Generations: Tales of the Last Stand
Part III
"Leshia!" That was her father's voice in the distance.
"Dad!" the girl cried back sounding frightened and she tore her gaze from those hypnotic eyes to see a figure stumbling through the smoke.
"Leshia?" The figure was turning this way and that.
"Dad is that you?" Leshia cried out frantically. In the distance the figure stopped pacing and seemed to turn towards Leshia. In an instant it started running towards her and as the smoke cleared Draco's frightened face came into view. The young man didn't stop running until he had reached his daughter and lifted her up into a powerful embrace.
"Thank God you're alright," he muttered into her ash-covered hair.
"Where's mum?" Leshia asked as the acrid air stung the back of her throat.
"She's fine, she's looking for you," Draco replied and he finally let go of his daughter, looking into her eyes with his brow dipped in concern. "Are you sure you're all right?" he asked firmly and Leshia quickly nodded, though the terror on her face was clear as day.
"Dad what's going on?" she asked in a tone barely louder than a whisper. "Is it Voldemort?" Draco smiled and shook his head.
"Cart full of damn Fire Whiskey exploded, it was an accident," he explained and he pulled the girl into the crook of his arm. "I don't think anyone's hurt."
"I didn't think that Fire Whiskey was supposed to blow up…it doesn't normally happen does it?" Draco sighed and shook his head.
"I'm the wrong person to ask sweetheart, you know I hate the stuff. Now come on, let's go and find your mother, she's probably having kittens by now." Together they stumbled through the hectic street, the whiskey laden smoky air burning at their lungs. They found Hermione frantically interrogating a crowd of alarmed looking locals as to the whereabouts of her daughter, but when Draco finally brought Leshia before the terrified mother Hermione left the poor villagers alone and then pounced on the bedraggled looking girl and hugged her in a tight embrace.
"We should get back to the castle," Draco told his wife softly, looking around the shocked onlookers suspiciously. Something didn't feel right.
"Yes," Hermione agreed and she started towards their cart, but it had gone missing.
"We'll have to apparate to the gates," Draco announced. His wife nodded quickly and then looked worriedly to her daughter.
"It's best you go with your father, I'm afraid I might leave part of you behind." Leshia grinned and nodded, before Draco pulled her from her mother to his side and wrapped his arm firmly around her. Moments later Leshia felt the odd sensation of hitching an apparating ride, before they all materialised in front of the Hogwarts Gates.
"I bet they heard the explosion from the castle," Leshia told her parents as they opened the magically sealed gate. "I bet everyone's really worried." She didn't see the dark glance pass between her parents, as her own mind was spinning of ways to terrify her friends by embellishing this story into astronomical proportions.
"Leshia you mustn't turn this into something it's not," Draco warned her as they walked up to the main door of the castle, well aware of how her mind worked. Leshia gave him a somewhat petulant look.
"I don't get it," she said with a frown. Draco raised his eyebrows.
"Oh yes you do, and I'm warning you, don't." He sounded so strict and sincere Leshia faltered, what was her father so worried about?
"We don't want to panic the wizarding world because a fire whisky cart accidentally caught fire do we sweetheart?" Hermione cut in soothingly, ever the peacemaker. Leshia wrinkled her brow in disagreement.
"It kind of exploded mum."
"Either way it was accidental," her mother persisted as they reached the school entrance and hurried in to the warmth. "There is no need to terrorise the school is there?" The girl exhaled heavily as she placed one foot on the stairs, ready to go up to her common room.
"No, I guess not," she finally sighed and hung her head, feeling incredibly putout by the whole night.
"Stay out of trouble you," Draco said with a smile and he reached out and ruffled the girl's hair. "And good luck tomorrow in training, don't fall off." Hermione looked highly alarmed at the prospect, but she leaned over and kissed her daughter's cheek without a word, before the two of them headed in the opposite direction. Frowning after them Leshia bade them goodnight, before she climbed the stairs, wondering where her parents were going. Their chambers were also up the grand staircase, it would seem, that they were heading for the venerable old headmaster's study. Evidently this harmless cart of fire whisky incident wasn't as harmless as they were trying to make out.
Pushing them from her mind, Leshia rushed back to her common room and rushed in to find her friends tangled in a messy heap on the settees. They were draped around the boys, and it would seem that most of the children from her year were all lazing around together. Feeling decidedly left out, and indescribably prickly at seeing Rodeo's legs draped over Katie's knees Leshia nodded briefly to them all before rushing up to their dormitory. It only took Katie and Rachel a few moments to join her; the former looking decidedly red in the cheek.
"What happened? Why are you back so early?" Rachel asked sounding confused.
"Yeah and what was that bang we heard earlier? Did something happen?" the raven-haired girl added sounding distinctly concerned. Leshia dropped down on her unmade bed, kicking off her boots and flopping back on her pillows.
"That bang was bad news," she grumbled. After glancing at one another with furrowed brows, the cousins dropped down around their friend, their expressions demanding more information. "Apparently it was a cart of fire whiskey exploding of its own free will, but I don't buy that."
"I thought hat fire whiskey barrels had spells on them to keep them from exploding," Katie said with a frown.
"Exactly!" Leshia complained and she sat up. "My parents are trying to turn this into something completely innocent, but you should have seen my dad, he was proper freaking out and he always stays calm! And to make matters worse, they were telling me this story of how they got together, and my mum let slip that she definitely was with that Viktor Krum guy before she and dad got married."
"Wow," her friends gasped.
"Yeah I know right? But before I could say anything my dad clamped up. He was angry at the thought of me even asking anything, I'm never going to get the truth out of him." The girls lapsed into silence, while Leshia toyed with the idea of mentioning those grey eyes to her friends. She was yet to tell them of the strange feelings she had that she was being followed, and preferred to keep it that way, lest they think her to be losing her mind. Besides, she wasn't even sure yet whether she wasn't just imagining it all; she had been under a lot of stress lately.
"You know Leesh," Rachel said slowly, in a tone that signified that either Leshia was about to hate or love her next suggestion. "Maybe…maybe you should just write to Krum and get it straight from the horse's mouth."
"Rachel no!" Katie exclaimed in horror, and she looked very much like she was about to clip her red-haired cousin round the ear for mentioning such a heinous suggestion, but Leshia was looking pensive.
"You know…that's not all that bad an idea," she eventually said thoughtfully. Katie's look of horror turned now to Leshia, who ignored her promptly. "What would I say?" Her question was directed at Rachel, as Katie was still looking too horrified for words.
"Leesh your dad would kill you!" the girl finally exploded worriedly. "And I don't mean just a little killing, but I mean proper 'bye-bye-Leshia-hope-you-enjoy-the-next-life' killing!" Leshia and Rachel gave her identical looks of bemusement.
"You know, he would go mental if he found out," Rachel finally conceded, looking to the smallest member of the trio with a look of grim agreement. Leshia however was smiling deviously, and this could only mean one thing: she was once more going to opt for the kamikaze option over common sense.
"Oh lord," Katie exclaimed exasperatedly, and she climbed to her feet. "Be it on your own head Leshia, your dad is going to blow his top this time." With this the sultry raven haired girl flounced from the room, hiding her look of extreme worry from her friends; she didn't want Leshia to drive a wedge into the seamless relationship she enjoyed with Draco, it would break her heart to see them drift apart. She and her own father had never enjoyed the closeness Leshia held with Draco and it was another thing she had always envied her friend for.
"She's such a wuss," Rachel chuckled once Katie had left, but Leshia watched her go with a slight pang of annoyance, wondering whether the taller girl was going to bleed her heart out to Rodeo in the common room, and whether he would once more sling his legs over her. "Earth to Leesh? Hello? Is there anybody home?"
"What?" Leshia finally managed, turning to look at her friend in surprise.
"Yeah I thought as much," Rachel sighed with a smirk. "You have now idea do you?"
"About what?" Leshia asked curiously as she jumped from the bed to search for a piece of parchment.
"About what you're going to write in this letter of yours." Leshia grinned and took out a quill.
"Oh come on, you mean 'Dear Mr Krum, have you ever had relations with my mum? Yours sincerely Leshia Malfoy' isn't good enough?" the girl asked cheerfully as she dipped her quill in ink. Rachel grinned and shook her head.
"You're going to have to try harder than that mastermind."
Dear Viktor Krum, ("You know my dad once told me he loved being called Vicky," Rachel had suggested with a thoughtful expression, though her idea was promptly rebuked by Leshia rolling around with laughter on the bed.)
My name is Leshia Malfoy; we met at the World Cup in the summer? My mum is Hermione Malfoy and you nearly got in a fight with my dad Draco. ("Leesh, you can't put that!" "Well why, they did!") I know you knew my mum back when you were in school. I was wondering, could you tell me what happened between you and her? ("No Rach, I wasn't serious about the whole 'are you, or have you ever had relations with my mum' thing!" "Oh why not, it's classic!" But try as Rachel might, Leshia would not budge on the issue.) I know you have some sort of history, and well, I would really like to know!
Yours sincerely,
Leshia Malfoy
"I still think you should have pulled the relations line," Rachel sulked as Leshia rolled up the piece of parchment and walked over to the window. The blonde girl grinned at her friend with a shake of her head as she opened the window and held out her arm. Within moments a large tawny owl had flown to the sill and waited patiently while Leshia attached the letter to its leg.
"Bring this to Viktor Krum okay?" she told it, and with a hoot the owl assented and departed into the night. Leshia watched it disappear into the dark until the dormitory door flew open and a jubilant Nicola and Ashley burst in chattering about the latest gossip.
"Ooh shut that window Leesh, it's freezing in here," Ashley complained and Leshia quickly pulled herself back into the room, wondering why Katie hadn't returned. As though sensing her thoughts Rachel asked,
"Where's Katie?"
"Oh she said she wanted to stay up with the boys, they're having some sort of exploding snap competition," Nicola explained light-heartedly, as though this didn't seem in the same league as the rumour that Clarice Hedgegrove of Hufflepuff had been seen holding hands with David Sykes of Ravenclaw at lunch. Feeling exceedingly disgruntled, Leshia closed herself within her curtains and changed, while Rachel was drawn into the gossip grapevine.
"Night," Leshia called to the three of them half-heartedly, before she rolled over in bed and stared at the family picture she had stuck up on her bedpost. They were all smiling while Hermione stared adoringly at the rough and tumble game Draco had just initiated with Leshia…it seemed a lifetime ago.
XXX
The following morning Leshia woke early before her friends and changed into her training gear, feeling a renewed rush of excitement as she pulled on her longed-after England quidditch jersey. Trying to be as silent as a mouse she crept out of the dormitory and down to the great hall where a handful of early-risers were silently eating their breakfast. Leshia however, was the very first Gryffindor to arrive and she sat down at her usually seat serving herself a meagre portion. Slowly she started to eat, feeling a sense of calm wash over herself. None of last night's temper had returned, and for the first time all week, Leshia felt entirely relaxed. Her punishment with Snape had been revoked after the card-room incident, and finally, after a summer of hall-racing and messy quidditch tournaments at the burrow, Leshia was finally going to get to get the chance to spread her wings once more as it were and really let loose. She'd missed the feeling of the wind in her face and the weightlessness flight offered her.
