'Where am I?' Kass thought frantically, forgetting the events that had recently occurred, wondering why she was suddenly on a comfortable bed and not squished in a closet.
Suddenly all of the memories rushed back to her and she instantly calmed her tense body and lay back down onto the pillows. Her thoughts went back to reliving her old memories. Her aunt and uncle were beyond cruel, even for Death Eaters. She had only moved to Grimmauld a few weeks before. Kass used to live in America, in a city much worse than that, though for most people that would be hard to imagine. In the city she used to live in, chances are the first time you stepped out of your house you would be murdered or tortured if you didn't grow up there. Any muggle or muggleborn entering the city would be killed by Death Eaters on sight, like some sadistic game, and even got to the point where Aurors gave up trying to save the city and just put some muggle repelling charms on the edges. So much dark magic was in the air that the sun was constantly blocked from view. Only around five children didn't agree with the Death Eaters view in the whole city, and it was heart-breaking to see such young children selling and using every kind of drug, killing and torturing people in plain sight with no one stopping them, most people jeering along with them. Nothing was left unvandalized, and no one was ever safe. Dementors constantly roamed the streets, causing a constant shiver, even on the hottest day of summer.
Though this didn't stop her foster parents from hurting them more. No, they felt that the children deserved it, and joined in on the torture, going so far as to lock them in closets, wandless, and with a few dementors for days on end, no matter how young they were. They beat Kass and her siblings so badly that they would sometimes nearly die, and did it daily. They even killed three of her siblings – two brother's named Justin and Andy, and Andy's twin sister Anna. Sometimes they even kicked them out of the house for a few days, leaving them to fend for themselves, and it was amazing that they didn't die from that.
Coming back to the present, Kass glanced at the clock on the nightstand next to her. It was 2:00 A.M. She doubted that anyone else was awake at the moment, and listened for a second to make sure, but the only noise that came was the hooting of owls from outside of the house and the rush of wind. She sighed, knowing that she would never be able to get back to sleep now, unless there was another Dreamless Sleeping Potion. Hopefully, Kass's eyes sped toward the dresser, but, alas, no potion. Kass's eyes felt heavy, and she knew all of the years with no natural sleep was weighing down on her.
Wondering what to do to pass the time, Kass settled on practicing or learning some of the spells of books she had stolen from the house next to her. Sure, they were filled with dark magic, but they also had very useful spells in them. Kass grabbed her wand, which she had just noticed was on the nightstand next to the clock. Reaching into her pocket, she snatched something, around the size of a folded post-it note, and tapped it with her wand. Before she could blink, she was holding a huge book in her hands, leather bound with no title on the cover and about the sized of a cereal box. She read:
'A pensieve is a great tool for any wizard or witch, as it allows them to review any memory in any point of view, providing a great number of Wizengamont members to conduct fair trials, and many dark wizards to discover their enemies. It is also possible to obtain memories from another witch or wizard, although they are easily blocked by any form of legilimency (see page 968), or it may be distorted with any warning prior to the attack, thus the witch or wizard trying to obtain the memory usually must obtain it by a surprise attack unless retrieved with permission. The pensieve is usually kept in a stone basin, most likely with some link to a ancient powerful event or wizard, and is more a less a potion in which the person or object enters by a simple touch. They will then 'fall' straight into the memory and walk along as they please as long as they don't leave the person's sight who originally gave the memory. A memory is stored into a pensieve by putting a wand to their head, fully concentrating on the certain memory, and on extracting it as they slowly pull the wand away from their temple. Then it is simply set over the basin and falls into the pensieve. Stealing a memory is much more complicated (see page1,481).
However, there are negative points to this. If a person is a legilimens, which presumably means they need their memories hidden, then this might not be the best choice, depending on the circumstances, since anyone is able to view the pensieve and travel from memory to memory. But a security measure for this is included in the potion, only allowing the owner to exit with those he/she wants to exit with them. This is done by plainly focusing all of your thoughts on exciting the pensieve, as well as any other occupant. It is very useful since a memory charm can be used against any unwanted person in the pensieve if it is considered necessary. You can also concentrate on whatever memory you wish to travel to to arrive at that particular memory.
There are very few pensieves, since not many witches or wizards have access to the ingredients, and those who do usually either consider it a waste of time or do not have enough time to create the potion. Only very powerful witches and wizards are capable of casting the spell used on the potion to create the pensieve. The main ingredients are…'
Listed were the ingredients needed for the potion, going on further to explain how to create it and cast the spell. 'The book wasn't joking when it said it was difficult,' Kass thought, glancing dubiously at the book, soon rolling her eyes at the absurdity of that thought. But she thought she would be able to find all of the ingredients, somewhere in Grimmauld. It seemed like an interesting item to have. Kass noted the page number before flipping through the book to the spells, practicing the ones she needed some work on, like glamor charms and more difficult non-verbal spells and healing charms, though it wasn't long before she became exhausted from the extra energy she was exerting while she should be healing.
