Seven Years, Chapter 13.

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Beta Reader: chocolateowl.


Merula was frozen by the ghastly face staring back at her.

It was a hard thing to describe, but she knew that it was impossible for a face to exist on the back of someone's head.

And no face on the back of someone's head could scream at her, creating a sound that shook her spine and created a voice in her head that told her to run.

But her legs were frozen in place, and she could do nothing but watch as the head turned, a long, trembling wand emerging from the dark figure's robes.

And then something smashed into her side, and Merula landed hard, her arms jerking into action as she tried to push the thing that had hit her.

It was Potter, and a second later Merula felt her body regain some measure of control as a green light flew just inches over their heads, striking a tree behind them. She didn't know what spell had hit the tree, but Merula felt a strong hand on hers as Potter dragged her through the path from which they came, their lanterns abandoned to the wayside.

It took a moment before she regained full control of her body and began to run in earnest, though she could not help but glance back at the clearing from where they were fleeing.

But there was nothing to be seen, except for a tall, looming shadow that she swore could not be a man.

It was then, her mind trying to make sense of the shade, that she tripped on an outstretched root, and fell in a tumble, landing hard on the ground. Pain lashed her leg as she rolled to a stop, trying her best to not cry out.

"Potter," she hissed, wincing when she smelled the unmistakable smell of her own blood. "My leg…"

Potter's face was pale in the moonlight, and Merula could see that he was as afraid as she was.

She was afraid too. The green light had felt sinister, even though it had never hit her, and she was afraid, for she doubted the figure with two faces was done.

Potter glanced up, and his face hardened. "I'm not leaving you-"

"Potter!" Merula hissed, angry at the stupid Gryffindor, and angry with herself. If their roles had been reversed, then she would have shoved Potter into the nearest branch and made a run for it, yet the stupidly brave Gryffindor was going to get them both killed. "We- we can't take him. He's not some dumb troll."

Potter didn't say anything to that. Merula glanced around them but saw nothing but dark forest. "Potter?" she asked, shivering as a cold breeze brought goosebumps up her spine.

"I-" Potter said as Merula watched him glanced around the dark forest. "I'll distract him, but you need to find Hagrid and the others. Can you do that?"

Merula knew she could, but the pain in her leg brought cold doubt into her head.

"Potter," Merula muttered, wincing as she tried to stagger to her feet, trying to find the right words. "I- I'll owe you for this."

Potter didn't say anything, but he darted from their position, and a few seconds later, Merula saw a bright trail of red sparks dashing into the sky, then another.

With her teeth gritted, she turned and ran the other way, her steps jerky and wavering as she staggered along, deeper into the forest. She wasn't sure of how far she had run, but she made do by counting the scrapes and slashes she received from every fall and errant tree branch. Somewhere between nineteen and twenty-three, Merula began to feel light-headed, but she forced herself to keep running.

It was then that the second root caught her and threw her to the ground.

She hit the ground and rolled twice before she stopped at the bottom of a great tree, sprawled on her back. It took her a long, pained moment to gather her thoughts and fight through the pain.

Somewhere in the fall, she had lost one of her shoes, that much was obvious with the feeling of warm summer air through her socks. But the pain she felt everywhere in her body drained what little willpower she had left.

She lay there, limps sprawled, her breaths lower and ragged.

It was almost nice, lying there, her mind unable to think of anything else.

But the bright, full moon above brought a different memory. One that replaced the dull calm with frantic, agonized fire.

Just as the thick, coppery blood had brought her mother's spectre back to mind, so did the bright moon above, like a revenant from that horrible night she lost her family, and the sudden rush of fear gripped her heart in a vise and forced breath back into her lungs.

Pain followed, every breath bringing every exposed scrape and bleeding wound to the forefront of her mind.

Merula drew in a deep breath. The pain almost broke her concentration, but her fingers clasped her wand, and with trembling fingers, she raised it at the distant moon, though the pain continued to taunt her, making aiming straight up impossible.

And yet, Merula clenched her teeth and forced her mind to recite the spell she had been taught. But while the incantation came easily, she couldn't bring herself to wave the wand in the correct motions through the pain that sapped her strength, and the wand slipped from her weak fingers, falling back to the earth.

