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Emily sat there dumbstruck, she could barely breath, it was like all the air had simply been sucked out of her lungs. James Potter? A murderer? Surely not…
She knew he was a vicious, tormenting bastard but not a killer…
"I know what your thinking," said Mara with her newly discovered accent, "How could the brilliant James Potter do anything as bad as that?" her tone was mocking and her glare never faltered.
"That's not what I was thinking…" Emily's reply was barely a whisper.
"Oh yeah?" Mara's eyebrows rose so high they seemed to disappear into her greasy hairline, "What were you thinking then?"
Emily swallowed hard, then stood up with a jolt and ran out of the open door and into the snow-blanketed street, barely hearing the shouts of "Newbie! Come back!" as she sprinted down the road.
There was a crash as Mara burst out of the door behind her and snarled as she slid on the icy pavement outside the pub, "Newbie!" she shouted again as she fell to the ground in a heap, "EMILY! GET THE FUCK BACK HERE!"
Only then did Emily stop and turn back to look at the mass of black, snow covered robes and wild, badly dyed hair that was Mara.
"You're lying." She said quietly, "you have to be lying, James Potter is a lot of things but he isn't a murderer." she thought back to the times she had seen Lily and James holding hands out by the lake, she would never admit it but she had liked Lily for some time when she first met her, what would something like this do to her if she knew?
"Emily," Mara's voice was little more than a choked sob, "I wish I was lying," tears were now streaming down her face, smearing her black make-up, making her look like a twisted parody of a circus clown "I loved Kayden, would I really lie about something like this?" she buried her face in her hands and sat there in the snow sobbing.
Emily had no idea what to say, she didn't even know who Kayden was, all she knew was she had to get the whole story. And that would mean talking to Severus.
But from the way he had reacted to the mere mention of Kayden's name at breakfast, who knew what would happen when she tried to talk about him?
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By some sheer stroke of luck she made it back to the castle with Mara in tow.
She had done her best to help Mara to stop crying and managed to convince her to come back to the castle instead of sitting in the melting snow all day and all night.
They walked with a slow pace, as Mara was preoccupied with trying to wipe away all of the black marks under her eyes that were what remained of her make-up.
By the time they made it back to the castle all the make-up had disappeared and Emily was left standing next to a marginally normal looking Mara.
Emily sighed and ran a hand through her hair, "Could you tell Sev I wanna talk to him please?" they were sanding out side the entrance to the dungeons, Mara nodded and swung open the heavy iron door.
"I'll tell him, but I cant guarantee he'll come out," she turned and swept down the corridor, the door slamming behind her.
Emily had waited for more than an hour when she finally gave up and went to lunch. The food was delicious but she ate very little, neither Mara or Severus came to eat, and in the meantime she realised that she was receiving some very evil looks from the Slytherin she had shouted at at breakfast.
She walked miserably back to the Ravenclaw common room and sat for the rest of the day on her own in front of the fireplace flicking through the potions book Severus had given her. At one point she must have fallen asleep out of exhaustion as the next thing she knew she was being shaken awake rather roughly by someone that smelled of Lavender incense.
"Em, Em wake up!" she opened her eyes blearily and was surprised to see it was Lunesia who was shaking her.
"Lunesia…what are you doing here? You're meant to come back tomorrow afternoon," she rubbed her eyes and was equally surprised to see bright winter sunlight streaming in through the windows.
"Emily, it is tomorrow afternoon, its Boxing Day, I told you I'd be back today," she was wearing an amused expression, her eyebrows raised and a smirk twitching in the corners of her mouth.
"You mean I slept for a whole twenty four hours!" she couldn't believe she had slept so long, she must have been absolutely exhausted the day before.
Lunesia shrugged, "I dunno Em, anyways," she walked over to the chair opposite hers and bent down to rummage through a patchwork bag she had dropped on it when she arrived. She pulled out a small gift wrapped in silver paper. "Here's your present."
Emily rubbed her eyes again and took the present from Lunesia, she found where the edge of the paper had been neatly stuck together and pulled the shiny wrapping away to find a blue velvet box with Elizabeth Duke written in gold on the lid. She opened it to see a silver necklace with a sapphire star hanging from the chain. ((note: omg, I have this necklace!))
"Wow Lunesia, its beautiful!" she pulled it carefully out of the box and undid the clasp. She pulled her hair over her shoulder and attempted to do it up again.
Lunesia giggled, "I'll help," she said and walked behind Emily's chair and did up the clasp on the chain.
"Thank you," Emily said as she examined it in the mirror that hung above the fireplace.
"No problem," Lunesia replied, grinning, "So what have you got for me eh?"
Emily ran up to the dorm to fetch the earrings she had bought for Lunesia, while Lunesia sat down in the chair opposite hers and absently twirled a strand of her blonde hair round her finger.
Emily bounded back down the stairs and handed Lunesia the box with the earrings in, Lunesia opened it and her grinned widened at the sight. "Aw, thanks Em, their great!" she proceeded to take out the ones she was already wearing (which to Emily seemed to resemble large golden bells with green and red ribbon tied to them) and put them on instead.
"So, what did you do while I was gone eh? Me and my parents and Luca went skiing, it wasn't that much fun, I kept falling over," she laughed, not realising how Emily was now looking rather pale and dejected.
