A.N. Yes, it's me again. I hope you found this wait to be significantly shorter than the other one (because it was). I should have the next chapter up soon, it's just a matter of finding the time to type it up on the computer. Reviewer thanks at the end as always.
Disclaimer: As much as I would love to be able to claim owner ship of this world, I can't. All J. K.'s
Chapter Nineteen: Screaming
By Friday, Jessica was starting to have doubts about her project. She had found a few potions for detection of specific poisons, but nothing else. She knew the key to this project would be finding a common denominator amongst the potions, but as she stared at the various recipes she began to despair of ever finding it.
The lunch bell sounded for the second time that day, and Jessica reluctantly stood and began to gather up her things to head down to Potions. She was not looking forward to explaining to Pansy why she had so little material. As she trudged down to Potions her stomach began to rumble. She'd skipped lunch to work on her potion, so now she had to make her way down to the dungeons by herself, and she was starving. She should have gone down to the kitchens to grab something. Oh well, it was too late now.
She just barely made it to the Potions classroom on time, automatically earning her a cold glare from Professor Snape. She ignored this and headed towards her new seat next to Parkinson.
"You will have half of this class to do research in the library," Snape said, once he'd finished glaring at Jessica. "In precisely one and a half hours I will expect each and every one of you to be back in this classroom. Those who are not will stay after class so that a proper punishment may be decided. I will also check with Madame Pince to ensure that all of you go to the library. Skiving off will not be tolerated. You may leave."
Jessica stood up again, annoyed. She had a sneaking suspicion that she would be spending the next month in the library. Pansy stood also, and the two of them began the long trudge to the library.
Once they reached the library, Pansy surprised Jessica by pulling out a list of several books, and then going off to look for them. She returned and set the books down on the table, then gave Jessica an appraising look.
"So, what have you found out then?" she demanded.
"Not much," Jessica admitted grudgingly. "I found the Basilum Solution, Creati Potion and something for Nightshade detections, but I can't find any correlation between them.
"Of course you can't, you're just a Gryffindor," sneered Pansy. She them handed over an extensive list of potions which made Jessica's eyes feel like they were about to pop out of her head.
"Where did you get this?" she asked in amazement.
"There are advantages to having a Potions Master as your head of house," Pansy answered smugly.
"He wrote this for you?"
"No, but he did point me towards the book which I copied the list from."
"Good job," Jessica said, her voice half grudging, half admiring. "Now, I'm going to need a recipe for each one of these." She stared at the list. There had to be at least forty potions listed on the parchment. "Are these all the detection potions that exist?"
"I'm not sure," Pansy said, her smug demeanour finally evaporating. "I'll ask Professor Snape tonight."
"Right." Jessica stared at the list a moment more, then used a severing charm to divide it evenly. "Let's try to find these. We've only got and hour and –" She checked her watch. " – fifteen minutes."
"I'll take these." Pansy snatched the top half of the list from Jessica's hands and hurried off into the bookshelves. Jessica paused a minute to check the books already on the desk, then followed Pansy.
Twenty minutes later she returned to the table, with her arms full of books. Pansy was sitting at the table, hidden by a stack of books so high that Jessica didn't see her at first.
"Get copying," Pansy ordered, without looking up from the potion she was copying. "The less of these books we have to take back to the classroom with us the better."
Jessica bristled at the bossiness of Pansy's tone, but then she took a deep breath and sat down. Remember the truce, she told herself. Once you finish the project then you can go back to hating each other. She cleared a space on the table and pulled a piece of parchment and a quill out of her bag. She opened one of the books and began searching for the page she'd dog-eared, then, upon finding it, began copying the instructions.
Forty-five minutes, five books, six or seven hand cramps and a backache later, she checked her watch. They'd only made a small dent in the books they had to get through. She reached across the table and tapped Pansy on the arm. To her surprise, Pansy jumped, then fixed her with a glare.
"Sorry, but we'd better start getting the books down to the classroom if we don't want to be late."
"Fine." With a sigh, Pansy pointed at the pile of eight books or so she had gotten through and said, "If you put away the books we've already used, I'll go and get Madame Pince's permission to take the others out of the library."
"Deal." Jessica grabbed Pansy's stack of books and hurried off to place them back on the shelves.
By the time she had gotten all the books back into their places, Pansy had gotten all the other books up to Madame Pince's desk, where she was having a heated with discussion with the Head Librarian.
"-but we need it, we have a project in Potions!" Pansy was protesting.
"I already told you Miss Parkinson, the answer is no!" Madame Pince said stubbornly. "Now lower your voice or I'll ban you from the library!"
"What's the matter?"
"She won't let me borrow Potions and Poisons of the 18th Century," Pansy responded, her voice surly.
"It's a library copy and it doesn't leave the library," Madame Pince said.
"Take the other books down to the classroom." Jessica sighed. She couldn't believe she was going to do this; Pansy wouldn't even properly appreciate it… "I'll stay up here and copy the directions we need."