But the revenant of her mother, like the inviting ghost from the tale, flashed before her eyes, and Merula used her hand to scrabble around the dirt. Death had used the ghost of a loved one to claim the second of three brothers, but her mother's warm, inviting face only drew more burning, agonizing fire from somewhere deep within her, and Merula gripped at the ground one fistful of branches at a time.

It was the third attempt that she found her wand, and the fourth that she was able to lift it roughly at the moon again, propping herself up with what little she had left inside her.

Merula chanted the incantation over and over again, pushing the pale ghost within her mind away as she raised her wand yet again. This time, a faint trail of red sparks flew from the wand, flying towards the pale moon above before they plunged back to the earth.

But Merula wasn't there to see them anymore. Her own exhaustion had dragged her down into the shadows.


The pain was gone when she woke, to the point where Merula had wondered if her injuries had been real at all, but then she felt a number of bandages, tight against her skin, and she knew she was in the infirmary.

Merula jerked herself to an upright position and winced, blinking slowly and looking around the room. The infirmary ceiling and a set of white sheets around her bed provided her with a decent amount of privacy, allowing her to hide the fact that her limbs were slow and sluggish.

It was difficult to get to her feet, and the ground was freezing cold under her socks, but Merula staggered past the white sheet around her bed, finding a small window toward the end of the infirmary.

And to her surprise, she could see the sun inch above the horizon, bit by bit. Had the memories of the night before not been so fresh on her mind, Merula wondered if she had really been hurt at all, if the leering, screaming face had been real.

Merula was deep in her thoughts for some time, watching the sunrise, so much so that she didn't notice Dumbledore standing behind her until he cleared his throat.

She spun around as a hand jerked to her chest, almost losing her balance in the process.

"Good morning, Miss Snyde," the headmaster said cheerfully, his smile making every wrinkle on his face shift. "I trust you have recovered well?"

Merula didn't say anything, but she glanced around the infirmary. Every other bed was clean and made, and only sheets had been drawn around her own.

"Good morning Headmaster," Merula muttered. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened?"

Dumbledore's face still remained cheerful and friendly, as if she had never asked a question.

"Um," Merula corrected herself. "Yes, I'm feeling much better."

The headmaster nodded, and Merula inched backward. "Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Nothing at all." The smile remained in place. "Did something happen in the forest?"

Merula's mind flashed back to the forest at the words and the sight of the leering face back at her. Surely Potter would have-

"Is Potter alright, sir?" Merula asked, panic suddenly turning her blood into ice. Potter was the Boy who Lived, wasn't he? He couldn't possibly be dead, right?

"Mr. Potter is well," Dumbledore's smile widened, and Merula could see a slight twinkle in his eyes. "It's good you are concerned for his well being."

"Well," Merula started, her mind drawing a blank on what to do. "Can I go now?"

"That is not my choice to make," Dumbledore replied. "Madame Pomfrey has yet to wake, and it is her judgement I trust."

Merula frowned and closed her eyes, suddenly more annoyed than anything else. Dumbledore turned around to leave, his steps slow and steady until they suddenly stopped.

"Miss Snyde?" Dumbledore had turned back to face her..

"Yes, Headmaster?" Merula asked, looking back up again and finding the headmaster reach into his robes- and pull out a small piece of candy.

"Caramel?" he asked cheerfully.

"No, Headmaster," Merula said as she sighed and slipped back into bed. Her limbs had regained some strength, but she wasn't sure if it was alright to take off her bandages or if she was going to resemble one of the mummies Professor Quirrel mentioned when he got off topic.

But it wasn't long until Merula heard the sheet next to her bed ruffle in the wind.

"Madam Pomfrey?" Merula called out, turning to the direction of the sound, only to find nothing there.

Silence followed her question, and Merula shivered until a warm hand touched her own.

"Shh." Potter's voice made Merula's heart jump to her throat. "It's just-"

"Potter," Merula growled, jerking her hand away from him. "You- you scared me there."

"Sorry," Potter muttered. "It's- well, I learned of something last night."

"What is it?" Merula's er mind flashed to the dark forest from the night before. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Potter said after a long silence. "It's just that… I need to talk to you about last night."

Merula nodded as she spotted Potter's face under the cloak. "Well?"

"I-" Potter started, glancing around the room. "I encountered a centaur within the forest."

