A/N So, here's the next chapter. There is a bit of graphic violence in here. Nothing really bad.
See? See how I warned you? You know, like talking to you? Return the favor and review!
Mac had already done her homework, because for some reason she hadn't been assigned much, and didn't have quidditch practice that night. So she had decided to head down to dinner early, and invited Sev to go with her. "Sorry, I've got to finish this transfiguration essay. I'll meet you down at dinner, okay?"
She nodded, not particularly caring. She had spent six years eating by herself, so she didn't mind spending some time on her own. Knowing that someone cared enough to be coming to meet her made her incredibly happy. In fact, she was just feeling happy in general, a rare occurrence for her.
Mac strolled down the hall to dinner alone, smiling. She very rarely smiled for no reason, but she was in a good mood. This year was going well, she was on the quidditch team, she was getting good marks, and people weren't bothering her as much as they used to, in previous school years. Plus, she and Sev were actually acting like friends in public, which was strange but nice.
Her good mood, however, disappeared when she rounded the corner, heading for the Great Hall. There was a group of Slytherins and a small boy, probably a first year. He was, judging by the blue tie around his neck, a Ravenclaw, and they had, apparently, surrounded him. He was trapped against the wall.
Mac quickly took stock of the situation. There were four Slytherins: Lestrange, Bellatrix Black, Crabbe, and Avery. She probably couldn't take all four of them on her own, but she could probably hold them off while the kid ran. After all, she couldn't let them beat a first year to a bloody pulp. At the moment, they were just scaring him and calling him mudblood, but they would escalate from there, especially if he tried to defend himself. They always did. Mac knew from experience. And she couldn't let them do that to someone else, especially an eleven year old. She would never forgive herself.
So, without really thinking of a game plan, she stepped out into the hallway. "What's going on here?"
They looked up, four matching pairs of eyes dark with loathing, but at the same time twinkling perversely, showing their joy in this torture. The Ravenclaw just looked scared, and his eyes were down. He was silent, obviously hoping not to provoke his tormentors any more. "Come to join in our fun, little mudblood?"
"Actually, no, not really my idea of fun," she replied easily, disguising her nervousness. She hadn't been really badly hexed yet this year, and she would have preferred to keep it that way, but it was beginning to appear unavoidable. She had her hand in her pocket, firmly grasping her wand, ready to pull it out at any second.
This turned out to be a good thing, too, because Avery chose this moment to call out "Petrificus Totalus!" She blocked it easily.
"Is that all you've got?" she asked mockingly. In a completely different voice, nudging the small boy who was cowering behind her, she said, "What are you waiting for? Run!"
The boy needed no further prompting, and ran off down the hall. When Crabbe made to go after him, Mac threw him back against the wall with a spell, reducto. Black spat out, "You're a pathetic disgrace to our house, filthy mudblood. You'll pay for ruining that."
Mac knew that, she had known since the instant she interfered. But she was going to put up a fight going down. She swiftly pulled out her wand, yelling, "Reducto!"
Lestrange dodged it, shouting, "Engorgio!"
She blocked it. This was going better than she had expected it would, maybe she wouldn't get hurt this time…
"Sectumsempra!" Mac spun towards Black, who had just yelled out a curse, but she wasn't quick enough to block it. It hit her, full in the front, and she flew back through the air as it cut her stomach and chest to ribbons. Her clothing was slashed into bits and she could see her flesh for an instant before it was covered by blood. She slammed into the floor, but the pain in her back as she hit was nothing compared to the cuts, which had gone from numb to excruciatingly painful in seconds. The floor around her immediately began to stain red as the blood pooled out around her. She took a shuddering breath. She could see her flesh through the gaping wounds. This was not good.
"Bye, bye, mudblood," giggled Black as she pranced away down the hall, her wild black hair bouncing. Stupid, sadistic Black had obviously enjoyed hurting her. Mac resisted the urge to scream for them to help her. That would only satisfy them, she never showed her weaknesses. It wasn't like they would help, even if she begged. The other three followed, they did whatever the Slytherin higher-ups did. Now what could she do? Mac's vision was going in and out as the blackness closed in, but she kept pushing it out again, because she knew that to pass out would be very, very bad. She was trying to block out the pain so that she could think, but it wasn't working. The pain was just too great.
Her half delusional mind finally came to a decision. The Room of Requirement was nearby, she would go there. She muttered a spell and bandages shot out of her wand, wrapping tightly around her torso and causing her to let out her breath. Then she began to drag herself across the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind her.
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Sirius was in the Room of Requirement, relaxing. He had just wanted to be alone for a little while because, as much as he loved his friends, it got a little tiring being around them literally all of the time. So he occasionally ran off to one of the numerous places in the castle where he could be alone. The Room of Requirement was the best, though, because it was so comfortable, because that was what he wanted it to be like.
