After being thrown into the shower Aurelia crushed herself into a corner of the cubicle, she let the steaming hot water wash over her head and back. She cradled her knees to her chest and the hollows of her eyes cupped her knee caps. The black curls of her hair were stretched to a longer length, cascading over her body like a shawl. She cried and not just physically. Her spirit was broken, her body lamented in the steam, her brain struggled to cope with the violation she had just been forced through. Aurelia didn't even know what just happened or that a male body could do that, all she knew was that she hurt. She attempted to stand but her legs were wobbly, she used the tiled wall to push herself up bit by bit. Aurelia walked with a hunch, she experienced an excruciating pulling pain radiate through her hips and thighs when she tried to stand straight. Inside the smallest seed of rage was planted in her soul, she plucked her bath robe and slipped it over herself, Aurelia saw her reflection in the mirror. She came nose to nose with herself and inspected.
The girl had a small bruise to her right cheekbone, she pulled her hand up and pressed her lips with two fingers. Her top lip was split, and the suffocating sensation of Lucius's ringed fingers pressed hard against her teeth, flashed over her which caused her to feel nauseous and weak, the closer and longer she looked the more injuries developed. A purple outline of three finger tips took the shape of her left cheek and the thumb sat on her jawline, her eyes were red with distress and she still had the bodily shakes. She sniffled and sobbed as she left the bathroom, her hand lingered on the same door handle her master had held just a few moments ago. In front of her in the hallway was Draco Malfoy.
Draco's heart skipped a beat at the sight of Aurelia. She stood in the empty air, seeming to be still but her hair vibrated with her trembles, her face was solemn and stained, her hand dropped from the door handle and she glared at him as she walked past, leaving wet footprints in her wake.
Aurelia hated him...worse than hated him. Her entire body fizzed with her wrath and once she entered her bedroom to get dressed and saw that her room was returned to its organised and clean normality once again, a long painful wail of a scream expelled from her lungs. The floor of her bedroom shook, her mirrors smashed. A glass vase quivered and fell from the dresser and the drawers of which rumbled open. Aurelia fell to her knees and screamed into her carpet. The power of the magic inside her grew with her temper.
Aurelia Lestrange had glowered at the young master Malfoy for their entire journey to Kings Cross station. Not once did he look over at the girl, he was disgusted at the wounds to her face but kept his stern demeanour and stare at the floor. He was now 14 and proven old enough to enjoy the things his father would enjoy and therefore had spent considerably more time with him. Perhaps an outing here and there throughout the time off Hogwarts. Lucius's private business had increased, and the man now glowed with ego and wealth.
The girl which now embarked on her journey to school was just a shadow of the girl that left 3 months ago. She walked as though she might break in the middle, she didn't raise her head at all but the dark circles that hugged her eyes and her old and new scars were still noticed by those around her. Whilst still in the Muggle world she trailed Draco's strong steps through the crowds of the station, Aurelia was stopped by a young woman who placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and eyed her face before scrutinising the tall boy she followed. Aurelia pulled herself from the soft touch and carried on with a sneer across her face. Nobody had helped her before that mornings events and she wasn't about to let anyone help now. She was to be the one to end this. Her mind swarmed with the information Lucius had told her, and just what had occurred between master and slave. She wondered if the students had known about her even before she did because prisoners were in the Daily Prophet frequently. Aurelia assumed her mother had to have done something most dreadful to have been incarcerated for the girls' entire life, and to have given birth in prison too, her mind naturally fell to that of her father. Would he be a better person than Malfoy, would he show kindness like her professor. The tight knot in her stomach still pulled when she walked, it ached and groaned, and it increasingly got tighter and tighter the more she thought about Lucius.
Once through the barrier Aurelia's fury burst through her and she found it gave her slight relief to send a body binder curse straight into the stomach of an older Ravenclaw student, the girl relished in the sweet uplifting sensation now flooding her veins, Aurelia caught herself with a small grin when she looked at the student on the floor before she quickly ran onto the train to avoid the inevitable consequences. She ran up the train, carriage after carriage until she was jerked sideways into a cabin by the boy she remembered was called Blaise, he had grabbed a good handful of the clothes at her shoulder. His mouth fell open with a look of horror when he looked upon Aurelia's face and she shoved the palms of her hands into his chest with a lot more force than she had intended. She raised her wand above her head, but Draco Malfoy abruptly stood uncomfortably close beside her, towering a full head and shoulders taller than Aurelia. Draco looked at Aurelia up and down while he shifted from foot to foot, twisting his head to challenge the girl.
