"Yoom … Takoa?"

"It's Yume." She was soft-spoken and calm, but the professor gave her a glare.

"Just because you're in my house doesn't give you the right to correct me, Takoa," the woman snapped, voice sharp. "Now, are you here or not?"

The class giggled, but the professor made no move to quiet them. Yume shrank in her seat, knowing the taunting would go throughout the year. It had at that old school of hers- but she preferred not to think about it. She stared at her feet, missing the glance full of sympathy that a certain boy of her age gave her.

The class went on without her mention until a wand struck against her desk. Yume jumped in her seat and her head jerked towards the source. It was Professor McGonagall again, and her brows were furrowed angrily.

"Ms. Takoa!" she demanded. "Can you or can you not pay attention?"

Yume bit her lip. "I… I'm sorry, Professor- I was just thinking about- about things."

"Things?" the teacher replied. "You should have been thinking about transfiguration, not things. Now, do the spell."

"I, um," Yume began. She hadn't been paying attention; her mind was in another place, one where someone out there loved her. She didn't know the spell. "I'm sorry, Professor McGonagall, I don't think I… can."

McGonagall's eyes rolled involuntarily. "If you were paying any attention at all you would be able to."

She flicked her own wand and turned the chest in front of her desk into a cage. Yume sighed, putting her head in those fragile white hands of hers. It was all part of this new school, and she had a feeling it would be no better than the one she just came from. And although she hated thinking about it, she slipped into memories of her old academy.

It was a French school, and one with a very wide variety of people. The most prominent, she remembered, was the famous and most beloved Virote Shadowblade. He was, as she recalled, tall and well-built, structured to have muscles that could be counted. There was golden hair on his head and his eyes shone of blue. He seemed perfect and brilliant and he had chosen her, Yume, as his- as he'd said- 'wife-to-be.' She had been totally head-over-heels in love with him, and he seemed the same with her.

They'd been holding hands and everything she'd wished for when he told her a secret. He'd pulled her aside, into a corner, stood himself against a wall. She braced herself, expecting any sort of shock except for that. And he told her; he was an angel. A literal angel.

She hadn't believed in them. She hadn't believed in God. She told him that she didn't believe him, laughing.

Yume woke from nostalgia when the class ended. Her desk seemed wet, and it was either drool or tears. She suspected it was the latter and wiped her face, picking up her books and dashing out of the class. Her dark hair fell into her eyes, something that she was grateful for. It would hide the embarrassment of crying and save her from even more teasing.

She looked up once and someone giggled, pointed; she bit her lip involuntarily and ran off. She knew she shouldn't have, but she did. Her mind filled of self-hating thoughts and she shoved herself into a closet, tears streaking down her face. Yume slid down the wall and into a sitting position, tucking her knees up to her chin and putting her head in her hands. She opened her mouth slightly, and words poured out to song. It was a favorite of hers by an American band, and was exactly how she felt.

"These wounds won't seem to heal/
This pain is just too real/
There's just too much that time cannot erase…"

She shuddered as she cried, breaking the song.

"Hey."

She gasped and snapped her head up. "What? Come to tease me, too?"

"Nah." He had hair like hers, black as night. This boy was a short one for his age, which she could tell was the same as hers, but he was still unique somehow. And his eyes- they sparkled with the emerald hue they had, deep and emotional. They showed an understanding sort of compassion and were just so deep; she could lose herself in them. She promptly and accidentally did, and realized she'd stood when he laughed.

"You're a good singer, you know." He grinned. She smiled in return. His faded quickly, however, and he glanced back.

"Uh- we have class," he reminded her, clearing his throat. Yume absent-mindedly nodded. He turned away to leave and she stepped through the doorway, but he stopped and she ran into him. Chuckling, he started again, "Oh, and I'm--"

His mouth hung open still, but no more words left his tongue. Yume cocked her head, waiting for any sort of pleasant surprise, such as a name. He seemed frozen, however, mouth forming a word and tongue lifted slightly to aid it. She gazed past him at the bustling crowd, and found it not to be bustling anymore, but instead statues of mid-step movement. Her brow furrowed and her expression crinkled into a slight pout. She moved forward less than a foot and gently pushed her companion's shoulder. He didn't move and seemed to be solidly glued to the floor.