The Gryffindors seemed to be especially lazy on this Saturday morning, as by the time Leshia had finished, not one of her housemates had joined her. Not putout in the slightest by this fact, the girl turned to go, but as she swung her leg over the bench a piece of parchment caught her eye…or rather, the scowling face on the front did. With long silver hair, and pointed features, the face of Lucius Malfoy was unmistakable. Before Leshia could stop to think the parchment was in her hand and she found herself staring into the troubled eyes of her grandfather. Their remoteness stirred intense feelings of unease in the girl, and she could have sworn she'd seen those eyes before. Remembering her dream she realised why they held such a feeling of helplessness over her, and fearing company, Leshia quickly shoved the parchment into her pocket. Not a moment too soon either, as at this moment the door behind the staff desk opened and both Leshia's cheerful looking parents emerged. Seeing their daughter they nodded happily to her and she returned their greeting quickly. In an instant Draco sensed she was hiding something, but before he could start towards her Leshia had hopped off the bench and after waving briefly to them she rushed off.
The young girl didn't stop until she'd made it back to her bed, where she shut the curtains after herself, blocking out the snoring of her still-sleeping friends. With trembling fingers she unfolded the parchment and stared once more into the dark face of her grandfather.
"Who are you," she whispered and she traced her fingers over the man's portrait. Finally her eyes were drawn to the scribbled writing underneath the picture and she began to read – with difficulty as the scrawl had been written in a hurry with not much care for whoever poor fool was going to try and read it, one might think in fact that the writer had not intended it to be shared.
Lucius Malfoy. Unconfirmed death? Missing in action, Auror of unknown identity reported death. Not trustworthy. Most dangerous of all death-eaters still at large. Suspected keeper of the final horcrux secret. If he's dead, Voldemort's secret dies with him and the dark lord will rise again. Of highest importance to find Lucius Malfoy.
Highest risk bracket: Hermione Granger (missing) and the child. Highest level suspects: Draco Malfoy and the child. Do not trust the Malfoys. Repeat, do not trust the Malfoys. Suspect the child.
Lucius is a hard one; he would kill his own to revenge his master. Have pity on those who come before him.
He is not dead.
Leshia reread the scrawl several times, making sure she had read every word correctly, before she allowed herself to sit back on her heels and stare ahead with a horrified expression. After a few moments a rattling sound alerted her to the fact that her hands were shaking and she promptly hid the note away under her pillow. Who had written it? It was evidently someone in the ministry, or perhaps someone independently fighting Voldemort's reign. More to the point, what on earth was a Horcrux? Leshia knew that the threat of Voldemort was not yet laid to rest, but she also knew that the chances of him returning in her lifetime were slim as all of his followers had been killed reportedly, and that without them, his chances were very slim.
But this note said otherwise. The very thought of darkness returning forced Leshia to push open her curtains and physically let the light in. If Voldemort returned his main target would be… Feeling slightly sick Leshia reached under her bed and pulled out her broom. She needed to clear her thoughts; she needed to push away the feeling of sickly-terror that was churning her insides this way and that. As she was climbing from her bed though, the curtains on the bed beside hers flew open and Rachel's sleepy face grinned at her.
"You're getting an early start," she exclaimed hoarsely, rubbing at her tired eyes to force away the sleep. Leshia nodded briskly.
"Yeah," she managed and started heading towards the door, aching to get away. This was not the time for telling her friends what she had found on the note.
"Leesh? You okay?" Rachel asked with a frown, and she stood stock still, one hand still balled up in her eye socket.
"Yeah I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?"
"You look like you've seen a ghost," Rachel remarked, now approaching her friend cautiously.
"Don't be stupid Rachel," Leshia complained and she finally backed into the door of the dormitory. Without waiting for her friend's response she darted through the door and was gone, leaving Rachel staring after her in complete confusion.
"Katie," the redhead finally called out loudly, as she marched over to her cousin's bed and flung the curtains open revealing an exhausted and grumpy looking Katie. "What did you do last night?" The taller girl's expression instantly turned stony.
"Absolutely nothing," she said pointedly and she sat up in bed pushing her duvet off herself.
"Well Leesh just stormed out and she called me stupid…"
"You are being stupid." Ignoring her cousin's quip Rachel carried on. Whereas normally she would be mid-wrestling match at this point, Leshia's behaviour was too peculiar for her to digress into a giggling maniac.
"Well she wouldn't just snap like that unless something had happened, I mean this is Leesh, she's the very definition of 'chilled out'," Rachel complained sounding a little forlorn. What was happening to those around her? Why was everybody changing, just when she needed things to stay the same? Katie sensed Rachel's discomfort, so she softened her expression.
"Look whatever's going on with her right now, I didn't do anything, I swear!" Rachel sighed sounding very much relieved, before a cheeky grin spread onto her face.
"So you weren't off snogging Rodeo behind the banners last night then?" Katie's eyes went wide and she managed to make an extremely haughty noise before lunging at her cousin, initiating the wrestling match Rachel had managed so well to avoid. And for a few moments, neither one felt the pressures of their impending teenage years and all the melodramas they would bring, and managed to cling on to a few precious more childhood moments. Well, that was until Nicola split them up by pouring her jug of water over them, and giving them a very cantankerous look that told them they had woken her from her beauty sleep.
XXX
"She's acting odd," Draco grumbled as he leaned back on his chair in Hermione's study. His sock-clad feet were on her desk, messing up the papers she had been eager to mark, and yet Hermione couldn't tell him off, the mere normalcy of this situation was like heaven to her and she wanted it to last forever. Earlier that year she would have given anything to be sat in a room with her husband, enjoying the simple pleasures of the sun streaming in through the window warming her face, and highlighting the muscle definition across her husband's bare chest. His expression was slightly thunderous, and he was getting in the way, but she loved him more than any man, and it had been partly for these qualities that she had fell for the troubled Draco Malfoy. Some of her earliest memories of the time when she started to feel more than petulant annoyance for him; he would be sat brooding in the corner just as he was now. In some sense, she realised her love for him grew from an intense feeling to nurture him, to help slay those inner demons, to help him lay his dark past to rest.
"She's a twelve-year-old girl," Hermione chuckled, pushing her emotions away; they were starting to make her feel giddy with the notion that she was free. "Surely everything she does is odd to you?" Draco looked up with his furrowed brow and eventually he shook his head.
"No," he said decidedly. "She is acting strangely." Hermione smiled and looked away. It would seem she had a struggle on her hands. With Leshia growing up and becoming a little woman, Draco was going to have to come to terms with the fact that she was going to change. The pair of them had relied on one another for their sole support and love, so changing the dynamic of that relationship was going to come at a hard price. Draco would most likely end up heartbroken when the girl eventually found a young man of her own, but Hermione was prepared for that eventuality. She would help him through.
"I think it's to do with Katie," Hermione said softly as she rescued several essays from beneath her husband's feet.
"Katie? Why, what has she done?"
"Nothing," Hermione said genially and she smiled adoringly at the look of frustrated confusion on her husband's face. "Draco haven't you noticed that our daughter is…well…small?" Draco still looked terribly confused.
"Well she's a little girl," he complained eventually. Hermione smiled even broader and even this was beginning to annoy Draco; the fact that his wife had all the answers as far as their daughter was concerned because she knew exactly what the young Malfoy was going through.
"Draco she's going to be thirteen in two months, she's practically a teenager, you can't keep calling her a little girl she'll bite your head off," the young woman laughed. Draco bristled slightly.
"Well you were small if I remember right," he complained instead. "So what's the problem?"
"Well quite right, I was short," Hermione said deftly. "And I keep telling her she will grow, but you see…Ginny was always very tall."
"What's Ginny got to do with anything?" For a moment Hermione stared at him with a small smile on her face, until eventually Draco clicked on to what she was trying to tell him. "Ohhh," the young man exclaimed. "Katie has grown quite a bit hasn't she?"
"Yes, and Leshia hasn't. I think that's all there is to it, all summer she was asking me when she was going to grow, and then here's Katie, who's suddenly turned into a proper young woman and…"
"Okay okay I get it," Draco said quickly, feeling decidedly uncomfortable at the thought of his own daughter's impending puberty, let alone the thought of her friends maturing into young ladies. He paused for a moment looking thoughtful, before he sat up in his wife's chair and got to his feet, looking around for his clothes so he could go and get some of his own work done, he's been heading towards his study when his wife had waylaid him and lured him back to their chambers. He dressed in record time and headed for the door where he paused and grinned devilishly at his wife. "Nice try, but that's not it."
XXX
The young girl who was causing all this concern meanwhile had just wandered onto the quidditch pitch. She was an hour early and there was no one around to ask her what the matter was, or to interfere, so with a satisfied smile she climbed onto her broom and kicked off firmly, sending her rocketing through the chilly morning air. With frightening speed she lapped the quidditch pitch, pulled in and out of hair-raising dives, and dodged imaginary bludgers with lightning quick reflexes. By the time all her pent up anger and fear had been exhausted it was nearly time for everyone else to arrive, but the young girl was shattered. So she allowed herself a few moments so sit back on her broom and scan the grounds while she got her breath back.
This is when she saw the figure. Barely distinguishable from the dark forest it stood before, there was the definite form a cloaked figure standing not far off by the dark forest, evidently watching her with a strange gold device, which didn't look all too dissimilar to the omnioculars everyone had purchased at the world cup. For several moments all the air went out of Leshia and she simply stared with wide eyes at the figure, a strange heavy feeling of panic spreading through her limbs making her feel like an anchor on her precarious perch high above the quidditch pitch. She stared too long without breathing in to replace the air that she had lost in her moment of terror, and without warning she suddenly felt incredibly dizzy and toppled from her broom.
Down below, and most fortuitously for young Leshia, Ryan Lofting the captain of the quidditch team, a charming seventh year with more charisma than most of his peers combined, had just walked onto the pitch with the training balls. He'd been watching the young seeker with a brow furrowed in concern, why was she staring off into space? Why was she ten minutes early in the first place? He had called to her, but she didn't heed him, so he had clambered onto his broom to fly up to her when she started to fall. Suffice to say, the moment he saw her feeling he sped up a notch and easily managed to catch the girl out of her freefall.
"What are you doing?" the young man demanded. "Trying to get yourself killed?" For a few moments Leshia seemed unable to reply as she gasped for air.
"It was an accident," she finally managed. "I fell." Ryan flew the girl back up to her broom and she clambered on, not daring to look towards the forest lest the figure still be there.
"What were you doing?" Ryan asked sounding angry and concerned. For one horrible moment it was as though he had morphed into her father, as his mannerisms were the exact same.
"I thought I saw something, but then I got light headed and fell," Leshia explained. Ryan stared her in the eye trying to see whether he could read a lie, but the girl seemed genuine enough. "Thanks for catching me," Leshia added sheepishly. Ryan rolled his eyes and inhaled slowly.
"You're kidding right?" he managed. "God, I've never been so scared in my whole life!" Leshia grinned and shook her head.
"Not that you're blowing things out of proportion," she chuckled. Ryan glared at her fondly.
