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

Escape

Behind the wall, Narcissa was going mad. That was her daughter, and he was hurting her… her son was pale with reflected pain, head bowed and trying to ignore the screams. And she couldn't do anything, she was weak, she had no talent, not enough magic, not enough courage…

And then something snapped, when Ryua slid to the ground, cracking her cheekbone on the coffee table. Narcissa's mind suddenly cleared. Those were her children he was hurting. She was their mother. Therefore, she would do anything to protect them. She'd been expecting death for years now, a cleverly laid accident, maybe getting killed by a rogue dark wizard, maybe an out and out murder. Whatever the way, Narcissa knew she would die. She didn't fear it, it couldn't be worse than the life she led now…

Lucius was watching their Lord with far to much enthusiasm. He didn't even see Narcissa's knee come up, until the thin bone connected with something much, much softer. He collapsed with a strange, extremely undignified wheeze, clutching what promised to be some very bruised body parts. Narcissa pulled out his wand on the way down, and blasted down the barrier.

She strode over, the strange sense of calm resignation mixing with utter fury. "I said, you will not touch my children. You will never again touch my children!" She was too out of practice to manage much in the way of finesse, but raw emotion lent strength to the simple fire charm. The Dark Lord shrieked with fury and pain, dropping the wand from his smoking, well charred fingertips. Behind her, Narcissa heard Ryua slump to the ground, Draco kneeling to break her fall.

"You foolish woman. You should have just stayed out of the way!" he hissed, picking up his wand left-handed.

"You should have let them be." Narcissa said, Lucius' wand held straight out in front of her in a defiantly 'good guy' dueling stance.

"What do you expect to do?" he asked, with a low, unamused laugh. "Kill me?"

"If that is what it takes," she said back. "You will never have my children, I swear it."

"…I swear it." Ryua heard her mother say. Shaking her pain fogged head, she looked up to see Lucius kneeling dumbstruck on the floor, and Narcissa, wand held out in front of her for the first time she'd ever seen, standing between them and the Dark Lord. She was just pushing herself up, trying to shake off Draco's shaking, worried hands, when the room appeared to explode. The twins were shoved back to the floor by their mother, her hands covering the backs of their heads, pushing their faces down.

Ryua felt Narcissa's body shudder from heavy blows, felt something sharp lance across Draco's leg, felt her right arm seem to catch fire… and something hard crack against the top of her skull. She saw spinning stars for a moment, then forced herself to look up before her vision even cleared all the way. It appeared that just the coffee table, and the numerous dishes, books and statuary on it had exploded, although that seemed quite enough. There were chunks of oak actually embedded in the walls, shards of porcelain and stone everywhere, the pillow Lucius had managed to grab at the last second was a near pincushion of splinters and shards. Of course, the Dark Lord had been protected by a shield, as the piles of shrapnel around him showed.

She took stock of her more immediate surroundings then. Draco was still kneeling, with a nasty bleeding gash with what appeared to be a piece of teacup halfway up his calf, her own arm was burning, full of tiny slivers and her cheek had been cut open from her fall earlier. Strange, there was a lot more blood around that that should have caused…

With a shock, she found her mother's head buried in her neck. Forcing her still-fumbling fingers to respond, Ryua pushed her up and over, supporting her head with one hand and the back with another. There was a disquieting, unnatural shift when she moved her, however. No one's spine should bend that way…

Draco choked back a gag, averting his eyes from the far too numerous bits of wood, dripping blood onto the floor, pretending not to see the shape of broken bones pressing against her robes. "Mother…"

"Oh, my children… I'm so… sorry…" she said, in a voice faint and broken.

"For what?" Ryua asked, futilely trying to staunch some of the blood coming through her back, saturating her robes.

"I... should have… done more…" she coughed once and shuddered, flecks of blood coming out to her lips. "Please… forgive… me…"

"Of course," Draco said, wiping off the blood. Ryua nodded fervently, trying to bottle up her rage. That wouldn't help a bit right now… what she needed was a clear mind, maybe a healthy dose of fear.

"Go…" came a faint, pained whisper. Narcissa couldn't manage more than that anymore. Ryua saw that she was no longer focusing on their faces, and felt the strained heartbeat become erratic. That soft, but urgent word snapped her mind back into working order, her energy channeled to action instead of anger.