"Hello?" Yume whispered, eyes widening millimeters to express her confusion and fear. When he didn't respond, she squeezed past him to the silent hallway, wondering momentarily why they were frozen and she was not. She figured maybe it was the immunity to most outside magic that passed down from her great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, who was a famous magician and wizard centuries ago aided with the internal protection granted on her family by the combined artists Raphael, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Donatello. Thinking of all of this, she wound and inched her way through the hall, having a silent notion to not touch any of these stopped beings- it seemed unnatural, because it was.

She stood, blinking and curled around an unmoving student without touching them. She jumped slightly when a sort of noise wafted towards her- well, not exactly noise so much as voices. They were unintelligible to her as it was, too far away to be heard, but they grew in volume and clarity until she could pick out words.

"Well, I'll do something about it."

"Yeah. Like you do every time."

"Exactly. It's good to know you recognize that."

Yume froze when a pair of figures walked about the corner. They didn't mind the stopped adolescents in the corridor, even seeming to walk through them, if that was possible. She knew it was, of course; she had done it, with the power blessed upon her by that great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, who had recently died. But in this situation it seemed impossible, even for the secretly empowered Yume, and yet here were two people just taking their time right through these people.

Said one, "Let's just get it over with, okay?"

Said the other, "Right-o, old chum."

Yume blinked at their casual conversation at such a strange time. She almost called out something along the lines of Helloooo, they're frozen, before she realized they'd find her.

They saw her anyways. Both at the same time, they glanced at her, then each other, and started running to her. She let out a gasp and moved backwards before turning and dashing away.

"Slow down! We're not going to- uh- hurt you!" one obviously lied. Yume had a sense for lying, and she liked the truth only. She narrowed her eyes and focused on her speed, which increased incredibly- it was another skill of hers. She could run like hell if she needed to. And now she needed to.

She didn't look at her feet but where she was going, weaving between people and things, winding through the halls until she met a wall. She turned around to run away again but when she did she faced instead the two figures, which had slowed to a walk. They were close enough now that she could tell that they were either gender. The woman approaching from the left was a short brown-haired thing and her companion seemed unshaven and reckless. Yume backed against the dead end, hissing, "What do you want?"

"You, girl," the woman said, voice and face both solemn. The man chuckled.

"How awesomely suspense-book-ish," he decided, grinning as recklessly as Yume had suspected. Her fingers twitched and eyes darted looking for an escape, but there was none apparent- and she wasn't quick enough. She saw her world go black and mute around her.

When she woke again, she was in a circle, maybe five feet in diameter. The outline of it glowed red against the darkness of the rest of the room- there were no lights that were on or lit. Blinking until her eyes adjusted to the lack of visibility, Yume tucked her feet under her and used them as supports as she rose to her knees to see what was going on. She leaned forward and placed a hand outside of the circle, but within seconds drew it back. Yume looked at her arm, and where the skin had touch ground there was grayish ashes on her skin. She brushed them off and her eyes grew wide as she understood.

She was being kept there.

Yume looked up wildly and cigarette ashes fell in her eyes. Gasping and squeezing her eyes shut as she wiped them off, she heard a familiar voice.

"Glad to see you're cooperating."

When she could see again, she recognized the woman with a cigarette in hand, glaring down at Yume with a slight smirk. The kidnapper, this woman with her fake authority, she licked her lips and said, "So, unless you want to be killed early, you better stay in that circle."

"Early?" Yume whimpered. "Who says I'll be killed at all?"

"Hades prefers his subjects… dead," the man explained. He winked at Yume before laughing to himself and going about his merry way by walking around the circle most menacingly. Yume almost jumped out of the circle at that.

"Hades?" she cried. "What are you talking about?"

Both of the adults blinked and exchanged a look, as if uncomfortable to explain the goings-on. The woman opened her mouth, shook her head, and passed the blame to her partner, who did nearly the same. Finally, he started, "Uh, sacrificial Sues. And everything."

"You're kidding me," she sighed. "I don't even know what that is."

"Sacrificial Sue? That's- uh- you right now." He shrugged. "Like, the Mary Sue to balance out the evil people in hell and all that jazz."

"What… a Mary Sue?"

A moment of silence passed, and Yume raised her eyebrow in front of them both. They were talking nonsense to her- an odd feat, as her IQ had been tested to be in the genius range. Before long, though, the woman picked up where he left off.

