Chapter 7
Back to the Dark
All I could do at the sight of the note was scream. I screamed as loud as I possibly could out of fear. Fear for my life, fear for the lives of everyone I loved.
Hermione, Draco and Harry were up in my dorm in an instant.
"What's going on!?" Draco and Harry asked together.
"Look!" I pointed to my mirror.
"Uh, Hannah?" Harry asked.
"Yes?" I asked as I started to clean up my dormitory.
"What the hell is this?" Harry asked, holding up condoms.
"Honestly, Harry, you don't know contraceptive when you see it?" Hermione asked, belting Harry over the head.
"Is right now honestly the right time for this discussion!?" I asked. "My room has just been ransacked and I have a death threat written in my blood red lipstick on my bathroom mirror!"
"And I think I know why." Draco said, coming back into the room. "Hannah, where's that Dark Tome that we stole from the Manor?"
I looked up. "I put it in the bookshelf of Nightshade's tree." I said. "Safe keeping."
"What's Nightshade's?" Harry asked.
I sighed. "Harry, when Ivy and I were in first year, the exact day I got permission to go into the Gryffindor common room, Ivy and I were reviewing for Herbology, when one answer was Nightshade, the tree we were sitting under opened up and we slid down it. It lead into a common room. There was supposed to be five houses of Hogwarts, but Slytherin had killed the ghost of Nightshade's tree; who just so happens to be the House's founder, Lucinda; when he found out that she had left him for Gryffindor and had a child, who was also She-Cat's ancestor. It was my friends' hangout until the Ministry fell."
"Well, what are we standing around for?" Draco asked. "We have to protect that Tome. Whatever this new Dark Lord wants with it, it can't possibly resort to any good."
I nodded, grabbing my cloak as Draco cleaned up.
Hermione and I lead Harry down to Nightshade's tree. I murmured the password and together Hermione and I pushed Harry into the tree, Watson and I after him.
Watson and I looked to each other as I scrambled to find the Tome I had stolen right out from under Lucius Malfoy's nose. The Dark Tome. The one that proved that I was a Necromancer.
I looked frantically around for it. "Come on, it is here! It has to be!"
"I found it!" Watson said, brandishing the leather bound book in the air.
I sighed in relief. "Oh, thank Skinner." I took it and opened it.
"That's odd…" I said, looking into the cover and finding a piece of parchment.
I took hold of it and opened it, finding writing that said.
Sarah Ravencroft
Salem, Massachusetts
1692
They're after me. The hunters…they're after me…I must flee the country while I can. I cannot bring my precious Tome or else I'll raise suspicion. I leave it to my eldest daughter, Andromache. May the Necromancy gene flow through her to my future descendants.
For the current heir to the Light Gift…use it well…do not give this Tome to the Darkest of wizards…they will turn it into a gift that only Dark witches and wizards obtain…just like being a Parselmouth. This gift can be good or bad depending on how you use it…all the answers are here.
"Who's Sarah Ravencroft?" I asked myself as Draco came down.
"We found it…and a name." I said, showing Draco the parchment.
"Sarah Ravencroft." Draco read. "This was written during the Salem witch trails!"
"I know…and this was also written just two years before the signing of the International Statute of Secrecy." I said, looking through the pages and running a hand through the pages…now that I was taking a solid look at them…I finally realized that they were hand written.
Draco looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
"What?" I asked. "I paid a little attention in History of Magic."
Draco rolled his eyes as I tucked the Tome in my backpack.
"Ok, no." Draco took the Tome from my backpack and put it back on the shelf. "Do you want your room ransacked again?"
I shook my head.
"It's safer here." Draco told me, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear as we all filed out.
"Who is she?" I asked just before leaving the common room. "Sarah Ravencroft…?"
"I know." the voice of Lucinda Nightshade said, her pale blonde hair and violet eyed figure floating above a chair with her legs crossed. "Sarah Ravencroft was my best friend before I met Rowena and Helga."
"You mean Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff?" Draco asked.
"Absolutely. She told me her story shortly after we met." Nightshade grinned at me.
"What was it?" I asked, interest peaking.
"Sit down, then, it's time you learnt." Nightshade beamed.
Draco, Harry, Hermione and I sat down around Nightshade as she began her story.
She had met Sarah Ravencroft when she first arrived in London. She had given up the Tome but had told her daughter Andromache that when she herself followed her mother to England, to bring the Tome with her. They spent the rest of Sarah and Nightshade's lives waiting for Andromache to come with the Tome.
"Sarah had died two years before I was murdered by Salazar." Nightshade said. "And until that day, Sarah had hoped she would be reunited with her Tome. But it never happened. Andromache arrived to England to come to Hogwarts a year after her mother's death."
"And the House she was Sorted into?" I asked.
"Slytherin." Nightshade sighed. "The reason why it was renamed the Dark Tome was because Andromache had become a Dark Necromancer. And since she was a spitting image of her mother and no one had heard of Sarah's death, everyone assumed that Sarah was the one destroying things and murdering innocent people. Andromache till the day she died stole her mother's identity and became the most loathed and feared woman in the wizard world. Her name is as taboo as saying the Dark Lord's."