He thought about Sasha. He wasn't really sure why he had asked her out, she was just like all the other girls he had dated. He always liked them for a while, then got bored. It was getting rather tiring, really, but he couldn't seem to break the cycle. But he had to have a girlfriend at all times, to keep up his image. And it wasn't like dumping a girl every week or two, or even cheating on them as he so often did, changed anyone's opinions of him. The girls were all in love with him, the guys all wanted to be him, and the Slytherins all detested him, so he didn't know why he should bother to change.
He sighed, flipping over in an attempt to get more comfortable on the couch. Then he froze. The doorknob was turning, and for some reason, he didn't want to get caught here. Maybe he felt like he had been doing something wrong, or maybe he just didn't want anyone to know that he had been thinking. But he didn't know who was coming in, and he didn't want them to see him. So, he made sure that they wouldn't know that it was him.
Mac dragged herself through the door, charming the floor clean behind her so that no one could follow her trail of blood into the room. She was blocking the pain from her mind and trying with all her might not to collapse. The blood was beginning to soak through her bandages, and she felt dizzy from the blood loss.
Luckily, in this room, when she needed a blood replenishing potion, it would be here somewhere. She grabbed the counter and slowly, painfully pulled herself up. She stood unsteadily on her feet and opened a cabinet. There, she thanked Merlin, was the potion. She grabbed the red bottle and allowed herself to slide back down and sit on the floor, where she, with a shaking hand, uncorked the bottle and downed the potion.
She also needed a book of healing spells and, sure enough, there was a bookshelf, but it was all the way across the room. She sighed, then mentally berated herself. She was a witch, so why wasn't she using it? "Accio healing book!"
She grabbed it out of the air, thanks to her quidditch reflexes, and flipped it open, holding it away from her body so it wouldn't get bloodstained. She felt something cold and wet against the side of her face and looked up, startled. "Hello, doggie. What are you doing in here?"
She scratched behind the big, black mutts ears, then went back to her book. However sweet the dog was, she needed to fix her cuts. She was surprised that the dog just flopped down next to her instead of begging for more attention, but glad. After all, she was getting weaker by the minute, and didn't really have time to fulfill the dog's daily attention quota.
When she finally found a spell that she thought would work, about half way though the book, which was now liberally stained with her blood, she pealed off her slashed up robes. Then she began to painfully unwind the bandages encircling her torso. She winced slightly as the bandages tore away some of the newly forming scabs with them. She shed her shirt as well, and was down to just her bra, so she could see the wounds.
They looked as bad, she thought, if not worse than they felt. They were beginning to gush blood again, causing her to feel dizzy, both from blood loss and the sight of the gaping wounds. She quickly said the spell, but it didn't seem to be working. The fact that she could barely speak didn't help. Her vision was going in again, and this time, despite her efforts, she couldn't seem to push it back out. This was not good. The dog's big, black eyes stared into hers. Even the dog looked worried, but that was insane. The dog couldn't possibly know what was going on.
One last time she thought, this is not good. Then she passed out.
Mac woke up a while later, disconcerted for a moment. Where was she? She sat up abruptly as the events leading up to this point came flooding back. Oh, no. But when she looked down, although she was still covered in blood, which was now dried and flaky, there were no cuts. Instead, five bright white scars crisscrossed her torso. It didn't look too wonderful, in her opinion, but, still, it was better than seeing her guts through her stomach. And scars gave character to people's looks, she thought, as well as prompting the telling of interesting stories. Of course, usually the scars weren't this big, but she wasn't going to think about that. No, she was going to think that her new scars were…um…cool.
She pulled out her wand and cleaned off the blood, then put her head back down. What a comfy pillow, heated and everything. But why was there a pillow on the ground? She looked down and was startled for a second by the black furriness of the pillow. But it wasn't a pillow. It was the dog, she realized, as it woke up and licked her face. "Well, aren't you cute. Thanks for being my pillow and all, but I need to go."
She got up to leave, then realized she wasn't wearing a shirt, and hers was in bloody pieces on the ground. For a second she was petrified, wondering how she would get back to her dorm. Then the dog clawed a cabinet, barking. She opened it, and there was a new shirt, just like her old one. Thank Merlin for the Room of Requirements.
After she walked out of the room, the dog turned back into Sirius, who was wondering why he had just done that. She was a Slytherin, why had he helped her? And after he helped her, why had he stayed with her? It was one thing to be human and help a dying person, another to actually, well, actually care. Of course, she thought he was a dog, which helped.
She had seemed so helpless and human. Which was not what he was used to in Slytherins, and it threw him off. That was why he had stayed. Of course it was.