Kass cursed at herself for letting herself be so weak, especially in the middle of a war. Or at least the beginning. Most of the aurors didn't know anything about it yet, but attacks were happening everywhere. Two of her friends had been killed right in front of her very eyes from Death Eater raids, causing her other friend to slit her throat while Kass had been helpless to do anything about it, to save any of them. She had to be ready to fight, to get revenge for their deaths, and her family's deaths. Kass wouldn't let them get away with everything they had done to her, she couldn't stand on the sidelines when the war began to get out of hand, when she got just a little bit older. This fierce determination was the only thing that kept her fighting back at her guardians when they beat and starved her.
Kass sighed as she realized she wasn't going to get any better just wasting all her energy, as she felt weaker than ever, and lay down, pulling herself under the fluffy blankets. A armth filled her body and she turned onto her side, facing the clock which now read 4:28 A.M. Kass raised her eyebrows at the fact the nearly two and a half hours had passed. 'Guess I was studying more than I thought," Kass thought to herself. She brushed her hair out of her face in annoyance and lay her head on the feathery pillow, wishing sleep to come foolishly as she knew she would never get to sleep out of her own free will.
Lost in her thoughts, Kass happened to be very surprised when she looked out of the large window into bright sunlight, leaving rays of light on the carpeting. Kass raised her eyebrows and began to climb out of the bed, but quickly jumped back onto the covers as though the floor burned her, wincing as she landed. Her leg felt like it was broken in a few places. Kass gazed down to her leg and saw that it was in a cast and had bandages all over it, blood showing from some places underneath. She figured the skin was probably completely ripped off in many places from the looks of it. Glaring at nothing in particular, she lay back down on the bed.
"Now this is just wonderful. Of course I just missed the spell for regrowing skin. Now I can't walk for a while, which means I'm stuck in bed. Great," Kass said bitterly.
"It's not very good to talk to yourself. People might think you're crazy," Jake walked into her room, grinning slightly at her expense.
"This isn't funny. My leg hurts like hell now the potions wore off. And, by the way, what are you talking about 'think I'm crazy'? Everyone already knows that I'm crazy," Kass said in a completely serious voice, though obviously pretty annoyed.
Jake simply rolled his eyes and tossed her a vial of a shimmery blue potion which Kass had just noticed he was holding, "Here, this will temporarily end the pain, but it will come back later, and apparently it's too dangerous to take to many of these potions in such a short amount of time, so you'll have to wait a few hours after the potions stopped working before you can take another."
Kass groaned before sitting back up, "When can I get out of here?"
"I don't know," Jake shrugged, "Probably a few days if Mrs. Potter lets you. She's ranting about keeping you in this room for a month, but I don't think she's going to do that. Anyway, we can't since we need to leave in a few days so we don't put them in danger."
"Oh, yeah. We really need to get back there, I mean, how long have we been gone from the house?" Kass whispered softly, talking not to Jake, but to herself.
It's not that Kass actually wanted to go back to that house. It was exactly the opposite; the house made her life a living hell, and she wasn't going to go forgiving them anytime soon. Actually, she would be perfectly fine if the died, and would be jovial at the opportunity to murder them herself with her bare hands after everything they had done. But it was too dangerous. All of the Aurors, the Ministry and Minister, and all of the Death Eaters were at her aunt and uncle's command, as long as it didn't conflict with Voldemort's orders. In addition to this, they were too lazy to do any work themselves. Obviously, this caused Jake and Kass to be their own slaves, and source of amusement when they were stressed and needed someone to torture. They considered house elves to be 'filthy creatures, much more unfit to do work than a human' and it was 'a pity they had to outlaw human slavery so soon'. Of course, this view was held by many Death Eaters, though few actually carried the practice out.
And back to the point, they kicked the two children out of the house often with the intent for them to return in no more than a week, and if they ever happened to die, well, then the two Death Eaters would just have to find a couple new slaves. But under no circumstances could they run off and find a new home, leaving them to go through all that trouble to find slaves. And the threat for if they did reach word that Kass and Jake hadn't actually died, but, Merlin forbid, actually found a loving family would be dire, and that family would be instantly tortured and killed, and the children would 'receive a beating beyond their imaginations'. So, they obviously had no choice. They would need to leave within a few days.
That single thought made Kass very depressed, and she slumped against the pillows once again with a scowl on her face. She had been hoping to stay much longer than that. But that feeling didn't last long, as just at that moment the door opened to reveal three arguing people.