Disclaimer: No I do not own Harry Potter. If I did I
use a minor portion of my vast fortune to buy a new computer so up
loading a new chapter would not take the three hour of frustration that
it took today to convert and upload this chapter. (I use an older mac
lab top that does not run any compatable software that works on here.
So I have to convert it to a format the pc at work reads and then save
it to be able to post. Argh!)
Alfie is a mildly happy plot bunny. He got a review, only one so far
but he is happy non the less. So you all get a new chapter. He ran
around and around yelling "I got a review, I got a review" over and
over and would not stop. Eventually Peaches cracked him in the head
with a frying pan to get him to stop. Now he has a mild concussion and
one less brain cell but he'll be ok.
So here is the new chapter enjoy. Lucius is up to no good, again.
Chapter 6
Can You Behave
"Wake up. We have training to do." I hear Snape's voice growl at me.
No, I just want to sleep a little while longer. I try to pull the blankets over my head and drift back off but he grabs them and rips them off.
"Severus! Owww!" pain rips through my head. I clutch my hand to my face holding my bruised jaw.
"Here let me see." he says sitting down on the bed beside me. I roll my eyes up at him. "Anna." Slowly I remove my hand. He gently takes my jaw in his hand and turns my face to examine it. "That's a pretty nasty bruise you've got. I should let you suffer through the pain. Maybe then you'll learn to behave."
"I didn't want to torture him. He didn't know anything. It would have accomplished nothing. I got backhanded though hard enough that I fell down and he jerked me up by my hair. Then I kind of lost my temper. So I read their minds and knew that he knew nothing and that they planed on killing him anyway. So I just ended it. That's what they brought me there to do anyway."
"Lucius is furious over this. You made him look like a fool in front in Dark Lord. He will seek revenge."
"I'm a ten year old kid! And he wants to get revenge against me? How bloody grown up of him."
Severus chuckles at this. "You are so rotten. Stay here and I'll get you something for your face." I nod in agreement and he leaves the room. I hope last night is not an omen of things to come in my life. A ten year old cold blooded murder forced to bidding's of the Dark Lord and his death eaters. I can see their faces plan as day a haunting reminder of what I have done and seen. Will they be there in my mind forever forcing me to relive their last moments over and over for the rest of my life? I can't let this be my fate I must find a way out. If my life continues on this way how will I hold on to my sanity?
Snape returns a short while later with a couple vials of potion. He returns to his seat on the bed next to me.
"Here drink this." he says handing me a vial of potion. "It'll easy the pain." I tip the vial up to my lips and let the potion slither its slimy way out into my mouth. I swallow the potion and grimace at the awful bitter acidy taste.
"Yuck! You're a great potion master can't you make it taste better." Oh that was one of the most awful tasting things I've ever had. I almost gagged over the texture. It was slimly, kind of what I think it would feel like if you ate snot.
"No, plus it's more fun watching you make that face." he smirks.
"Har." He dabs the other potion on to my face with a cloth. "Oww!" I jerk my head away from him.
"Hold still." he says taking a hold of my chin he gently dabs the potion on to my bruises. "There you'll be healed up in no time."
"Thanks." I don't know if I'll ever understand this man. One moment he's mean and snarky and the next he is nice and gentle.
"Now get up and get dressed" he flips the blankets down off of me. The sudden rush of cool air makes me shiver. He turns and hastily exits the room. I crawl out of bed, shower quickly and dress. I go down stairs and find Severus already collecting items for our lesson.
"This is a potion that I would never teach to someone so young but the Dark Lord has requested for a vial of Veritaserum and the stores at this time are void of this item. So this is the potion you will be watching me make today. For this potion is far to complex and difficult for you to attempt so soon in your training."
"I'm not an inept potion maker I can do it."
"No! You will watch and help when I say you can or you can scrub all the cauldrons by hand. Do you understand me." he towers over me creasing his brow in anger.