Her bright blue eyes darted sideways to meet his penetrating stare, she dropped her offending arm and turned face to face with her companion. The pair had locked their eyes in battle, their loathing for one another poured from the depths of their eyes. Draco felt strongly that Aurelia was the reason his father was so distant with him and the reason he could never please his father or do right by him, he was also severely disgusted that a man he still looked up to could do this to a child younger than his own. Aurelia knew that Draco knew of the abuse she endured at the hands of his father and yet made no attempt to try and stop him, at the very least Aurelia thought Draco could have told his mother but what Aurelia didn't know was that Narcissa was powerless too.
"Draco, stop!" it was a girl called Pansy that broke the tension between Draco and Aurelia. Aurelia threw herself into a seat, kicked off her shoes and brought her knees to her chest again. She ignored the students by placing her face away from them. Blaise tried to ask Malfoy about what had happened to Aurelia's face, he jerked his head in her direction and motioned to his own face, the only reaction he got was a cool stare from Draco accompanied by a slow shake of his head. Blaise pulled a bottle of clear liquid from his traveling cloak and tapped it against Aurelia's elbow. The girl lifted her aching and heavy arms to take the bottle. The alcohol ate away at the broken flesh of her lip and seared at her scratched throat, her face contorted when she swallowed, the girl was reminded that Mr. Malfoy had once poured her a drink from a similar bottle, it had worked then...maybe it would work this time, so she took another long drag from the bottle before it was snatched from her lips by Draco.
"You're such a freak Lestrange!" Pansy Parkinson hissed when she welcomed Draco back into her arms.
"Yeah!" Crabbe and Goyle jeered in unison "just like her mum" Goyle said with a sneer.
Aurelia's head snapped in his direction and she flew off her seat and onto the lap of the large boy, her hands clasped at his loosened shirt collar. "What do you know of my mother?" Aurelia was frantic, her eyes searched for answers about his face. In the light the window let in Draco could now see the finger print marks on her face and he leant across Goyle to get a closer look. Draco very quickly realised how close he had been when she climbed back off Goyle and stood on her feet. Malfoy sat back in his seat and watched her take her seat too, the girl sat but gasped and jumped back up off her buttocks, her legs were pressed together so tight and the muscles of her face were strained with pain. Aurelia attempted to sit again but this time she took her place much slower.
"Your mums in prison" Blaise chimed in. He too had caught her reaction to sitting "do you know anything?"
Aurelia shook her head and looked at him with tears in her eyes. She got up to leave, she didn't want to cry in front of her peers. Blaise waited 5 minutes before leaving the compartment to find her. After walking through a train carriage and hopping over to another he found Aurelia, sitting by a window in a holding cage. The metal gate screeched when he entered, even above the loud clickety clacks of the tracks below them Aurelia heard the gate. She assumed it was Draco.
"Was it Malfoy?" the boy spoke before he took another step towards her. Aurelia didn't answer so he walked forward, he walked around in front of her and took her chin in his hand. His skin was in stark contrast to her own as he thumbed over her bruised jawline. "was this him?" he asked again with raised eyebrows.
The girl didn't know how to answer, to which Malfoy was he referring? The senior or the junior?
She roughly pushed his hand off her and stood up, only he made another attempt to grab her face, but he was gentle. His hand pressed at the small of her back and pulled her into the warmth of his body.
"Why?" She whispered.
Blaise was puzzled by what she meant. Her body was leant away from his and she held her head to the side to keep away from him. "why what?" he asked trying to close the gap between their cheeks.
Aurelia had lots of whys: why be gentle? Why choose her? Why ask her that?
"Why did you ask me that?" She chose just one, the tears glistened in her eyes and their tracks had begun to dry into a white residue on her face.
"You've been hurt Aurelia" Blaise moved his hand from her face to her lower abdomen, just above her private area. Naturally she flinched but her eyes lifted and searched his face, how could he possibly know and how could he care when the people around her who were supposed to care, didn't.
Her facial expression gave away her secret.
"I'll kill him" Blaise said and went to leave but Aurelia grabbed his uniform to stop him.
"No please!" she shouted, "it's not him" her breath caught in her throat however she repeated herself "it's not him, don't hurt him"
Blaise's eyebrows furrowed but he chose to believe her. "Ok" he nodded and pulled the girl into an embrace. The Hogwarts Express continued its journey and the weather outside made a turn for the worse.