"Look the next time you go leaping off your broom, just make sure I'm not around to see it," he said firmly, before flying down to the ground. Leshia followed him and questioned him on the rumour that he had been seen being rather intimate with Eva Westwood from Slytherin during the week. The young man grinned dashingly at the girl, but thought she was far too young to hear about his conquests, so he didn't divulge any of his escapades. In truth, Eva Westwood had been one of three young women who he had been spotted 'being intimate' with this week.
"I know you won't tell me anything," the girl eventually said with a smile after she had spent the last ten minutes teasing him; reminding him very much of his little sister. "But you should be careful around those Slytherins." Ryan grinned at her and slung his arm around her shoulders.
"I think I should be telling you that," he said, though through his grin Leshia saw concern as he took in her bruises and scratches. "So, who's been giving you a hard time eh?"
"Lofting come on," Leshia complained fondly, and she was thankful that Tom and Luke were bounding towards them. Last year after Leshia had been left for dead by a group of assailants, Ryan and his best friends Luka and Oskar, fellow heartthrobs from the seventh year, had been very difficult to restrain once they found out Leshia knew the identity of her attackers. Had she told them who had led the attack on her there was no doubt in my mind that the young man responsible would not have been walking out of the hospital wing, as he was after she was done with him. If they were to find out about Allseyer (though Leshia had a feeling they already knew, but were respecting her wishes and keeping a distance from the young man)…it just didn't bare thinking about.
"Are we picking on Leesh?" Tom asked cheerfully.
"You're scrawny and you're a teacher's pet!" Luke crowed happily. Leshia burst out laughing, but Ryan gently punched the younger boy's arm playfully.
"Behave," he laughed.
"Yeah well at least I don't have a carrot top!" Leshia replied gleefully, darting away from her captain as he was reaching out to ruffle her hair.
"That goes for you too Malfoy," he chuckled and he opened the crate of balls, throwing his team members the quaffle to warm up with. "Here you go, do something creative." And so their training began. It wasn't terribly eventful; in fact, the most entertaining or eventful thing to happen all afternoon was Luke and Tom having a mid-flight collision because they were playing an airborne version of chicken. Leshia remained detached and distant the entire training long, her eyes always drifting over to the forest should that figure return, but it never did. By the end of training Leshia was beginning to wonder whether it had been a trick of the light, and so by the time she had reached her dormitory to change she was in much better spirits.
Katie and Rachel were noticeably absent from the common room, so after picking up her satchel full of homework, and a moment's hesitation, she reached under her pillow and stuffed the document she had found into her bag. Armed with her heavy bag the young girl headed for the library in search of her friends. Her estimate as to their whereabouts was as usual spot on, and within moments she had dropped down beside Rachel at the small table.
"You feeling more normal now?" Rachel asked slightly petulantly, before she winced after Katie had delivered her foot a warning stomp. Leshia though, merely grinned at the redhead apologetically.
"Yeah sorry about that…look," she told them and she reached into her bag, pulling out the ageing parchment that had thrown her so that morning. Her friends crowded over it and tried their best to read it, which took several moments due to the heavy-handedness of the scrawl.
"Leesh," Katie exclaimed breathily once she had fought her way to the end of the document. "That's…that's big!"
"He's not dead," Rachel whispered softly, seemingly afraid.
"I know, my parents lied to me…my dad, he said grandfather was dead, but now this…"
"I meant Voldemort," Rachel corrected her with a shudder. "He's going to come back." The other two stared at her for a moment with very serious expressions, dreading the thought of the evil dark lord himself returning to seek vengeance on those who crossed him: their loved ones.
"Don't be stupid," Katie eventually managed and she tried to laugh off the threat. "He's not going to come back!" Leshia tried to nod in agreement, though she didn't feel as sure.
"You know…maybe you should talk to your parents about this, I mean, something's not right," Rachel said after a few moments' awkward silence. Leshia frowned and raised her eyebrows.
"Talk to my parents? They'd only lie again."
"Well this is serious Leesh, I mean, you know, with your dreams and everything," Rachel tried and she hung her head feeling very humble.
"You think my dream has something to do with this?" Leshia asked as she lifted the paper and folded away Lucius' scowling face, before tucking the note into the pocket of her satchel.
"Well it's a bit of a coincidence don't you think? You start dreaming of your grandfather showing up at your house after he was supposed to have been dead for seven years and now this…" Katie said firmly. "Stating that he's not suspected dead after all. Who was the anonymous auror that killed him anyway? Do you know?" Leshia hung her head a little.
"My dad," she whispered. The girls lulled into silence once more, as each of them contemplated the gravity of the situation at hand. "Either way, let's just wait this out a little. I mean…they'll just lie again won't they? And we need to get to the bottom of this."
XXX
By Monday the girls had got very little work done, as most of their free time over the weekend had involved scouring the books in the library and the outdated magazines and newspapers, to see if they could find out more about the past, and find out whether their parents had lied about anything else. However, they were disappointed to find that the period they were after happened to coincide with a strange gap in the libraries stock lists. The girls were unusually silent as they made their way down to breakfast, feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders.
"You guys are quiet," Rodeo remarked as they sat down around him and Parys. Leshia was about to respond when she noticed that he wasn't looking at her as he might usually do, no, he was watching Katie. Feeling her skin prickling she focused on buttering some toast and tried her very best to ignore the conversation Katie and Rodeo engaged in. Every time Katie burst out laughing, or every time Rodeo seemed to stare in wonder at her friend Leshia felt like screaming. So much so that she escaped from breakfast early and headed off to Charms on her own. Professor Flitwick was very surprised to find her waiting alone outside fifteen minutes early and employed her help in distributing cushions for their practical lesson. Throughout the lesson itself Leshia bristled even more as Katie and Rodeo paired up.
"Leesh, what's wrong?" Rachel asked as she successfully used the enlarging charm on their cushion; Leshia was yet to get one right, and this was most odd as she was usually the first in the class to succeed.
"Nothing," her friend lied and she aimed her wand at the pillow. "Engorgio," she ordered rather fiercely; a little too fiercely, as suddenly the pillow burst open into a cascade of flaming feathers. One of them landed on Katie and set the tips of her hair on fire, and to Leshia's utmost horror she felt pleased at the sight. What was happening to her? She wasn't vindictive! After this she forced herself to calm down, so much so that by the time they'd lined up outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, she was feeling very much back to normal. After making sure their shirts were tucked in the girls huddled together to discuss the next stage in their plan of action to retrace their parents' lives to find any other discrepancies in their versions of events. It was thus that Allseyer and his unpleasant band of cronies found them.
"Off on another self righteous crusade are we ladies?" the boy drawled unappealingly. Leshia and her friends pulled apart and stared at the boy in disgust.
"I didn't realise that having a conversation was such an alien concept to you Allseyer," Leshia exclaimed arrogantly. "Then again, judging by the company you keep maybe it isn't so surprising. It's hard to strike up a discussion when you're barely capable of stringing a sentence together," she added after casting his burly friends a disdainful glance. Behind the girl, her fellow Gryffindors started laughing and pointing at the embarrassed Slytherins. Allseyer alone stepped forward with a dark smile on his face as he examined his red knuckles almost lovingly.
"Who needs conversation?" he said darkly. Leshia felt her skin crawl with the humiliation as all the Slytherins suddenly looked to her with jeering smiles. "I don't remember it helping you much on Friday…" The boy had to cut his jibe short, as the widely spaced footsteps coming up the corridor soon announced Draco's impending presence. Sure enough, his long-loping stride could be seen in the distance and the children rushed to tuck their shirts in. By the time the delectably unpredictable teacher had arrived at his classroom he found them all to be presentable for once.
"Good," he merely said before he pushed the door open and strode in. The class filed in after him and as Leshia and Damian Allseyer took their seats they watched one another; Allseyer with a smug grin, and Leshia with her eyes narrowed in contempt. She couldn't let him think he'd got away with it; she had to rock the boat a little.
"Professor Malfoy?" she announced and she lifted her hand into the air. Allseyer soon lost his smug smile and lowered his head, giving her a dark glare. At the front of the classroom Draco looked up in surprise, the class' essays firmly in his hand, ready to be handed back.
"Yes what is it?" he asked with a suspicious frown.
"On Friday, Damian Allseyer was in the Card Reference room wasn't he?" she asked feigning curiousness. At the front of the class Draco frowned heavily and lowered his head, what was his daughter up to now? He could see the unpleasant Slytherin boy glowing red in the corner, evidently they were at each other's throats once more. How wonderful.
"Yes," he finally replied. "I sent him there. Why?" Leshia raised her eyebrows and rubbed at a painful looking bruise on her cheek. Across the classroom Allseyer was grinding his fists together, wanting very much to leap across the multitude of desks in his path and pummel the arrogant girl. If she was going to grass then she would very much come to regret it.
"I was just wondering," Leshia replied lightly after a while. Draco looked to the ceiling and exhaled slightly angrily.
"The next time you feel like wondering Miss Malfoy, please do so within the confines of your own head," he said brusquely, as half the class burst into sniggers. Leshia however, smiled to herself thinking that she may have angered her father a little, but Allseyer at least knew the score, she had more power than he gave her credit for. "Right, essays," Draco announced at the front of the classroom and he let go of the pile of parchments in his hand, allowing them to fly back to their owners. "In general, I was impressed." Leshia quickly scanned to the end of her essay and found a barely-legible O beside a scribble that read:
Tested your counterspell on Professor Granger, she said it worked splendidly
Leshia grinned at what her father had written, but then she frowned. How had she not seen the resemblance before? Her father's script was incredibly similar to the one found on that peculiar note about her grandfather. What on earth did that mean?
"Leesh," Rachel whispered at her side, after the red-haired girl had glanced up to see that their teacher was busying himself with writing something on the board and didn't seem to notice some of the other children chatting amongst themselves over their marks. Leshia looked up with an expectant smile. "What does this say?" Rachel asked as she pointed to a comment below her E. Leshia leaned over and easily read her father's writing. For a moment she sniggered and everyone fell silent as Draco turned round at the front of the class and shot the girl an almost curious warning look, before he turned back to his blackboard. Slowly the chatter resumed.
"Well?" Rachel persisted and Leshia turned to her with a beaming smile.
"It says 'wand is spelled with a w'," she whispered gleefully and watched with great pleasure as Rachel's cheeks lit up in embarrassment. Leshia silently chuckled and turned back to her own essay to glance once more at her father's handwriting. How could she have missed something so obvious?
"Leshia." This time Leshia looked to her other side where Katie was giving her a worried look. She pointed down to her essay where an O lay beside some more scribbled comments once Leshia had looked at her and then gave her and urgent look. "The handwriting," she mouthed and Leshia nodded quickly, before replying.
"I know," as softly as she could manage. The girls exchanged a concerned glance before finally Draco turned around at the front of the class revealing three counterspells. To Leshia's utmost horror, hers was amongst them.