"Yes." I meekly respond. Why is he acting like this with me now? This morning he was almost playful and nice. Now he is being his usual grumpy, snarky self. We go about making the potion. I follow every instruction to the letter and he still snaps and barks at me. I'm practically in tears by the time we finish the potion. He places the finished potion in vials and sets them upon the table. He removes his pocket watch from his pocket and checks the time. He snaps it shut and slips it back into his pocket. I just stand there puzzled as to what he is doing now. Suddenly he grabs me by the arm and drags me into the ingredients storage room.
"What are ..."
"Hush! Listen to me. He is sending you on another mission tonight with Malfoy and his cronies. You need to hold your tongue and behave yourself. Malfoy is still furious over last night so he will not be particularly nice tonight. He will not hesitate to seriously hurt or even kill you. No matter how displeased the Dark Lord would be. There is nothing I can do. I argued against him sending you but he would hear nothing of it." Severus tells me with a note of concern in his voice.
"But I don't want to go." I whine.
"The choice is not yours to make." I look up into his deep dark eyes. He can see the fear in mine. Suddenly and totally out of character for him he grabs me up into a tight hug. "Please I beg you behave tonight. I can not bear to see you injured again." he whispers into my ear. What! He cares about me. He's the one he was talking about caring about the feeling of others if I got killed.
"I will." I whisper. "I promise." I softly plant a kiss on his cheek. He releases his hug and quickly exits the store room as if the whole thing never happened and returns to cleaning up from making the potion. I slip out of the store room and join Severus.
"Ahh how quaint, teacher and student cleaning up their little mess." Crows Lucius from the doorway.
"May I be of assistance, Malfoy." Snape sharply responds.
"I came to collect the potion and my little assistant." he bitingly remarks.
"Very well, here's your potion he has require." hands a couple vials of potion to Malfoy. "Your dismissed, Miss Balen."
"Yes, sir." I respond.
"Come along now we have much to do." I follow Malfoy out of the potions room. I glance back at Severus on my way out and he mouths at me 'behave yourself'. Here we go again fun with Malfoy. We exit the manor and apparate to our destination alone. When the world comes back into focus we are in a dirty creepy nasty smelling side alley. He grabs me by the elbow and steers me down the alley toward a very seedy looking store front. Over the door is a very worn sign precariously hang from only one attachment as the other has rusted away. The paint is so worn that it reads Kno kt rn A le Ant q e, Ar ifa ts a d Su h. I read it many times before I finally figure out that it reads Knockturn Alley Antiques, Artifacts and Such. So this is Knockturn Alley. I've heard about it but I've never been here. We enter the dark dusty store fill all sorts of magical artifacts. There on shelves, in glass cases, stacked on the floor, some even have there own special made glass cases. Skeletal heads and hands, jars of unidentifiable things floating in liquids, cases, bottles, even pieces of furniture, but in our world a harmless looking trunk could hold a horror or something enchanting inside. Even a large iron maiden stands propped against the wall. It is standing ajar and inside is deep colored stains that can only be the remnants of past uses. Malfoy roughly grabs me by the arm and jerks me off to one side.
"Stay here do not move, don't touch anything I will return shortly." He stalks off.
I do as he says and stay where I am at. The stuff in here is creepy. In the back of the shop I can see Malfoy talking heatedly with the clerk, an older overly thin gray haired man who skin is wrinkled with age and weathered by years of excessive abuse. I can not understand what is being said between them. Malfoy exchange a vial of potion for an envelope. I wonder what he is getting. Knowing him I probably don't really want to know, especially since it came from a shop like this. Concluding his business he returns to where he left. Grabbing my arm without a word he drags me out of the store and we head back up the alley the way we came. We turn back down the same dirty smelly side alley and he apparates us to a new location.
My feet roughly hit solid ground again and the world comes back into focus. We are beside a desolate stretch of road in the country side. Off in the distance I can see the lights of several small houses twinkle in the darkness of the night. A cool calm breeze filters it's way through the forest next to us. I breathe in the fresh earthy smell of the country side. Suddenly I find myself pined to a near by tree as Lucius has grabbed me by the throat. I gasp for air and struggle to free myself. He leans in so close to me that I can feel his breath upon my face. A cold chill runs through my entire body.
