Chapter 16: Falter

I've gotten emotionally involved, something may father told me never to do. After all these years of horror, I don't listen to him and this is what happens. I'm going to hurt you, Harry.

Harry clutched the parchment between his sweating fingers. It was now April, and he was still receiving these letters. His suspicions were confirmed—it could only be Adrienne. Who else would mention their father? Who else had he kissed? He had an eerie feeling that it was Adrienne's handwriting, too. But this conclusion meant that the threatening letters were also from Adrienne, and this he could not comprehend. Why would she threaten him via owl, but in person act like the girl he had befriended?

Securing this letter with the others, he decided he needed to have a talk with her before his time ran out. When he couldn't fall asleep yet again, he pulled out his books and crammed information for his N.E.W.T.s.

I need to talk to you. He slid the note to Adrienne in Potions the following week.

Now? Came the reply.

After class. Wait for me outside the door.

What about?

"Potter, what's this?" came the sneering drawl. Snape's face loomed above Harry's head. "A love letter, perhaps?" His lips twisted into a malicious smile.

Thinking quickly, Harry flicked his wand at the parchment, causing it to burst into flame. A second later, all that was left was a pile of ash.

"Fine," drawled Snape. "Detention. After class."

"But Professor, I have Defense Against the Dark Arts next—"

"You're staying after class with me!" finalized Snape. Harry dared a glance at Adrienne when Snape's back was turned. She shrugged.

Harry caught her after dinner that night. He almost missed her, grabbing her arm as she was leaving the Great Hall. Slinging his book bag over his shoulder simultaneously asking Hermione for the notes from the Defense Against the Dark Arts class he had missed, he walked her out to the grand staircase.

"What do you want?" she asked when the students had dissipated.

Harry was shocked by her tone. "I have to talk to you."

She rolled her eyes. "About what?" He pulled out the letters from his bag. She gasped, and the softness of surprise took over his face for a moment. "Where did you get these?"

His suspicions were affirmed. "They're yours? You wrote these?"

"How did you get them?" she demanded. "Tell me!"

"You sent them to me! Why? I don't understand."

She took a hold of his shoulders and began shaking him. "You stole them from me! You! How could you? I trusted you!"

"I didn't take them! You owled them to me. I want to know why!"

"Why would I do something like that? You came and took them! I don't know why you did, or why you chose these fragments, but you did! What are you trying to do?"

"Addy, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Her palm made contact with his left cheek, and she ran.

Oh Harry, I'm so sorry, the girl wrote late that night. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I didn't even mean to get close to you. Hell, who knew what I meant? I'm sorry for what I did, what I'm about to do. I can't write things down anymore, and I can't write a message to save you. I'm trying to help you with all that I possess of me, but what good with that do? Please, Harry, put the clues together. Somehow, work it out. I only hope you are better equipped to be an Auror than you think.

Tears began splashing against the page in her notebook, and she knew she couldn't handle it. Tucking the notebook safely away under her mattress, she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep.

A few hours a later, in the early morning before the sun rose, she began jerking violently as she had recently begun resisting every morning as she relinquished her body with a struggle. Still in a blind rage at the climax of her fight, feeling her body being taken away from her, not knowing anything around her, she pulled out a notebook from under her bed. With shaking fingers as her grip on herself was being loosened, she tore a scrap away from the bound page. With her wand poised between her frail fingers, she levitated it to and through a window.

With one last convulsion, she collapsed on the bed, unconscious and exhausted. A settling came over her strained features, and she fell into an expressionless sleep.

Oh Harry, I'm so sorry was all he read later that morning.

Following, another note fluttered through his window. This one was longer.

People die painful deaths all the time. Impalement. Whipping. The Cruciatus Curse until the energy to live is no longer there. By degrees, as cancer eats away at the body, draining everything that is you. Burned alive as the flesh is roasted off your bones. Buried alive as you suffocate. Imagine the skin being peeled from your flesh, white-hot knives piercing your body, seeing blood in your eyes with no one to hear your torture screams.

Your death will be much more painful.

Harry shuddered and wiped the sweat from his shaking body as he slowly overcame the urge to vomit. After calming himself, he noticed something, surprised he hadn't seen it before. Though both notes were more or less Adrienne's neat handwriting, the ones from Adrienne were on lined paper, while the menacing ones were on ordinary parchment. He shook out the older letters from their tin. It held true.

He couldn't bear this burden alone, with the threat of death a sickeningly real possibility. He never had been able to. He woke up Sirius.

"Shush, Ron!" came the whisper from outside the Room of Requirement.

"What? I'm only saying—"

"Shut up!" The knock sounded next. "Sirius? Sirius, are you there? It's… it's me, Hermione—"

"And me," interjected Ron.

