So, here's chapter 10 (sorry for the title, but I couldn't come up with a better one). Hope you'll enjoy!

I say it right away, I'm making this short this time, for I'm really tired.

TriGemini: Ah, I fear Alicia and Katie won't get the chance to talk to Angelina…

Lil Crow Bow: The cat? Radames? Ah no, he is completely innocent.

Paixamoreetchocolat: Well, no police here, so I guess it is legal :D

Anniebells: Hey, I can't stop like this when they haven't even kissed, can I?

Tiarwen: it is only halfway done, because there is still some more to come. And it was not really a cliffhanger (at least, I've made worse :D)

Ccjj: Glad you liked it. and yes, it will get even better in the next chapter (maybe the chapter after the next)

Angelface04: Hey, already back from heaven? Believe it or not, I actually managed to make another long chapter (not as long as the last one, but I've tried).

Chapter 10

Interlude

Angelina opened her eyes lazily when she felt herself being placed onto something soft. She looked into a pair of green eyes and heard a voice talking to her, but she couldn't make out the words that were being said. She was trying to say something but her mouth was too dry. She wanted to sit up but was gently pushed back to where she was lying on. When her head made contact with the soft something beneath her again she fell back asleep.

Marcus sighed when Angelina closed her eyes again. She had looked so unfocused at him, as though she hadn't really seen him and he suspected that this was actually the truth.

The last hour had also been tiring for him. He had run out to look for her and found her in an alley next to the Puddlemere Inn, Lance on top of her, trying to rape her! An "Expelliarmus"-spell had thrown Lance off of her and against the wall, but he had quickly recovered and before Marcus could reach him he had already apparated out of the alley. Marcus had picked up Angelina and when he turned around he had found Oliver standing behind him at the entrance of the alley.

It had taken Marcus some time to convince Oliver that he had to take Angelina to a safer place than her flat or even St. Mungo's. To a place, Lance didn't know of. In the end, Oliver had agreed, if very reluctantly and had gone to tell the rest of the team and her friends what had happened.

Marcus had apparated home. To his home. He had gone into his bedroom and put Angelina on his bed. And that was, were he was now sitting next to. He had informed Giles. Had to make sure Lance would be caught and punished. And now he needed to get a doctor.

"So?" He asked Doctor Fleming, after he had examined Angelina's wounds.

"The two wounds on her head are not as serious as they may seem. Wounds on the head often look far more serious than they actually are. I could heal them with a few spells and she shouldn't even feel dizzy anymore once she wakes up. But she shouldn't move her ankle in the next time. I want to look at it again in three days." With this he left and Marcus went back into his room. He looked at Angelina's sleeping form and was more than relieved to find the bleeding wound on her forehead gone.

He cursed himself that he hadn't asked the doctor about how long she would be sleeping, for he wanted to make sure she wasn't alone when she woke up but he also felt the urgent need to take a shower. After a few moments he decided that it was better to take that shower now, and then wait here for her to wake up than to wait here now and then go for a shower when she would be about to wake up and be alone.

He went out into the hallway and into the bathroom next to his bedroom. It was a huge difference from her bathroom and he was glad to be back in his own four walls. Although he wished the reason for his being back home would be another than Angelina being attacked.

He kicked his shoes and socks off and walked barefooted over the marble floor of the room. He walked past the giant tube which was in the floor in the middle of the room and took his shirt of, letting it fall to the floor just behind the tube. He unbuttoned his trousers and let them fall around his ankles, walking out of them and pulling his boxer shorts off too. Marcus had reached the other end of the bathroom and thus, the shower. He opened the glass door and stepped into the spacious shower. At least here he could stretch his arms again!

As soon as he stood inside of the shower the water started pouring down on him in just the right temperature. He sighed contentedly and let the water run over his body. It really did feel good to be home again! If only the reason why Angelina was lying in his bed would be different one.

Angelina heard the faint sound of running water and slowly opened her eyes. She looked up at the white ceiling above her and frowned. She was not lying in her bed! She was lying on silk and she did not have silken beddings! She sat up slowly and looked around the room. It was more than three times as big as her own bedroom. The bed itself was already more than twice as large as her bed. The furniture was completely in dark wood, the silken beddings pitch black.

