Disclaimer: JK owns everything but Thorn, Sparkie, Maken, Cade, Celestial, and Taffy (you should all know who those belong to by now)
Author's Note: I had fun writing this chapter, so I hope you enjoy it!
Chapter ten
Fights, thoughts, and sketches
She left the dungeons and headed towards the Great Hall, where she was sure her friends had gathered.
When she entered there where few students there. Most had left for Christmas. At the Gryffindor table she saw Maken, Cade, and Celestial. She sighed and walked over to them.
"Maken," she said as she slightly shook her head, "What in the world are you still doing in your pajamas?" He was wearing loose fitting, blue, plad pants and a loose white tank top as well.
He grinned up to her. "Well, I figured that I wouldn't even bother to change. Merry Christmas, by the way." He looked her up and down and smiled wider. "And you yourself don't seem entirely dressed either."
She looked down at herself, then back up to her best friend, a small smirk across her lips. "Maken," she said silkily, "These are the clothes that I always wear under my robes." With her right hand she gestured down her body.
Maken laughed and scooted over so that she could join them. When she had, he asked, "Why do you wear this thing anyway?" He picked up her left hand and pointed to the cover.
She took her hand away and said, "No reason." Maken gave her a searching look, then someone else sat at the table.
Taffy Trelawney sat next to Celestial, across from Maken, and glared at Thorn. "Celestial," she whispered rather loudly, "Be careful! Thorn's not natural!"
Taffy, ever since that day in charms, was convinced that there was something not quite right about Thorn. She'd also convinced all of her friends in Hufflepuff, which was near enough to every female in the house, not to go anywhere near her, and was now trying to "save" Celestial as well. She didn't care about the guys. She was a feministic hippy.
"Trelawney," thorn said in a dangerously low tone, instantly making the blonde freeze.
Then, regaining her composure, she said, "Why do you only wear one wrist cover? It looks silly." She flipped her hair annoyingly and continued. "I could get you another."
Thorn sighed. The second time in five minutes that someone has asked me about the cover. Sparkie nodded and muttered under his breath. Then thorn said, "I don't need another."
"Is it, like, your fashion statement?" the Hufflepuff inquired.
"No." Thorn said with a small sigh. She heard Maken chuckle, no doubt amused by Taffy's foolishness.
"Then why can't I-"
"Because," Thorn said, her voice silky, smooth, and dangerous.
"But-" Taffy persisted.
"Trelawney!"
She shrank and slinked away at Thorn's harsh voice. Then Maken turned to the Slytherin and said, "Another secret, eh?"
Thorn nodded. "Yes."
Maken sighed. "Alright, but you really should tell us." Thorn could tell that he was disappointed. She knew that he hated her secrets.
Thorn shook her head, "You will know in time."
"When?" Celestial asked.
Thorn looked to the ceiling, which was blue as the sky and covered in white puffs of clouds, "Honesty, I'm not sure. When the time comes, I guess."
"Don't tell me," Cade said, "Professor Snape told you that?"
Thorn nodded, "And he's never lied to me."
"There's a first time for everything," Dennin Spitz said behind her in his high pitched, nasally voice. Manuel stood behind him, grinning.
Thorn and Maken turned to them. Thorn calm as ever, and Maken angry. "Don't make me give you two your first real fight," Thorn said coldly. "I don't want to bother Madame Pomphrey with your bodies on Christmas."
The two boys looked to each other, then back to her, their grins replaced by scowls. "So, Rose," Manuel finally said, "You think you can beat us?"
"What," Celestial broke in," She'd be outnumbered!"
"Shut it, Moon!" Dennin spat at her, "She's strong! We should be an easy match for her."
Celestial looked like she was about to tell them off when Manuel said, "So, Rose, what do ya say?"
Thorn watched them for a moment, Sparkie on her plate, holding a grape, watching the three of them. Then Thorn smiled dangerously. In a flash she was on her feet, her wand out, held in front of her. "Expelliarmus!"
The two Slytherin boys' eyes widened as they flew back ten feet, over their own house table, their wands flying in opposite directions.
Maken looked at the pair of them and almost instantly cracked up. "Go Thorn!"
Sparkie nodded vigorously and threw the grape at Dennin at full force. It splattered on his forehead, but he didn't seem to register what had happened for a minute.
Manuel stood, a furious look scarring his face. Dennin stood, wiping the grape off of his face and glaring at Sparkie's blue and red form.
Thorn watched them with an unfaltering expression, her wand still held at the ready, pointed directly at Manuel's face. "Do you still want to challenge me?"
Then Sparkie thought to Thorn, in a pretty amused voice, Hey! Thorn! Look who it is! Dreara the dreary!
And sure enough, Dreara came up and got right in Thorn's face. Manuel and Dennin snickered behind her. "So, Thorn," she spat, her eyes holding Thorn's stern gaze, "You going against your own house? How loyal are you, exactly?"
