Author's Note: I don't believe I've missed the point at all. The circle of Death Eaters and their informants is much smaller, so at Hogwarts it's basically Draco they have to worry about, and how is he going to find out? Even if he found out that she had a detention, how would he know Snape gave it to her? Necia wouldn't talk to him about something like that, and for all the reasons you've said, Snape isn't going to make a public announcement about it.

As for confiscating her wand, when have we ever heard of him doing it before? He's never confiscated Harry's wand, not even after Harry and his friends blasted him in the Shrieking Shack. To me he's more the type to wait for the student to do something and then punish them more just for his own amusement. That's why he's always provoking Harry, he's just baiting him into doing something wrong. He doesn't care about Necia's well-being. If she does something stupid, then he can watch her get kidnapped and have a full excuse to punish her later, although now his mind is obviously far from that.

Haunted

By Be Boring

Chapter 12: To Scorn a Malfoy

Students milled happily through the bustling village of Hogsmeade, exclaiming over new items they had bought and chatting with friends, but Necia didn't notice any of it. Her eyes were scanning the crowd for one thing: Malfoy's brilliantly blonde head. She bumped into several people, nearly sending tiny Professor Flitwick flying ten feet with her momentum, but nothing could slow her down. She had to find Malfoy. She didn't really know what she was going to do once she had found him, but the need to confront him about what he had done was overpowering. She even passed directly by Ginny, who was walking out of Zonko's Joke Shop

Fifteen minutes into her search, she spotted him heading down the street towards the Hog's Head. She shoved past a group of fifth years and jogged after him, careful not to slip on patches of ice. She entered the bar with her heart pounding in her ears, hot blood surging through her cheeks as she spotted him at the bar. Their eyes met very briefly, then he snuck through the swinging half-doors that separated the rest of the room from the area behind the bar and disappeared into a room in the back. She followed swiftly, noticing faintly that for once Crabbe and Goyle weren't with him. It wasn't normal for Malfoy to go anywhere alone.

Things happened very quickly after that. The instant she passed through the door into the back room, a vivid red light covered her vision and everything faded to black. The last thing she managed to see before blacking out completely were two pairs of feet on the far side of the room.


His height giving him a great advantage over Necia, it took Severus much less time to spot Draco, but by the time he had followed them into the Hog's Head, he had already seen the red flash from the back room. Recklessly, he stepped through the doorway, stopping just short of tripping over Necia's limp body. Lucius was crossing the room, but he paused when he saw his unexpected visitor.

"Severus, I didn't expect you to be here."

Thinking quickly, he explained, "I had to make sure this went smoothly. If anything went wrong, she might be able to say that it was Draco who had lured her here, and your son would have been expelled instantly. All Malfoys think alike; if they're going down, they'll drag along anyone that they can, and I know my name would come up. I couldn't risk it."

While Lucius looked slightly dubious about this explanation, he shrugged it off as he pointed his wand at Necia and levitated her three feet into the air. "At any rate, I'm glad you're here. I could use another fully trained wizard to help me. Nott is hiding behind the bar, but he's hardly enough to insure our safety."

"What do you want me to do?" It would be better if he could face Lucius alone. Fighting in the Hog's Head would draw too much attention.

"How good are you at Disillusionment Charms?"

"I know how to do them well enough. If you're going to be camouflaged, then I suggest that Draco should go back to join the rest of the students. We can't let anyone suspect anything about his disappearance."

Draco looked as though he were about to complain, but Lucius cut him off. "You heard your professor, son, go find your friends and try to act normal. I can handle things from here." Looking rather surly, Draco slid out of the room and headed for the street. Lucius stepped over to Necia's other side and looked up at him. "Anytime you're ready."

Without a word, Severus whipped out his wand and gave Necia a firm tap on the head, repeating the action on Lucius next, and suddenly Lucius and Necia were no longer discernible in front of him. "Was that good enough?"