"Run, Draco," she said, laying their mother's head on the floor and hauling him up. He was limping badly, but the adrenaline and fear kept him from noticing pain, luckily.

"Our wands… homework…"

"No time! We can't stay here." Ryua half supported, half dragged him down the hall, wondering why they weren't being chased, then dismissing it as unimportant. As long as they got away…

They burst into the floo room, and Draco fumbled for the jar while Ryua locked the door behind them, and shoved a chair under the handle for insurance. "Here, take some," he said, one shaking hand already grasping a pinch. "Where too, Snapes'? No, somewhere public… okay, Dia-"

"No! Knockturn, we can't go to Diagon looking like this."

"Right…"

Lord Voldemort stood in the wreckage-strewn sitting room, glaring down at the twins and their stupid, stupid mother. Just as she finally died, and they started moving, he reached out with a spell to grab them. Much to his surprise, it slid right off. Furious, he tried to move after them physically, only to find himself balked. With a snarl of rage, he turned towards Lucius. He could move in that direction, no problem. "Your offspring are escaping, thanks to that fool of a woman."

"My… my lord, I had no idea she would do anything like that…"

"And now, after being humiliated by a pair of fifteen-year old brats, I find myself unable to come in contact with them. Why do you suppose that might be, Lucius?"

"I do not know, my Lord… They are probably headed for the Snape manor… we could catch them there…" he broke off with a gulp at the expression on his face.

"I doubt it. Your daughter alone seems to have more intelligence than you by a long shot. They would know very well that I could follow them there. And that was not my question!" Lucius cringed at the tone of his voice. "I asked why you thought they were able to get away!"

"I… I do not know… I apologize, my Lord…"

"I had hoped, over these last fourteen years, that you would raise your children in your image, Lucius. That they would be your children, under your rule, following your example. And yet, here I am, finding that the frail creature you sired them on was able to completely overthrow your power. I am starting to wonder at my reasons for keeping you so high up in my service."

"No! My Lord, I swear, I will not fail you again…"

"I should believe you… why?"

"I…" Lucius' throat worked, but nothing came out. His mind was buzzing, trying frantically to come up with some way, some way to buy his life and well being out of this mess…

"I grow tired of your incompetence, Lucius." Voldemort's voice came, cold and bored. He raised his wand, then with a look of fury, switched it from his well-burned right hand to his left.

Lucius knew he had been in trouble before. Now, reminded of Narcissa's infuriating rebellion, the Dark Lord was in a much, much worse mood. There had to be something he could do… "Wait my Lord!"

"Why?"

"I… Narcissa, what she said…"

"You make less sense than Crabbe after a night at the Hogshead."

"She said her children, Lord, that can be maneuvered around…"

"You have ten seconds."

Lucius didn't even take the chance to swallow, just started talking. "Her children… she said you would never touch her children… If… if… they won't be children, not forever. If you cannot touch them as children, once they come of age…"

Luckily for him, Voldemort actually made some sense of his frantic babble. A slow smile spread, or at least the fury melted from his face. "I see. You will find a way to explain this Lucius. Do not bother bringing them back, they will not go far. They will come home after term, I am sure. But," and his voice dropped to a dangerous whisper, "If you fail me again, Lucius, you will regret it for a very, very long time."

As he swept out the door, Lucius collapsed back to the floor. He winced as he heard a minor explosion down the hall, then realized it must have just been the floo door. The twins would have blocked it… He looked around at the room, shards of china and oak coffee table littering the room, stuck into furniture and walls, and of course, Narcissa sprawled at an unnatural angle on the ground. That's going to leave a terrible stain; I'll have to get new carpet.

Ryua and Draco stumbled out of the fireplace, already moving to get presentable. "Against the wall, Draco. You won't get much farther with your leg like that."