"Three of you," Draco told the class as they all turned to the board. "Performed outstandingly." The classmates looked to one another to see who had come up with the best counterspells in the class. "Miss Potter? Would you come up here?" Katie glowed bright red before she forced herself to get to her feet and walk to the front of the class, glancing at her counterspell, which stood at the top of the board. "Mr Black?" All the heads in the room swivelled as Julius Black climbed to his feet and walked up to the front of the class to stand beside Katie. "And Miss Malfoy, if you please?" Leshia frowned heavily, but complied anyway and within moments was stood on Katie's other side. "as a reward for coming up with the only effective counterspells in the class, you may test them out on one of your classmates," Draco explained to the three children. A small smile crept onto Leshia's face as a plan started to inch its way into her mind. Yes, it would get her in trouble, but oh, it would be worth it.
First Katie was allowed to go first and after a moment's hesitation she picked Rodeo as her partner, something that caused Leshia to feel a renewed sense of anger and for a moment she reconsidered her choice of partner to include Katie, but this was soon pushed from her mind. After successfully demonstrating her counterspell for the Bone-Tickler Hex amidst a class full of laughter, she and Rodeo were allowed to sit down.
"Very good," Draco said through his laughter – the effect the hex had had on the boy had after all been highly entertaining. "Right, Mr Black, your partner?" Draco said turning on the boy. He shrugged his shoulders and turned to Leshia.
"I'll just do it on her," he said simply. Leshia looked quite disgruntled at the thought of being picked by the reclusive boy, but Draco didn't say anything.
"Well go on then," Draco urged and he watched while the young man cursed his daughter with the Spinewater curse and then brought her back from it with his countercurse. Following this Black sloped back to his chair to a mismatched bunch of expressions from his peers. Many Slytherins glared at him for reviving Leshia, whereas some were happy that at least for a few moments he had been able to curse the wretched girl.
"Miss Malfoy?" Draco then asked his daughter and Leshia smiled sweetly at him.
"Damian Allseyer," she said simply and as though controlled by one mind, all the children's heads swung round as one to stare at the Slytherin boy.
"You're sure?" Draco asked sounding incredibly displeased. Leshia however, feigned innocence and nodded with a happy expression.
"Perfectly," she replied cheerfully.
"You wouldn't rather test it on say…Miss Weasley?" Draco persisted, his eyes gleaming with warning. Leshia shook her head lightly, her expression still preciously innocent; the young father saw right through it. "Mr Holsson?" Once more a shake of his daughter's head came in reply. "Me?"
"No, Damian Allseyer," Leshia repeated and so with a sigh Draco nodded.
"Very well, up you come Allseyer," he said almost petulantly, beginning to think this idea of his had been a mistake. Allseyer was looking thunderous as he faced off with Leshia in front of the class of students, who were all on the edges of their seats, leaning forward with looks of extreme excitement, eager for a showdown between the two ringleaders. Leshia grinned darkly at her nemesis and after rubbing once more at the painful bruise on her chin she raised her wand to the boy.
"Furnunculus," she cried out and the boy dropped down to his knees in pain, clutching at his face where painful boils had erupted all over his face. There was instant pandemonium as the Gryffindors started cheering and laughing and the Slytherins turned on them, their wands out, almost ready to start throwing their own curses around. In the midst of this noise Draco dropped to his knees beside the wounded boy and held out his wand uttering a silent incantation to stop the spread of the painful boils. Leshia hung back a little, feeling guilty at the look of concern on her father's face, but she had at last claimed a little of the vengeance she felt she was owed. By now the class had almost deteriorated into mutiny as half the children were almost on their feet chanting "Leshia, Leshia." It was all the girl could do to stop from bowing.
"Get out," Draco's furious tone came suddenly, silencing the unruly children immediately – you would have to be foolhardy to ignore the anger in his tone. Leshia looked a little surprised, she hadn't expected him to be quite that angry. Surely he understood? "I said get out!" Draco repeated a lot angrier and a lot louder. Feeling entirely misunderstood the girl walked over to her desk, picked up her belongings and walked out with her head held high.
After ten minutes of waiting in the shadows outside the classroom, in which Damian Allseyer was led away to the hospital wing by his cronies, muttering about getting his revenge, Leshia was beginning to regret what she had done. Would it be too late to knock on the door and tell her father she was sorry and could they pretend it hadn't happened? The weight of his disappointment was heavy on her shoulders and she wished dearly to see Draco, to apologise, to know that he didn't hate her. She was hovering by the door handle when clattering footsteps signified a woman's approach and Leshia darted back from the door to see Professor Ramble was heading her way.
"Leshia," the young woman greeted the girl happily. Leshia smiled at her uneasily. "What are you doing out here? Haven't you got a lesson?"
"Ah," the girl managed. "You see…there's been a bit of a…ah, situation…" Ramble suddenly nodded knowingly.
"Come on," she said and she started heading towards her classroom. "I need help sorting out some muggle toys for my first years, you can help me and tell me all about it." Anything was better than the guilt trip Leshia couldn't free herself from, so with one last glance at her father's classroom's door, she followed the beautiful teacher to her office. The Muggle Studies office had definitely undergone a makeover since the last time Leshia had found herself here in detention the year before.
Ramble had plastered the walls with magazine clippings and newspaper articles about things that evidently caught her interest. Colourful photographs from around the world lined her shelves and Muggle Posters jostled for space amongst the wizarding memorabilia on the walls. All in all, it was a lot more cluttered and homely than Leshia would have imagined. Ramble saw the girl looking about herself in surprise and she chuckled appreciatively.
"Oh I know, I'm awful aren't I?" she sighed with a smile. Leshia grinned sheepishly and took the seat Ramble was offering her. "Now, what exactly did you do that was so awful that your own father threw you out of his lesson?" Leshia sighed and started to finger one of the muggle artifacts that littered the desk absent-mindedly.
"There's this boy in Slytherin…we don't really get on," she began, and so, she explained the story of her animosity towards Allseyer and all the fights they'd been in. She nearly went as far as telling the surprisingly-easy-to-open-up-to teacher about the beatings she'd received, but managed to stop herself at the last minute and merely hinted towards them. "And so, there was this perfect opportunity to put him back in his place…so I took it," she finally finished and she looked up to see Ramble nodding in understanding.
"But now you wish you hadn't because you're afraid that Draco will hate you?" she said kindly and Leshia nodded grimly. "Well you needn't worry about that," Ramble chuckled warmly. "Your father could never hate you. You're the most important person in his life Leshia, that's all, so his emotions where you're concerned are magnified. He'll calm down."
"You think?" Leshia asked, already feeling much better. Ramble smiled kindly.
"I know so," she assured the girl and from that moment on, Leshia considered Ramble an ally. In the remainder of the hour-long period before break the pair chatted about this and that and Leshia began to feel like she really knew the young woman, but as break drew closer, Leshia began to grow quieter.
"Maybe you should go and apologise as soon as you can," Ramble suggested and Leshia looked up at her worriedly.
"Like now?" she asked. Ramble nodded in reply.
"I'll come with you if you like," she suggested and Leshia pounced on the idea, nodding vigorously.
"Would you?" And so it was agreed, and the pair of them walked back down to the Defence Against the Dark Arts corridor just as the bell rang fro break. Once more Leshia hid in the shadows until all her peers had filed out of the classroom and only now did she make her move by knocking softly on the door.
"Come in," Draco's voice barked from inside; he was evidently in a foul mood, and it was all her fault. After a reassuring nod from Ramble Leshia pushed the door opened and peered round the door. Draco looked up from the books he was skimming through and his expression turned stony. "Oh it's you," he said softly. Leshia wanted very much to turn and run, but Ramble urged her forward, before following her into the classroom and shutting the door. "Zahra?" Draco added in surprise when he saw who his daughter was with.
"Good morning Draco," Ramble greeted him with a smile, before she looked at Leshia and raised her eyebrows, silently urging her on.
"Dad I'm really sorry," Leshia blurted out quickly, looking intensely vulnerable. Draco turned his gaze back onto her and to her horror he still looked incredibly stony. "I didn't mean to…"
"Leshia don't give me that, you cursed the boy, that doesn't just happen by accident, you knew exactly what you were doing, so don't say you didn't mean it," he complained.
"But dad I didn't meant to upset you!" Leshia finished. "Allseyer deserves everything he gets," she added as an afterthought.
"What, even a night in the hospital wing?" Draco demanded and Leshia nodded firmly, wanting to blurt out that he'd landed her in the hospital wing and she still had the bruises to show for it, but she managed to resist and instead hung her head a little, still maintaining eye contact with her father. "I warned you didn't I? I told you not to start anything with that boy, and what do you do? You flatout disobey me and curse the damn boy in front of a classfull of pupils! I mean what were you thinking Alecia?" Leshia frowned looking wounded.
"Dad I'm sorry," she said sounding upset.
"Yes well sorry isn't good enough," Draco said firmly and Leshia looked away feeling tears stinging her eyes.
"Draco," Ramble suddenly intervened and she came to stand between the father and daughter. "Look how sorry she is, she didn't mean to hurt you."
"Zahra you don't know what she did," Draco complained half-heartedly.
"Yes I do, Leshia told me," Ramble countered. "She also told me how much she regretted hurting you and wished she could take it back." The manner in which the young woman was speaking was so reassuring, even Leshia was completely taken in by her, wanting desperately to believe every word she said. Draco looked quite taken aback and he looked back to his daughter with a much softer expression.
"I'm very disappointed in you," he said, but his heart wasn't in it. Leshia nodded dolefully to him. "And I'm going to have to give you detention tomorrow evening," he added and once more Leshia nodded in agreement. After inhaling slowly the young father nodded. "Okay then, your forgiven." Leshia's face instantly split into a happy grin and she lunged forward, hugging her father round the neck. He returned her embrace firmly, before she pulled apart and beamed up at Ramble.
"You've raised one of a kind here Draco," she said adoringly, leaning in a little to the young man. Draco grinned and nodded, rubbing the back of his head.
"Yeah, you can say that again," he chuckled.
"It's amazing how well you've managed, after all, you were on your own for so many years," Ramble continued, winding her fingers through her blonde curls, dislodging several and they came cascading around her shoulders. Draco watched them in an almost mesmerised way as they bounced in a gravity-defying manner, wondering if she had magically enhanced her hair to stay so light and fluffy. Ramble was still leaning closer and closer telling him of his parenting prowess and it is so that Hermione found them. For a moment her eyes narrowed in jealous anger at the door and no one noticed her, but eventually, once Ramble had leant in so close to her husband that they were practically touching, she felt she had to make herself heard.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked loudly and everyone in the room jumped.
"Hermione," Draco exclaimed sounding surprised at his wife's hostile appearance. "What's wrong?"
"Draco!" Hermione complained exasperatedly, but then she noticed their daughter was still present, watching her mother with a surprised and confused expression. "Leshia, sweetheart, maybe it's best if you go to break now," she said trying to sound natural, but failing. Leshia glanced to her father worriedly and he nodded reassuringly, so with a heavy sigh the girl sloped off. As soon as she'd stepped outside the classroom the door slammed shut behind her and the sound of her mother's angry voice wafted out from the crack under the door.