Once the many students in the Great Hall of Hogwarts had settled down some foreign visitors were announced; students from other wizarding schools were at Hogwarts to take part in a tournament. Great things were promised to the winner and the atmosphere of the hall was that of wonder and excitement, but all Aurelia could think of was that her body still hurt. Her knickers had been uncomfortably wet and sticky all day, the girl checked that those around her were looking away before lifting her skirt up her legs and reaching down to touch herself. Aurelia could have screamed, she opted for a grasp of her hair and a bite of her bottom lip. Upon examining her fingers under the table, she saw her finger tips were covered in a pearly white matter that had stains of pink. Aurelia lifted her head quickly and scanned the people around her and at the end of the hall. A tall man from one of the external schools stared straight at her, but she also failed to notice that Severus Snape was also watching. He had seen her enter the Great Hall, she hid her face well, but he still saw her bruised cheekbone and lip from the staff table. He couldn't understand why this could happen, why Dumbledore hadn't sought out the Malfoys after last year's revelations. After dinner he marched his way up the hall and silently steered Miss Lestrange to the dungeons. On route Aurelia questioned where they were going and what she had done to warrant being dragged to his classroom.
The professor pushed her into a chair and went to a large locked cabinet behind his desk. His long spindly fingers pushed aside various objects wrapped in cloth before he found a plump phial with a pipette stopper. He held it gently with two hands as he turned to face the girl.
"Miss Lestrange I do not want to see you in here quite as often as last year, you have a brilliant mind...use it" His voice was smooth as silk but also intimidating.
Aurelia was confused. It had appeared he was searching for something to give to her, but he just stood at the focal point of his classroom, holding a bottle. She nodded and stood to her feet, she winced slightly but swiftly left and found her way to her bed, there she felt safe, as much as a cold iron bed could feel but she was home. She smiled in the darkness. Severus Snape had planned to give her his medicated concoction, but he had to be cautious, Lucius Malfoy was not a person he wanted to challenge at that particular moment.
And so, Aurelia's second year at Hogwarts had begun, Aurelia turned 13 years old in the November and Christmas was closing in. The Triwizard Tournament had started, and a dance ball was arranged to celebrate the collaboration of wizarding communities, however it was only open to fourth years and above unless invited. Blaise asked Aurelia to accompany him to the Yule Ball which had caused a fight between Blaise and Draco. Many punches were thrown as well as verbal profanities. There was only one problem facing Aurelia, and that was she didn't have a fancy dress to wear. It was quite the talk of the common room to find out who would be going with who and what would they wear. The girl visited Professor Snape after every day with new ideas of how to obtain a dress. Each time the potions master refused to acknowledge her presence. Then one morning, at breakfast her luck changed, a large package was dropped before her by an owl. Aurelia ran to the solidarity of her bed without so much as a nibble of buttered toast.
Aurelia picked the soft satin ribbon which held a black velvet box closed, her small fingers shivered with adrenaline; this was the most extravagant package she had ever laid her eyes on. She lifted the lid and set it down on the bed next to herself. She raised two layers of black tissue paper out of the box, her heart beat wildly in her chest. She forgot how to breathe when she caught the first glimpse of a silk garment.
The girl looked to the lid, tied with the bow was a tag. She turned it over to see a simple M was scrolled onto the thick parchment and traced the symbol with her fingertip and she smiled, Aurelia had a dress for the ball. However, she was confused, why would Lucius send her such a gift. Perhaps Snape had sent a letter home to put a stop to her daily visits and maybe Lucius miraculously had an attack of conscience.
On the night of the Yule Ball Aurelia Lestrange entered the Slytherin common room from the girls' dormitory wearing her single layer of silk. The dress plunged at the neckline but not distastefully deep, it had very thin shoulder straps and dropped straight down. So, it wasn't figure hugging, but it gave Aurelia a womanly shape. She also had a full face of make-up and her hair had extra bounce in it, reluctantly provided by the wand of Pansy Parkinson.
Aurelia wore her own wand strapped to her right lower leg beneath her dress. Blaise greeted her with a small kiss to the top of her head, he was considerably taller than her and this gesture didn't frighten Aurelia but comforted her. Draco Malfoy watched from across the room, a smirk creeped across his face at the sight of Aurelia. She looked positively glowing in the dress he had bought for her and for the first time he saw the whites of her teeth when she smiled.