"How did you do that without saying an incantation?"

"Good concentration," was his dry reply.

"There's just one problem."

"What's that?"

"Well," Lucius began slowly, "I'm levitating the girl, but I can't see her clearly."

Severus rolled his eyes and slowly stretched out his arms in front of him, finally coming into contact with one of her legs, which was visible only by the slightly rounded appearance of the floor beneath them. Giving a firm shove, he forced Necia's floating body into where he remembered Lucius's body to be. A low grunt let him know he had found his target.

"All right, I've got her. Apparate to my house and I'll meet you there. It's going to take me a while to get there with her. It's too risky to Apparate with someone who is unconscious."

Severus nodded and popped away into thin air, reappearing again in the front hall of Lucius's secret house. He paced back and forth relentlessly, wondering just what he was going to do when Lucius arrived. He wasn't sure what would be the greater punishment, killing Lucius or having him arrested and sent to Azkaban. There were distinct problems with both options. Killing Lucius himself would leave him a fugitive, and if he had Lucius arrested, he would have to explain why he had allowed Lucius to bring Necia back to the house rather than just alerting the Aurors to his presence in Hogsmeade. It didn't take him long to come up with a course of action, although it wasn't exactly how he wanted to handle things. If it were up to him, he'd just kill Lucius and be done with it, but that wasn't wise.

While he still had time, he quickly searched the house and found a fireplace. It took even longer to find some Floo Powder, but Lucius was never a man to be without something, so eventually he found it in a cupboard on the far side of the room.

Dumbledore looked rather surprised when Severus's head appeared in his fireplace. "Is something wrong, Severus? Shouldn't you be taking care of that detention right now?"

"The girl ran out in the middle of it, Albus, and like I knew she would, she put herself in perfect position to get kidnapped. I'm currently at Lucius Malfoy's hideout, and he is on his way with her. I helped him sneak out of town with her, but only because I didn't want a confrontation with him in public. It will be much easier for everyone if this can be done here at the house."

"I would have been happier if he hadn't been able to take her in the first place, Severus," Dumbledore commented grimly. "I will alert Tonks and Alastor, and if they can bring some backup I'm sure they will be there very shortly. In the meantime, I'm coming."

Severus shook his head sharply, blowing up a cloud of hot ashes that swirled around his head. "No, that's not a good idea. Lucius doesn't suspect anything right now, and I don't want him to until the last possible second. Your presence would alert him far too early. Lucius is hardly comparable to the Dark Lord, if anything happens I will be more than capable of handling it until the Aurors arrive. After all, I know the spells he is likely to use."

Every line of Dumbledore's face seemed to crease even farther with disapproval at the idea, but above all, Albus Dumbledore was a man of sense, and he could see the sense in Severus's words. After a long, heavily silent moment, he said, "Minerva, Filius, and I will gather the rest of the students who are in the village in case Lucius gets out of the house, and also so I will be nearby if anything goes wrong. Try not to let anything happen to Necia."

"I'll do my best, Headmaster." Severus pulled his head out of the fireplace and hurried back to the door just in time to see Nott walking up the drive, his hood pulled up around his face so that his features were left in shadow. He had been forced to open gates and doors for Lucius so that no one wondered why things were miraculously opening themselves and ended up looking too closely. Severus stepped back as they entered the house and remained against the wall until he saw the rounded blur of Lucius's body slip past.

He followed behind them and gave a sharp rap to the top of the blur and the lump in front of it, making Lucius and Necia reappear just in time for him to see Lucius lower her onto a cot in the corner of a dingy room.

"Stay here and watch her, I'm not sure how strong my Stunning Charm was," he told Nott, then gestured for Severus to follow him out of the room. "What are you going to do about Dumbledore?" he asked as they finally reached his room at the very back of the compound. "I'll need you to keep him busy until I can get her out of the country."

"What happens if you can't convince her to follow you?"