"…Shamelessly flirting…in front of your own daughter…staring at her…not going to put up with this…" Not wanting to hear Leshia sped off and soon found her friends sitting on the steps in the entrance hall. As she arrived most of them burst into raptuous applause, but Katie looked disapproving.
"That was an awful thing to do Leshia," the raven-haired girl told her firmly.
"Oh be quiet spoil sport," Rachel crowed. "It was amazing!"
"She's not a spoil sport," Rodeo countered and for a moment a silence washed over the group, which was soon broken by Leshia clearing her throat uneasily.
"Well, anyway," she continued. "I've just seen my dad and he's okay now I've apologised." Rachel grinned happily.
"Excellent," she said happily. The girls remained in high spirits throughout the day and not even Potions with Professor Snape managed to burst their bubble, though one could argue that the cantankerous potions Master certainly did try – word of Allseyer's untimely fate had hopped on the school's lightning fast gossip grapevine and now everyone in the school was aware of what had happened before break. Every non-Slytherin that Leshia passed grinned encouragingly at her, and Ryan, Oskar and Luka even lifted the girl up and carried her round on their shoulders for a few corridors until they carried her right past her last lesson of the day: History of magic, and she had to beg them to let her down. All in all, it was a fantastically successful afternoon, and soon the girls were filing into their dormitory to discard of their possessions. It was now that Katie chose to remind Leshia of the discovery they had made during Defence Against the Dark Arts.
"Leesh, the handwriting," she simply stated and in an instant Leshia's face had fallen and she nodded.
"What handwriting?" Rachel asked with a frown, but Leshia didn't heed her, instead she reached into her satchel and took out the note and the essay she had received back that morning.
"Look," she said sounding almost heartbroken, when she held the pair up next to one another and saw they were almost identical. Katie didn't need to look to see what she had already suspected, but Rachel looked and when she saw what her friends had already discovered she gasped.
"So your dad wrote it?" she asked in amazement. Leshia shrugged her shoulders and packed her things away once more.
"I can't believe that, it just…doesn't make sense," she said softly. "Oh!" she groaned and she flopped back on her bed. "This is getting far too complicated!"
Across the castle Draco echoed his daughter's sentiment, as he pulled the covers over himself in his old bedroom for the first time in many months. He grumbled inwardly about women and their temperamental mood-swings, wondering why he had allowed Hermione to turf him out of their marital chambers and banish him back to his miserable old bedroom beside his study. It didn't seem fair. Hermione was the one with problem, why should he be the one to go?
Their argument had seemed innocent at first, after all Draco hadn't been doing anything terrible, merely watching a woman's unbelievably bouncy hair. It had soon escalated though into a full on brawl when Hermione had accused him of leading Zahra Ramble on, and that he had evidently been doing so for years, that's why she followed him round wherever he went. The young man had been unable to convince his wife otherwise and therefore he was now lying on his lumpy old mattress, trying to find the grove he had once made for himself in it's springy surface.
"Damn women," he grumbled to himself as he rolled over in bed, giving up on any attempts at comfort, and allowed a dreamless sleep to claim him.
XXX
The following morning over breakfast Leshia was oblvious to her parents' forsty treatment of one another and instead became enveloped in a conversation with her friends over how they were going to find out more information on this missing time period. Eventually they concluded that the best possible solution was to write to the Daily Prophet and ask for a couple of issues from the time of the war. The first lesson of the day was Muggle Studies and the girls sloped to the back of the class and managed to go unnoticed enough to write their letter.
Dear Armand Kettlewater, (Katie swore this was the name of the editor of the paper, though it had her friends in stitches – something that nearly got them found out)
We're students at Hogwarts and we're doing a project on the war for our History of Magic class ("I can't believe we're lying," Katie had groaned, very much against the idea of lying to the chief editor of the most respected Wizarding newspaper in the land, but her friends had insisted that this was the most plausible story). Our library doesn't seem to have any copies of your paper from that time and we were wondering whether you could send us a copy of each first-of-the-month edition for the entire duration of the war (this has caused another hot debate, as Katie insisted one per month wasn't enough and Rachel had countered that theyd need an entire flock of post owls to carry more than that). We're willing to pay of course, just send us the price!
Yours sincerely
Three grateful Hogwarts Students
All in all the girls were happy with their letter and as soon as break swung by the posted it from the owlery. Up until lunch the troublesome trio managed to avoid any further trouble, but this was where things went wrong once more. At lunch time the sun decided to bask the grounds of Hogwarts in an unseasonable warmth, which lured all the students out into the grounds to enjoy the good weather. Leshia and her friends were of course amongst the sun seekers and soon the second year Gryffindors were enveloped in a fun game of muggle football. Everyone was having a wonderfully exuberant time; until Leshia went for goal and kicked the ball so hard it bounced down the hill past Hagrid's hut and towards the dark forest.
"I'll go get it," the girl sighed with feigned-exasperation, before she careened after it, unaware that she was being followed. She caught up with the wayward football at the very base of the forest. Wary of what lay therein, she slowed down and carefully approached, watching the forest keenly for signs of movement. Once she had the ball in her hands the girl spun around to race back, but her path was blocked.
"Blood traitor," Allseyer hissed and despite her grave predicament – being surrounded by second and third year Slytherins – Leshia managed to snigger at the boy's pockmarked appearance. Those boil wounds had evidently failed to clear up completely overnight. "I'm happy you found this worth it," the boy snapped indicating his appearance. "Because you're certainly going to pay for it!" With this he took out his wand and Leshia quickly took out her own.
"Expelliarmus," she cried out and Allseyer's wand flew from his hand, but there were too many of them and within moments Leshia's wand had been knocked from her hand and the bullies resorted to violence once more – not knowing enough curses and spells to truly punish the girl, and feeling more pleasure from physically hurting her, the Slytherins weren't averse to a little physical exercise. They dragged the struggling girl into the forest, before they started taking turns laying into her. Being a feisty little thing Leshia put up a good fight, but there were just too many of them and for every crippling blow that she delivered, she received at least ten in return. After ten minutes of abuse her body couldn't handle it any more and she fell to her knees.
"Look there," she vaguely heard.
"Run for it!" another voice came, but Leshia wasn't listening. Her assailants ran, and after a few moments in which the girl swayed forward and backwards, trying to focus on staying awake, she saw why. The figure, the figure who's grey cold eyes she had seen following her every move was standing in the darkness beyond.
"You…don't…belong…" it hissed in a high-pitched tone. Leshia felt her skin start to crawl. "You don't belong," the tall figure repeated, before it advanced on the girl. She managed to scramble backwards towards the edge of the forest in her panicked state, the adrenalin in her system forcing her to move despite her inability to consciously make her body do so. The figure was upon her now, and flooded with terror, the ordeal became too great for the girl to handle and the last thing she remembered seeing before a dark sleep claimed her, was a hand, reaching for her.
XXX
"Ow," was all Leshia could manage when she came too. Darkness had fallen since her ordeal had rendered her unconscious and she had spent the remainder of the glorious sunny day in the hospital wing. Madam Pomfry was growing rather tired of seeing her, but she had treated the girl nonetheless; healing her broken bones and mending her damaged skin, all that remained visible of the girl's latest assault was an array of impressive new bruises and cuts… "My head hurts." And a severe headache.
"Feel lucky that's all that's hurting," the strict tone of Madam Pomfry came and Leshia managed to pry her eyes open to find she was in the hospital wing once more. Sat either side of her bed were her parents; both looked on the brink of tears…arguably, Hermione more so than Draco, though the girl's father did look extremely sorry for himself.
"Are you alright?" Hermione whispered, unable to trust herself to speak. Leshia nodded gingerly.
"I'll live," she managed and pulled herself up in the bed.
"This time," Draco muttered darkly. "I'm getting tired of this Leshia," he added.
"Draco," Hermione admonished him, but the young man would not be staved.
"No, this has gone too far," he carried on. "Is it that Allseyer boy Leshia? Tell me!" Leshia looked to him glumly and then closed her eyes, wishing her astoundingly painful headache would give her a moment's rest.
"My head hurts so much," she repeated and a few tears slid out from under her closed eyelids.
"That's because they fractured your skull," Draco told her and he leaned forward wrapping his hands around his daughter's. "You could have died, don't you understand? You can't keep this up baby, they're going to kill you!" His tone had changed; in fact his whole mannerism had turned desperate. Across the bed his wife was crying silently, her shoulders shaking with the emotion of it all. Leshia couldn't bear to see her parents so concerned and yet she began to worry…what if they were right? She needed to get Allseyer back, but was it so important that she was going to risk her life?
"It's not him," she lied through gritted teeth, the pain in her head too immense to string together a long sentence.
"Don't lie to me," Draco ordered, though he sounded desperate still. "I know you Alecia Malfoy, you can't lie to me…Leshia! Leshia!"
"Poppy help!" Hermione called out through her tears, and she leaned forward to see why her daughter had flopped back onto the pillows, her head lolling, her eyes closed.
"Out of the way," Madam Pomfry ordered and she bustled the terrified father aside. After prying Leshia's eyes open and examining her pulse Madam Pomfry concluded she had just passed out again and that it would be best to sedate her and let her sleep through the night. By morning, the potions coursing through her system would have healed her fully and only then would she be ready to talk. The girl's bedraggled parents agreed and watched as Madam Pomfry siphoned a potion down their daughter's throat.
"Draco," Hermione uttered softly, and she met her husband's eye. "I'm so sorry," she cried, her resolve weakening and her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Within moments Draco had joined her side and had wrapped his arms around her. "I'm so scared," his beloved wife cried into his shoulder.
"I know, I am too," he said softly as he tried to stroke away her tears and pain. "But she'll be okay…"
"This time," Hermione cried. "Like you said, the next time…they'll kill her! I couldn't bare it, I couldn't!"
"Shhh," Draco soothed and for a moment he allowed her to cry her heart out, until eventually she gave one almighty sniff and her tears were gone, the overwhelming emotions were beginning to come under control.
"She'll never tell us," Draco said eventually and Hermione finally let him go and looked him in the eye, before she nodded in agreement.
"I agree."
"So maybe…maybe we should help her."
"Help her get revenge?" Hermione asked sounding shocked. Draco nodded coolly.
"It's the only way sweetheart. If we can help her put an end to this, then there's less chance of them finishing her off, she needs to make them see they can't mess with her. That's the only way to make this stop!"
XXX
The sun had long risen by the time Leshia eventually woke from her dreamless slumber, and the day's lessons were already underway and as such there was no one there to greet Leshia when she eventually opened her eyes. She didn't mind very much, more people meant more questions and she couldn't bear to lie to anyone else. Lying straight to her father's tormented face had been ordeal enough.
"Ah, see you're finally up then, headache gone has it?" Madam Pomfry's voice came before the woman bustled over to her to check her temperature and look over her wounds and injuries, which by now had largely subsided.
"Yes," Leshia replied and she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, feeling sheepish in front of this formidable matron. "Thank you," she said sounding very heart-felt. Madam Pomfry took a moment to give her a concerned expression.
"Your parents are very scared you know," she said. "I don't want to have to see you again, understood?" Leshia nodded quickly.
"I'll try," she promised.
