Author's Note: Soooo, sorry to get hopes up a bit, but I'm not actually STARTING the big book three just yet! I'm only publishing the first chapter because, one, Ao3 has a one month expiration on unpublished drafts and I don't want to lose it forever lol, cause it expires today, and two, because the first chapter actually doesn't spoil anything from Years Between! And I drafted it up BEFORE I had the idea to start Years Between! xD So yeah, I felt it was safe to publish for now, and safe for people to read! Get a bit of an idea of a really core theme and plot point in Book Three! :D Like a glimpse of the future! New POV, new character introduced! Let the good times roll! xD Actually they're dark as fuck times because this is a magical war and oppressive fascist regime based on blood, sooo...fair warning was given to some dark ass themes and shit going on in here!

End of AN!


Eleven year old Cody Reynolds didn't know what was happening.

One moment he was with his best friend, Tina, in his bedroom, hearing his parents' laughter in the sitting room...and the next, the whole house had gone dark and screams and banging sounds had erupted.

The door flew open, and then someone pointed a long, thin stick of wood at Cody and his best friend. Tina had looked at him with horror - and with guilt. "Run!" she had yelled, as she pulled out a long stick of her own and threw herself forward with a yell! A strange word, maybe latin? But before she finished what she was saying, a green light flashed, and she hit the floor with a thud. That stick of hers fell from her grasp, rolling under the bed.

A red light came next, and Cody fell unconscious in an instant.

He hadn't even had time to process what had happened, to even realize...

Not then. Not yet.

But he learned later.

He learned everything.

And the full scope of just how his whole world had changed.

He was a "muggleborn" mage. Someone who could do magic. And Tina had been one, too - a witch. A secret, powerful friend. And that look she had given him in her final moments, before she had courageously tried to fight those Death Eaters who had come for him...

Because of her.

No, that wasn't it.

Cody's parents had suggested that maybe...Tina had actually been there to protect him all along. Becoming his friend, showing up at school as a new student only a few months ago, and then...

Had she succeeded, or had she failed, in the end?

Well, Cody was alive, so if she had been trying to look out for him all this time...

But on the other hand, she herself was dead now.

And Cody couldn't handle that. Knowing that. And knowing...it was because of him.

Just like he couldn't handle knowing his parents were gone because of him, too, by now.

They'd been separated, after only a week being held in some little prison cell together in a great, magical facility underground - their Ministry, their main government building.

Cody hadn't seen them in weeks now. They were probably being tortured, made into little pets or servants by now. Slaves, for some sick and mighty mage out there.

These magical people, these "purebloods" and "half-bloods" in this regime, they didn't see non-magical people as even being human.

And they saw Cody as less than dirt, for being born to two "muggles".

He would never get a wand of his own, and he would never stop being treated this way.

He was helpless, stuck...and alone now.

He stayed in that cell for a long time, just by himself, until someone finally remembered he was there (probably). Then he was taken out of there and handed off to some older woman. A witch. The witch had taken him away from the Ministry to a large manor house.

It was here that his own torment started.

The worst treatment he could have ever have imagined. Even a lot of things he couldn't have ever imagined. With magic, there were a lot of possibilities - and a lot of ways to fix injuries quickly. The witch who considered herself his- owner- was extremely casual about those injuries. About how she treated him in general. Like some little worker, some dog on a leash, and a servant. He cleaned, he cooked for her as best he could, and he just...he tried to stay out of the way and avoid getting hurt any more than he had to.

But the problem was that she usually wanted him...close.

Not just to serve every little whim she had that she was too lazy to do herself, but...

There were some things that she did with him that...given any real choice in matters...he would have chosen to be cursed instead. He would have taken a beating, taken a burn or a cut or a broken bone - every time - if it meant not...taking the alternative.

Bones, burns, cuts and bruises - that could all heal away, disappear from him. That pain could be fixed. Taken away. But the things in his memories, the way he felt after this witch...He didn't think that was ever going to go away inside him.