"I will try the Imperius Curse first, and if she's too strong for that, then she'll go the same way as her mother." He didn't really seem to realize just what he'd said wrong until he noticed the utter blackness in Severus's eyes. "Am I to assume that you also heard about the girl's parentage? I wasn't sure if it had reached you yet."

"I heard," he replied darkly, struggling to keep from launching himself on the other man before the Aurors arrived. Trying not to focus on everything negative in front of him, which was a considerable task, he asked, "So it was Cassandra all along who was ruining the Dark Lord's plans whenever she could?"

"Not all of his plans, just the ones which involved you. Many of the people you were supposed to poison didn't survive because they realized what they were about to drink and stopped beforehand, but because she showed up and gave them the antidote before any damage was done. I don't know how she was keeping such close tabs on you, but she could counter every move you made. It's strange how things work out. Because you worked on potions with her so often at school, she studied them at the private university her parents sent her to and eventually used her knowledge to work against you in everything you did."

"So you do know more about what she did after school than you were letting on," he observed coldly.

"Of course, but at the time you asked, you didn't know who Necia was, and I felt it was best to keep it that way. After she found out she was pregnant, Cassandra still finished her schooling, but after many fights with her parents, she cut herself off from them, took every last penny that was in her trust fund before they could remove it, and finished at a school in India. During this entire time, however, she kept coming back and blocking everything you did when she somehow discovered you would be poisoning someone. As soon as she had learned everything she could, she moved back here and built herself a cottage just south of London, where she could track everything you did and stop you from killing anyone. The night you were supposed to kill Dumbledore, she was in the house along with the other security that you said was there. I'm not sure if even Dumbledore knew of her presence, but she seemed to back off after that incident. After that, she just lived quietly with her daughter. She told Necia that she was making potions for the Ministry, but that was only as an excuse for how comfortably they were living."

She had been in Dumbledore's house that night? That meant that she had backed off because she heard Dumbledore propose that he become a double agent. "Had you actually been in contact with her before the day you killed her?"

Lucius could see he was on very unstable ground. "No, but I had been monitoring her. I went to her to see if she would change her mind and actually act like a Malfoy for once by helping me, but she refused and threatened to alert the Ministry about where I was. I obviously couldn't have that, so I just did what I had to."

"You told me last time we spoke about this that Necia was in the house. What was she doing while you two were talking?"

"Cassandra sent her out to feed the animals. I believe she was listening just outside the door, though, because she came running in just before everything was over. So you can see why I needed to use a Memory Charm." There was a very long, uneasy silence, and finally Lucius said quickly, "I ought to speak to the girl before we leave," and with that, he swept out of the room. Severus watched him go, frustrated with himself for not being able to do anything. Dumbledore would be proud of him for restraining his temper, but would he ever be able to look back at this moment where the opportunity was so ripe and not regret his own weakness?


When Necia finally opened her eyes, a blonde man was sitting in a chair next to her, looking down at her with an almost fatherly expression on his face. It was easy to see who he was; he had to be Lucius Malfoy. She slowly propped herself up on her elbows, leaning as far away from him as possible. "What am I doing here?" she asked quickly, her eyes taking in her surroundings. She didn't really like the looks of this place. If this were anything even slightly friendly, he wouldn't have placed her in what looked practically like a holding cell.

"I simply wished to speak with you," Lucius said reasonably, holding out his hands as though to show he had nothing to hide. "Considering my current circumstances, I couldn't just walk right up to the school and ask to see you, so I had to take a different route. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," she mumbled hastily, her eyes focusing on the door on the other side of the room. She would have to go around him to get to it, but the tiny window near the ceiling wasn't looking very promising. "What exactly did you want to talk about?"

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees in a very businesslike manner. "I simply wanted to offer you some work after you finish at Hogwarts. In fact, you don't even have to wait, I'd be glad to let you start right away."

She didn't like the sound of that. "What kind of work?"