"Lunesia, do you know anything about a boy called Kayden Summers?" she had only just thought about the events of the day before, and now she remembered that she still had to talk to Severus about what Mara had told her…
Lunesia's head snapped up at the mention of the name, "Why do you want to know about Kayden? Who told you about him?"
"Mara Angelo," she said guiltily, "She said…She said James Potter killed him…"
"Mara Angelo exaggerates things," Lunesia snapped, Emily was surprised at Lunesia's suddenly cold tone, "That girl says a lot of things she knows nothing about,"
"She said she loved him, I hardly think she was exaggerating…" Emily gulped and prepared to ask the 'Million Dollar Question', "Did Potter kill Kayden?"
"I don't think so," replied Lunesia, she was staring into the fire, her hands clasped together in her lap.
Emily breathed a much-needed sigh of relief, "Thank god! So Kayden isn't dead?"
"Oh no," Lunesia closed her eyes and shook her head, "Kayden is very much dead, but Potter," she sighed also, "I don't think he really intended to kill Kayden, but still," her eyes turned cold, "It's hard to work out the motives of a person who finds tormenting people and calling them Snivellus and Loony Lovegood amusing…"
Emily once again had the feeling of all the breath being sucked out of her lungs with a vacuum cleaner, "So it's true…oh my god…" she pulled her feet up onto the chair and rested her chin on her knees, this was bad, this was terrible, more terrible than she could have thought. Severus and Lunesia were being bullied by a person who was capable of murder, what would happen when he finally decided he wanted to get rid of Severus? And what the hell would he do to him?…
Lunesia looked up from staring into the fire to see tears were falling down Emily's face in streams, she stood up and put her hand on Emily's shoulder, "Come with me," she said quietly, "There's something I want to show you."
She led her up to the dorm and began to rummage through her trunk, tossing various items of clothing aside until she pulled out a brown leather bound book with 'Photographs' on the front in silver lettering.
She began flipping through the pages with feverish speed until she came across the page she wanted. She muttered the counter-spell for the sticking charm she used to keep the pictures in place and picked out a photo and handed it to Emily.
"That's Kayden," she said, and she began to flick through the pages again.
The photograph had been taken in the courtyard outside the castle, a tall boy with long red hair sat at a bench reading. As Emily studied the picture the figure moved and looked up at her, a small smile spreading across his face.
He had watery blue eyes and a pale complexion, he also had a strange mark under his left eye in the shape of a starburst, Emily assumed it was some sort of birthmark. He wore baggy blue jeans with various chains hanging off of them and a black t-shirt with the slogan Anarchy across the front.
The figure stared at her a little longer then flicked a small piece of hair out of his eyes and went back to his reading.
Emily handed the photo back to Lunesia who stuck it back in its place in the book; she sat down on her now closed trunk and motioned for Emily to look at the others in the book.
"This was taken after I graduated first year," she said, absently pointing to a picture of a hyperactive looking blonde girl with bright, hippy style cloths and wide, starry eyes.
Emily giggled despite the depressed feeling she still had.
Lunesia smiled, "Yeah, I know. This one was hard to get, Mara, Severus and Kayden outside potions, second year,"
The figure of Mara was turned slightly to the right as if she had been walking away as the picture was taken; she was glaring out at them both with narrowed slits for eyes.
Severus looked extremely irritated, either it was because he didn't like being photographed, or he was uncomfortable with the fact that Kayden seemed to be holding him still so that he would be in the shot. Kayden was grinning widely.
She put out her hand to touch the picture and suddenly a white haze seemed to invade her vision and it felt like her hand was glued to the page, there was a flash of blue light and she was standing outside the potions classroom blinking wildly.
Her vision cleared and she almost had a heart attack when she realised she was standing just a few meters away from Lunesia who was waving a camera around excitedly.
"Come on guys! Just one picture!"
Severus was trying desperately to get away and out of Kayden's grasp, "Kayden! Get the hell off of me!"
"All she wants is one picture Sev, come on don't be a spoil sport!" Kayden had a smooth sounding voice with a slight Irish accent, he was laughing and holding Severus tightly around the waist.
Mara was edging away from the group as Lunesia spotted her and bounded over to her, "Hey Mara! How about you?"
"Piss off Lovegood, and get that frikkin camera outta mah face if ya know what's good for ya," Mara snarled.
Still Lunesia was unperturbed; she swung round on the three of them, raised the camera and snapped four shots, one after the other.
"Thanks!" and she skipped off in the direction of the entrance hall, followed by a long flow of cursing from Mara who seemed to have been temporarily blinded by the camera flash.
Severus tried to push Kayden away from him, "Fine! She's taken the goddamn picture, now lemme go!"
Kayden grinned slyly, "But I don't wanna!" and he tightened his grip.
"KAYDEN!"
With that final exclamation Emily was yanked back into the dorm with another blue flash. Lunesia was still rambling on about the other pictures she was pointing to, as if nothing had happened.
Emily blinked several times and tried to clear her head of the white mist that was still blocking her vision. Had she just been transported inside the photograph? Had she been imagining all of it? What had just happened?
Lunesia turned to see he with a worried expression on her face, "Hey, what's up?" she asked, concerned.
"N-nothing," she replied, "I was just…just thinking,"