Chapter 15: Sneaking Seekers and sly correspondence
Thanks for the reviews! In answer to Iamsiriusgrl I'm planning to release some truths, and generally cause mayhem and destruction later on…I know I'm generally keeping you in the dark but you will find out all later on ps hint read between the lines like I've placed some hints down and I spose I'll give you a big one now…the killer is big a part of the character's past although she doesn't know it yet. I like the fact you picked up on Millicent and Pansy not being real friends, they're just out to gain and so is someone else but not for themselves…
Argh I'm dying to tell you but that would ruin it
(warning plot contains twists and turns… not everything is as it seems!)
ohh la la pps to Paprika90 refering to your questions last chapter, find out after 'it' happens. It being the climax of the story (which just to let you know as well the golden trio are in!).
Glad you like it, now roll on the quidditch…"And Ginny Weasley takes the quaffle, dodges a nasty bludger sent her way by Crabbe, or is it Goyle? She's speeding towards the goals," For the first time in the match Anna looked up to see a determined, flaming red-head bulleting towards the goal. "She shoots…" for the short time it took for the quaffle to leave Ginny's hand, gryffindor house stood up ready to roar and Slytherin sat ready to sulk and jeer."She SCORES! That's Gryffindor 60, slytherin 40." The magically enhanced voice of someone meaningless to Anna rang out across the pitch, boring into her skull. She frowned silently once more, in the hopeful mid-March morning.
"Your not lions, your kittens! Meow!" Pansy cat called, her silver and green scarf hanging off her and trailing onto the dirt ridden floor. Anna looked up at her 'friend' who'd seen fit to abandon her earlier on at breakfast, irritated by that and her constant need to jeer, her eyes settled on the scarf, she smiled smugly as she seized it swiftly, and viciously tugged it. Pansy gasped for breath as she wheeled around before slumping down into her seat with a thump.
The wind stepped up a notch and whipped her riotous silver and green hair across her face.
"Cheer up! You're the team mascot!" Pansy screeched at Anna before dissolving into fits of giggles, Anna all but growled. Whilst she'd been sleeping they'd had the hilarious idea to charm her hair so that when she woke up she'd scream and throw the most immature terror tantrum, her hair a riot of colour. But that wasn't the only problem.
Draco was tailing Harry Potter down Slytherin's end of the stadium. He looked across and melodramatically pretended to fall off his broom in utter shock as a reaction to her hair. He winked arrogantly before speeding off. Anna sighed and averted her eyes from the match, She thumbed the letter in her pocket once more, having no need to read it she had memorised the words, it had struck her so.
Anna,
Don't question me. You will not be receiving any easter eggs this year, and you will not depart to receive any either. I have found out about your extension work that you have been preparing for, you will not go ahead with it.
With cautious regards,
Saffy.
Of course, she understood every cryptic word which to someone else would have been bewildering. It meant that somehow her mother knew of her plan and forbade her to continue it, it also meant she wasn't going to receive any letters and wasn't able to stay at Pansy's just as she had intended to over Easter. The frustration overwhelmed her and she violently kicked the stand, earning herself many unimpressed, perplexed stares and a painful toe.
Her eyes watered with the tenderness, and she found herself reflecting on the past to take her mind off the throbbing toe; Saffy had been what her aged and slightly eccentric house elf; Gribble had affectionately nicknamed her and her mother, her Saffies, short for Safires. Nobody knew of their earth shakingly embarrassing nicknames and Anna planned to keep it that way.
Beside her Pansy fidgeted, sighed and tutted a sure sign that her short attention span was coming into play. Anna directed her attention to the pitch as the cacophony around her increased, "FOUL!" the slytherins yelled feeling put out. "Mme Hooch is directing for the game to continue, no foul was given to Malfoy the slytherin bastar-, sorry professor, seeker as he flew straight in the path of a bludger." Anna shook her head and misinterpreting it Pansy nodded,
"I know! What is wrong with this school? They might as well put "we favour people" on the next letters they send out!" and with renewed vigour she stood up yelling, "FAVOURITSM!" Anna looked up disbelievingly, surprised Pansy had used a four syllable word. Anna huddled more into her protective scarf, shaking slightly in the cold rolling her eyes as the Slytherin team's new song (written by Malfoy naturally) struck up.
You fill up my senses;
Like a gallon of doxies,
Like a packet of dragon dung,
Like a good pinch of floo,
Like a night out with Potter,
Like a dirty 'roach cluster,
Like Gryffindor team,
Come lose to us again,
Na na na na na
BOOOOOOOOOO!