"If you make me look like a fool again don't think one moment that I won't hesitate to snap your pathetic little neck." he releases my throat and I gasp in air making my lungs burn. I try to step away from him but he grabs me from behind and presses me against his body. He caresses his hands down over my chest. "If you don't accomplish getting your self killed soon I believe you'll grow up to be one sexy piece of ass."
This little cretin is so gross. I can feel him pressed up against my back. I'm young but not naive. This prick gets turned on by being a prick. He grinds himself against my back. I think I'm going to retch. Please make this stop.
Pop! Pop! Two people apparate in near us. Malfoy quickly steps away from me and addresses the new arrivals.
"Barty Jr. and Karkaroff, so glad to see that you're joining me and the little one for some fun here tonight," Lucius tells them. "I am much pleased."
"Yes, the Dark Lord says this is a very important mission and we are not to fail him." Karkaroff says.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Several more death eaters join us.
"Yes I currently hold in my hand the possible location of several traitors. We are to capture them and return them to him." states Malfoy. "Follow me."
We head off down the dusty road toward the distant houses. It's kind of nice to be out of the manor walking in the cool night air. I can smell the damp earthiness of the forest lining the road. I'd be having a good time, accept for the lousy company I'm with. We pass by the first few houses that are dark one can assume that the inhabitants that dwell inside are tucked away in there beds fast asleep. Just as we pass the next house we are suddenly in the blink of the eye surrounded by a squad of Aurors. Lucius grabs me by the arm and pulls me close.
"Potter and Longbottom, so nice to see you guys again." sneers Barty Crouch Jr.
"Yes we meet again." mocks James Potter.
Spells started flying all around us. A miss aimed spell of a death eater catches me on the upper arm. I scream out in pain as blood soaks my shirt sleeve and cloak. Malfoy gets off several good ones taking out several Aurors before he grabs a hold of me and suddenly apparates away. We end up back at the manor. Malfoy drags me into the ballroom where the Dark Lord is the middle of a meeting with several death eaters, Snape included. Malfoy shoves me at Snape. He quickly catches me before I hit the floor in a crumpled heap at his feet. He stands me on my feet and upon removing his hands he notices that his right hand is covered in blood. He pulls my cloak off revealing my left shirt sleeve soaked in blood from a nasty gash on my shoulder. He summons a chair from across the room and sets me down. He being's to tend to my wound.
"What happened?" the Dark Lord asks.
"We were ambushed by a squad of Aurors. The stupid kid just couldn't keep from getting hurt." sneers Molfoy.
"Excuse me!" I speak up. "May I point out that the spell that hit me came from a death eater, Karkaroff. I was dodging aurors spells. I hadn't expected to get hit by a spell from a death eater." I wince in pain from my injury that Severus is attending to.
"Will she be alright Snape?" questions the Dark Lord.
"Yes, she'll live but she'll need to take it easy for a few days."
"Very well, your excused to attend to her. You five will join us. We are going to return and lend the others a hand." the Dark Lord jester at a group of death eaters. Rising from his throne he produces his wand, ready to head into battle.
Snape picks me up, carries me up stairs to my room and sets me down on the bed. He retrieves some clean clothes for me.
"Here put these on and I'll be right back. But do not get out of this bed." with this said he left the room. I carefully changed my clothes. The sleeve of my shirt is soaked with blood.
"Are you decent?" I hear from the other side of the door.
"Yes." I reply. Snape enters the room with a tray of potions and other items. He places the tray on the side table and picks up a potion. Yuck, it's that nasty one for pain again. But thank the stars because my arm bloody hurts. I choke down the potion. Snape sits down on the side of the bed and begins to clean the blood off my hand slowly work his way up my arm to my wound. He being's dabbing a potion onto the wound. Holy crap that stuff burns, I jerk my arm away from him.