Her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment when she remembered what had happened at the party. Had Lance taken her with him? But it had been somebody else who had picked her up. Or had she just imagined someone helping her? Had it just been a fantasy made up by her wounded head? She touched the back of her head gingerly, but there was nothing. Not even a bump. Had this all just been a dream? But where was she then? Her wand was nowhere to be seen and a quick look at her outfit told her that she was wearing what she had put on for the party. This was all so confusing!

Then she heard steps outside of the room and it was not until then that she noticed the water was no longer running. The door to the room she was in was slowly opened and she tried to scoop away from the door. But as soon as she tried to put her right foot to some use she knew that it was a bad idea. So, it hadn't been a dream or an imagination!

When the door opened completely Angelina sighed deeply as she saw that it was Marcus who was walking into the room. He was only wearing a pair of wide black trousers; his hair was still wet, small water drops running over his neck.

"Hey. I didn't think you'd wake up so soon." He greeted her and walked towards the bed. He sat down on the edge and looked at her.

"How are you feeling?"

Angelina shrugged, not really sure how she was feeling. She still wasn't really sure what had happened.

"My foot hurts. And my mouth's as dry as a desert. But other than that I think I'm fine." She said after some time and Marcus nodded. Only seconds after she had said this a tray appeared on the nightstand on her right. A glass and a carafe filled with water were standing on it. Angelina looked at Marcus who only shrugged and said the word 'house elves' as an answer.

Angelina tried to scoop closer to the nightstand but again her foot kept her from succeeding.

"Wait." Marcus told her and filled the glass with water and gave it to her.

"Thank you." Angelina murmured and drank thirstily the whole glass at once. She looked down at the empty glass in her hand and was trying to get her thoughts cleared up in her head, but there was just so much of this stupid fog covering them.

"What… what exactly happened?" she finally asked Marcus, still not looking up from the glass in her hand. She was now clutching it so tightly that her knuckles showed a lighter colour than the rest of her skin.

"I don't exactly know what happened before I reached you, but I don't think it was as much as he wanted to do. Unfortunately he has escaped. But Giles has sent out other aurors to catch him." Angelina nodded weakly and swallowed.

"To think that I believed this all to be nothing but a big prank. That it all isn't true… I would have never believed that Lance…" she shook her head and didn't continue to speak. Marcus didn't say something either. Probably for the first time Marcus didn't feel the urge to provoke her by saying something.

"I… I thought I had a wound on my head?" Angelina finally looked back up at Marcus.

"A doctor was here. He took care of your wounds on the head, but he said you shouldn't move your ankle for the next few days."

Angelina took this information in and nodded. She put the glass back onto the tray.

"Where is my wand?"

Marcus looked at her for a moment then remembered that he had also forgotten to take her robe with him. Both, her robe as well as her wand still had to be in the Inn. Or maybe one of her friends, maybe Wood, had taken it with him. That was what he finally told her.

"So, what now?"

"You will stay here until this guy is caught and safely put into Azkaban. When your foot has healed you can then go back to your home and continue your life as before."

Angelina had an odd feeling when she thought about going back to her home. When she thought about living alone after this evening she felt shivers running down her back. But then she remembered, she wasn't exactly living alone.

"Radames!"

Marcus raised his eyebrows at her and looked asking at the woman lying in his bed.

"I can't leave him alone for some days!" She looked pleading at him and Marcus had a very bad feeling about what was now to come.

"Please. We have to bring him here." Angelina pleaded and Marcus wanted to bang his head against something hard.

"Please." Angelina reached her hand out and took his arm. Marcus cursed under his breath and nodded.

"Okay, we'll get him."

Angelina smiled and tried to get out of the bed, being reminded of the state her ankle was in as soon as she tried. Marcus rolled his eyes and sighed. There was only one way to get her there it seemed. So he pulled back the blanket covering her and picked her up carefully.

Angelina put her arms slowly around his neck and tried to keep her face a bit farther away from his body. The scent of him reminded her of how safe she had felt when Marcus had picked her up in the alley.

"Ready?" he asked her. Angelina nodded and then he apparated both of them in front of the building her flat was in.

The moment they were standing on the street Marcus thought he should have put his shirt on after the shower. Good thing I put my shoes back on he thought while he stepped towards the building.

"Wait. My keys are in my robes." Angelina suddenly said and Marcus sighed. He was sure that they wouldn't get into the house without her keys.