"Potions. I've heard you're rather good at them, and after the recent passing of your mother, I thought you'd like to stay reasonably close to your family, so I couldn't think of a better solution. You can do what you love while getting to know the family that your mother worked so hard to separate you from."

"I can't help but think that if Mum wanted to keep me away from you, there had to be a good reason," she replied coldly, slowly feeling around for her wand. He must have taken it, which definitely didn't bode well for her.

He smiled slightly, then reached into the pockets of his robes. "I thought you might react like this, which is perfectly understandable, considering the terrible relationship you have with my son. That's why I went through the trouble of making this."

It turned out to be a tiny vial no larger than her ring finger. It contained a transparent, green-tinged fluid which sloshed merrily around as he held it up for her inspection. She studied it carefully, but it didn't look like anything her mother or Snape had ever taught her about, so she turned to Lucius blankly.

"What is it?"

"This," he said gently, holding it out for her to take, "is a way to bring your mother back. It's only temporary, of course, because there is no way to reverse death, but it will give her the opportunity to say the goodbyes she never had the chance to make. Hopefully it will give you some closure. After all, when a loved one is taken from us so suddenly, we often regret never having that last chance to say everything we wanted to say. This is your chance."

Necia couldn't ever remember hearing about a potion that would allow you to speak to the dead, but it didn't hurt to at least accept it. She didn't ever have to use it if she didn't trust him, but at least she had it there. Besides, refusing anything he offered her right now didn't seem like such a good idea.

"How is this supposed to help me trust you?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "It's just a gift to hopefully make you realize that I'm not everything that the magical community has made me out to be these last few years. Your mother was my cousin. We were the same age and we went to school together. Her death was difficult for me, too." When she didn't do anything more than glance a few times from him to the vial in her hand, he said, "I think I'll give you a few minutes to yourself to think things over." She nodded appreciatively as he left the room.

She was alone for perhaps five minutes. Suddenly, her door opened again and Snape stepped inside, closing the door until there was only a crack left to peer through, which is what he did. She was in total shock for a second, then opened her mouth to ask what he was doing there, but he held up a hand for silence. At first she had no idea what was going on, but then it became perfectly clear.

It sounded like something exploded almost directly outside their door, and suddenly footsteps were dashing madly everywhere. She heard shouts ring out farther down the hallway, and suddenly Lucius Malfoy shoved his way into their room, his eyes burning as they landed on Snape.

"You betrayed me," he growled, drawing himself up to his full height as they glared at each other. Necia wisely kept her mouth shut, not wanting to draw any attention to herself. She could only watch and listen to everything in confusion.

"You weren't careful enough," Snape replied almost lightly, as though it was an obvious mistake.

"I didn't think I needed to be careful around you. I knew you weren't necessarily faithful to me, but I never believed you would rat me out to the Ministry."

"You did something much worse over the summer. You should have realized that I wouldn't just let that go unpunished."

Now Lucius almost smiled. "You're not usually the type to let someone else do your dirty work. I'm surprised you didn't just kill me yourself."

Snape smiled back just as grimly. "The idea of you rotting in Azkaban with only dementors for company was just too appealing."

"I will not go to Azkaban again," Lucius snarled, pulling out his wand and sending a very strange, pale blue arc from its tip toward Snape. He backed away quickly, moving out of the arc's path, then sent a jet of purple light back at him.

Necia had to dive out of the way as Lucius deflected the spell and it veered towards her, but she had to scramble back to her original position just as quickly as Snape deflected Lucius's answering spell and it flew to her new position. Then Lucius finally spoke a spell aloud, crying, "Crucio!" Caught off guard, Snape collapsed on the ground, making strange, low, guttural sounds as his body curled in pain. Before she had even realized what she was doing, Necia leapt from the cot directly onto Lucius's back, hooking her arms around his neck and throwing her weight backward with all her might. He gave a low grunt and slammed her into a wall, knocking her breath from her, then reached over his shoulder to grab a handful of her hair and tried to pull her off. Despite the pain of her hair coming out by its roots, she bit her lip and held on stubbornly, removing one arm from his neck and clawing at his face, instinctively seeking his eyes.

