Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, otherwise I wouldn't be confused about so many strange concepts. (Like the fact that its a possibility that Ubridge is... Trevor!)
Author's Note: Yay! This is a kinda emotional (or as emotional it can get with Thorn). Anyways, hope you enjoy!
Chapter Twenty-two
Bad Halloween Night
Thorn stayed up for hours, and finally, when it was a quarter to midnight, she awoke Sparkie as well. Sparkie, get up. He muttered something and curled into a little ball, Now, Sparkie! I have a mission for you. He mumbled again. Thorn sighed, Well, I guess I'll just have to get Midnight to do it. Perhaps I can make her a special spell, too.
Now the lizard was up. He stood back on two legs, his hand held in a salute on his forehead. Yes, Ma'am! He paused. Uh… what do I do?
Thorn carefully walked down into the common room and went into a corner, Sparkie still begging her to tell him what he was supposed to do. Finally, once she was situated with a bit of parchment, she said, "Go to the trophy room and wait for Potter. If he needs you too, distract Filch. Go, now."
It was five to midnight now, but it wouldn't take Sparkie long to reach the room. He nodded and darted through a small hole in the wall. He flew down the corridors, darted around corners, and scaled staircases like nobody's business. Soon he reached the trophy room just in time to see Filch turning into the room. Thorn, who was watching from the common room by Sparkify, muttered, Harry's not in there, or we would have heard it by now, find them!
"They're in here somewhere," the caretaker muttered, "Probably hiding."
Sparkie darted around him, invisible as he could be, and just as he was about to turn to see the four Gryffindors, a loud clashing came to his ears. He heard Thorn mutter something about 'fools' in her mind, and he flew after them just in time to escape Filch running directly into him.
Luckily, Harry and his three companions were generally out of sight by the time he got out and he couldn't make out who they were. Sparkie flew silently behind the group of running first years, wondering when on earth they were going to stop. Soon they did, near the Charms room. "I think we've lost him…" Harry said as he caught his breath. Sparkie rolled his eyes.
"I—told—you," Hermione said between breaths as she held a stitch in between two of her ribs, "I—told—you."
"We've got to get back to Gryffindor tower," the redhead, known as Ron, as Sparkie later learned, pointed out. Sparkie wanted to say 'duh,' but he kept quiet.
Suddenly the girl with the bushy brown hair said, "Malfoy tricked you. You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you—Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off."
Sparkie nodded. He knew that the smart girl was right. Heck, she was almost always right. "Let's go," Harry then demanded. Yet someone had different ideas for them. They moved about ten steps when suddenly Peeves darted in front of them, and gave a short yelp of joy as he saw the youngsters ahead of him. Sparkie had to laugh, inwardly of course. He loved the poltergeist, when he wasn't harassing the lizard or Thorn.
"Shut up, Peeves—please—you'll get us thrown out." But the little man merely laughed at Harry's statement.
"Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties?" He clicked his tongue in a falsely shamefaced way, "Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty."
Harry was practically begging, "Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please."
Peeves looked to his finger nails and said in a do-gooder voice, "Should tell Filch, I should." His eyes gleamed viciously. "It's for your own good, you know."
Then Ron did the stupidest thing that Sparkie could have thought of. "Get out of the way," he snapped, then he swung for him.
"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" He screamed, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!"
They flew under Peeves and darted to the end of the corridor, where they ran into a locked door. Thorn sighed in Sparkie's mind and, when he asked what was wrong, she muttered, That's the forbidden corridor, where they have the stone hidden. Then he, too, saw the urgency.
Filch rounded the corner sharply and came upon the poltergeist. "Which way did they go, Peeves?"
"Say 'please.'"
Filch looked rather annoyed, and Mrs. Norris glanced at the invisible form of Sparkie as he perched upon a large suit of armor. "Don't mess with me, Peeves," the caretaker warned, "Now where did they go?"
Peeves crossed his short arms over his chest and stuck his nose into the air. "Shan't say nothing if you don't say please." Sparkie, and Thorn, were getting rather worried by now. The corridor wasn't safe, Hagrid had a massive, three-headed dog protecting it, and that was only the first obstacle.
Filch gave in, "All right—please."
Peeves laughed like a maniac and shouted, "NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!" Then he swooped away, leaving the cursing Filch to fend for himself.
Now! Thorn said quickly, Go down to a lower level and crash something, anything, specifically something big. Hurry! Thorn and Sparkie both knew that the four others would be storming out of that hallway soon, and her whole plan was to keep them safe from Filch to spite Draco. Sparkie did as he was directed, swiftly dove down to the first floor, and, using his sharp teeth, chewed through a major beam holding a cabinet together. The form itself crashed down to a heap on the floor and Sparkie heard an angry shriek from Filch as he found the quickest way possible to get to the first floor.
