Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, because JKR does. Go her! Oh, and there is a small Danny the Champion of the World (by Roald Dahl) reference, because Vanessa's old teachers were living partly in the past (you'll see).
Thanks, reviewers!
BURN THE RUM: Oh, that does suck, but I hope you had fun at the play! And I hope the clock won't hurt your neck! I know the whole Adam thing is confusing, but I PROMISE that it will be explained! JOHNNY SUPPORTERS UNITE!!!!! And about Moulin Rouge: If you loved reading the script, you'll adore the actual movie! The scenery is beautiful (so is Ewan McGregor!). Oh, yeah, and tell Lizzie to update!
Writingangel203: HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE!! *Smoke on your pipe and put that in* Remember, Neli, FEEL PRETTY!
Siriusforeva: Will Vanessa be pissed? Will Harry find out anything? Why am I asking questions? Well, find out nnnnnnnnnow (sorry for the corny joke…)!
Harry seemed as if all of Vanessa's memories came rushing past him like a rough wind. He was caught up and spinning through her complicated thoughts. Then, just as suddenly as it came, it stopped.
He was looking at an office in an old muggle school. There was a little girl, no older than seven, standing in front of a desk. A tall man who looked to be in his forties sat behind the desk. Principal, Harry thought.
"Well," he said, "what exactly do you have to say for yourself?"
The little girl looked both shy and frightened. She spoke in a soft voice. "I didn't mean to."
"You didn't mean to?" He got up, hands clenched into fists. "Oh, so the matches just lit themselves, then?"
"I didn't have matches," the girl said in a louder voice.
"So what are you saying? Are you going to tell me you didn't do it?"
"No, I –"
"Well, enough's enough. You've caused too much trouble in this school. We've tried to get you help, but you crackpot mother says there's nothing wrong with you. That it's all 'natural'."
The girl got up, her eyes full of rage. Harry had never seen any girl that young with eyes like that. "What did you say about my mother?" she spat.
The man did not answer her.
The girl continued. "Maybe if the other kids at your stupid school wouldn't hurt me, than I wouldn't be causing so much trouble!"
"NO LYING IN MY SCHOOL!" The man got up and grabbed a long wooden stick.
The girl, who had been standing so fearless, seemed to get a bit of anxiety in her eyes. The man stepped in front of her.
"Hold out your hand," he said.
Slowly, the girl brought her hand out, ready for the consequences. The man brought the stick down hard across the girl's palm. As the point hit her skin, a single tear dripped from her eye and down her cheek.
"Now go," the man said as he pointed to the door.
As the girl left the room, Harry noticed a small crack in the window that hadn't been there before.
The next few memories came. First, there was a slightly older girl in the hallways of a school. She walked down them, carrying her books.
"FREAK!" yelled a few of the people walking by. "GO BACK HOME! YOU DON'T BELONG HERE!"
The girl ran down the halls and into the nearest classroom.
The next memory came. There was a thirteen-year-old girl walking down past an alley in a muggle city. Judging from how she looked in the past memories and how she looked now, it seemed as though the girl had cleaned herself up a bit and had gotten on a better track.
"Hey, I know you," came a voice from behind the shadows.
She turned in a fast spin, having been surprised at the yell. As her dark eyes fixed upon the boy who'd spoken, they grew wide. She stumbled back a little, and turned, obviously not wanting to stay.
"HEY!" he yelled. "I'M TALKING TO YOU!" He ran in front and stopped her. "You used to go to my school. Yes, you were the crazy one…the outsider…everyone was quite glad to be rid of you, actually. Especially after what happened with the desk…"
"It was an accident," she said, quivering.
"Yeah, right. Nothing like that could ever be done on accident. You didn't deserve to walk among us!"