Lucius was spared the pain of being horribly blinded by Snape's interference. He shouted, "Stupefy!", forcing Lucius to drop to the ground, completely unconscious. Necia backed away from his limp form, rubbing her aching ribs and glaring at him furiously. She spotted her wand sticking out of his robes and leaned forward quickly to grab it, then finally allowed herself to look at Snape.

It was a very awkward moment. Within the space of half a minute, they had saved each other from Lucius's attacks, yet neither one wanted to admit that the other had done anything of assistance. They were spared the indignity of having to acknowledge the role the other had played when Tonks stepped through the door, giving a sigh of relief at the sight of Necia. "Good, you're all right. Let's go." Necia hurried back to the bed to grab the vial and stuff it in her pocket before anyone could see what she was holding, then followed her with Snape trailing slightly behind, looking at her curiously.

When they stepped outside, they were greeted with a very unwelcome sight. Although it had been Snape's intention to keep things quiet, it appeared that everyone in Hogsmeade had heard about the Aurors going to this tiny house, and it also seemed that they were aware of Lucius's presence inside. A collective gasp burst out as Tonks led Necia and Snape out of the house, although Snape managed to slip back inside before too many people had spotted him. Necia glared back at the empty space where he had been standing, wishing that she had thought fast enough to do the same before anyone had seen her, but it was far too late. A small crowd of students who had apparently evaded the teachers' attempts to take them back to the school were near the gates. Harry and Ron were standing at the very front of the group, and their eyes hadn't left her since she had reached sunlight again. 'Great, now they're going to think I was helping Lucius or something ludicrous like that.' Even worse, Draco was also standing at the front of the pack, pale and tense, but also looking grimly satisfied. She dreaded the thought of what he had already told anyone who would listen.

"Everyone needs to clear this property now!" came a very irritated growl off to Necia's right. She turned to see a very odd-looking man with a wooden leg and a strange, electric-blue eye glaring out at the crowd, his heavily scarred face contorted with anger at the gazing eyes. "This is a crime scene, we can't have an audience," he barked out, convincing several people to leave immediately. Harry and Ron gave her a very odd look before turning to face Dumbledore, who had appeared out of thin air next to the group and was staring at his students with an unusual amount of sternness. A rush of relief flooded through Necia, but it was short-lived. The scarred man walked over to her and informed her gruffly, "We're going to have to talk about what went on in there. Once we're back at the Ministry, you need to tell us absolutely everything that he said to you."

Her shoulders slumped dejectedly. All she had wanted to do was be alone after her ordeal, but that apparently wouldn't be an option, not for several hours yet anyway.


Several hours later as the magical view of the outdoors glowed with the violets and pinks of sunset, Snape paced around Tonks's office, where he had been told to wait yet again until the Aurors were finished with Necia. They had been continuously interchanging the two, comparing their stories while making them repeat the exact same words endlessly. He probably could fall asleep in the middle of their questions and still reply automatically after answering those same inquiries so many times.

He had some questions for Necia too, although he highly doubted he would ever get them answered. He wanted to know exactly what the exchange had been between Lucius and Necia, because she didn't seem nearly as upset after their confrontation as he would have expected, and he was also curious about what she had picked up from the cot before they had left. He hadn't been able to see what it was, which was obviously her intention, and he knew that anything she acquired from Lucius would be far from safe. Dumbledore already wasn't pleased with the fact that he had allowed Lucius to actually take her in the first place, and it wouldn't get any better if they found out that Lucius had given her something potentially dangerous.