Thorn took another step forward, as she lowered her wand to her side. Her face only inches from Dreara's, her eyes betraying no emotion, she said, with her voice barely more then a whisper, "My loyalty lies not with one house, divided from the rest, but with Hogwarts as a whole. The question isn't how loyal am I, but how loyal are you?"
Dreara looked enraged. She took another step towards Thorn, nearly touching her, her hand clenched into a fist. Maken was on edge, wand out, prepared for what Dreara might do. Cade and Celestial watched on, prepared to whip their wands out if Dreara tried anything. No one seemed to notice that Sparkie had disappeared, literally, and that a goblet of pumpkin juice had began to float.
"Rose," Dreara said angrily, through clenched teeth, "You are going to die a slow, painful death. I'll make sure of it."
"I'm just shaking," Thorn said icily, in a sarcastic tone.
What happened next occurred to Thorn as if in slow motion, for her mind had processed it so quickly that she practically knew what was going to happen before it did.
Dreara raised her arm and brought it back, preparing to punch Thorn right in the face. Maken began to lunge forward, his wand held in front of him, and the flying goblet of pumpkin juice made its way to right above Dreara's head.
Now, Thorn thought as she leapt back, into Celestial and Cade, who now had their wands out, and grabbed onto the back of Maken's shirt, pulling him back with her, making them all fall into the Gryffindor table. Dreara's fist swung inches from her face, and, just as she was about to strike again, the pumpkin juice poured onto her head.
She yelled in shock and staggered backwards, running into her table and toppling over it. Dennin and Manuel looked to her, then to the flying Goblet, which was dancing, and they both darted from the hall, screaming.
Thorn watched after them, her wand still in her right hand, Maken's nightshirt in her left, Maken himself atop of her and she on top of Celestial and Cade. Maken stood and extended his hand to help her up. She took it and the two of them helped Cade and Celestial to their feet.
"Man, Thorn," Cade said as he brushed himself of and Dreara went running from the hall, "You aren't making many friends in your own house, are you?"
Thorn shook her head. "No, friendship in Slytherin is based on money and power."
"You have that," Maken pointed out, putting his wand away, still seeming angry that someone had threatened his best friend, even if she wouldn't have caused any harm anyway.
"Yes, I do, but it's also based off of your bloodline, which for me is still acceptable. The thing that sets me apart is the group of people I'm seen with. If a Slytherin is friends with anyone in any other house they're automatically set apart."
"Ah," Celestial said, "Well, that's just wonderful, but please, answer me this," there was a hint of panic in her voice, "What's with the flying pumpkin juice?"
They all looked up to the wooden goblet. Cade acquired the same bewildered look that Celestial wore, but Maken laughed and Thorn gave a small chuckle.
"That," she said, "Is Sparkie."
Celestial blinked, then gasped as Sparkie's blue body and red wings appeared, holding the goblet between four little claws, flapping his overlarge wings hard to keep airborne. He snickered, then screeched as he the weight of the goblet took him down.
Thorn caught him in one swift movement and relieved him of his burden. Placing him upon her shoulder she heard Celestial say. "Wait, that happened way to fast, and perfectly. Were you planning it? I mean, falling down, and Sparkie with the goblet and the pumpkin juice and whatnot?" She took Thorn's silence as a consent, "Woah! How in the world did you come up with it that fast?"
Thorn took a drink of pumpkin juice and said, "My mind works incredibly fast, without powerful emotions to obstruct it. Without fear, panic, or anger in times of danger, I can come up with a plan within the second that it takes my opponent to realize what's going on."
Cade nodded. "I see, that must give you an excellent advantage."
"It does," Thorn nodded, "Yet it hasn't been put into practice that often."
"Well," Maken stated as he sat down next to her, "That's because very few people are stupid enough to attack you."
Celestial smiled. "Yeah, and even those that are are never a real challenge anyway."
"And if someone actually is a challenge," Maken continued, "You won't face them alone."
Sparkie looked up to Thorn as he felt her thoughts wander over his consciousness. When she thought about anything she went into great detail, getting every exact angle of a situation, until she could play out the most likely outcome in her mind. The sad thing was that when Thorn thought of her future, as she was then, nothing seemed to come out for the better. It always seemed that everything went wrong. This time, she was facing Voldemort, with her friends by her side.
Sparkie shuddered and tried not to whimper aloud as he saw his friend's visualization. He head Celestial scream as a flash of green light engulfed her. He saw Maken, fighting tooth and nail, yelling and cursing, trying to get to Cade, who was withering in pain not far off. Voldemort stood, facing the massacre, laughing his cold laugh. Thorn's anger was obvious, but there was nothing she could do... It was said that Thorn, for some odd reason, could not die, yet her only friends and family didn't have that guarantee.