The girl's eyes became enflamed again, as they had in the first memory Harry had witnessed. "YOU didn't deserve to be with ME! Everyone at that school thought they had the right to hurt me the way they did…and YOU were the worst!" She clapped her hand to her mouth in a way that seemed to say, 'I shouldn't have said that, I shouldn't have said that…'
The boy, now sharing the same expression of rage as the girl, grabbed her arm and brought her close to him.
"Your memory must be poor. You wouldn't talk to me that way if you remembered what I did."
"You threatened me with a baseball bat…and carried out the notion," she said, a bit more quietly.
"Well, seeing as how you can recall me, let's finish our little 'conversation', shall we?"
The girl hadn't had time to answer, for the boy grabbed her shoulders and had thrust her away from him. Her head banged into the brick wall of the alley. She shrieked and fell the ground, unconscious, blood trickling down the side of her head. The boy stepped toward her, and what he did next, Harry didn't find out, for he was soon taken to the next memory…a very recent one in fact.
The girl, now 16 was running up the stairs of her home. "Mum, I'm home from seeing Professor Belfast. She said – "
She shushed up as she opened the door to her mother's room. And who was sitting on the bed, but none other than…Melissa.
"Mum, is everything alright?" asked Vanessa, almost hesitantly as she walked further into the room.
"H-he's dead," she whispered. Her eyes were wet and swollen, traces of tears lined her cheeks. She was shaking ever so slightly, holding a letter in her hands.
Vanessa, not saying a word, ran from the room. Harry knew very well who was dead, but did not see what happened next, for he came rushing back to the Gryffindor common room.
His wand was held very loosely in his hand, but he was focusing on Vanessa's expression. Her eyes held a small trace of hurt, but she seemed to be more afraid, and, well, shaken. She was shivering, and she soon knelt down and put her face in her hands. Harry was about to try to console her, but he thought better of it, and left.
As soon as Harry's footsteps faded even from the echoes of the school hallways, Vanessa keeled over as her vision faded to black in front of the dancing and sputtering fire.
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Adam Galway gently picked his head up from the table placed in the middle of the boys' dormitory. His skull ached for he reasons he hadn't known. He looked around, almost confused of where he was, until his senses returned to him. He spotted an empty bottle of butterbeer lay on its side next to him.
"Damn Slytherins must've spiked it," he whispered. Or maybe that Vanessa girl, he thought. What had she been talking about before, anyway? What did anything he'd ever said had to do with Sirius Black? After seeing how depressed Harry was after his death, he never would've touched the subject. Especially Black's own daughter. She'd been giving him death glares and tears ever since she got here. Too bad she's pretty, he thought. I wouldn't be in so much torture if she looked like a second Millicent Bullstrode…
"OW!"
Adam had reached back and touched what seemed to be a bump the size of Ireland on the back of his head. Maybe the butterbeer hadn't been spiked after all…in fact, he hadn't even remembered drinking one in the past week…
He picked up the bottle and sniffed the top of it. There was definitely a hint of firewhiskey in there. More than a hint, actually. But if he didn't drink it, who would plant it near him to make himself – or anyone else, for that matter – think he'd just had a wild night out? Whatever it was, it probably had something to do with the bump on his head.
He got up and brushed himself off. In the middle of performing this task, he noticed something on his hand…something engraved in his hand…
"The Dark Lord is near…The Dark Lord is near…Mudbloods beware…""What the – "
"Adam, hey ADAM!" called Dean Thomas, one of his close friends.
A little startled, Adam shoved his hand into his robes just as Dean entered the room.
"Adam, did you manage to hear when the next Quidditch match was going to be?"
-----------------------
"Sirius, I know you're here!" Melissa screamed at the stars. She was standing on top of the familiar ink clouds she once stood on many weeks ago. "I saw you! Come out here!"
Silence.
"Please…" she said in a dead whisper.
Still silence.
Mel gently crouched down and began to sob. She was sad, confused, angry. For several weeks, she'd been obsessing over the dark figure she'd seen in her dreams. And now she was dreaming again, and screaming for her dead husband. And why did he have to be her dead husband? It was like she was going mad… But as they say, nothing in life is ever fair.