"Right then, well, off you go, you'll do for now." The girl didn't need telling twice and after going back to her dormitory to change – thankfully not meeting any of her older protective housemates on the way, lest they demand once more she tell them who was behind these attacks – and to pick up her things she rushed off to catch the last half hour of Defence Against the Dark Arts. She knocked first for good measure and after Draco had called for her to come in she pushed the door open and found the class in groups of four making 'curse guides' to go up on the display – the highlight of these was the children's artwork of what the effects of their chosen curses were, there were some highly amusing pictures floating around. The moment Draco's eyes fell on his daughter relief flooded over his face and through his whole stature, and he even managed to smile at her.
"Leshia," he exclaimed sounding very pleasantly surprised – after all when he had checked before class Poppy had told him his daughter wouldn't be conscious at least until the evening – when he saw her and his announcement caused everyone to look up. Once more the Gryffindors all instantly burst into applause, so much so that Leshia rushed inside so as they might stop. "You can join your friends," Draco told her and Leshia quickly dropped down on the floor with Katie, Rachel, Rodeo and Parys, who instantly started plaguing her with questions about the attack before she'd even touched the ground.
"Maybe you should give Miss Malfoy a break," Draco suggested to the children, before he motioned to the side with his head. Leshia knew he wanted to talk, so with a sigh she got back to her feet and after smiling reassuringly at her friends, she followed her father to his study through the classroom entrance. Draco left the door open so as he might still see what the others were up to, but his main concern was Leshia.
"I'm sorry if I stressed you out last night," he told her as he leant against his desk. Leshia though, shook her head very rigorously.
"I'm sorry if I stressed you out," she countered, before walking over to him and hugging him firmly. Draco returned her hug firmly. "I'm sorry I can't tell you anything dad, but I thought you'd understand."
"I do," her father replied and he kissed the top of her head. "From now on, whatever you need to do…well…I won't stand in your way." Leshia furrowed her brow and stepped backwards, looking up at her father in surprise. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? "I want you to end this," he said firmly. Leshia nodded fervently.
"I do too!"
"Well good," Draco said and he reached out and flattened her wild hair. "Just a few helpful pointers though, no more wandering around on your own?" Leshia giggled and nodded.
"Agreed," she said fondly before she hugged her father one more time, and then rushed back to her group to see what they were doing, it had looked very fun. As she sat down she found Allseyer watching her darkly, his expression a mixture of worry that she had grassed and malice that she was still standing. Leshia met his eye and a smile crept onto her face.
'I've just got permission to sort you out Allseyer, if I were you; I would wipe that stupid smug smile off my face. You've got it coming,' the girl thought to herself, before she was enlisted to draw a boy being cursed with the Boils curse. After rolling about with laughter she agreed and half an hour later their 'curse guide' came complete with a moving drawing of Damian Allseyer getting cursed with ugly great big boils. Everyone was laughing so hard they all forgot about the frightening events of the previous day when Leshia's bloody body had been carried out of the forest by Hagrid, who had responded to a strange red flare going up into the air from her wand, which had been found five yards from her body…how very peculiar.
XXX
Slowly the weeks crept by, and bit by bit Leshia managed to push Allseyer from her mind, they had more serious things to tend to, like why had Viktor Krum refused to reply (despite their sending three more letters), why were the Daily Prophet unable to supply them with the papers they needed and who had written the mysterious note about Lucius. Katie's birthday came and went and soon Halloween was nearly upon them. The girls hadn't given the festivities a second thought, as they were still trying to conjure up ways to get these elusive newspapers from the Prophet, when suddenly Sarah and Amy dropped down opposite them at breakfast a week before Halloween, which once more would be the night of a fourth years and over ball to be held in the great hall.
"So, what's the plan this year?" Sarah asked.
"Excuse me?" Rachel asked with a furrowed brow.
"Yeah, what plan?" Katie added sounding confused. Amy gave the girls a broad smile.
"Very funny, we know you're planning something for Halloween, I can't wait!"
"Yeah, I bet it'll be way better than last year," Sarah added and with this the two cousins sloped off to go their Divination lesson. After their backs had turned the girls looked to one another in surprised horror.
"They're expecting a bigger bash than last year?" Rachel finally uttered.
"It's not doable," Leshia managed. "Last year was immense!"
"Yeah, and why do we have to plan something anyway?" Katie added in a disgruntled way. Deciding that they would ignore Sarah and Amy the girls went about their daily business, but as the day wore on they noticed people were nudging one another as they walked past and whispers about 'wild parties' and 'Halloween bashes' were flying around above their heads. The final straw came when the Wood twins from the year below approached them at dinner wondering if they would be allowed to help with the festivities.
"Okay so we are the party planners evidently," Leshia told her friends in a resigned way.
"Lousy upper years, making us do everything," Rachel grumbled. "And I bet that they've all invited half the out hoursers too! This is just mental!"
"Well what are we going to do? Like you said Leesh, last year was immense!" Katie said sounding concerned. All through dinner the girls schemed, delegating simple tasks like decoration and numbers to their friends, who were more than eager to help out. It was long after dinner when the girls were trying to finish their Potions essays for their lesson the following day that Leshia got her epiphany.
"Celebrities," she whispered suddenly to herself.
"That's you last ingredient?" Katie asked sceptically. "I don't think celebrities will bring out the red…"
"No," Leshia complained and she flung her essay aside, instead taking out a notepad and dipping her quill once more in the ink, ready to write their list. "What would make our party legendary?" Her friends glanced to one another and shrugged, they had been trying to think of this all evening. "Having a few celebrities there would probably do the trick don't you think?" Both Rachel and Katie's eyes boggled widely for a moment, before their faces split into huge identical grins.
"That…is…the…most…brilliant…idea…you…have…ever…had," Rachel exclaimed slowly and purposefully.
"Yeah, but who would we invite?" Katie asked anxiously.
"We know tons of celebrities," Leshia countered. "The Cauldron Chicks for one, I can think of a dozen ways to get them to come out here, all to do with my dad to be fair, but still, as long as they come."
"And I bet we can get a whole load of quidditch players, what with the Wood twins and Krum if he ever picks up a quill and replies," Rachel added jubilantly.
"And we know Mr Longbottom, I bet he'd love to come and do some publicity for his next book," Leshia added. Neville Longbottom had made arguably the most success of all once he had left Hogwarts. He had met a lovely muggle and settled down, and soon found he had a passion for writing. Within no time Daisy Dunce the magnificent muggle had come to life, and her exciting adventures without the aid of magic had enraptured wizarding children's imaginations all over the world. His next book Daisy Dunce and the Haunted House was due out the following summer, so the girls' estimation that he would be looking for publicity wasn't all that unfounded.
"Actually, we do know loads of people don't we?" Katie finally said with a broad smile and so Leshia wrote down their list of possible contenders. If they could get even half these guests their party would go down in the history of Hogwarts.
XXX
Dear Viktor Krum,
You know, you don't have to tell me anything, but it would be polite if you could at least reply for goodness sake! I doubt you'll care, but you're invited to be a guest of honour at the biggest Gryffindor party ever on Halloween. You'd make a hundred kids exceedingly happy if you can make it. I promise I'll stop pestering you if you promise to consider it!
Yours Sincerely
Leshia
XXX
Dear Mss Parkinson,
It's Leshia Malfoy, remember me? You were hitting on my dad at the World Cup? I'm inviting you and the band to be a guest of honour at Gryffindor's biggest ever party on Halloween. You'd be able to meet your fans and spread your publicity and...if you come, I'll get you ten minutes alone with my dad, how does that sound?
Yours Sincerely
Leshia Malfoy
XXX
Dear Neville,
Hi! It's Katie, Rachel and Leshia, your favourite goddaughters! We were wondering whether you would be able to come to our party on Halloween, you'd be the guest of honour. I know lots of kids who'd love to hear more about your new book. We'd be eternally grateful Neville!
With love from your favourite girls :)
Katie, Rachel and Leshia
XXX
By the time Monday morning drew by, only five days left before their big operation, and they hadn't heard from any of their celebrities. Feeling panicked that nothing was going to work out right the girls started to prepare for the eventuality that maybe they weren't going to be able to throw as legendary a party as they had hoped. The days drew on and the girls went ahead as normal; arranging decorations, seating, and planning a brand new food heist, with one added advantage over last year: they would get the Elves to deliver the food instead of trying to navigate huge bursting burlap bags of food through the castle like they had the previous year.
It was the Cauldron Chicks who were the first to confirm that yes, they would love to come back to school and do an underground gig. Not only did they think the publicity was priceless, but it would seem Pansy Parkinson was expecting Leshia to keep up with her end of the bargain. Leshia didn't mind very much, the Cauldron Chicks had been their chance card, the one they desperately wanted to get.
The following morning on Thursday, the day of the food heist, or rather, the day that the girls intended to venture down to the kitchens to place their order with the elves, Neville Longbottom confirmed he would love to come and also Fred and George Weasley wrote a letter saying that even though they were uninvited, they would be putting in an appearance with their fun-filled merchandise.
Later that day the girls had secretly relished in Amy and Sarah's discomfort at knowing their fathers would be at the party – that would serve them right for expecting an amazing party, yet doing little to earn it. A few of Jaime and Eliot's contacts panned out and they managed to get (though the girls weren't entirely sure how they'd blagged it) Joanne Tayler, the star seeker of the England squad. All in all, their line-up was rather fantastic and that evening their confidence gave them the extra oomph they needed to get them safely to the kitchens. They tickled the pear and were soon granted access to the kitchens were dozens of houselves greeted them eagerly.
"Why, it's Master Harry Potter's daughter!" a familiar voice called out from the head of the kitchens and within moments Dobby's telltale appearance had pushed through the crowds to stand before the three girls.
"Hello Dobby," the girls greeted the little houself with sheepish smiles.
"Has Miss Potter come for some food, yes?" Dobby asked eagerly and as if on cue, several treats were instantly thrust in the direction of the girls.
"Oh, don't mind if I do," Rachel said cheerfully and she took one of the pastries, while Leshia sniggered at her; not so long ago over dinner her red-haired friend had been groaning of a bursting stomach.
"Actually Dobby, we had a favour to ask you," Katie said kindly, though her kindness was not needed as at the sound of the word favour Dobby started bouncing up and down eagerly, gleeful that he was able to help Harry Potter's daughter.
"Anything Miss Potter, anything," he exclaimed jubilantly. Katie looked to her friends slightly guiltily, was it right to take advantage of this poor thing's good nature? Leshia though furrowed her brow and nodded quickly, while Rachel was too preoccupied with her treats to notice.
"Well you see, we're having a sort of party in Gryffindor common room tomorrow, you know, because we're not allowed to go to the fourth years and over ball," Katie explained quickly. "Well, we were wondering whether or not, if we gave you a list, whether…" she trailed off, unable to ask it of the dear little creature.
"We were wondering if you could make us the food and deliver it to the common room," Leshia finished for her friend giving her a 'go on' expression while rolling her hands in a rolling motion.
"Yes," Katie said firmly, turning on Dobby to see that he looked far from miserable, in fact, he and the rest of the elves looked entirely happy to be of use to the girls. Without asking Dobby snatched the list from Katie's hand and looked down it, his expression growing ever more jubilant.
