorry professor, we just had to talk to her. We're leaving now. Good night," Harry responded.
"More like good morning," Snape sneered.
Two doors opened and slammed closed. As soon as I placed my head on to the pillow, I fell into a peaceful slumber.
. .
Here, I posted this chapter a wile ago, but I would like to thank my reviewers. Feel free to tell me my bad points because I like to improve them. Please pass my story to your friends, as I wish to know what they think. Thanks To All!