"Why are you here?" came a still voice.
Mel looked up and stared into a pair of distant, dark eyes. She slowly stood up calmly, and quietly.
"Why do you think?" she said. She stared for a long time at him, a smile gathering slowly to his face. "I'm here for you, Sirius. Is a wife not aloud to look upon her husband?"
"Still the same fiery woman. Oh, Mel…"
"Sirius…" She approached him, about to throw her arms around his neck when he backed away sharply.
"You can't touch me," he said.
"And why not?" asked Mel, clearly irritated.
"It's…complicated," he answered. Clearly he was dissapointed, too.
There was a long silence. It lasted until Sirius's words finally penetrated it.
"I waited for you to come running to me," he said softly. "It was surprising to find that you weren't there…"
"Sirius, I – "
"No, Mel, trust me, I'd rather you were alive and well."
"But I'm not well. Not at all!"
"But just look at Vanessa, Mel. She's beautiful…"
"That's just it, Sirius, I've failed. She's had a terrible life. She was abused by her teachers and classmates for six years, until I could finally get her into Magic school. She suffered, she – oh, it was awful. She went through these…fazes that would consume her – body and soul. She had so many problems; I started fearing the worst…until she was finally able to go to the Wizarding School. Her life started to pick up and take shape. She was doing well for herself. But now…"
There was a pause.
"Now what, my love?" asked Sirius
"Well, I had told her many stories of you, and…I'd always relied on the hope that we'd find you one day. I just wanted to hold my husband at least once more. I wanted Vanessa to see you…she wanted to see you… And now nothing can go right for any of us, can it?" She began to yell. "NO, NOTHING CAN EVER STAY GOOD FOR THE CURSED GIRL AND HER DAUGHTER!"
Sirius was starting to see the point. Oh dear God…
"You still have to take the potion, then…"
"Of course I do, Sirius," she said through hot tears. "It's g-getting worse. It hurts so much more. Before I only relived the nightmares, but now I can feel the scar re-opening. It's like a dagger is dug into my back, and I can feel it outline the cut. I fear if I keep taking it, it'll k-kill me…"
"But if you stop taking it, you'll die!"
"Doesn't leave me much of a choice."
"Look, if Dumbledore tells you to keep taking it, keep taking it."
"I'm tired of listening to Dumbledore!" Frustration began consuming Mel. "He doesn't know what it's like! It's not just the cuts re-opening, Sirius! I get…feelings now from it. There are voices all around me. 'I love you,' they say over and over again. 'Marry me,' 'I do…' Then they start screaming, 'YOUR FAULT!!' 'Death awaits him.!' 'Coward!' 'Everything is your fault…' I can't take it anymore, Sirius. It's killing me."
"Mel, I – "
"Do you know how your presence haunted me? I knew my husband was going to die, and there was nothing that could be done… And I've destroyed my daughter's life, too. I'm too unstable, Sirius!" She sat for a while, crying out her sorrows. Once she had settled down (which took a very long time), Sirius spoke.
"You haven't ruined Vanessa. She's gorgeous, thriving, and she's as brave as Gryffindor, himself. Trust me, Mel, she's happy."
These words seemed to calm Melissa quite a bit. Her husband had always known how to charm her…
"You should see her, baby, she's just like you."
"I know, I say once again: she's gorgeous." Sirius developed a broad smile. She was finally laughing, or at least giggling. "I love you, Mel."
"Why do you tease me?" she said.
"How am I – "
"You taunt me with words, Sirius. You say 'I love you,' yet I can't hold or touch you. It's like hanging a piece of meat just out of a dog's reach." Despite her words, she gave him a small grin.
And he grinned, too.
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"Ness, wake up!"
Vanessa fluttered her eyes open to someone gently tapping and shaking her. She felt disconnected with herself. That is, until she realized who was shaking her, then her spirit came flooding back.