"You mean Andromache was almost as bad as Voldemort?" I asked.
"Yes." Lucinda said, a glint of anger in her transparent violet eyes. "She destroyed her mother's reputation…in fact…you look a lot like the both of them. Spitting image in fact."
I creased my eyebrows. "How would you know?" I asked.
Nightshade floated over to the bookshelf and claimed an album from next to my Tome and handed it to me, having me open it to someone almost hauntingly like me.
She had the same size and weight, same straight jet black hair and metallic blue eyes…she was beaming at the portraitist as she wrote in the same book Draco had taken.
"That's Sarah." Nightshade told me, flipping the page.
It was a day and night difference. The jet black hair was waved, strands in front of one metallic blue eye. The visible eye was darker, more evil looking. This woman was wearing a long sleeved black dress, the handkerchief skirt was blowing up as the woman held a fireball in her hand, a blazing inferno behind her as she leered evilly.
"That was Andromache." Nightshade said. "She had married as well…I think she married an Evans."
I paled. "An Evans?" I asked.
Nightshade nodded. "I'm pretty sure. I'd need to research that further."
I nodded in return as we all stood and left.
"I still don't see why whoever ransacked your room want that Tome." Draco said as we went back into the common room as Harry and Hermione went to hang out with Ivy and Ron in the Gryffindor common room, Jason and Sheila went to Ravenclaw Tower, and Ernie and Hannah Abbott went off to their common room.
"It's obvious, isn't it?" I asked, rolling my eyes. "They want the Tome because they want to awaken the spirit of Andromache Ravencroft."
Draco looked at me, almost in shock. "What makes you say that?"
I sighed. "While reading that Tome on the run, there was a way to awaken spirits." I said. "Pretty much bringing them back without a body. Summon the elements and do the same thing we did to get rid of Mel's Mobile Mark, but a different incantation."
"And why would people do that?" Draco asked.
"These are the Death Eaters we're talking about." I said, looking up into the fire. "The darkest witch is perfect to lead them."
…
The few days after that I was putting the ransacking of my room on the backburner to get Quidditch started for the season.
I was headed down to the pitch when I had run into Alvaro Diamond.
"Hannah." Alvaro said.
"Diamond." I said with an icily polite tone.
"Hannah, please, I meant it." Alvaro said. "I never wanted things to end the way they did."
I rolled my eyes and ran off to the pitch for Quidditch practice.
"Sorry I'm late." I said as I grabbed my broom from Draco.
I had the same team I had from when I had last been on the pitch. Astoria and Willow Chasers along with me, Blaise Zabini and Kairi Phantomhive as the Beaters, Draco as the Seeker (obviously) and Millicent Bulstrode guarding the hoops.
"All right!" I shouted, looking to my fellow seventh years. "This is our last chance to win that Quidditch Cup." I said, pounding my fist into my hand. "And nothing would give me higher pleasure than to see the look on my brother's face when I rip the Quidditch Cup out of his hands. I picked you lot again because you were the best that tried out."
"Sure!" Crabbe shouted from the stands. "Malfoy not being engaged to the Captain had nothing to do with it!"
"PISS OFF, CRABBE!" Draco bellowed.
I grinned. "All right, then." I said. "Why don't we show Crabbe that I didn't choose this team because of its pretty face." I ordered, playing with Draco's robes.
"SAVE IT FOR THE BEDROOM!" Crabbe bellowed.
"CAN IT, CRABBE!" I shouted. "Everyone, drop and give me twenty!"
The team groaned and dropped as I grinned. "This Cup is ours." I announced.
…
I was sweaty, muddy and exhausted by the time practice was over. All I wanted to do was eat, take a long hot soak in the tub and turn in for the night.
So that's exactly what I did. I went down to the Great Hall for dinner.
"Are you sure you're up to going back in your dorm?" Draco asked. "After the ransacking, it may not be the safest."
I laughed before finishing my dinner. "Draco," I said before swallowing. "danger is my middle name."
"I thought it was Death Wish." Draco muttered.
"Draco, I'll be fine." I told him, patting his shoulder as he wrapped an arm around me. "I wish you'd stop worrying about me." I admitted.
"I can't help it." Draco murmured into my hair. "I just love you so much and I won't let anything else to happen to you."
I grinned, breaking from Draco's arms and standing. "I'm going to go wash this mud off me." I said going into my dorm.
Thankfully, no one had been in my room again, everything just as it was before the looting.
I shed off my Quidditch robes and sank into the tub.
…
That night, after I had gotten in bed, I was staring up at the ceiling, unable to sleep. For some reason, I didn't feel safe in my dorm. Knowing that someone had the ability and the motive to break into my room shook me to the bone.
Whoever they were, they wanted the Tome. They wanted the Necromancer's Tome. And he or she would do anything to get it.