He didn't argue, just leaned tiredly back into a corner, keeping all his weight on his good leg. Not bothering to be delicate, Ryua rinsed her fingers in hot water, hoping to at least get all of Narcissa's blood off first, and pulled the shard of cup out. Draco somehow managed to suppress a yelp, but she felt his muscles tense all up and down his leg. "Sorry." She wrapped it up in one of Lucius' favorite white silk scarves, taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in the thought that it would never wash clean. "It seems almost funny, you know? A teacup…"

He giggled, a high-pitched, frantic sound. "How morbid are we? Our mother's been killed, we're both bleeding and bruised, and here we are, amused by teacups and stained silk…" he broke off into more giggles. Ryua suspected they were just one minute step from sobs. That's why she wasn't even going to start herself. And why he had to stop. They couldn't very well walk into Diagon Alley hysterical. So, she pulled the bandage maybe a little harder than it required, and as he was cut of by a sharp gasp of pain, she relaxed the pressure and tied it off.

"You have to calm down, Draco. We can't stay here very long, and we can't get out of here unless we look normal."

"Okay… okay…" he panted, stepping down on his leg, testing his strength. "What about you? Your arm's bleeding…"

"Hmm? Oh, slivers. Lotsa slivers, they'll have to wait." Ryua stepped to the sink, slipping a pair of tweezers into her pocket as she blasted cold water. She rinsed out the cut on her cheek, wishing they kept a first aid kit in their floo rooms. "Oh, this is going to bruise up so bad…"

"Yeah. And it's not going to stop bleeding either… here." Draco put a clumsy sealing charm on the cut, and it scabbed over enough to look like an old cut. "That'll hold for now. We'll just have to say it was a bad quidditch match or something."

"Uh-huh… Here, we have to get out of torn, bloody pajamas and slippers. Let's see what we have…" Narcissa had started to neglect her wardrobe lately. There was a pair of heels, a plain black dress with a torn sleeve, which she promptly removed both of with Lucius' razor… and that was it. Lucius, of course had many sets of robes, and Draco was big enough to fit into them not too badly. Ryua settled one of his great cloaks on her shoulders, emptied every pocket in the place for gold, and they left.

She would have liked to say they felt immediately better, but the strange, hollowly numb feeling stuck to both of them. It was like having been to a smokers' house, even after you leave, the smell, the taste of smoke lingers. This late, even Knockturn Alley was fairly empty, the only people being out were, like themselves, preferring not to interact.

Diagon Alley was completely deserted, and they got to the Leaky Cauldron with no problems. The gold they'd taken from the room would at least cover one night's board, as they mutually decided a visit to Gringotts' would have to wait. Ryua's voice was more reliable, so she walked up to the counter and asked for a room for two, with breakfast in the morning. The half-asleep wizard didn't even blink, just took the gold and led them up to a room. The moment he left again, Ryua lifted off the cloak with a relieved, painful sigh. All the minute, and not so minute, slivers had been catching on the rough fabric since she'd put it on, creating a constant, pulling, burning sensation.

Wordlessly, Draco threw the bolt on the door and motioned her to sit down. She did, concentrating on relaxing the muscles in her arm as he picked up the tweezers. "You know… I've been hit with an awful lot of curses now… And these blasted little buggers are causing me more pain…" She winced as Draco pulled out a particularly large one.

"Yeah, there are a lot of them… but you don't want any of these left in. Thomas, Dean Thomas? His dad's a cabinetmaker, he knows a lot about slivers. They have a nasty habit of festering and preventing a wound from healing."

"Lovely…" Ryua gritted her teeth. She bent her head down, concentrating on not paying her attention to her arm, ignoring the painful, oddly satisfying flashes of fire as he pulled them out one by one.

Quite suddenly, he stopped. "Ryua, I know there are probably more in there, but there's no way I'm getting them out now. No wand, no training… and my vision's blurring, I'll grab something that's supposed to stay in there…"

"Yeah, it's good enough. I'm going to fall over if I don't lie down soon." Ryua laid onto her side, grimaced and flipped over as she felt a few more slivers catch on the mattress, growled as her extremely tender cheek flared with pain, and settled for sleeping on her back. Not very comfortable, and it felt too open, too vulnerable, but much better than squishing either injury during the night.

She vaguely heard a knocking during the night, and then Draco getting up. Glad she didn't have to move, she just drifted back to sleep. The next morning, she woke to see three owls on the dresser, fast asleep. She tensed to see one of the family's great gray owls, but relaxed as she recognized her own burrowing owl and Draco's eagle owl flanking it. And on the floor…

"Yeah, they came during the night. Toppy must have sent them out. Yours came with our wands, the other two carrying this…" Draco hefted a bag which Ryua was overjoyed to see contained her personal first-aid kit. "I already fixed myself up. This is really good stuff, where'd you get it?" he asked, pulling out an anti-swelling cream.