"Are you okay?" asked Harry.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine, it's just – the heat got to me, that's all." She got up to leave the common room. "I need to get some fresh air." As she turned to leave, Harry stopped her.
"Hey, I was just wondering, about what I saw – "
"Oh, Harry, not now, not here."
"Ok, well, do you want to talk some time? I could tell you need to get some stuff off your chest, and well, so do I. It could help."
Vanessa was about to turn him down when she saw the look on his face. It seemed to beg her to agree to this. Maybe he really did need to talk about some things…things about Sirius…
"All right, sure," she said, less cool than she had meant it to sound. "Room of Requirement next Saturday?"
"Hey, how did you – "
"My mom tells me a lot more about my dad's adventures than the teachers at this school would like her to," Vanessa said, with a keen little smirk.
"Sounds great," answered Harry.
Vanessa walked right out of the portrait hole and walked towards the door to the grounds. It was a very warm day, but she found some solace in the shade underneath a tree. She needed to think some things over.
Through all the weeks at school, Harry and Vanessa had never really gotten to know each other. They were more like acquaintances. They never ran up to each other to talk about how killer Snape's potions exam was, or how beautiful the weather outside had been, but if they ever passed each other in the halls, they would smile and nod to acknowledge one another. She never really understood why they hadn't talked much. Seeing as how they had one very big connection. In reality, they had loads to talk about.
"That's why you're going to meet him in the Room of Requirement on Saturday," she soliloquized out loud.
She laid herself down and stretched out her arms. All this warm and misty air was bringing heavy fatigue to her eyes. She closed them and began to drift off, when she heard a large crash come from Hagrid's hut. She got up and ran straight for the door. She pulled at the handle and, surprisingly, it was unlocked.
"Hagrid, are you alright?"
"Oh, 'ello Miss Black. Yeh, I'm fine. Just lookin' fer me pocket knife. It's quite large, I don' see 'ow I couldda missplaced it," came Hagrid's gruff voice.
Vanessa let out a sigh. Ever since Vanessa's first day at the school, when she got lost and Hagrid helped her, she'd grown very fond of him. He was like the biggest best friend a person could ever wish for. In truth, she confided in him quite a bit.
"Oh, thank God. I thought you'd gotten hurt."
"No, no, I'm ok. I'm just lookin' fer the knife. I need it since 'alloween is next week, and I always use it ter carve the pumpkins. But with this unusual 'ot wind, I wouldn't be surprised if they turned ter mush in me 'ands."
Vanessa giggled a little.
"Yeah, and I've been trying to get this bloodstain out 'o' the side door panel. I musta scraped me elbow on it er sumthin'. "
Vanessa examined the blood stain closely. It was high up, maybe a little further than her head. Not an unusual place for Hagrid to hit HIS elbow.
"Well, Hagrid, I wish I could help, but I've got to go see if Mum's gotten up yet."
He looked up. "Oh? You mean she still 'ain't awake?"
"No, I think she indulged herself in a little wine before hitting the sack."
"Oh," he said. "Well, if you see Dumbledore, tell 'im to send one 'o' me extra knives down."
"See you later, Hagrid," she said, closing the door.
She rushed across the field and into the castle. She quickly ran up to the Gryffindor common room, said the password hastily, and ran behind the stairs leading to the girls' dormitories. There was a door behind them, leading to the room where Melissa slept. She quietly opened the door and creeped in.
"Mum," she said as she gently tapped the sleeping Melissa. "Mum, get up."
Mel had a small smile on her face. Her eyes slowly opened.
"Vanessa?" she yawned, leisurely sitting up. "I'm sorry, I must've – "
She stopped dead in the middle of her sentence, her eyes fixated on something. Vanessa turned and noticed what was carved in the wood above the doorway.
"Filthy Blood."
There was a knife sticking out of the wood next to it.
"Well," said Vanessa, hesitantly, "we've found Hagrid's knife."