"Dobby would be honoured Miss Katie Potter," he said and he bowed so deeply his long nose touched the floor; he hadn't even noticed.
"Thank you ever so much Dobby," the dark-haired girl gushed. "That is so kind of you…"
"Miss Leshia!" The girls froze and slowly turned around to find that Tally, the Malfoy's venerable houself had crept up on them and was now looking at her master's daughter with a look of extreme reprove; it was a look Leshia had come to know well over the years.
"Tally!" Leshia cried out, realising now that last year they had had to distract her with a mountain of repair work in order to make sure she wouldn't catch them as surely she would alert Draco to their whereabouts. "I can explain…" But it would seem the elf didn't want an explanation as with a crack she disappeared into thin air.
"Time to go," Leshia told the others and she grappled at Katie's father's invisibility cloak, trying to unfold it so as to cover the three girls on their journey back to their common room.
"Thank you again Dobby, you're too kind," Katie assured the houself, before the other two threw the cloak over her and shielded her from view. They whispered their goodbyes before pushing the painting open and creeping into the corridor beyond where they were terrified Draco would now be prowling. Tally had not failed and the girls had only made it down two corridors when suddenly a figure with telltale confident stride paced into view.
"Shuffle," Leshia whispered to the others hoarsely and the three girls shuffled ever so silently to the side of the corridor, hoping against hope that Draco would pass them by. They cleared their minds of all thoughts, as it was pretty clear now that Draco was a talented legilimens – a mind reader – and he had been able to sense them in the past due to their mischievous thoughts. It seemed now that the young man was able to sense something also and he slowed down before he reached the girls, looking straight at them with narrowed eyes, obviously trying to decide whether there was anyone there. The girls, in a moment of panic, managed to clear their minds as they were too frightened to think of anything, and eventually Draco raised his head once more and carried on pacing. The girls waited for his footsteps to wane away, before they dared to breath and make their way slowly back to their dormitory. Ass they reached the Fat Lady's portrait the girl's exchanged a happy look – they had made it – before they threw off the cloak.
"Rat droppings," Rachel announced proudly and the portrait begrudgingly swung forward.
"Hold it right there," a voice came from the shadows behind them, and all three girls froze, before slowly turning round to face the dreaded Potions master.
"Professor Snape," Leshia uttered in surprise and she glanced to her friends apologetically, this wasn't meant to happen.
"With you track record of getting yourself into nasty incidents it seems highly foolish to be wandering the corridors of the castle at night don't you think Miss Malfoy?" Snape exclaimed haughtily. Leshia fought the urge to talk back to the professor, but she knew she had to try and worm out of this somehow.
"Yes sir," she said softly and she nodded.
"What are you doing up at this time?" Snape asked suspiciously. "I hear you've been down to the kitchens. Feeling a little peckish were you?" The girls quickly nodded and Rachel held forward a fruit pie she had taken alone as evidence to the fact. Snape scowled at her.
"Put it away you greedy child," he complained angrily and Rachel instantly complied sheepishly. Snape seemed to ruffle himself up, evidently preparing himself to punish the children for their misbehaviour, but he never got the chance as the fast paced footsteps of Draco announced the young man's arrival.
"Severus," he called to his friend, before he arrived on the scene and stood between the children and the potions master. "Thank you, I can take it from here." Snape looked highly reluctant to give up his control over the situation.
"Are you certain?" he asked warningly and Draco replied with an equally as warning expression on his handsome face. Feeling entirely put out that he was to go without three extra helpers – he had been all set on placing the girls in detention before Draco had shown up – the cantankerous potions master stalked off leaving Draco looking at the girls in a bemused way.
"Don't let Tally find you in the kitchens again," he warned them, before he nodded to them, giving them permission to rush back to their dormitory. "Goodnight girls," he told them softly and while Katie and Rachel scarpered, not needing to be told twice, Leshia lunged forward and wrapped her arms around her father's neck.
"Thanks dad." Draco returned her hug firmly. "Why aren't you going mental at us?" she whispered. To her surprise, her father started laughing genially and he pulled away from his daughter with a smile on his face.
"Because…I'm proud of you." With this he gave her one last charming smile before walking back down the corridor. Feeling a little concerned that her father was coming down with something, Leshia was about to head after him, but it would seem the Fat Lady had other ideas.
"Am I to hang around all night?" the portrait demanded, eking the doorway closed a little. Leshia turned around quickly and gave the painting a quizzical look.
"But you're a painting, surely that's all you can do," she told it cockily. The Fat Lady was not amused and after a highly putout sound she started to close, ensuring Leshia had to dive for safety; she only just made it.
XXX
The following day the eve of the party had arrived and nothing could detract from the excitement of the Gryffindors and their lower out-hoursers. During breakfast practically half of the student body had come over to personally tell Leshia and her friends how grateful they were to be invited and this had the effect of putting the three girls in exceedingly good moods. So much so, that Rachel actually managed to bring herself to consider her little sister, who as yet had not replied to their invitation.
"I wonder why she hasn't replied," she said softly, feeling hurt, though she couldn't explain why.
"Maybe the Slytherins are planning something of their own," Katie suggested tactfully. At this Leshia snorted and shook her head, earning her a severe look of reprove from the raven-haired girl.
"They don't have the combined intelligence to pull off normal conversation, what makes you think they can organise a whole party? I mean…" For a moment Leshia faltered, and pulled back a little with a cautious expression on her face. The reason for this being Katie, who at this moment was glowing red and looked as though she was about to explode. Unaccustomed to the young girl curbing what she was allowed to say, Leshia continued. "Anyway, what I meant was, no, I doubt iouw! What did you do that for?" the girl demanded as she rubbed her sore foot, which Katie had just delivered a crippling blow to.
"Well maybe she told one of the others she was coming," Katie tried falsely, shooting Leshia daggers across the table. Rachel though was looking slightly incredulous, yet also, so very amused by what was going on. Leshia may not have seen the warning signs on Katie's face, but Rachel certainly had. She'd been at the receiving end of Katie's foot far too many times.
"Look, she's just not coming," Rachel sighed. "I guess she's just too much of a Slytherin to bother." With this she got to her feet and headed off to the toilets before their first lesson, and the moment she had walked a few feet away Leshia spun round on Katie with a dark expression.
"Who made you the talk police?" she demanded.
"Honestly," Katie grumbled raising her hands to the sky. "The pair of you are about as tactful as two rhinoceroses." Leshia pulled back highly disgruntled.
"Rachel's a big girl Katie, you don't have to walk around on egg shells."
"No, but a little discretion might go a long way Leshia, just grow up a little!" With this Katie got to her feet and flounced out, leaving Leshia fuming. How dare she tell her to grow up? Fair enough, Leshia may not have shot up and turned into a young woman over the summer, but why did that have to mean she was suddenly inferior and childish?
"You okay Leesh?" The girl looked up quickly and found Rodeo watching her concernedly.
"Why do girls have to be so complicated?" The boy grinned and shrugged his shoulders.
"Fact of life I'm afraid," he replied charmingly. "Come on, we'll be late for Care of Magical Creatures."
XXX
Throughout Hagrid's lesson the three girls were decidedly less jubilant than their peers. Whereas everyone else was ecstatic about the party, the troublesome trio were in all manner of sorts. Rachel was lamenting her sister's Slytheriness, and the other two couldn't look at one another without shooting glares at one another. Their moods though, were about to abruptly change as a small owl circled the class before singling out Leshia and diving at her. The girl threw her hands up to protect herself, but a winged attack never came and after she had dared to open her eyes she found Katie holding her arm out, while she tickled the small owl that was balanced on it with her other hand.
"Here, that's a letter for you Leesh," Rachel exclaimed and after giving the small owl a reproachful look, Leshia took the letter and read it silently, her jaw dropping a little with each new sentence she read, until she got to the very end and closed her mouth promptly with wide eyes. In an instant her friends had snatched it from her and started reading:
Dear Leshia,
Yes I vould like to com to your party. I am in Hogsmeade anyvay becos I do interview for newspaper Prophet. I feel ve must tolk yes? I do not vish to meet your father, I com in secret. I vill be there at ten.
Viktor Krum
PS My friend Lukas he com too, I think you do not mind yes?
"Oh my God," Rachel exclaimed slowly, before she looked up at Leshia in jubilant surprise. "Krum and Krosovitch! Brilliant!" Leshia though, had gone a funny shade of red and couldn't bring herself to speak. There was too much to take in: three world famous international quidditch players would be attending their party, she was going to have to speak to Lukas again, and finally she would be getting some information on her parents' secretive past.
"You know, he writes like you Rach, he can't manage 'w's either," she finally managed through a smirk, and then covered her head once more with her hands as Rachel glowed red and started to attack her with her textbook. Suffice to say, after this, the children were in much better spirits.
XXX
As the day wore on the girls remained in high sorts, and they even started conducting a plan to keep the Bulgarians from the English seeker should there be any problems, thought they didn't think there would be. Amazed with their guest list the girls finally felt that they had done it, they had topped last year's performance by about a hundred percent. How the teachers remained oblivious to their plans was beside them, as every lower year they passed in the corridors was talking loudly about meeting the Cauldron Chicks, or getting Neville to sign their copy of Daisy Dunce.
"Ugh," Rachel exclaimed dramatically as they lined up outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom for their last lesson of the day. Little Annie Weasley in Ravenclaw had just ran past with her friends practically shouting about how happy she was to be meeting Joanne Tayler, not even noticing her cousins standing in the queue beside the classroom. "If that lot don't shut their mouths there's not even going to be a party! I mean what would we do if the teachers found out?"
"Deny it," Leshia replied with a grin.
"Yeah like they'd believe us," the redhead grumbled and she angrily scuffed her shoe on the floor. For the first time in…well…as long as Leshia could remember, Damian Allseyer had no smart-alecky remark to make as he and his crowd of aesthetically challenged henchmen joined the queue.
"Alright there Allseyer?" she called to him cheerfully. He scowled, but kept his mouth shut, it was a challenge Leshia couldn't resist. "What will you lot be doing tonight?"
"Stuffing themselves at the feast and then going home to a lonely common room I suspect," Rachel snorted and she and Leshia started laughing at the furious Slytherins. Katie, ever the wisest one of the group, didn't think that winding the Slytherins up was possibly the best idea considering they wanted to remain below teacher-radar for the foreseeable future. Under the circumstances, Allseyer managed to control his fury quite well, and eventually Leshia and Rachel got bored of taunting him in time for Draco to walk up to the group of students and inspect their shirts. The class seemed to be getting better at dressing themselves and everyone was presentable, so he pushed the door open, allowing everyone to walk past him to their seats. Once everyone was seated a hand went up at the back of the classroom.
"Yes Mr Allseyer?" Draco asked as he leant against his desk at the front of the classroom. Nineteen curious faces swivelled round to stare at Allseyer, who was looking smug with himself. Instantly Leshia and Rachel started regretting their pre-class entertainment in the corridor.
"Sir, what would you do if you knew about these students who were breaking at least a hundred school rules?" the boy asked with a small satisfied smile on his face.