"Earlier this year, I ordered it because I was tired of bleeding all over my homework."

"Huh. Good thing you did. This should keep your cheek from turning all sorts of lovely colors. How's your back?"

"Sore, but he's better at it than Lucius. The skin's not broken, it'll be fine for now. Would you finish my arm? Then we can go to Gringotts, and shopping."

"Shopping? You want to go shopping?" he asked, pulling out his wand and examining the raw patch on her arm. "This is going to hurt, by the way, brace yourself."

She did, trying to think of something else. She bit down on a yell as he summoned the last bits of wood, but could immediately feel the difference. The badly healed flesh was torn open, but there were no more foreign objects inside to interfere. "Ah… that feels so much better. And, although you have high-end, quality robes, it's only one set, and I'm stuck in an emergency-tailored dress. We need some clothes to last us over Christmas." Draco spread on some quick-heal gel, wrapped on a bandage, and stuck down the end just as there was a knock on the door. She walked quickly to the bathroom and turned on the shower while Draco took the breakfast tray.

"Mmm, you'd better come out, or I'll eat it all…" she heard him say, likely drooling over the food. Ryua was absolutely famished too, the adrenaline of last night having worn off long ago, leaving her drained. She turned off the water, not getting too wet, and went out to eat. A healthy stack of pancakes, a fruit cup, bowl of yogurt, and a tall glass of grapefruit juice later, they were both feeling slightly more like themselves. "I love food," Draco said, licking the last of the maple syrup off his knife.

"Me too."

Draco set it down, with an odd, disquieted expression on his face. "Ryua… do you think there's something wrong with us?"

"Wrong? How?"

"Well, eight hours ago, we were woken up, looked over by the Dark Lord, you were tortured, and we watched our mother killed right in front of us. And do you know what I feel? Kind of… numb, or even nonchalant. Like it's done, and now it's over and we don't have to worry about it. Shouldn't we feel, like, sad? Or horrified?"

"Maybe," Ryua replied, using her fingers to comb out her hair. "Probably, I guess. But, you know, we were never exactly close. And it's not like we're complete strangers to pain, right?"

"I guess. It just seems like… I don't know. I'm more worried about how we're going to cover this up, how we're going to explain away the fact that our mother's dead, we're not at home…"

"Leave it up to Lucius. This is all his fault, he can deal with it." She said, savagely. "We'll pick up the Daily Prophet every day, check the obituaries, see what the story is so we'll know what to say when we get back to school." Although, she was slightly worried at how blandly she thought about it. Mother, she died for us. Why aren't I sad? Why don't I feel anything? Well, the answer for that was survival. Once they were settled, had enough gold to last them till school, knew they weren't being tracked, then, she could feel. And she knew what she'd feel. Sorrow? Not a chance. Anger, hate, revenge… now those I have in abundance. Lucius is going to pay for this. She never did anything to him, never. And he up and lets her get killed, doesn't even say anything! Ryua was starting to feel a tingle of warmth under the strange, numbing fog in her heart. A warmth that she knew would grow to a fully-fledged inferno before long.

Author's Note:Wow. I can't believe the feedback over the last two chapters! This is so cool!

KarrotMonster, yeah, I've been wanting to put Harry back in, but they have to get back to school first... and it would suck to get caught, wouldn't it? Heh, heh...

Avalon 65, thanks for getting back to me. I've had the occasional computer conniption fit myself... and yes, I think I will develop that. That's a good idea.

And to JeannieBeannie33, I considered using Draco's POV, actually, but Narcissa really just had to have this chapter, don't you think? And I've been debating having her chased by the entire Order, etc., I'll have to see how it unfolds. Maybe I'll put that in an AU story... That was the chapter it would spring from, actually, so I could write it now if I wanted.

To Rain4Life, yeah, it's not quite as nice a chapter... but I've been dreaming up all sorts of nice moments for later!

Starbuckkitty, I'm glad you liked the mistletoe chapter. It took me weeks to write, it has been living in my head for literally, more than a year.

So, thanks everyone, and I'll try to keep the chapters full ofstuff, or whatever it is that's got all of you so excited!