"And Ron," added Hermione. "Could we—"

The door opened, revealing Harry on the other side. "Sirius isn't here," he said. "But I'm glad you guys came. I have to talk to you." He ushered them in while briefly making sure they were alone. When they were seated, Harry related to his two best friends the story about Adrienne. He pulled out the letters as proof to testify to them and to convince himself.

"Well," said Hermione slowly, her mind processing, "maybe whoever sent you these notes about your death is the same person who tried to kill Sirius."

"We already established that it's Adrienne sending him these," reminded Ron. "So that would mean Adrienne has power over Pettigrew, which isn't possible. And what does she have against Sirius? How does Sirius even fit into this?"

"Maybe," said Hermione, "it isn't Adrienne sending these notes."

"What?" asked Harry. "Didn't you hear what I—"

"Yes, I heard," said Hermione. "But what if she isn't sending the notes? Maybe someone put her under the Imperius Curse?"

"And why would someone do that?" Harry snarled.

"What, Harry, you want to find her guilty?" Hermione asked. Harry reddened and was silent. "I'm just saying it's a possibility, however far-fetched."

"There's something…off about that girl that I don't like," said Ron. "So mysterious."

The three silently agreed.

Harry didn't want to tell Hermione this, or anyone, but maybe he was trying a little to have a reason to accuse Adrienne. After his confession to Sirius about the letters, Sirius had felt equally compelled to share something secret with Harry, also regarding the girl in question.

"There's something about her that I can't place," he had said. "I know it sounds ludicrous, Harry. She's agreeable enough, polite, not a hoodlum. But whenever I see her… It's not something she says or does," Sirius continued, struggling to explain. "But something inside of me… freezes. I almost start to remember something, but it slips away. I would have dismissed it as paranoia if I hadn't felt so strongly about it. This is one thing I'm sure of, Harry. There's something wrong about that girl."

Harry shuddered internally at the recollection of Sirius' face. He looked haunted, like he usually did, but it was a different kind of haunted. He looked lost in an empty memory, looking for something he could not find.

"Harry?" he had asked feebly. Harry nearly jumped at the tone in his voice—he had never heard Sirius sound so childlike, so helpless, so desperately in want of a psychological parent. "I… I've been keeping a dream diary for a few months now, and I… I think some are memories. I know they are. They're too real not to be. But I can't remember where they came from, or what happened. Would you… this might sound silly, but would you mind reading them? Maybe you'll get something. I just have this feeling."

Harry had never been happier to say yes.

Now remembering what he had read, something struck him. He needed to talk to Adrinne, to have it all out. But first he would wait until Sirius came home.

Home, thought Harry, smiling slightly.

Sirius didn't return until nearly three o'clock in the morning, but Harry was wide awake. He explained to Sirius that he wanted to invite Adrienne over. Sirius agreed to remain in the room until she left.

Though it was three o'clock in the morning, Harry sent a note over with Hedwig, imagining he'd have hours to plan how he wanted to go about this meeting.

A,

Please come over. We need to talk. Whenever is convenient.

Harry

The reply came hours earlier than Harry had anticipated.

Coming now.

Groaning and slightly panicking, Harry began frantically planning what he was going to say. With Sirius' help, he calmed down.

There was a knock at the door, and Harry let Adrienne in. She sat down in a chair at the table.

"Thanks for coming," Harry said.

She nodded.

"You know, you didn't have to come right away," he said, a little uneasily.

She shrugged. Harry knew they were both acting oddly—he formal, she silent—but she was not making an effort to ease the air, so, he decided stubbornly, neither would he.

"I—we—I need to know something, Addy," he said, using her favorite nickname in an attempt to ease her. It had been Sirius' idea. It didn't ease her, at least, not that Harry could see. "What…" He struggled to find the right words. "The letters I showed you," he said finally. "They came from you, didn't they?"

She said nothing.

"Age!" He said, annoyed. "What's wrong? It's me; it's Harry! You've always felt comfortable around me. Why are you acting this way?"

She shrugged, and Harry noticed there was something different about her. Besides her behavior, there was something abnormal about her manner, her attitude… her face, her eyes.

"Are you going to talk to me at all?" Harry asked, studying her face. She shrugged again and frowned. Harry was infuriated. "Fine, if you're not going to talk to me, I guess you can go," he said noncommittally.

She looked different now. "You can't treat me like that, Harry! What is wrong with you? You steal my stuff, you're rude, and now you use me! You don't talk to me like you used to! You just use me and maybe I deserve it, heaven knows I deserve something, but you can't use me! I was honest… no, I wasn't, but I felt genuinely about you! You can't do this… I don't deserve it… from… you," she whispered at the end, her voice cracking and the girl breaking down. She sat almost completely still, face in her hands, the only movement being her shoulders shaking slightly.

"Age," Harry said softly, melting. He sat beside her and put his hand tenderly on her back. "Talk to me. It's just me now, like old times."

Sniffling, she looked at Sirius.