Okay, Sparkie, you're all done, you can come back now, Thorn muttered in his mind as the lizard laughed at the furious Mr. Filch and the confused Mrs. Norris. He obeyed and soon he was back in the dark common room for Slytherin house. Thorn smirked, "Good job, now let's get to bed, we have to be ready for class tomorrow."
The next day Thorn was pleased to hear Draco say something along the lines of "How in the world did Potter escape without getting caught? It makes no sense!" Sparkie cracked up and fell strait into the plate of bacon, Malfoy giving him the deadliest glare, that just made him laugh all the more.
Thorn turned around to face Maken as he tapped her on the shoulder. Suddenly he brought his face very close to her ear and muttered, "Harry made the house team! Youngest player in a century!" Thorn smirked and muttered, "Does it surprise you? He made an amazing catch."
A week later, when the mail arrived, Malfoy became even more furious. A long parcel was delivered to Harry, and most everyone with a common sense could tell that it was a broomstick. He left the hall before Harry had so much as touched the package, probably hoping to cut him off outside of the hall. Maken said something about Oliver teaching him how to play that night and how he was going to watch. Thorn didn't want to, Sparkie would go into an extreme commentary once again if she did.
The school year was going rather normal for the first two months, according to Thorn's standards. She and Severus were keeping an eye on Quirrell, though they were the only ones doing so. Making sure that he was never alone with Harry was their main task. The Gryffindor would sometimes catch a glance of one of them and probably thought that they were following him. But other that that things were simple. Then, on Halloween, it took a twist that struck Thorn harder than she had expected.
She was sitting at the Gryffindor table next to Maken and Raleigh, who had come to join them. She was still a rather new face, yet she and Thorn got along well. They were waiting for the feast to begin. Celestial said something about how one of the first year girls was depressed and not present. Nobody paid attention.
Then the food appeared and Thorn and Raleigh slunk away to their tables. No sooner than Sparkie had begun to stuff his face with buttery rolls, however, had the heavy doors swung open and a frightful Quirrell sped into the room, a look of terror scarring his face. He fell against the table and managed to say, "Troll—in the dungeons—thought you ought to know." Then he fainted.
Thorn instantly sensed deceit from the Defense teacher's words. She stood up to get a look at him to see if his faint was authentic, yet before she had the chance the rest of the school stood up in complete panic. She caught Severus's eye for a small second to see the same feelings portrayed in his expression.
Suddenly purple firecrackers burst in the air and order was seemingly recalled in the hall. Sparkie darted above everyone's heads with the Halloween bats, on orders by Thorn, to try to spot Quirrell. He didn't see him anywhere in the jumble. "Prefects," Albus boomed, "lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately."
One of the fifth years began to call orders. "Come on now! Come on! Be careful now!" He began to lead them away. Thorn cast another look to Severus who slipped away unnoticed by the other teachers into the hall. Thorn followed at the end of her house, waiting for the opportune moment to step away unnoticed. When it came she and Sparkie slunk away and dove into Severus's office.
"Are you going to follow him?" Sparkie asked as he flew to the top of a shelf. "I mean, we know where he's going. We could just go after him."
Thorn shook her head. "No. He can handle it. If I go I'll only get in the way because he'll try to protect me from both that massive beast and Quirrell. It's too much of a distraction, and a risk."
Sparkie nodded and he and Thorn waited. Soon they heard a slamming from somewhere above them, then a scream. Sparkie looked to Thorn, his face expressing the worry that hers couldn't. The sound of a fight continued to rage in their ears. Sparkie hid behind Thorn's hair at the screams and banging. Thorn took a moment to close her eyes and figure out what was going on. Letting thoughts and emotions flow through her mind for the shortest amount of time. Harry and his friends were facing the troll.
She relinquished the connection and sat back in the chair and sighed. Sparkie, who had shared the moment with her, sighed as well, "What does he think he's doing? Facing a fully grown mountain troll? That's the stupidest thing in the world!"
Thorn rolled her eyes and sat back. She would know if Harry died. It would pass to her like a sudden mind pain, a headache, if you will. Suddenly there was a crash that was far louder than the previous and that was followed by silence. Thorn and Sparkie exchanged curious looks. The noiseless atmosphere that followed became rather eerie, giving Sparkie's heart a feeling of dread.
Then the door swung open and Severus limped in. Thorn froze. Limped? What was wrong? Why was Severus limping? Thorn had never known him to be hurt. He looked up to her as soon as he entered and his eyes made him seem as if he had wished that she weren't there. "Severus?" she asked quietly, sounding much like a younger child. "What happened?"