The thing that had taken him completely by surprise was that Necia had attacked Lucius while he was performing the Cruciatus Curse. What on earth had she done that for? It certainly wasn't out of direct concern for him. Perhaps she had just assumed that he was her way out of there and it would be best to keep him alive. Either way, he had felt a slight trace of the feeling that he had been left with when Dumbledore had stopped that kid from hexing him on the first day of school. People rarely helped him, and help especially never seemed to come when he was in pain. He could still remember Voldemort's tortures so clearly, as though they had happened only moments before, and he would never forget those days after he had failed to kill Dumbledore. Of all things that Voldemort had wanted to do, that was one of the highest on his list. Of course he was going to take everything out on Severus. It wasn't a pleasant experience to be inches from death, longing for it desperately, but always being cheated out of it at the moments he had wished for it most. Although his fear of the dark sorcerer had grown immensely after that experience, it had only strengthened his resolve to work against him. If somehow he could be taken out of power, then Severus wouldn't have to live with that fear.

Forcing his thoughts away from such painful memories, he couldn't help but think about how much Necia looked like her mother. The glint in her eyes, the devilish grin, it all called Cassandra Malfoy back into his mind yet again. Those traits were also connected to Sirius Black, but she looked so much more like Cassandra when she showed them.

"I am absolutely not going to do this!" Severus grumbled halfheartedly as a fourteen-year-old Cassandra dragged him down the corridor to the Slytherin common room.

"But I need you with me, I don't know the password to get into your House," she pleaded quietly, trying not to be heard by Professor Dithal, the Potions professor, as they passed by his classroom. For some reason she had come up with the clever idea after dinner in the library that it would be very funny to charm away Lucius's hair while he slept. His slicked back blonde hair was his pride and joy, and after he had snidely insulted her for the millionth time as he passed them in the library, she was filled with the spirit of revenge.

"If we get caught…" he protested as they finally reached the bare stretch of wall that was the entrance to Slytherin House.

She laughed and finally released his arm, instead crossing both of hers and glaring at him playfully. "Like that's ever bothered you before. You're in this House for a reason, you know. Besides, you've never had any trouble breaking the rules to get back at the Gryffindors."

"That's different."

"How?" After she glared at him for a few more minutes, he finally gave in and muttered, "Imperius." The wall slid open and Cassandra pulled her hair closer around her face as they strode in, but there was no need; the Slytherins were all in bed. 'Which is where I should be,' Severus thought longingly. He led her down the hallway to the boys' dormitories, stopping outside of his own and gesturing towards it.

"Be my guest."

"Aren't you coming in?"

"I've done my part, I got you in. You can do the rest yourself. Remember, I have to live with him most of the year. It works better if he just catches you."

She grinned at him. "You mean if he catches me." With that, she scurried into the room. Severus leaned against the opposite wall and held his breath as he tried to listen to her crossing the room to Lucius's bed, but she was apparently tiptoeing because he couldn't hear anything. After a while he saw a flash of white light and Cassandra came rushing back out, her left hand clamped over her mouth to keep from laughing aloud. "I did it, and he didn't even wake up!" she whispered gleefully.

"You do realize that you're only doing this because it's the middle of the night and you're too tired to think straight," he pointed out quietly.

She rolled her eyes. "It doesn't matter, I'll still laugh tomorrow. He didn't see me, we're fine."

He walked her back down to his House entrance, nearly blushing as she gave him a peck on the cheek. He had to remind himself that he, Severus Snape, most certainly was not the blushing type. "Goodnight," he said quietly as she stepped out into the corridor.

"Night," she whispered back, waving as the enchanted door slid back into place, leaving young Severus in shadow but with a pleasantly tingly sensation on his cheek.

not'Which is where I should be,'if not

"Severus? It's your turn," Tonks called out. He watched as Necia walked wearily from the room, rubbing her eyes and obviously just thinking of some nice, warm bed to fall onto. Nodding quickly, he followed Tonks into the room. It was going to be a long night.