But the question was…who was it?
Was it one of the students? Possibly. Anyone who knew that I was a Necromancer would be dying to get his or her hands on that book. Out of all the students there was only one that I could assume that could be responsible for it.
Alvaro Diamond.
He knew I was a Necromancer, and he tried to give me over to Lucius Malfoy and break Draco and I up for good. What more could he want to do to me? Humiliation, find a spell to end my life for destroying his ex master?
I knew I was worried when not even Alejandro could calm me to sleep.
So, I did what any sane person would have done.
I grabbed a bridal magazine and turned on the lights, leafing through it and looking for dresses for my own wedding, Ivy having gotten hers a few weeks after Blaise proposed.
…
Four hours later I was still leafing through magazines, taking notes on things I'd like from bridesmaids dresses to invitations when the magazine I had was taken from my hand.
"Oi!" I hissed, looking up to snatch the magazine back. "Draco, what the Skinner are you doing up?" I asked.
"I could ask you the same question." Draco said, looking down at me.
"Couldn't sleep." I admitted. "The break in freaked me out."
Draco took the quill out of my other hand and set everything down, picking me up and carrying me to his room.
"Draco!" I groaned as he laid me in his bed.
"I knew that letting you sleep in there was a bad idea." Draco said. "You're staying in here."
I huffed. "All right." I said as Draco wrapped an arm around me.
I relaxed, curling into Draco's chest with a sigh. What was I so against this for? This was going to be my life in mere months, so what was I fussing about?
"Don't scream at me, but I booked a consultation with Buddy Valastro." Draco whispered to me.
I whipped right around and looked at him wide eyed. "You didn't!?" I whispered.
Draco smirked. "Up for a trip to New York over Christmas, love?" he asked.
I could tell I had lit up. The Cake Boss was my favourite baker EVER! The mere fact that Draco had managed to get him to make my wedding cake was a big deal!
"How the fuck did you do it!?" I asked.
"Owed my mother a favour." Draco grinned. "Believe it or not, Mother worked with Buddy for a while after she left Hogwarts and Buddy promised that he'd make cakes for her children."
I beamed. "This is awesome!" I squealed.
Draco rolled his eyes as I cuddled into him. "To you, yes, but to me, not so much."
I gave him a puppy dog look.
Draco gave me a "Seriously, love?" look before sighing. "You know I can't resist the eyes." he groaned before kissing my temple.
I beamed and cuddled into him again as he rubbed my back. "Go to sleep, Hannah, that way you won't con me into being excited."
I grinned, eyes already half closed as Draco rocked me, singing my lullaby.
I sighed. Even now that the war was over, Safe and Sound assured that everyone was safe. That I was safe after my dorm was broken into.
"Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be alright, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound."
And soon I was dead asleep.
…
Meanwhile
Lucius Malfoy was pacing his cell. "It's hopeless!" he hissed to Amycus. "How the hell are we supposed to get at him to lure that little brat? How!?"
"Newspaper!" Felix Lerwick announced, chucking a newspaper into the cell.
Malfoy grabbed it and growled at the front page.
"What is it?" Carrow asked, looking over Lucius's shoulder.
"Shut it, Carrow, this is horrible!" Malfoy growled. "Listen to this!"
Malfoy Heir and War Heroine Announce Engagement!
Yesterday in Hogsmeade village, Daily Prophet reporters have attained undeniable proof that Harley Quinn, aka Hannah Potter and her long time lover Draco Malfoy, recipient of the Malfoy fortune are indeed engaged.
"He had been meaning to propose since the Battle of Hogwarts." Vincent Crabbe, a long standing friend of Malfoy's had said. "Gregory Goyle and I were betting on when he'd finally pop the question."
The wedding is already in planning, but rumours have been circulating that it will be at the end of June, when both Potter and Malfoy have graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
"This is horrible!" Malfoy growled, throwing the paper across the cell. "How the hell are we supposed to get him now!? He'll be on high alert for anything to harm him and his…fiancée." Lucius paused with a vicious grin.
"What is that look for, Lucius?" Amycus asked.
Lucius just looked at Carrow and smirked. "You'll see when we go outside tomorrow." he announced with a grin.
…
The next morning saw every Death Eater out in the yard, angrily gossiping over the public release of news of the engagement of Hannah Potter to Draco Malfoy.
"The little slut!" Isabel Lockton was hissing to Electricia Munville and Traci Lestrange. Electricia was sobbing.
"I can't believe he'd do this to me!" Electricia cried. "He told me that he'd wait for me last night!"
"OH, GET HELP!" Everyone had shouted before Lucius called order.
"All right…there has been a change of plan, giving the recent…events." Lucius smirked.
"Of the engagement of a proud pureblood like Draco Malfoy and a vile, bratty little half blood urchin like Harley Quinn." Traci hissed.
"Exactly. The new plan is this," Lucius smirked and laughed. "We're not going after my son now…Cronus, your agent must go after our new target…Hannah Potter."