"Thorn? Thorn!" They were snapped out of her thoughts by Celestial shaking her. "Let me guess. Just thinking?"
Thorn nodded. She had not been affected by her thoughts. She mostly thought like that anyway. Best not to get her own hopes up. Though she could tell that Sparkie hated it when she thought like that, not like she could help it.
Thorn, he thought to her, shaking his head, You think too much.
She smiled, no emotion behind it, Yes, I know.
None of the Gryffindors bothered to ask what she had been thinking about. They all knew the answer by that time. Nothing.
They spent the rest of the day talking about what they had received for Christmas, and what they had given others. Thorn listened to them while she sketched on a spare bit of parchment.
She didn't draw often, but the skill had come easily to her, a natural talent, and only if she believed in what she was sketching did it turn out right.
She drew her mother, pointing her wand directly at Voldemort's face. Standing behind Severa was her uncle. There was amazing detail behind it. Severa's face showed mixed fury and triumph, and Severus looked rigid and angry, but there was obvious pleasure in his features. And Voldemort looked just as Thorn had always wanted him to, in morbid pain and scared to death.
Just as she was adding the final touches, Thorn felt someone behind her. She turned to see Celestial standing there, looking over her picture. Maken and Cade had said something about going to the Quidditch pitch, and had left the two of them alone. "That's terrific," Celestial marveled, "That seems to be Professor Snape, but who are the others? Is that you?" She pointed to Severa.
"Yes, it is Severus, but that is not me, but my mother."
Celestial nodded, "Ah, you look almost exactly like her. And, who's the other one?"
"Voldemort," Thorn stated as she looked up to Celestial, who had stiffened as she said the name.
"Is, um, is that what you, you imagine him to look like then?" Celestial asked, her voice a forced calm, as she looked over Voldemort's details, from his slitted eyes to his thin, line mouth.
Thorn shook her head. "No. It is what he looks like, or rather looked like before Harry Potter had weakened him. But there is no doubt in my mind that he lives, and he will return."
Celestial sharply rapped her on the head with her wand, not like it hurt, and said, "Don't you say that! Sure, it's a possibility, but you never know. The future holds mystery for everyone, no one's is set for them. Unless," she added as an after thought, "They have a prophecy. Nothing can change the path of a prophecy."
Thorn looked up to her, searching her expression. Then, coming to the conclusion that it was a coincidence that Celestial had spoken of prophecy, she said, "True, when facing a prophecy there is nothing one can do. While you try to avoid it you're doing exactly what was meant to happen."
Celestial nodded. "It's pointless, really."
Thorn smiled coldly, "Yes, it is."
"So, Thorn," Sparkie squeaked as they trudged across the snowy grounds, "What are you doin' now?"
"Honestly, Sparkie," she sighed back, stopping and looking around, "I'm not sure. Just walking. No point to it at all."
"Ah, I see." The lizard was silent for a moment, perched upon Thorn's barely covered shoulder. Then he said, "You can talk to me if you need to, Thorn. I'll listen."
She nodded, "I know." She didn't speak for a minute, then she said, "It's interesting." Sparkie looked up to her, "To know that yet another thing sets me apart from the rest." She looked down to Sparkie, then back up to the blue sky. "My future is set. I have no choice. I cannot change it."
Sparkie looked into the sky, then back to Thorn, whose gaze had not shifted. "Kinda depressing, really."
She shook her head. "Not to me, it's just more proof on how different I am. Unlike Maken, Cade, and Celestial, I have a set path to follow. For all we know, I could be the final key to the war against Voldemort. I shall aid in the death of my true leaders rival."
"Who do you think your true leader is?" Sparkie asked.
Then Thorn's eyes shifted from the sky to look at him. She sighed and slipped the cover from her left forearm, revealing the red dark mark. The skull and serpent were vividly lined against the bright surrounding. "I think this solves it."
The lizard climbed down her arm and put one little claw on the mark. Thorn could feel him getting angry, the waves of his emotion going through her mind, and his arm had started to shake as he tried to control himself. Then he hissed in fury, "He's the one to blame for everything!"
Thorn looked down and Sparkie felt a glimmer of guilt swim by his mind and he sighed. Thorn would admit it to no one, not even Sparkie, who could practically read her mind, but she felt that it was her fault about her parents' deaths. Around others she could blame Voldemort, but sometimes she would lock herself in her mind, not even Sparkie could penetrate then, and think about it. She would use her last line of defense to dwell on her past.
Thorn had no idea how much guilt she really held. After all, she kept it locked within her heart. Despite how well she knew her mind, she could not understand the feelings that her heart held. Yet even though she was unaware of it, Sparkie could feel it as well, and recognize it. He knew that until she rid herself of it, her guilt and self-hate would eat at her. And with Thorn, ridding herself of it would prove quite difficult.
Thorn rubbed Sparkie's head with her thumb, then continued to make her path through the snowy grounds.