He felt it every time she was near him, even before she would set a hand on him. He felt it when he was away from her. He felt it during the nights, when he was trying so hard to just rest for the next day. It never left him! No matter where he was, what he was doing, or if she was ever around...Cody couldn't make this feeling stop. He couldn't escape his own mind, his own thoughts, his own body and the way he... The way she-

It was suffocating, as suffocating as her, as every time she-

Like she had placed some kind of long-lasting curse on him, that would never leave him and always just be squeezing him and making him feel so sick and disgusting and-


One day, Cody came up with a brilliant, stupid idea.

He tried to just become sicker and sicker, tired and starved, hoping that maybe she'd throw him out as a worthless servant. Toss him to the side like a used up toy. At least she would throw him away from here. Out of her house.

But she didn't. She had magic, and power, and she made sure he couldn't starve either. And she kept...using him.

There wasn't any escaping from this, not even like that.

He thought about running - just straight up leaving the manorhouse. Running away into the country.

But he knew she'd find him; she had made sure she always could, by way of a magical...collar she had put around his neck. It also had other uses, but...Cody didn't like setting those off. And he reckoned that trying to flat out leave might...trigger new things about it, too. Burning, shocking, things like that. Not things he hadn't ever experienced before, but...things he didn't want to feel again if he could help it, anyway.

"Come here!" A flick of a wand and Cody was helpless to even resist, regardless; he flew forward and landed in a heap at her feet. "This weekend I will be hosting a small dinner party - you will have everything prepared for us by then, and you will be on hand to serve us at the table."

Cook?

A big cooking ordeal.

Spend a few days at it, and then...look forward to a whole evening with her and with guests. Maybe she'd treat him better with guests around? Maybe at least not...she couldn't be that- crude, could she? Her guests wouldn't- stand for it? Would they? At least it could save him from any more of that...

Anything was always going to be preferable to that treatment.

So Cody mustered himself and he took to his task with great determination. It was good to just have something to focus on, he found, regardless.

He labored for days in the kitchens, hoping to give her no real reason - no that she needed one - to hurt him in any way.

When the night came, things were ready.

She didn't praise him - she never did - but...she didn't give him any extra curses or anything, either.

The absence of more pain, or screaming meant he had done a good thing, too.

Cody opened the front door, ducking out of the way as the mages entered the home.

Eight of them.

He tried to just stay out of the way, even as he followed them back into the dining room, ready to do his job.

"...mudbloods are worse than house-elves," she was saying to the rest. "The little elves at least do all they can to fulfill your needs! They're like little storms of work. But mudblood little boys? I had to keep the thing from starving itself to death a couple weeks ago. Although...it wasn't bad this past week. For once."

Cody pressed himself into a corner and looked at the floor, tuning the world out again.

But one of the others snapped their fingers at him and called out to him with an order. So he moved to the table again to comply with it. Just a drink refill. Nothing else, nothing like that could happen tonight. Not here. Not with so many other...

After finishing the main meal, she leaned back in her chair and threw a look at Cody. Her face flushed from many drinks of wine. She lifted a hand and pointed down under the table. "You - get over here. I need some...some more attending to."

One of the other mages scoffed and pushed back his chair with a look on his face. "If you'll be doing that here, I'll be going for a cigar."

"Oh, same here," another witch spoke, rising too and moving for the hall. The sound of the front door opening and closing soon followed.

"Mind if I took a tour of the house, then?" spoke another witch.

She pulled a face at the others, throwing her hands up sloppily. "Go, if you want...I'll only be a minute. Only thing this mudblood's gotten any good at..." she gave a chuckle, high and free. She turned her gaze on Cody, raising her wand again as her legs spread under the table. "Come on - right here - you know how it goes! I'll thank you not to embarrass me in front of my friends...those of you who want to enjoy the show." She cast her eyes to the mages who remained seated, looking varying levels of interested. Most of them, with the same glassy eyes and flushed faces as her.