"Hold still." he scowls.
"But it burns." I complain.
"Yes but you need it to help heal this. I'll be done soon. Just hold still a moment longer." He pulls my arm back and continues.
"Oww, oww, oww." I complain.
"Will you stop being such a child." he snaps.
"In case you haven't noticed I am a child." I smartly remark, flinching again from the pain he is educing.
"Fine I quit. Heal it yourself." he pouts, slamming the potion bottle down on the side table. He storms out the door.
"Ok I will." I yell at his back as he leaves. And I'm the child? He's a big baby. I stare at the gash in my arm willing it to heal. Slowly the tissue begins to regenerate. I concentrate harder but the healing process doesn't go any faster. About a half hour to forty five minutes later my arm is healed. I stare at it in amazement. I rub my arm where the gash was and it feels perfectly normal, no pain or anything. I can't believe it. I have to show Snape. I jump off the bed and run to the door, locked. I pound my fist against the door in anger and to my amazement I can see the fields of magic vibrate before my eyes. Wards? He's put up wards, duh, no wonder I couldn't just open the door by using the alohomora spell. Sometimes I wonder about my intelligence. I concentrate on the wards and slowly one by one I watch them drop. Not thinking about it I whip open the door and run down the hall to Snape's room and knock on the door.
"Who in bloody hell is at my door at this hour." he snarls.
"It's me open up." I say.
The door fly's open. 'How did you get here?" he asks me puzzled.
"I put one foot in front of the other until I got here." I answer being a smart ass. "I have to show you this." I pull up my sleeve and show him my healed arm.
"How did you... do that?" he asks puzzled
"Just concentrated real hard on healing my arm and it worked."
He just stares at me with a look of disbelief on his face. "And the wards on the door?"
"Same thing sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Yeah I got mad when I couldn't get out and I slammed my fist against the door. I could see the fields of magic surrounding the door. Then I just concentrated on making them go away. One by one they sort of dissolved." I explain.
"You can see the fields of magic that made up the wards? Amazing I've never heard of anyone who could do such a thing. Come here, go inside the bathroom I'm going to set some more wards on the door. See if you can get out." he says shoving me in the bathroom and closing the door. I just stand there and stare at the closed door. Um, maybe I don't feel like doing this now, I'm tried. "Ok they're set." he says.
I step up to the door and touch it. I can see the fields around the door. They remind me of what it looks when you see heat waves coming off of something. Like when it's really hot outside and you can see the heat radiate off of a surface. Except each layer is a slightly different color. They kind of get a more intense color the stronger they are. He has put seven wards on the door. I begin by taking down the easier lighter colored wards first. The farther I go the harder they get. I finally get down to the last two wards but I don't think I have enough strength left to make the last two drop. I've used a lot of my strength tonight between the fight, being hurt, healing that, dropping the wards on my door and now doing these I'm worn out. I try to drop the next ward but I just can't I'm holding myself up by leaning on the door. But I give up, stopping I turn my back against the door and slide to the floor exhausted.
There's a knock at the door. "How's it going? I've noticed that you have dropped the first five wards but you haven't gotten the last two down."
"I know I just don't have the strength left after everything I've done today." I say weakly. He drops the wards and opens the door.
Thud! "Oww!" my head hits the floor.
"You could of warned me that you were leaning on the door." he snaps.
"You could of warned me that you were going to open the door." I snap back.
"Come on." he picks me up off the floor and carries me back to my room. "You know we need to stop this where I end up carrying you to bed every night."
"Ah why I kind of like it." I tease. He tosses me onto the bed and tucks me in.
"Night" he lowers the lights on his way out.
Chapter 7: Teaser
Title: Truth and Lies
I glare up at him and heal the cut on my lip with little effort. With my uninjured hand I wipe the blood from face not once do I break eye contact with Malfoy. His draws his wand and points it at me.
Oh yeah Alfie is still begging for more reviews.