"So what now?" he asked and looked around. But it seemed as though Murphy's law was slowly leaving Angelina for just in this moment a neighbour of Angelina's, a young mother of two children opened the front door of the house. She raised her eyebrows at the couple and tried to hide a grin when she greeted Angelina and held the door open for Marcus before she went away.

Marcus carried Angelina upstairs, trying not to think about the fact that they wouldn't get into her flat without a key. As soon as he reached the first floor he stopped. Angelina looked disbelieving at the front door of her flat and tightened her grip around Marcus' neck.

"No. Please tell me this is not true!" she whispered as she continued to stare at the open door in front of her. She had closed the door before they had gone to the party. She was absolutely sure about this!

Marcus cursed silently under his breath. His first reaction was that he wanted to bring Angelina back to his home immediately and then come back to look through the flat. But he already knew that she wouldn't agree with this and to argue with her would take too much time. He also couldn't leave her out here in the hallway, for if whomever it was, who had broken into her flat was still there he would directly run into her should he try to escape.

"What are you waiting for?" Angelina asked him and was already thinking about jumping down from his arms and walk into her flat herself, no matter how hard her ankle would be protesting. She could only think about Radames. She needed to go into her flat and get him out of there. No matter who or what might be waiting there for her!

Marcus sighed and kicked the door farther open with his foot. He slowly went towards the flat and turned the lights on. No one was here, he was sure about this as soon as he was in the flat. But it looked as though whomever it had been, and Marcus had a supposition that it was a light haired man with a very mad mind, had made sure that everyone knew someone had been there.

The flat looked more like a battlefield than a flat. The armchairs and the couch were slit open, the blanket he had used for the last two nights was lying on the floor, or rather said, the remains of what used to be a blanket was lying on the floor. Marcus carried Angelina towards the kitchen and put her down on a chair.

"I'll go and look at your bedroom and bathroom." He told her and already left. Angelina looked around her in disbelief. The cupboards were all opened, everything that she used to keep inside of them was lying somewhere on the floor. On her right was the broken vase of the roses. The flowers themselves were stamped onto, completely destroyed. She bent slowly down and lifted the only flower that was not destroyed and smelled on it. Turned the now stalk-less flower in her hand. How dared he destroy her roses!

And where was Radames? If Lance had dared to do as much as touch a hair on his head she would kill him herself! Her heart seemed to beat faster when she heard a faint 'meow' and saw Marcus coming back to her.

"Your bedroom looks even worse than the rest of your flat, and I fear you don't have any clothes left. But therefore I found something else I thought you might want back." He held Radames by his neck away from him. Angelina's face lit up when she saw her cat and Marcus put Radames on her lap. The cat immediately started to purr and rub himself against Angelina's stomach.

"We should go back. I'll sent an owl to Giles and tell him about this here." And I'll kick the old man's arse if they don't find this bastard soon! He added in his thoughts. He lifted Angelina up again, slowly and carefully so that Radames wouldn't jump down and walked out of the flat, pulling the door close with his foot. He went out of the building and onto the street, apparating back to his home as soon as they left the house.

Angelina was again lying on Marcus' bed while he searched his wardrobe for something that she could wear tonight. Radames was walking around in the room and Angelina still wondered how he had gotten out of it without the slightest scratch. She had put the rose on the tray which still stood on the nightstand and watched her cat smilingly. Marcus turned around towards her and held up a dark green t-shirt.

"This should fit you." Angelina rolled her eyes inwardly. Did Slytherins not know that there existed other colours but black and green? When Marcus was about to leave her alone so she could change she remembered that she couldn't take her jeans off on her own, nor did she have her wand.

"Um, Marcus?" He stopped at the door and turned back towards her.

"Could you please give me your wand for a minute?" He raised his eyebrows at her but gave her the wand nonetheless. He left the room and made his way to the study, writing a letter to Giles and telling him what had happened to Angelina's flat. When he came back into his room a few minutes later she was dressed in the t-shirt which was still too large on her. Her clothes were folded and were lying on a chair near the window.

"You should go to bed now, I think you had enough action for one day." He told her and Angelina had to smile at the thought how much he sounded like a father. The only thing missing was the 'young lady' part.