"It's someone obnoxiously perfect, but still hated by everyone in the story." She set her eyes on Yume as if accusing her. "Except for a main character, who falls in love with them."

It was nonsense again. Story? Characters?

"This isn't a book or anything, you know," Yume retorted, eyes rolling.

"No. It's fanfiction," said both, and they mumbled something in unison and the ground started to rumble with a force from beneath, almost like an earthquake. Yume grasped the stone beneath her with both pale hands, eyes widening so that the whole of her bright irises could be seen. The stone separated at the seams of mortar in front of the circle and the door, and a heat rose up from it. Something giant and black stepped out of the gaping hole that had formed and set neon yellow eyes on Yume.

"My… offering?" His voice was deep and powerful. Both of the kidnappers- as Yume had mentally decided they were- shivered a bit, but nodded. The demon, devil, Satan thing turned back to Yume, who was refusing to show any fear or emotion. Anything she could do to stay alive would be done.

Hades chortled. "This is my offering."

"Uh, yes, sir," the male kidnapper concurred. "It… it is."

"This isn't fit for any sort of offering," Hades snickered. Although he had no mouth in this form, Yume could tell he was smirking. "She's much too… Sue."

Yume shuddered. Even though she knew it was good that she wasn't being accepted, it was just like everyone else: they all hated her.

"But I thought that was what you want-"

"Just spork her, for God's sake." He waved a hand and fell back into the closing stone. A sort of gas filled the room and knocked everyone out.

Where Yume found herself this time was the hospital wing with the nurse and a familiar face both hovering over her. She was confused for only a moment before the full details of last night came crashing back to her. She sat up quickly, but two hands pressed her down to the bed again.

"No- they were trying to- I…" she tried to explain, but the nurse shushed her and the black-haired boy shook his head.

"We'll talk about it later." He shrugged. "Did I ever get to tell you my name?"

"Uhm, no," Yume said, giggling airily. "I was kidnapped before you could."

"It's Harry."

He gave her an odd look with those deep green eyes. Before she knew it, she was lost again, staring at them and all that emerald. They glittered uneasily but with compassion and patience. Her own eyes locked with them and she could feel this essence of calm and love, and her heart raced, warming-

She blinked before realizing nothing was moving yet again.

Yume groaned, sitting up again and glancing around. She flipped the sheet off of her legs, sliding off the bed onto the tile with bare feet. Scoping out every nook in the room for those two dreaded abductors, she partially crouched and stepped silently. Her heart raced for real this time, but with fear, not pleasure; she bit her lip with worry. They were back to get her, but she wouldn't let them this time.

She recognized a creak as a footstep. Whipping around, there was nothing, though, so she turned back to her direction and kept her eyes narrowed and focused. A pressure on her was something she noticed, but she refused to let herself call it fear, even though she expected one of the two to be behind anything bigger than a crouched adult. And although ten minutes passed with nothing happening, her fears never let down.

She was startled by a disgusting, squelching sound.

Yume gasped and turned before her eyes snapped themselves shut and she gagged. What was happening behind her was that the two kidnappers had both taken plastic sporks and were removing, most unflinchingly, uncaringly removing, Harry's eyes. It wasn't that there was blood- it didn't bleed in the lack of time- but the whole aspect of the removal of someone's eyes was enough to make her choke. The two tossed each once-lovely eye into a small metal bowl and wiped out the boy's sockets with cotton balls, retrieved from a jar full of white fuzz. Between shaking breaths, Yume announced, "You people are- are- you're sick!"

Without missing a beat, the man replied, "Yes we are, sweetheart."

His female other snapped her fingers, starting up time again, and manned herself with the spork she'd used earlier to 'de-eye' Harry, whose empty sockets were marked by raised eyebrows before he began to scream and bleed. With the red dripping down his face, he collapsed to the tile and sobbed, as did Yume- but out of shock, not pain. The woman holding the spork like a vicious weapon sighed. "Pity for you both."

The utensil was flung, and as soon as it collided with Yume's fair skin, she collapsed and imploded into a piece of unflattering paper. Someone- one of the captors- picked it up and lit the corner on fire. As it burned, the room was filled with smoke and the sound of the Harry boy's pained crying.