Merula frowned but nodded, her mind trying to draw a link between the centaur and the blood drinking figure that had attacked them. "And?"

"I think the man who tried to kill us was Lord Voldemort."

Merula looked at Potter's serious face before she looked back at the sheets on her bed. But Lord Voldemort was dead… right?

"Are you sure?" Merula asked after a long silence, closing her eyes to try to remember the face of the legendary Dark Lord. It was a difficult memory, especially since she had never exactly seen his face published in the papers. So then she tried another method, working from the other way around.

The horrible face she had seen staring back at her the previous night would be burned into her memory, forever and ever, and for the first time, Merula was trying to link the face to anything else she could remember.

A deep memory, one long buried, floated to mind, inching past the sands of time inside her head. She had been just a little girl, just a few months before the night her family was torn from her, and she had seen the face somewhere.

It had been a collection book. She remembered that now, and it had been brought in by a tall, pale man. Her mother had been the one to receive the book, and had held Merula in her lap as she flipped past page after page.

The man with two faces had been at the centre of the book, standing tall above all the others in the picture. His face leered like a lizard's.

There had been other faces in the shot. Some she recognized- her mother wearing the most hideous grin she had ever seen, as if the version of her mother from her last year in the Frog Choir had gone irredeemably insane.

But that couldn't have been her mother, right? That summer, when the heat had melted her ice cream, her mother created magical snowballs- just for them to play with.

"Merula?" Potter's voice was nervous, concerned.

"Yes," Merula said finally, her eyes closed. "I… remember him."

"You do?" Potter asked, his voice suspicious.

"Yes," Merula replied, her mouth going dry as she tried to work around her words. "I saw him in an old picture once. I didn't recall it last night but-"

"It was him," Potter finished with an understanding nod.

"What are you going to do?" Merula asked, glancing around the deserted hospital wing.

"You were right," Potter said after a long pause. "About Snape."

"What about Professor Snape?" The admission from Potter made Merula feel a little giddy.

"Snape isn't getting the Philosopher's Stone so he can sell it and become rich."

"Of course he isn't," Merula sighed. "I told you that already."

"I know," Potter said, the words sweet music to her ears. "You were right. If he really is good enough at potions, he could have opened his own apothecary and become rich that way, but he's here because he wants to be."

"Erm," Merula started slowly. She was failing to see the link to the issue at hand. "Right?"

"So the real reason he's here is to help Voldemort gain eternal life."

Merula mentally played the words over in her head before she checked on Potter to see if he was grinning ear to ear. "I'm sorry?"

"The other purpose of the Philosopher's Stone is to create a liquid that allows the drinker to live forever," Potter explained. "That was written in the book, but I didn't think of it until Firenze mentioned what Voldemort was after."

Merula blinked. "But the unicorn-"

"It was some form of half measure-" Potter added, his eyes shining with excitement. "Drinking unicorn blood curses you to half life, not really living, but not dead. Snape wants Voldemort returned to full life, and that's why he wants to steal the stone."

"But Snape can't have another face on the back of his head," Merula muttered, more to herself than Potter. "We see the back of his head every time we attend Potions."

Potter paused at that. "You don't believe me." The excitement in his voice was gone, replaced with hostility.

"We both saw… You Know Who in the forest," Merula said slowly, suddenly questioning Potter's intelligence. Was there some ulterior motive that made him hate Professor Snape for some reason? "Whoever it was that had two faces, and unless the face can move somewhere else on his body, it can't be Professor Snape."

Potter took a deep breath before he growled his next words. "You were there with me, and yet-"

"Wait," Merula raised her hands in mock surrender, her mind racing for an answer that wouldn't enrage the suddenly irrational Potter further. "How about I watch over Snape until the end of the year? If I'm right-"

"You won't be." Potter's eyes were cold. "But if that's what it'll take to convince you."

Merula gave Potter a long look and wondered if he had been drinking Firewhiskey. "If Snape is going to try to steal the Stone for You Know Who, I'll send you a letter through Cloak."

"Deal," Potter said, though his unfriendly tone soured Merula's mood. "And if he is, I want your help in stopping him."

"You better go," Merula said as she swung her legs off the bed again, the idea of imminent boredom with Potter gone making her legs ache with the need to do something other than roll around in an uncomfortably warm bed. "And oh, I want my book back."