Pansy looked at her a moment, as if to attempt and determine if the other girl was serious. She seemed to decide that she was serious, because then she charmed the books to be weightless and hurried out of the library as though afraid Jessica might change her mind. Jessica watched her leave, then grabbed the book and hurried over to the nearest table to copy down the recipe. She took special care to ensure that Madame Pince didn't see the way she smoothed out the corner she had folded over to mark the page the recipe was on. The head librarian pitched a fit if you even breathed on her precious books incorrectly; Jessica shuddered to think of how she would react if she knew that students dog-eared pages.
It took her fifteen minutes to copy down the potion, and she knew without being told, that Snape would, at best, be very, very annoyed. She hoped he didn't kill her. It took another five minutes just to walk back down to the Potions classroom, all five of which were spent wondering how Snape was going to react. Probably by being his normal arse-hole self and taking off points. She took a deep breath, then, as quietly as possible, opened the door to the Potions classroom and, failing to see Snape, stepped confidently into the classroom.
The door slammed shut behind her and as she turned to look she saw that Snape had been standing behind the door. He fixed her with a glare and said, "Because of your lateness, Miss Banks, the entire class has been prevented from working on their projects. Twenty points from Gryffindor. You will remain after class to receive your detention. Now take your seat, or I may have to deprive the esteemed Gryffindor house of yet more points."
She headed to her seat, feeling terribly annoyed, though she knew she shouldn't have been. She had chosen to stay in the library and be late. She could have left the book there and come back after class, but then she ran the risk that someone else would be using it.
"What took you so long?" Pansy grumbled.
"I would have thought you'd welcome a chance not to work," Jessica said back, rolling her eyes. She dropped the parchment in front of Pansy. "I have the recipe. Now, why don't you study the recipes. If you find anything that's the same or similar, write it down. I'll work on copying the rest."
In the remaining hour or so, Jessica managed to copy down six more recipes. Her hand was aching like crazy now. By the time I'm finished with this project, I'm going to be incapable of holding a quill, she thought wryly.
"Class is dismissed," Snape's voice rang out through the dungeon. Jessica glanced at the books she hadn't copied from yet. Before she could finish, Pansy grabbed ten or so and put them with her things.
"I'll take these," the Slytherin said, quickly, obviously eager to get away.
"All right," Jessica said. Then, after a moment's hesitation, she asked, "Will you meet me in the library tomorrow?"
"If I'm not busy," Pansy said, her voice superior. "Unlike you, I have a life." She then gathered up everything and headed out of the classroom, meeting with some of the other Slytherin girls on the way out.
Jessica sighed. I should have expected that. At least she didn't refuse to consider the idea though.
"Banks," Snape said. With yet another sigh (what was it with her and sighs lately?) she stood up and headed up to the front of the classroom. While she knew she should be apprehensive, she just didn't have it in her. Sure she was going to resent whatever her punishment happened to be, but she was already stuck with detention with him for two weeks, it certainly couldn't get very much worse.
As she reached Snape's desk, she kept her eyes on her shoes, hoping she wouldn't have to endure one of his long-winded speeches. These speeches always seemed to boil down to, "I'm punishing you because you're an annoying/impertinent/witless/juvenile dunderhead." He seemed to take particular pleasure into being able to imply you were all four of these too.
"I do not talk to the top of student's heads, Banks," Snape snapped. He waited until she looked up and met his eyes before he continued. "Another night of detention has been added for your lateness in class today."
Having expected as much, she nodded and said, "Yes sir." Then she turned around and went back to her desk to finish packing up her things.
The weekend blurred, mostly because it involved a great deal of studying in the library. Pansy helped her briefly on Saturday afternoon, but aside from that she stayed well clear of Jessica. So she was left, for the most part, to study on her own. Jessica had never been good at studying, so while it was no surprise to find her thoughts trailing off when a text got boring, it was irritating, because it made any real progress difficult.
The weekend also blurred for another reason. Snape's detentions had become normal, boring, menial labour detentions. The only part that wasn't normal was the fact that he made her drink the potion at the beginning of each one. She hated this, not just because the dratted thing tasted foul, but also because it made her feel like an errant child who could not be left alone for five minutes without doing something wrong. She understood that this was because she had acted like an errant child, but she also knew that she'd learned her lesson. Snape's "purging" potion had made it quite clear to her that she'd made a very stupid mistake. She just wished Snape would realize that.
She woke early on Monday morning, and immediately knew that she wouldn't be able to fall asleep again. Hermione had apparently done some research on the Occluding Potion and discovered that one of its oh-so-lovely effects just so happened to be sleeplessness. Snape's detentions meant she had no problems falling to sleep, but once she woke up in morning, that was it, she had to get up. This was, needless to say, quite annoying, because it interfered with her plans to sleep in on the weekends.