"He's okay; you can trust Sirius, you know that," said Harry. "Talk to me, Addy. Please." It hurt to see her this way. "Tell me what's going on."

She was silent while Harry aged a thousand years, while the April rain turned to December snow and back to April again, while everything withered away. After all the time in the world had passed, she looked up.

"Oh, Harry," she whispered finally. "I'm so sorry." Harry resisted the impulse to pry, and was rewarded as she continued of her own accord. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I didn't even mean to like you, but that's what I ended up doing. And now I'm in this mess and I've dragged you into it. I'm so sorry.

"I did write those notes to you, but I don't know how they got to you. I never meant to send them, and I don't remember doing so." She looked up at him, and when she did, Harry saw a vulnerable look like a caged animal written across her face. Her silent plea for help, for salvation.

"Well…" Harry didn't have an explanation for her lack of memory. Perfect, he thought sarcastically. One more person whose memory I have to restore. "What about these notes?" He held up the threatening notes in a fist.

She shook her head emphatically. "I didn't write those," Adrienne said. "I didn't write them. I promise. I don't remember them at all."

"Age, it's in your handwriting," Harry said gently. "Are you sure?"

"Harry, if I can promise you one thing, it's that I never wrote those," she said. "I never wanted to hurt you, and I still don't."

Harry looked to Sirius for help. He had neither an explanation for Adrienne nor one for himself. Sirius looked confused, but he had a determined look that Harry hadn't seen very often in recent times.

"Adrienne, is there anything else you'd like to tell Harry?" he asked. She shook her head. "I'll leave if I'm making you uncomfortable." She hesitated, as if considering the offer, then shook her head again.

"There's no need to," she said quietly. "I'll go now." She stood up and looked Harry directly in the eye. "I'm really sorry, Harry. I care about you. I just want you to know that." She chanced one last look at Sirius before she stepped out.

"What was that?" Harry wondered aloud. "We didn't figure anything out." Sirius didn't respond—he was immersed in thought.

Sirius knew he had seen the girl before. He knew he had seen someone that wasn't her, also, but that looked like her. He couldn't remember who, or under what circumstances, but he had seen her features on someone else. Her small mouth, her ears, her delicate hands, her sinister smirk. Where had he seen it? Who had them? Or was he maybe remembering two people? The thoughts made his head throb and he sat down, holding his spinning head.

Wisps of memory floated in and out of his reach, teasing and taunting. He reached out to grasp them, only to fail time and again. He grew aggravated and frustrated, but this time not for himself. For the first time that he could remember, he was frustrated because he was failing Harry. He didn't remember anything about the boy from before the accident, but he had grown attached to his childlike innocence. Sirius couldn't understand why. Harry hadn't done anything particularly special for him. Sure, he had tried to help Sirius remember, but that was something that would normally annoy Sirius. He didn't need anyone's help and prided himself on being independent and able to stand on his own two feet.

Now he was aggravated because Harry needed him and he wasn't sufficient for his godson. He would remember; he was determined to. There was no way he would fail Harry this time… like he had before. Before the accident.

With a spring, Sirius leapt up. He had remembered something. Not much, and nothing specific, but he had remembered something from before the accident. Taking pleasure in this simultaneously small and large victory, he continued rearranging Adrienne's face in his mind's eye, trying to place her features.

The frail girl sat on her bed, her sobbing caused by the emotions coursing through her, the good and the bad, and the fear of what lay in store. The voice boomed inside her head, causing her to tremble even more.

"You will not give up now. You will complete the mission you were sent to do. That is your purpose."

She knew she should stop crying, but as much as she willed her body to stop, it was out of her control.

"You are weak and pathetic. Do not be weak. Weak is the enemy. Weak is for failure. You will complete your mission, and then you will return. You were sent to bring Harry Potter to me, and you will complete the task you started."

She couldn't control her violent, anguished sobs any longer. Wracked with grief and foreboding, she decided she couldn't play the game anymore. She couldn't play the game she was destined not to play—life. She knew it was futile, but she had tried it anyway, swept away with the prospect of Harry and love and feeling and life. It had landed her here, crying and confused, tangled in a web of lies, which conveniently held a noose around her neck. She had to stop. It wasn't her fate to live; it wasn't her purpose. The voice echoed in her head long after it had ceased:

"You were sent to bring Harry Potter to me. That is your purpose. You will complete the task you started."

Even with the feelings she had repressed over the years, even with the grief she was feeling now, even though her shoulders had been shaking with the force of the tears, she had never denied this fate, not to the voice and not to herself.

A/N: I had to somehow end it before it kept getting worse. I'm thinking two chapters maximum left. The next is the climax, most likely, and then the conclusion/falling action after that. I highly doubt it will be any longer. And the next chapter takes a lot of planning so it will be a while before I get my thoughts in order and then write the chapter.

IamSiriusgrl—Thanks for reviewing.