It wasn't long after Potter left that Merula was being fussed over by Madam Pomfrey. She was relieved to learn that her injuries had been superficial, and her collapse in the forest had been the result of exhaustion and staying up far later than her usual bedtime rather than embracing the cold grip of death.

Tragically, however, her shoes had been lost somewhere within the forest, with nobody, including Potter himself, having bothered to collect them in the aftermath.

For a moment, Merula felt annoyed. Part of her wanted to go back to the forest, but another part of her wanted to avoid the man with two faces and all the tree branches, especially if she had to go in her socks.

"Fortunately," Madame Pomfrey continued, a warm smile on her face. "Another student had a spare pair of shoes left out for you. She said they were a gift."

Merula frowned at the words and mentally repeated them in her head. Another student liked her enough to leave out a spare pair of shoes?

A moment later, a small alarm bell began to ring in her head. She had been carried in late at night, with only a handful of students awake outside the prefects. That narrowed down the list of names to a tiny handful of other students who could have been awake, much less knew she was missing her shoes, and Merula felt a cold jab of panic, because she didn't like any of the names on the list.

But Madame Pomfrey didn't notice her expression, and she turned away to bring a simple cardboard box with yellow letters that Merula didn't recognize. Merula had a nagging feeling the gift wasn't a gift at all, but some cruel prank.

But Merula had no choice, since the shoes she had worn all year were now a forest and a murdering, two-faced Dark Lord away from her. Thus, she would have to deal with whatever was in the box until she could get back to Malfoy Manor.

The box itself was plain and, to her knowledge, not protected by a nasty surprise, and given that her stomach was starting to protest, Merula knew she would have only a few minutes to get food before the Great Hall would fill with her unwelcome peers.

To her surprise, the box contained a pair of boots that Merula didn't hate on sight. Despite the fact that they looked brand new, even with rolls of paper within keeping the boots intact.

Then Merula jabbed one of the boots with a finger and winced at how the leather refused to budge. Even her gloves in potions were softer, and those were made of dragon hide. But Madam Pomfrey was still watching her, and her chance to get food without being disturbed was fast fading, so Merula took a deep breath and tugged the first boot on.

It hurt. A lot. The leather was somehow even harder than what it looked like, and Merula instantly knew that only a Mudblood could have brought the shoes to Hogwarts. Any wizard that wasn't intentionally abusing their children would have charmed the shoes to be less sadistic on her feet.

It was with even more reluctance that Merula put the second boot on, and she mentally began to cross reference the names of all the Mudbloods at Hogwarts with those she suspected were awake the previous night.

Soon, when she finished tying the long, awkward laces that came with the box, only a single name remained, and Merula had such a burning hatred for Hermione Granger that she swore she would have only the most cruel revenge on the damned Mudblood.

But first, breakfast, classes, exams, and watching Professor Snape for Potter.


To her surprise, her remaining classes and her exams were quite easy to get through. It wasn't hard, after all, to recite the same things she had memorized over the school year and jot them down on a piece of paper. The only thing that had stopped her from handing in any of her exams first was her "gift" from Granger. The boots, while not noticeable immediately, meant that Merula had to grit her teeth every time she had to walk more than a length of hallway, although she practiced a scowl in a mirror so that her pain would be spared a closer look.

On the other hand, unlike her papers, Merula realized her promise to watch Professor Snape was nearly impossible, not only because he had caught her staring three times before she decided to admit defeat, but also because she was bored to tears when on the task. It was almost a relief when Potter sent her book back, along with a note asking her to be in the abandoned classroom where she had first seen the mirror, just after curfew.

She arrived early, ten minutes early, to be exact. Though Merula was curious about the timing, she supposed it was a last minute admission of defeat on Potter's end. Perhaps Granger had managed to talk some sense into Potter about the gaping holes in his theory about Voldemort, though a voice inside her head doubted it.

Merula was questioning the man with two faces too, because the harder she thought about it, the book she had seen as a child seemed less and less real. Her mother had never dressed in black, and she had never seen the look of murder in her eyes apart from the last portait in the Frog Choir room and the night she lost her parents.

Thus, was the photo she had remembered real or was it a figment of her imagination?

