I do not own the rights to Harry Potter in anyway. This is just an excersize for me and a way to visit old "friends."

AquamarineGem: Thank you for reviewing! I'm glad that you picked up on the fact that Amarissa trusts Severus because she remembers that he saved her life. That will be important later on!

Chapter Three

Severus visited Amarissa again. It was the first day of Christmas break and Severus was grateful that he had no real demands on his time for the next several days.

Amarissa seemed pleased to see him- or at least he believed she was. She grinned when he entered her small hospital room and bounded over to him gracefully, stopping short of an embrace.

"Good afternoon, Amarissa..." he greeted, "I've got work to do, but I came as promised."

She tilted her head and flashed him a mischievous smile that wrinkled her nose, almost as if to say I know that you wanted to see me.

She stretched her slender arms in a wide arcing motion, the light from the sconces in the small room glittering in the reflection of her shackles.

He frowned.

Once again there was some stray memory trying to creep through the vast abyss of his subconcious but to no avail. He concentrated but the more effort he put into its pursuit, the faster it slipped away from him until it was left as some shadow of a half-thought that was never truly formed. How irritating. His frown deepened.

Severus settled into the now familiar stiff hospital chair, his eyes fixed on Amarissa and never wavering. He simply observed her for awhile before gesturing to the silver and iron that bound her.

"Are those restraints keeping you from speaking?"

Amarissa's ever present smile faultered. She reached down and tugged at her cuff, her eyes like a storm at see. They raged a swirling vortex of blue, silver, and violet. He could feel her anger like a sudden blast of wind. She nodded her head stiffly.

"You were afraid of the mediwitch's wand," he questioned, "did a witch or wizard do this to you?"

Another nod answered him. He drew his brows together, leaning forward in the chair to rest his fist under his chin.

"A witch?"

She shook her head.

"A wizard then." His frown deepened... a wizard with knowledge of the fey.

"Do you know what he wanted from you?"

This time Amarissa's gaze grew cold and distant. She sat down on ber bed and drew her knees close to her chest and looked at him sadly. The back of her hospital gown revealed several inches of her spine, her vertabrae like spikes poking through the tight stretch of her pale flesh. Two thick bandages stained red covered the horible wounds that he knew were still not responding well to magic.

Severus forced himself to look away. He sat and contemplated the painful existance she must have endured at the hands of whoever had kept her captive. With a shudder, he only hoped that it didn't have anything to do with the Dark Lord...

Amarissa suddenly sat up straight, looking straight at him with eyes full of panic.

"What is it?" He asked, turning to face her fully.

She pointed to her head and made another one of her alien gestures. She slowly brought her hand flat against her ear and then curled her fingers together and moved it away as though something invisible were now firmly in her grasp. Her eyes bore into his, willing him to understand.

"Can you hear my thoughts?" He asked her slowly, a cold sensation spreading through him.

" Very faint..."

A cool and melodic whisper spoke into his mind. He paled. His occulemency sheilds were still in place. He checked, they were like steel. She wasn't even trying and yet she could still hear his thoughts.

Severus clenched his jaw. Legitimacy must be one of her gifts, or at least a developing talent... he exhaled slowly, calming his racing heart.

"Amarissa, may I have your permission to perform legilimens on you?"

She stared into his eyes, a slight grimace on her face but she nodded her consent.

Severus pulled his wand out of his robe and leveled it on her, the tip hoveri hcg just inches from the center of her forehead. She shut her eyes and became rigid, her hands balled into fists and every inch of her was trembling.

"Legilimens!" He spoke, diving into her mind.

Amarissa was in chains, filthy and unresponsive. Men and women Severus had never seen surrounded her. One man threw a bucket of filthy looking water on her and she gasped. The crowd cheered when she turned on them savagely with a shriek and bared teeth. She lunged forward but the silver and iron cuffs still decorated her wrists, now connected behind her back by a shortiron chain. She shifted uncomfortably and cowered back into her corner.Flecks of iron had been embedded in the stone as well as three sets of wide-banned rings.

Her captors took turns tormenting her, some jabbing her with long poles, others continues to dump water onto her. One was bold and grabbed her by the face and kissed her. She quickly sank her teeth into his face and he backhanded her hard, her small body crumbling against the stone behind her.

Severus looked away, unwilling to watch whatever sick pleasures these people took at her expense. Anger and rage filled every part of him. His palms grew hot, his nostrils flared. The room was large and dark, decidedly damp. A large and expensive leather and velvet livingroom set was off to one corner. Odd specimens in jars lined the far shelf. Small cages hung from the ceiling with unknown creatures chittering, growling, and howling.

One could safely venture a guess that this was a Black Market for magical creatures... probably somewhere in Nocturne Alley.

There was discussion amongst the crowd of the Dark Lord and Severus tuned into it."

"He wants 'er cause she's so powerful. Pretty thing that, tuh bad. I 'eard thah she was part faery. Wick'd devils they be."

A new voice spoke, reprimanding in a hiss. "You've drank too much, Thomas. This thing is very important. We have to break her before Bellatrix comes to collect her. She has to be manageable. The Dark Lord wants her tamed."

The sound of a man screaming shattered his thoughts and he turned back to the crowd. Amarissa stood tall. An avenging Goddess covered from head to toe in blood and filth. The chain that bound her was wrapped around the neck of a man who was slowly turning purple. Her eyes were wide and savage.A woman wailed and sent a cutting curse flying her way, much like his own Sectum Sempra, and it left large bloody wounds down her exposed back. Amarissa howled and threw the man at the crowd, the momentum snapping the chain that held her cuffs together.

Then chaos erupted.

The crowd screamed, tripping over eachother to get out of her way. She had become death and rage incarnate. The man she had thrown lay motionless and crooked, absolutely wrong. He was most assuredly dead.With a scream that could rival that of a banshee she rushed the witch still firing curses at her, grabbing her by the face and crushing it in her hand. Blood splattered all over her face and body. She let the -now dead- witch go, her body making a sickening thump against the floor.Then Amarissa walked torturously over the iron studded floor, her face a mask of excruciating pain. She made it through the first ring, stopping just before the second. She fell to her knees and cried, brokenly screaming. A haunting keen of agony and despair before she drug herself past the second ring and on to the third. She stared at it, her blood and tears splashing over the metal for a long moment before she lunged towards the ring, letting the momentum propel her through it.She lay on her side, every inch of her twitching in pain before she went quiet.

The crowd had already fled as fast as they were able.

No one stuck around to see what she would do or what she was capable of. Severus watched her in horror as she once again rose to her feet and made her way out into the cold dark night. She would have walked for days to end up in the forbidden forest.

Severus broke the connection, taking a deep shuddering breath. His eyes were trained on his feet when he opened them but he willed himself to straighten. His gaze leveled onto her, the version he had seen melted away. She was not a filthy savage beast with eyes that gleamed and teeth that were bared.

She stood, quiet and still. Her pale limbs were crossed over her chest and her swirling eyes bored deep into his, sorrow bleeding from every pore. Against his better judgement, he closed the space between them and wrapped his arms around her. She gripped his robes and cried softly while his hand came up of it's own accord to gently caress her newly cleaned silvery locks.

"It will be alright now," he whispered hoping even as he felt dread spreading through the entirety of his being. "You cannot be harmed anymore."

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