He sighed and she stood quickly to let him have his chair. He sat down and pulled his robes up gingerly past his knee. Thorn felt slightly sick at the sight ahead of her. His leg seemed mangled, the blood was seeping through the cloth and dripping down his leg. Thorn closed her eyes. Severus wasn't allowed to be hurt. "Quirrell went to the third floor, as we suspected. We were having a bit of a talk in the corridor when suddenly that beast of Hagrid's sunk it's bloody fangs into me."
Thorn quickly wetted a cloth with a spell and kneeled down to clean off Severus's wound. "I can do it, Thorn," he insisted as he reached to take the cloth from her.
She held it just out of reach and said, "I know that you can, but right now I will while you continue to explain things to me…" She had a stern look on her face, much like one of her mother's, and began to clean off the blood once again.
Severus winced as she tenderly passed over one of the deeper cuts and said, "Well, as I've said, Quirrell was down the hall as well. When I asked him why he wasn't searching for the troll he muttered something about thinking that it had gone that way. I didn't believe him, and, when I told him so, he began to sob onto the floor. I was already having a difficult time watching that three-headed monster and didn't notice as one of its many teeth ripped down my leg…"
Thorn nodded. Most of the blood was already cleaned from his flesh and now Thorn was gathering bandages. She knew that he couldn't go to Madame Pomfrey. She would wonder why he had been in the corridor at all, and the other teachers' suspicions would raise. That was the last thing that they needed. "I apologize if I hurt you," Thorn was able to mutter as she began to wrap his calf. He took a few sharp intakes of breath, registering his pain in the smallest way that he could. When the task was done he dropped his robes again and smiled. 'Thank you."
Thorn nodded. "I should get back to the common room. They probably haven't even realized my absence." She turned away from her uncle, Sparkie flying to her shoulder. "Good night, Severus."
He nodded and murmured a good night as well. When she had shut his door he sighed and said to himself, "She's becoming more like her mother every single day… Sometimes I don't know whether that is a good thing or a bad thing…"
Thorn's feet brought her to the common room by instinct. She was hardly watching where she was going and didn't even notice as she passed directly through the Bloody Baron. Sparkie was sitting on her shoulder, muttering her name, trying to grasp her attention back from her thoughts.
Yet it didn't work. An entire new idea had been put into Thorn's mind. Something that she had never fully realized the possibility of. Sure, she knew that Severus could get hurt, but he had never been injured for as long as she'd known. Now that he had been Thorn's mind was reeling. If this has happened once… who's to say that it won't again? What if… She stopped all together, her eyes shooting from the floor to directly ahead of her. What if… next time… its worse... what if… he dies?
Sparkie flew in front of her face and took her head into his little claws. "Thorn! No more thinking! Thinking is BAD!" But he was feeling all of her worry, and her sorrow, the emotions that she had difficulty showing, and he soon began to cry. "Do NOT think about that, at the least… It won't happen… Severus is too strong for that to happen. He won't want to leave you."
Thorn bowed her head and quickly snatched Sparkie from the air and pulled him to her chest. After a moment of silence they finished their walk to the common room, said the password, and entered. They both went right to the dormitory, for not even Sparkie wanted to eat now. They sat quietly, Thorn sketching a picture of Severus and herself onto a piece of parchment, and Sparkie watching.
On the paper, her eyes were closed, and Severus had a hand on her shoulder, as if protecting her, looking to whomever set eyes on the drawing itself. Sparkie was sketched out, perched on Thorn's right arm that she held to her stomach.
Not long later the rest of her dorm mates entered and they went to sleep. Thorn, however, couldn't sleep. She laid down in her bed, but for the first time in nine years she could not ease herself to sleep. For once she could not rid her mind of an emotion. And that emotion was fear. It would not leave her alone… It ate at her mind, reminded her that terrible things could, indeed, happen to the man whom she had thought to be the strongest of them all.
How could Severus get hurt? How could he? She could not rid that single question from her mind. He had promised her that nothing would ever happen to him. Well, something did. She was suddenly angry. This was Quirrell's fault! No… not his… Voldemort's…
Thorn took a deep breath. "Don't get angry…" she muttered to herself, "If you get angry everything goes downhill… He might be able to hear you, then…" Sparkie, who was laying by her side, tuned over and looked up to her.
"Thorn?" he muttered sleepily. "Do you need to talk?"
The Slytherin shook her head. "No, Sparkie… Thank you, though. We must get some sleep." She picked him up and placed him by her neck, where he preceded to curl around her face, his tail going past her ear as his head rested near her other one. She sighed and cleared her mind of emotion, and of the horrid sight that had been Severus's leg. Then she fell into a dreamless sleep.