Despite her ponderings, Potter never showed, and the fact that two prefect patrols had passed, indicated that it was late, far past curfew for Merula to slip back to the dungeons without being strictly the second patrol passed without even the slightest hint that Potter was coming, paranoia kicked in.

She thought of the note again and read it over again. It was odd, even bizarre that Potter had asked for her after curfew had passed, especially in an isolated, out of the way location with no obvious points of interest.

Another idea came to mind as Merula pondered her situation. What if Potter was trying to keep her out of the way? What if the Mudblood Granger hadn't managed to talk sense into him, but instead the idiot Weasley had convinced Potter to do something stupid?

It wasn't hard to draw that conclusion- Gryffindors were never particularly bright like Ravenclaws or prone to long term planning like Slytherins, and Merula's experiences with Crabbe and Goyle taught her that stupidity was contagious.

Slowly, Merula came up with a new plan. She would head out to wherever she suspected Potter would be and hide herself. If they didn't show up by midnight, Merula would slip back to the dungeons and wash her hands of the situation, but if they did, she would certainly chew Potter out for his stupidity and then wash her hands of the situation.

It wasn't hard to narrow down a specific place to where Potter would be heading to. The Forbidden Corridor was the glaringly obvious choice. The massive two-headed dog was probably still there, a deterrent to any thief- be it a pack of idiotic Gryffindors or a hypothetical Professor Snape.

So Merula slipped from empty hallway to empty hallway, reaching the corridor she sought in a few short minutes and hiding in the dark. Sure enough, within ten minutes of her arrival, she heard shuffling footsteps- and the mention of her name.

It was Potter who had spoken, and the slimy toad that was Weasley who had answered back, not to mention the Mudblood who had sent her the 'gift', shushing the other two.

For a moment, Merula felt like agreeing with the Mudblood, mostly because she couldn't make out the words of Potter and the Blood Traitor Weasley.

And then she heard Weasley starting to argue with Potter.

"She has to be in on it," Weasley was arguing when Merula inched closer to listen in. "There's a reason her parents are in Azkaban."

Merula grabbed her wand and clenched it tightly. Change of plans. She would get the Mudblood next year, but Weasley was not going to walk away from the Forbidden Hallway. If she really got angry, maybe he wouldn't even crawl away.

She was so angry that she didn't even catch Potter's response, and only barely managed to avoid hexing Weasley when he popped out of thin air, obviously having hidden under Potter's invisibility cloak.

"Come on," Weasley said as he closed in on Merula's hiding place. "We wasted enough time going over that room. Let's get the stone before Snape-"

"And I've wasted enough time waiting for you." Merula sprung from her position on the floor, her wand pointed right at Weasley. "You're late, Potter."

Weasley froze in place, and to his credit, Merula noticed he did not scream like she expected him to. Instead, he fell to the ground, scrambling backward, though he did lose his wand in the process.

"And Weasley?" Merula hissed through gritted teeth. "My mother is dead. Get your facts right."

"Why are you here?" Potter asked, his voice hostile. His wand emerged from thin air and pointed at her.

"Because you never showed up where we agreed to meet," Merula shot back. "I got impatient."

The visible wand wavered for a second before straightening. "And is Snape here?"

Merula snorted. "Professor Snape? He's still marking Potions essays. I expect at least one of you to get a Troll grade."

"Hey!" Weasley yelled from the floor.

Merula was tempted to curse him, to silence him so she could have a moment to think, but she thought better of it when a second wand- the Mudblood Granger's, appeared from thin air next to Potter.

"So why are you here?" Potter had become more visible, the cloak slowly falling away from his shoulders as the Mudblood became visible. It was a bad fight, made even worse by the fact that Weasley had recovered his wand.

"It's pretty obvious what you were planning, Potter," Merula growled. "Besides, I needed a place to hide from the prefects, lest I be caught out again thanks to you."

"Dumbledore is out of the castle," Potter said. "It's tonight that Snape will steal the Stone."

"And if he doesn't?" Merula shot back. "Because I saw him lock himself within his office hours ago. He hasn't been out since."

Potter hesitated.

"Granger," Merula turned to the half-invisible figure next to Potter. "Did Potter tell you what we saw in the forest?"