"Where are you going to sleep?" she asked him, not really liking the feeling of having him thrown out of his own bed. Marcus shrugged.

"I'll tell the house elves to get me one of the guestrooms ready."

Angelina frowned and looked at the bed she was sitting in. It was more than big enough to have two people lying in it without having to touch the other one. There could probably lay four people in this bed without touching each other!

"That's bullshit. This is your room; I shouldn't throw you out of it. The bed is big enough for both of us." Angelina told him and shrugged when he raised his eyebrows at her. She didn't want to admit that she also was the slightest bit afraid to spend the night alone, especially since she couldn't move properly.

Angelina lay down and carefully turned onto her left side, slowly pulling her leg along with her and pulled the blanket up to her chest when Marcus made his way to the other side of the bed. When he had taken off his shoes, socks and trousers she had already closed her eyes and was on her way to the land of dreams.

When Marcus turned around to lie down in the bed himself he saw the rose laying on the tray on the nightstand on the other side of the bed. He hadn't even noticed before that she had the rose and was now slightly confused. Why would she take the flower with her?

He leaned over her and took the rose by the now very short stem. He looked at the dark rose and shook his head.

"Johnson?" he asked silently.

"Mhm…?" Angelina didn't even open her eyes when she heard his voice.

"Why did you bring the rose with you?" he asked her, his voice full of lack of understanding. Angelina shrugged slightly and mumbled something incoherently. Marcus asked her again and Angelina opened her eyes sleepily.

"I don't really know. Maybe because no one gave me flowers before." She yawned and closed her eyes again. Marcus leaned back on his side of the bed and looked dumbfounded at her.

"Good night." He heard Angelina murmur and replied slowly. He watched her for some time, noticing how her breath became more and more regular and sighed. He turned the rose around in his hand and gently touched the velvety blossom. He laid his head onto his pillow and continued to watch Angelina.

Her hand was holding the edge of the blanket, a stray strand of her hair had fallen into her face. While he was watching her Marcus felt like a teen again. Angelina Johnson had always impressed him. Before she even started Hogwarts she had caught his attention, being anything but intimidated by him on the Hogwarts Express. In the first years she had mostly irritated him.

She would not be intimidated by him or anybody else what took all the fun out of playing with the first years. She was an excellent Quidditch player who caused him to feel the fear of loosing a game against Gryffindor more than once. Up until his last year at Hogwarts he had seen Angelina Johnson as a very irritating Gryffindor whose name he actually managed to remember.

On the evening he had seen her and this Hufflepuff – or had it been a Ravenclaw – in the hallway all of this had changed. He had gone back to his bed that night and had dreamt about her. Had dreamt that it had been him who had had her against the wall. But she wasn't trying to get away from him, oh no. In his dream she had been moaning his name, had pressed herself against him and had begged him to take her.

He had woken up covered in sweat and as horny as he had never been before. Had she been a Slytherin he had found his way to the girls' dorms and had made his way to her bed, but she wasn't a Slytherin, she had been far away on the other side of the castle, tucked up safely in her Gryffindor bed and he had ended up with the only substitute he had: his right hand.

He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. It was really not wise to think about that time – and the many nights that followed this first one – now, while she was in his bed. All he had to do was reach out his hand and he could touch her.

Before he knew what he was doing he reached out his hand and let the soft flower he was still holding touch the skin on the back of her hand. He ran the flower towards her wrist but stopped immediately when he heard Angelina sigh in her sleep. When she didn't move he continued to stroke up her arm with the flower, watching enchanted how the smooth black flower moved along her skin. He let the flower wander up to her elbow and farther until the t-shirt was stopping his way.

He looked at her face. Looking at the long whimpers lying on her cheeks. At the smile she was wearing, indicating that she was having a nice dream. The strand of hair still hanging in her face. Marcus gently ran the rose over her cheek, thus pushing the strand of her black hair back out of her face.

Whether it was the touch on her face or the smell of the rose Angelina slowly opened her eyes and looked at him. Marcus was sure his heart stopped beating for a moment. He was already preparing himself for what he expected was to come: a slap, screaming, more hitting…

But Angelina only continued to look at him and then, slowly, smiled at Marcus before she closed her eyes again. Marcus heard her murmur something about 'nice' and watched her when she fell asleep again.

How was he to survive and stay a sane man at the same time when she would continue to stay with him?