"Do you?" Draco asked curiously, and he waited while the boy at the back of the class nodded slowly. "Well go on then, we haven't got all day," Draco urged. Allseyer briefly glanced to Leshia, who was glaring at him through eyes so narrowed that she could barely see, before he looked back to Draco.
"The Gryffindors are throwing a party tonight and they're bringing in people from outside of the school and probably stealing a whole load of food from the kitchens too, they did last year!" Those nineteen same faces spun around to look at Draco who was frowning.
"Yes I know," he said eventually. "As far as I'm aware, the headmaster has given them permission. So if you have nothing else to say, let's get on with the lesson shall we?" Leshia spun around just in time to catch the look of outrage and surprise on her arch-enemy's face and she wished she would have had a camera to catch the moment on film. The Slytherins in the class had never looked so indignant as they did at this moment, and after taking in Draco's response, Allseyer looked to Leshia furiously, but the girl was smiling at him darkly.
"Grass," she mouthed and her smile grew into a lopsided grin. She continued to watch the boy while the consequences of his actions sunk in, before she turned around beaming happily at the back of her father's head, wondering if there was any truth to his words.
The lesson dragged by, as everyone was eager to be let go so they could go and change for the party, or in Leshia and her friends' cases, so they could go and prepare the common room. Draco tried to bear with their excitement, but he was getting angry with the constant whispering that broke out every time his back was turned. After giving five individual children detention, he gave up and issued a class wide detention to take place at the weekend. The Gryffindors didn't seem to mind too much, but as far as the Slytherins went, this was like rubbing salt into their already painful wound. Finally half three crawled by and the bell signifying the end of lessons rang out and after Draco merely waved his hand angrily at the class they leapt to their feet and scarpered. Only Leshia, Katie and Rachel remained behind.
"What do you lot want?" Draco asked them tetchily, evidently not impressed that their antics were causing him so much unnecessary heartache.
"Is it true?" Leshia asked.
"Is what true?"
"You know, what you told Allseyer?" Draco sighed heavily and started to wipe down the blackboard. "Dad?"
"In a manner of speaking," Draco eventually replied. "I used the word permission extremely loosely." The girls' eyes went wide in surprise and joy as the fear of getting into the trouble flew out of their heads and made them feel giddy. "A word of advice," Draco continued and now he turned round, leaning on the back of his chair with a somewhat serious expression on is face. "If you want to keep something a secret, don't go telling half the school what you're planning. We found out about ten seconds after the student body did, lucky for you Albus was quite excited about meeting Joanne Tayler so he's turning a blind eye to your party, just this once!"
"He's coming?" Leshia asked in surprise. Draco smiled amusedly.
"He said he was going to drop by, as are half the teachers I'd imagine." The girls were so horrified that for a moment Draco felt a little better that they had caused the children of the school to regress into a hyper active mass of chatterboxes all day. "Go on, get out, I bet you've got a mountain of stuff to organise." The girls jumped to their feet and whereas Katie and Rachel rushed out, Leshia stayed behind.
"Were you serious?" she asked him worriedly and she cringed when her father nodded slowly.
"I wouldn't go planning anything for the weekends to come Leesh, he's going to have words with you tomorrow," he said slightly sympathetically. Leshia nodded and felt a little humbled, and humiliated that she hadn't thought the teachers knew. Of course they knew, everyone knew. Her father had been right, they should have played the whole ting down.
"What would you do?" she asked him eventually. Draco breathed in slowly while he furrowed his brow in thought.
"I'd go out there, do what I had to do and be remembered as the girl who flouted every single school rule to throw Hogwarts' best ever party," he replied eventually and then smiled proudly at his daughter. "I meant what I said. I am very proud of you!"
XXX
The rest of the afternoon went by in a flurry of activity. There were decorations to be hung, furniture to be moved, and food to be arranged. With the severely increased guest list from last year, the girls had to employ the use of all lower year dormitories but one. Being the organisers of the event Leshia and her friends claimed their dormitory was off limits, but they did help the others move any personal possessions they didn't want damaged into their dormitory. To make sure that it and the other non-party dormitories remained off-limits Headgirl Julia Walling placed spells on the doors, which ensured that you would need a password to enter them.
Several of their guests of honour seemed to require special arrangements. Fred and George Weasley wanted to set up a stall so as they could demonstrate (and hopefully sell) some of their new inventions. So the girls dedicated second year boys' dormitory to them – per request by Rodeo and Parys, who were immense fans of the wizarding geniuses. Neville Longbottom would undoubtedly need some table or other as half the invitees were bringing copies of his book to sign. The girls dedicated the first year girls' dormitory to him and set up one of the armchairs behind a small table. Lastly, the Cauldron Chicks were going to need a performing area, which the girls set up in front of the fireplace in the common room. In order to keep the common room available for the most people, they set up the refreshments tables in the third year girls' dormitory and then spent an hour helping the elves arrange everything. There were whole crates of butterbeer and pumpkin juice, mountains of pastries and Halloween style cakes, hundreds of sugared apples, and bags full of sweets. The girls gleefully realised that there would be plenty to spare to feast on for the forthcoming weeks.
Finally the place was ready, and everyone rushed off to change with only half an hour before dinner. Everybody would be arriving shortly afterwards.
"Which top do you think is the nicest?" Katie asked her friends as she held up two surprisingly skimpy numbers. Rachel burst out laughing, but Leshia felt a little disgruntled and embarrassed once more over her childlike body.
"Katie, you can't wear either, you'd look like a tart!" Rachel laughed, and Leshia tried to half-heartedly join in.
"Oh give over Rachel I'm thirteen," Katie grumbled.
"So?" Rachel crowed happily and she pointed to Leshia, who was in the middle of doing up her belt; she had opted for black trousers and a loose fitting top, nothing too fancy, and nothing that would accentuate the fact that she was still developmentally-challenged. "See, that's how you're supposed to dress when you're thirteen."
"Oh shut up," Leshia grumbled and she shut herself in her bed to readdress her clothing situation.
"Leshia's isn't thirteen yet, so there's no comparison," Katie said airily, before she opted for a less revealing top and went to change. Eventually everyone was happy with what they were wearing and they rushed down with a throng of similarly dressed youngsters to the main hall to have brief dinner before it was turned over to the fourth years and over for their dance. Nobody seemed to eat much for fear of turning up to either event bloated and the houselves noted that they had never had so much food returned to them once all the plates reappeared down in the kitchens. Everyone was turning to leave, when to their utmost surprise Professor Dumbledore rose to his feet, evidently to make some sort of announcement.
"Uh oh," Leshia managed softly.
"Dear students," the aged headmaster called out. "I just wanted to wish you joy on this Hallows eve." His eyes twinkled briefly in the direction of Leshia and her friends. "I understand that there will be lots going on, but please, be wary of anything unusual. It is when we are at the height of enjoyment that we become most vulnerable. Please, do not become complacent, but do, have the very best of fun." With this he returned to his seat, leaving most of the students looking to one another in confusion…what on earth did that mean?
The thought was pushed from their minds as everybody rushed back to their common rooms to await eight-o clock so as they could either storm the great hall or the Gryffindor common room, depending on which year you were in. As the Gryffindors arrived at the Fat Lady there was a surprise…or rather, several surprises waiting for them.
"We tried to tell her we used to be in this house, but she wouldn't listen," Fred Weasley announced when he saw the first trickle of Gryffindors coming up the corridor. Hearing their uncle Rachel and Katie pushed ahead to the head of the group.
"Uncle Fred, Uncle George!" the cried cheerfully and rushed forward to embrace them. Leshia's attention was drawn to the disgruntled looking Cauldron Chicks, who looked very unhappy at being made to wait, and then to Joanne Tayler, who was engaged in an exuberant conversation with Neville Longbottom over Daisy's next adventure – the young seeker had in fact been a closet Daisy Dunce fan for many a year.
"I'm sorry to keep you waiting," she told everyone and quickly uttered the password ensuring the Fat Lady finally swung open and allowed everyone in. The Cauldron Chicks were quick to set up their instruments, as were Fred and George in setting up their stall – with the help of Sarah and Amy, who despite being embarrassed at the fact that their fathers were at their party, were still rather happy to see them. Neville seemed very grateful for the fact that he would get somewhere cosy to sit while the children harangued him for signatures and Joanne Tayler was most happy to keep him company until they did.
All in all, everything was turning out splendidly. Slowly the clock trailed round to eight and with a heavy sigh of trepidation Leshia and her friends headed for the door to see if anyone had come yet. As soon as they neared it they could hear the chatter of anxious partygoers, eager to be let in and the girls felt their stomachs flutter nervously.
"Here's to us," Rachel said softly and she raised the bottle of Butterbeer she held in her hand. Leshia and Katie grinned at her and lifted their drinks to hers.
"To us."
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End of PART III
Author's Note: The relationship between Ryan and Leshia is not to be construed as anything other than a brother/sister like relationship. I hope this comes across, but to some readers who might not pick up on it, really, nothing is going to happen between them, he's too old for her. I see my older brothers reflected in him, that's who I'm basing this character on.
Replies to some reviewers' questions:
SexyDraco04: It is my plan to eventually do seven stories about the girls' progression through school
FanFicFanatick: Thank you for your detailed advice. I've taken some of it into consideration I hope you noticed :) particularly where Hermione is concerned. I do not enjoy mixing writing styles directly i.e. mixing first person (POV) with third person. I've tried to include a few perspectives with letter writing, but I do intend for the narrative and the dialogue to put across the feelings and thoughts of my characters without the need to spell it out
rbt1980: They're all girls because I felt this dynamic worked with the personalities that I had thought up. Besides, I don't want to make a carbon copy of JK Rowling's works, otherwise I would have written a story with her cannon trio at the helm. In this story Leshia's assailants are not quite magically gifted enough to inflict true dangerous spells on her, so yes, they did just beat her up. And lastly, 'Leshia: Rebel without a Cause' is a standalone story, it is not part of the Generations series. I know she has the same name and is a similar character, but that is a different story that I've abandoned because it didn't generate any interest. If it's confusing, maybe I should take it down.
XLadyProngsX: Leshia is pronounced Leesh-uh (Leesh as in a leash, American for lead am I correct?). It's an abbreviation for Alecia that I made up because I like the sound of it – although for all I know it could be a real name, though I've never encountered it
To everyone else: Thank you very much for your reviews, that's why I'm posting for you! Thank you very much :)
Final note, sorry it's taking me long to update, but I've been under pressure at uni. Have to hand my dissertation in on Friday / Also, may not be able to post fourth chapter any time soon because I have exams in January and they're my finals, so I have to study study study! Thank you for your support, your reviews make me smile :)
Update 15/12/05 – Woooooooo! Just finished disseration, yay! Anyway, just a heads up for you guys to go check out my profile page if you wanna see pictures of Leshia and Draco as well as some family trees, some school timetables and also my favourite – Leshia and her friends' doodlings. I know, it's sad, but I love doing stuff like that on the computer.
Also, chapter four is five pages away from being complete, which means that it'll be up on Saturday, but only if people want it. I mean come on:) make me happy! Please?