Cody's mind went blank as he stepped toward the table. Never say never, I suppose...

It was too much to hope. Really.

Too much to just...

He got under that table, turning to face her, distant and muted. He tensed as he felt her hand on his head.

Then she was sliding back her chair with a laugh and beckoning at him.

Games. So she was going to play games with him tonight too? That was a new one...

Not one he was sure he liked.

He inched himself forward, until he was within her reach again. She grabbed him and pulled him forward, wrapping her fingers up in his hair.

He gazed without seeing, and he tried to just not take a breath. He tuned out everything again - her voice overhead - the other voices...

He bowed his head and got between the warmth and the sweat and the-

A flash of green burst from the corner of Cody's eye, lighting up the dining room.

She jerked back in her seat, twisting around in it with a gasp. Then she was up and moving, surprisingly fast and coordinated for a woman who had just been...

The others were rising from the table too.

Their wands were coming out now.

"You! Stay out of the way, mudblood!" She yelled at him. Probably for lack of anything to yell at.

Cody, for once, was actually happy to follow one of her orders.

He stayed there under that table on hands and knees, breathing shallow as his body quivered. Not with fear - with pure relief, and gratitude at whoever had fired off that spell outside. Whoever had gotten these mages so...alarmed.

There was a silence, a stillness that permeated the house.

Everyone was holding their breaths.

Then-

CRASH!

A heavy, human-shaped object flew through the window and landed on the floor at the far end of the table.

Cody startled, staring. It was a human. A lifeless, dead human - one now covered in bleeding cuts and wounds. One of the two who had gone outside for a smoke.

"If this is the Order, I'm out of here!" a mage yelled at her. "And if it's the Griffons, I'm definitely not staying for-"

The door burst open, and footsteps rushed down the hall.

It was the other mage who had gone out to smoke.

"Did everyone-"

"Why would you ask us?" She responded icily. "You were out there! You saw Charles-" She gestured to the floor. "Did you see who did it? Who are we dealing with?"

The witch shook her head, a quavering hand holding her wand as she strode into the room. "I'm not sure. It was dark, it happened so fast, and I...I don't know." The witch moved to group herself with the others, turning back toward the hallway entryway and the broken window, covering both entry points.

"Did you at least get any idea of how many we're-" She started to say.

The witch from outside suddenly turned, aimed her shaking wand, and a green light burst, striking her in the back.

She fell, dead, to the floor.

Screams and more lights flashing everywhere, chaos and shattering objects and burning walls.

The witch who had killed her, so randomly, so out of the blue, so...she fell, too, dead to her own friends.

The table was blown in half, falling apart.

Cody's cover was gone.

He jumped up and just ran for it, straight into the kitchen.

He threw himself behind the wall, pressing his back to it and putting his hands over his head.

Just trying to tune out the world again.

Pounding footsteps, and suddenly hands were grabbing at Cody, yanking him up.

One of the mages.

"Come on, mudblood! Come on!" the wizard was growling at him, pulling him into the hall.

Cody didn't resist, resigning himself to it.

There really wasn't any escaping it, was there?

Didn't matter if she was dead.

There was always going to be another one.

Another...

The wizard stopped and whirled, crying out as a red light flew down the hall from darkness.

A painting on the wall to Cody's right shuddered and glowed blue, and it flew off the wall and hit the wizard in the back. It burned brighter, turning almost white. The wizard was screaming and twirling, letting Cody go and trying to bring his wand to bear on himself. There was a great hissing noise, a stench and rising smoke-

The wizard's screams grew.

And then the carpet rose up around his legs, winding like serpents, and he was yanked down hard to land flat on his face. The stretch of carpet ahead of the wizard folded back on itself, until it had covered him, smothering him.

The walls cracked, and two beams of wood splintered and burst out from it. They continued to curve, to arch, and then they lengthened and shot down straight toward the wizard; piercing him in two different places. What Cody thought was near his head...and somewhere else lower than that. Chest? Or stomach?