Towards the end of the night Aurelia had had her fun, she had secretly drunk a dangerous amount of alcohol and danced until her feet hurt. She stumbled and leant on a table to remove her shoes, behind her, students were still dancing but it was approaching midnight, the girl had to hold her head to focus and regain her balance. She tried to leave the great hall alone but swiftly she was accompanied by a large man who grabbed her upper body by the arms and walked her in a straight line.
It took Aurelia a few moments to realise someone was guiding her...and not to the Slytherin Common Room but to an empty passageway where snow flurries fell in the air and the floor was icy.
"Lestrange?" The man spoke with a thick and raspy voice, he spoke quick and harsh. He spoke as he let Aurelia go and pushed her against the wall.
The girl could barely open her eyes. She giggled apparently at nothing and dropped her shoes which made an echo through the vast space around them. Snape heard the loud sound and went on the pursuit.
"Tell me where your mother is!" he spoke again in a whisper, he lurched himself forward, but he was bent at the hip to bring his head to within a few inches from hers. Aurelia slid down the wall and crumbled to a pile on the floor beneath the man.
"Who are you?" Aurelia whispered. She sensed danger with this man, even in her intoxicated state. She raised her head to get a better look at who stood in front of her; a very tall man dressed in a white wool coat. His face, Aurelia recognised from the Great Hall on the first day of term.
"I am Igor Karkaroff and your mother owes me" he said while puffing air into his chest which made him look more menacing. Igor was reminded of how this girl's mother had been on the floor at his control many years ago, he noticed how similar in appearance they were, he made a reach for the girl's hair. He had always remembered how the scent of her mother's hair had permeated the fibres of his winter gloves.
Aurelia suddenly realised her surroundings, but her limbs were thick with liquor which made Aurelia's movements erratic. She scrambled to crawl away out from under Igor's stance. Just at that moment Severus Snape rounded the corner and saw the pair. And after his previous encounter with Igor that night he was instantly angry. Snape knew Aurelia's mother and he knew of the link they all had. He couldn't let Aurelia find out from this man.
An obsessed glow came through Karkaroff's eyes and he once again lunged at Aurelia and made an attempt to grab at her dress "show me your arm girl!" his thick European accent resonated through the halls and Snape pounced from the darkness with ease with his wand aloft before Igor's hands made any contact with the minor.
Severus yanked Aurelia to her feet and commanded her to bed, her bare feet created small slaps as she ran away. When she reached her bed, she collapsed on her stomach and into a deep sleep.
Aurelia couldn't remember much of that night by morning, but she was irked at the sight of Igor from then onwards. She made sure to avoid Igor and his students.
After Severus had interrupted Igor's interrogation the two men had a small wand fight, sparks of colour lit up the night air around them. They came to a mutual halt and Igor thrust a pile of papers into Snape's cold hands.
"The mark burns...I know you feel it Severus. Take these, that girl is trouble and when you see her mother. Tell her she should come to me" Igor pointed in the direction of Aurelia's flee and made to leave.
"That girl is a student of mine and while you are a guest here at Hogwarts, you should make it your obligation to leave the child" and Snape turned on his heels.
The letters he clutched in his hands were intercepted owls from Malfoy Manor. Severus thumbed through them in his classroom, some were for Master Malfoy, but most were for Miss Lestrange and they were penned in Lucius' hand although they were not signed, Snape was certain it had to be him.
Severus sat back in his chair with the vision etched into the backs of his eyelids; Aurelia sat at the back of his classroom, visibly distressed and ill. These letters contained such sickening admissions of desire and devotion, offers of money and gifts. Promises of the excessive possessions at the Manor in exchange for silence. Frustrations and anger and a confession, finally an apology and a plead for silence. The date on the final letter was close enough for Snape to respond. He charmed his quill into writing a small 'ok' on a piece of parchment. He was confident that Aurelia was already frightened into silence, and he also knew that she did not need to see these letters. Snape reported his discoveries to Dumbledore again but according to him there was a right time to approach the matter and just then wasn't the right time.
Severus blast the papers into flames and sent his owl with his note. He knew the man was poison, but he never suspected this was the level his evils sunk to.
At the end of the school year and after the events of the Triwizard tournament it was revealed that a Deatheater had hidden inside Hogwarts and used the Harry Potter boy to bring the Dark Lord back into power. Snape had heard of the plans prior to the final task of the contest and once again the wizarding world was indeed plunged into darkness. A kind of darkness he knew Aurelia was about to be right in the centre of, along with Draco Malfoy.