The Mudblood paused for a moment, the wand in her hand wavering. "Harry, you said that You Know Who was coming back, that the centaurs-"

"Yes," Merula said. "But at the same time, did Potter ever mention that whoever it was had a face on the back of their head?"

"Snape was-" Potter protested.

"Professor Snape simply cannot have a face on the back of his head," Merula growled, rolling her eyes. "We all took the same Potions exam. We all saw the back of his head."

"Harry-" the Mudblood sounded hesitant. "Is this true? About the face."

"Yes," Potter said after a moment, his eyes burning into Merula's own. "If not Snape, then who-"

Merula watched his face pale as she heard a click behind her. Likewise, Granger and Weasley had paled too, their mouths hanging open in stunned shock.

Merula turned slowly, taking an awkward step back toward Potter.

It wasn't Professor Snape standing behind her. She had certainly been right on that account.

It was… Professor Quirrell?

Almost instantly, Merula wanted to kick herself. Had she focused on the presence of the face on the back of the unicorn killer's head, then there could really have been one possible suspect. Professor Quirrell, the man with a turban covering the back of his bald head- a turban that happened to be missing from the man now standing before her.

Almost immediately, a part of her mind was telling her to be a good Slytherin and make a run for it. This wasn't her fight. It never had been. Potter had only been assigned to her as a partner by dumb luck and stupidity from Longbottom.

"I told you there were others coming," a deep voice that made Merula's legs weaken and shiver growled.

"Apologies master," Quirrell snivelled, his voice quiet. "They won't be a problem. I will deal with them."

There was a moment of silence before the deep voice spoke again, this time chillingly friendly. "Ah, you must be Merula."

Merula felt the blood in her veins freeze as her wand slipped from her fingers as she fought to keep her knees from folding under her. The Dark Lord knew her by name?

"Spare the girl," the voice that wasn't Quirrell's barked. "Kill the other three."

"Yes... " Quirrell's voice dropped as his wand went up. "Av-"

"You'll have to kill her first," Weasley's voice called as Merula felt a wand jab into the small of her back, then another, then a third.

"Shame," the voice that didn't belong to Quirrell muttered. "Very well then, I will apologize to Albert and Aria when the time comes."

The mention of her parent's names brought a flash of rage from Merula.

She dove for her wand, leaving the three Gryffindors who had been using her as a shield exposed. So much for being the house of courage.

"Avada Kedavra!" she heard Quirrell shout.

Merula knew what the Killing Curse was, and she wasn't going to stay behind to find out which one of the cowardly Gryffindors it was aimed at. Instead, she dove behind one of the thin torches and took a quick glance back to oversee the battle.

Or rather, what she expected the battle to be, for there was no fighting in the hallway ahead of her. Instead, the three Gryffindors had disappeared back under Potter's cloak, which meant she was alone against Quirrell and Voldemort.

The door that led to the rest of Hogwarts wasn't far off, but Merula suddenly felt her body stiffen, her wand clattering to the ground. She still stood upright, but her limbs weren't responding, and the figure that had been Quirrell now came forward, walking with slow steps that brought her terrified heart to a panicked beat against her ribs.

"An invisibility cloak," the second voice muttered as he came close, the wand of Quirrell raised to press against Merula's chest. "Yes, yes, that would explain their disappearance."

From the corner of her eye, Merula watched something flicker in the light, and suddenly she noticed a trapdoor behind the door where the two-headed monster had been sleeping slamming shut.

The form of Quirrell snapped to attention. The wand slipped from her chest as he turned around, taking slow, deliberate steps toward the trapdoor. It was here that Merula was able to see the horrible face drawn across the back of Quirrell's bald head and the leering grin back at her.

Then he stopped, the leering face smiling one more time.

"You will join me one day." The face on the back of Quirrell's head spoke, its voice low and cruel, mocking her with every syllable and every twitch of the twisted face. "For I am the only one who can show you that which you desire."

And then Merula was alone in the hallway, frozen in place. She wasn't sure how long she was frozen there, but sometime before her vision blackened, she heard shouting and the sound of running from somewhere behind her.


AN: Chapter 13 is done!

AN 2: The first chapter is getting a minor rewrite due to spelling errors and character mix ups.

Read, Review, etc.

Next chapter: Year 1 ends, and Lucius empties his alcohol cabinet.