"I can't believe they let him have that, he barely caught the damn thing!" Malfoy stated for the fiftieth time heatedly. His admirers and followers (much to Anna's irritation included Pansy) around him, Anna stood a little way off. She was painfully bored of the 'poor Draco, he should have caught the snitch and would've done if it wasn't for nasty Harry Potter' act. She disentangled herself from the edge of the group and went to lounge in the nearest armchair, her mind on other things. It had been a crucial part of her plan to stay at Pansy's for Easter. She had even gone all out and asked her permission to and after much persistence on her part, she had reluctantly said yes.
She rose, stretching cat-like and made to go to bed early, sick of the slytherins, "And where exactly do you think you're going?" Draco drawled, blocking her way, obviously he had noticed she hadn't been amongst his worshippers and had come to correct the 'mistake' and he gradually snuck forward to casually drape his arm around her neck and drag her back towards the rest of the sixth years. Sighing heavily, she stated slowly "To. Bed."
"Hhhmmm." He said absentmindedly, pulling her along and turning. She stopped dead, kicked him viciously in the shin, and whipping round stubbornly stormed off not wanting to hear the rest of it.
Her mind was full of stupid notions. She was extremely confused her 'friends' the people she'd surrounded herself with wereridiculing, thought themselves to be superior,selfish and disloyal; ready to ignore and abandon her at the drop of a hat just like today she thought they just left me to it when they came in. They were quick to motion a protest but hesitant to follow it through. She subconsciously let her feet take her wherever and eventually found herself outside the portrait of the fat lady.
She stood flustered not quite knowing what to do with herself, eventually a gryffindor third year scuttled past her, he was frowning slightly with curiosity shining in his blue eyes, Anna suddenly knew what to do, she needed to speak to someone, anyone who wasn't in her house.
The scruffy gryffindor was still stood there watching her warily, obviously not wanting to give the password away thinking her a ridiculous slytherin spy of some description.
"Tell Henry, that Anna's here to see him." The gryffindor started not expecting to be spoken to so civilly,
"Who?" he asked at first tentatively, then puffing up his chest to appear bigger and bolder than her. She sighed and rolled her eyes melodramatically.
"Henry! He's a fifth year…I think." The gryffindor frowned and leaned forward to whisper the password quietly before he entered. Flashing quick, sly glances at Anna, who crossed her arms and elegantly arched an eyebrow.
She was left hanging on tenterhooks for the best part of five minutes, confused as to why she was so eager to speak to him. Finally he emerged, begrudgingly as though he'd been pulled away from festivities.
"What do you want?" he asked bluntly.
"To speak to you…my moth- she sent me a letter…" she answered her voice trailing off into humiliating nothingness as she produced it.
"So she knows of your plan? Its not him you know…it can't be." She looked up startled suddenly angry.
"You knew!" he nodded solemnly still immersed in the letter, "You knew that I thought the murderer was Professor Rafe!" he started gesturing violently for her to keep her voice down,
"Its got to be him, Henry! No one would suspect it to happen again, you received the letter in his class pointing the finger away from him. The dark lord knows you're in gryffindor so there's the possibility you would turn to Potter. He's teaching defence against the dark arts its an ironic twist on a subject he knows little about. I need to go to Pansy's this Easter to gain information about death eaters, the Dark lord and his plans! Can't you see!" she let out a little scream of frustration, "It's the most logical explanation!" she scorned, Henry just shook his head.
"Its just a list of suspicions and assumptions Anna, it isn't him! Do you really think Dumbledore would let that happen!" Anna shivered at the name. She knew it to be true in her heart, and began to accept it in her head. Of course, it had been stupid to suspect him, but Anna wasn't about to admit that! She fixed Henry with a calculating, contemptuous stare.
"It's a definitely a supporter of the dark lord…" she said in rumination aloud, at a complete loss. For some reason she needed to know, she'd been dragged into it and deserved to know.
Henry nodded stony faced, a heavy silence that shrouded the atmosphere followed. Both seemed unwilling to break it. She turned on her heel ready to speed back amidst people she understood.
As Henry entered the gryffindor common room he went to sit by the golden trio, he smiled at Hermione, who'd watched Anna and cleverly worked out her plan, he nodded to Ron who'd helped in the first place and nodded at Harry, who it seemed was in a troubled place of his own.
Thinking it was finished, he sighed contentedly and retreated to his dormitory, thinking he wouldn't have to bother them again, he fell straight asleep.
Elsewhere someone troubled by loss and past, was having trouble sleeping so reverted to plotting, plotting to unknowingly prove Henry's last thought wrong…