Didn't matter.

After hardly a minute, the wizard stopped moving under that carpet.

A light little noise - a simple clack of...boots on wood.

Cody turned to look down the dark hallway.

A figure of darkness itself was there, swathed in it.

He saw movement, saw a wand...

And then several orbs of blue light were drifting out down the hall toward him, scattering about to light the hall up.

The figure was tall, and clad in a dark cloak with a hood. It was billowing and almost looked like...velvet. Dark clothes beneath the cloak, that was all Cody could see.

His gaze traveled upward as that figure stepped forward, slowly and almost...casually. Or carefully, maybe?

He saw a face beneath that hood.

Not one he even recognized, but...

It was a witch.

Young - maybe twenty-five?

University aged.

Then her hands raised, and she threw back that hood, and he saw it all: She had sharp features, beautiful features, dark eyes that glimmered, and full lips that were...curved into an easy sort of smile. Her hands stayed up as she approached (her wand somehow disappeared in that motion without a sound).

"Hey," she called to him, in a kind, soft voice. "You're going to be okay now."

Cody stood there shaking as the woman approached him. He didn't think he could have moved if he wanted to. Soon she loomed over him, those arms of hers still spread. Then she lowered herself down to a knee, locking her gaze with his. Long, shimmering strands of dark hair spilled forth, touching the floor.

The woman pressed her lips together, glanced away for a brief moment. She widened her smile at him, lowering her hands to rest on her knee. "Look, I've never- done this before, but...what's your name - sweetie? I'm Daisy. Daisy Potter."

"It's...Cody. Cody...Reynolds." He didn't know why he was telling her. He didn't know why he...actually dared to hope on this one. She couldn't really be...? Here to- help him? To- save him? Could she? He'd heard all about those rebel groups - resistances - like the Order and the Amethyst Griffons, but he had never actually had a hope that they'd come for him. Care for him. He was just one boy in one manorhouse. There were bigger things to deal with, more - and more deserving - people to save out there, right? Like whole families, like...kids other than himself. Kids who needed it. But not him. Not just one...isolated boy. Why waste the time?

Why had this woman...wasted the time?

"Well, it's really great to meet you, Cody. What do you say we get you out of here?" the woman spoke on, still in that warm voice of hers.

Why did she waste her time on him?

Why do all this for him?

Get rid of all these...mages...just to get to him?

Did she want something out of it?

Like what...she had gotten out of Cody's presence in her home here?

That had to be it.

This woman wanted that, too. Wanted him...for that...too.

She'd use him, just like that, all over again. Except in her home, in her way.

It wasn't ever going to end. Wouldn't stop.

Not for him.

He couldn't even dare to hope.

"Yes, ma'am." He looked down at the floor, resigning himself to his new fate - whatever it was.

He heard a sigh from the woman. This- Miss Potter. Movement from the edge of Cody's vision - a hand-

He looked up sharply, seeing...an outstretched hand. Palm up. He looked up past it, to her face again, wary.

"If you can just take my hand, Cody, I'll apparate us to safety," Miss Potter spoke, calm and measured. Her face was unchanged from before, despite that sigh. It was fixed. Chiseled. It was...

Whatever was going to happen after he took that hand...

At least this woman was using his name.

He hadn't heard it in months, not from anyone else's mouth.

And not the way this woman was saying it. Almost like...like his parents used to say it. His mom, all the time...before...

He reached out and he put his hand in hers.

Her smile grew, her eyes, despite how dark they were, they shined. "Thank you for trusting me, Cody. Even this much. You're- a brave boy."

Cody cringed as her fingers wrapped around his hand - preparing for them to tighten and squeeze, to tug, to break-

But none of that came this time.

Just the sensation of apparating, something he had felt only twice before.

His whole world was about to change again, wasn't it?

Though, whether it'd be better or worse...

Whether he would be better or worse off...

He had no idea.