Jessica got up and checked the time; she was up about an hour before most of the girls in the dorm got up. She dressed quickly, and then, bored, headed over to the window. As she peered out she could see that a heavy fog lay over the grounds. She gritted her teeth. Well, Care of Magical Creatures will be fun won't it? She thought sarcastically. Not like I was actually hoping for sun or anything… She knew it wouldn't be so bad to actually walk in, but still, she didn't relish the idea of her sight being impaired when dealing with whatever dangerous creature Hagrid decided to have them work with. She could only just barely make out the path the carriages took. And speaking of carriages…
A lone horseless carriage could be made up making its way up towards the castle. Jessica's mind spun as she tried to think of who it could be. As far as she knew, Draco was the only student who was on a leave right now. Could it be Draco? There was only one way to find out.
She hurried from Gryffindor tower as quickly as she could without waking anyone, then headed down to the Entrance Hall. Just as she reached the bottom of the steps to the gigantic hall one of the doors opened, and Draco came through the door, pulling his seemingly weightless trunk behind him. Jessica couldn't help a smile from breaking out on her face. Despite the fact that they hadn't been on the best of terms when he left, she realized she'd missed him.
She took a few steps forward, about to call out a greeting when another person stepped through the doorway. She realized she'd seen him before; here was the man whose features so closely resembled Draco that they could only be family. Jessica watched him, using these few seconds to take the man in. Tall, and well-built, he carried himself with the air of a person who thinks the entire world belongs to them. He wore black robes, but the style was fancier than she was used to seeing, as was the material. Black gloves covered his hands, one of which loosely held a small staff with and ornamental snake head on it. He wore his white-blonde hair down, and she could see that it was at least longer than shoulder length. She met his icy blue eyes, and a feeling of de ja vu struck her, as though, she had seen him somewhere other than in that carriage with Draco.
"You must be Miss Banks," he said, and Jessica nearly froze in shock. That voice! She knew that voice. That voice had been in her nightmares, the ones with Voldemort. He was a Death Eater.
He seemed to notice her sudden wariness, for a smirk flitted across his face.
"Lucius Malfoy," he said, by way of introduction. He extended his hand towards her, and Jessica found herself approaching him and shaking it. What in the world was she doing?
He doesn't know that you know he's a Death Eater, he can't be sure, her mind warned. Don't let on that you know. He's dangerous.
He seemed to study her a moment, then said, "Draco's told me so much about you."
"Is that so?" she asked, trying to sound unconcerned. His words were innocent enough, but warning bells were going off inside her head, and she knew she would have to tread lightly.
"Oh, yes. It is so very tragic, the disappearance of your grandmother."
She visibly stiffened, and shot a look at Draco, whose face had gone curiously blank. How dare he, a Death Eater, mention the disappearance of her grandmother? She saw another smirk on the man's face and realized he'd said it just to provoke her. Bastard, she thought viciously, and she felt a kind of furious recklessness seize her. Treading lightly be damned, how dare he even talk to her?
"How dare you talk about my grandmother?" she hissed at him. "I know what you are and you wouldn't be fit to be the ground she walked on!"
"Temper, temper, Miss Banks," he responded, his eyes now cold. "You know, just because you have nightmares is no reason to take it out on others."
Jessica stared at him now, caught between fury and fear. "My dreams are not of your business, Malfoy," she said, her voice quiet. "My life is none of your business. Stay out of it, Death Eater."
She heard a sharp intake of breath from Draco but she didn't care if she'd crossed the line. She turned on her heel and began to stride away.
"Your grandmother is very good at screaming," Lucius Malfoy said lazily to her departing back.
She felt herself go rigid, as though she'd just been hit with a full Body-Bind. The meaning of his words sank in and slowly she turned back to look at him.
"What?" Despite her greatest efforts, she couldn't keep the slight tremor from her voice.
Malfoy smiled. "Oh, I believe you heard me."
She wanted to leave, knew that she ought to leave, that anything he said now would just be an attempt to hurt her, but his eyes seemed to have obtained a hypnotic quality, and she found that she could neither respond, nor turn away.
"It was all she did in the beginning. She wouldn't beg, you see." Those icy blue eyes were filled with mocking as they held her gaze. "It was days before we could make her beg. It was quite worth the wait though. She was almost as good at begging as she was at screaming."
A painful kind of tightness had seized her chest and Jessica had to struggle to hold back the tears that threatened to spill over.
"You bastard," she whispered, "You fucking bastard." Unable to stand any more, unable to keep the tears back, she turned away from Malfoy one last time and fled from the Entrance Hall.
And as promised…
Reviewer Thanks:
Litasha1987: A new reader! Excellent! I'm glad you liked it, you have to tell me what you thought of this chapter!
Bewitched-Babe: Thank you. I'm glad you haven't left, and I'm glad you liked it.
Trinka: Ah, glad I can keep you interested. I know what you mean about not being able to review, but I always read. No, I made up the seripharum, but I tied it to the harpy because I wanted it to look more "authentic".
MooseDeEvita: I'm glad you liked it. I haven't moved on yet, I am determined to finish this story first. But I did have major writer's block. Combine that with no time and well, need I say more?