Author's Before-Note for Chapter 4

Huzzah! I've finally published a chapter to my story less than two months after the previous installment! Aren't you proud of me? Seeing as I don't have to attach endless ramblings of apology to this note, my words here will remain brief. I can only say, if you want updates to my Facebook page, and if you'd be interested in following a YouTube channel explaining my writing process and other behind-the-scenes aspects of my work, feel free to write your affirmation and suggestions down in the comments. As always, if you later wish to contact me directly on a platform that I'll actually check notifications on more often than once a month, you can email me at mynamewasfrog at gee mail dot com. In the meantime, enjoy the newest chapter!

CHAPTER 4 – THE RUNAWAY

At this question, Phoebe narrowed her eyes at the boy, scrutinizing his sudden change of character. There was no longer obnoxious charm hiding behind his eyes, urging her confounded curiosity to overcome her fear. There was only a mysterious pain. And despite Phoebe's piercing gaze, Leo Price only stared back with his face wiped of all other emotion. The entire Great Hall, for a few seconds, fell away from the two students' notice completely, and all other noise became irrelevant to their consciousness in anticipation for their questions being soon answered. As before, Phoebe began talking without realizing or thinking about what she was saying.

"I am still afraid of you. I'm terrified of you after all that you've done and what you've been doing to me ever since you arrived here. I just-"

"You're talking about the nightmares, aren't you?"

Incredulous that Price knew her very dreams, Phoebe felt a sudden surge of anger in addition to an uncontrollable urge to cover herself. She felt violated.

"Can you-?"

Price shook his head vigorously, saying, "Don't worry. I'm not reading your mind, although I practice in legilimency quite often. I have them too...the nightmares, I mean. Mine are different from yours though. Everyone's are. One can't help having a brush with my crowd without the experience leaving some kind of...mark. I'm sorry I interrupted. Please, continue."

Price made a quick, circular motion in the air with his spoon and refocused his attention to his broth. Phoebe, although even more uncomfortable, continued with her eyes following the motion of Price's eating.

"As I was saying, I just wanted to know what was going on. I thought by finding out what this whole affair is about, I'd be able to...slate my fear. I'm sure whatever you're involved in can't be that bad."

"Oh, Miss Walker. If anything, by telling you what I've been involved in, your fear of me would only increase. Believe me, the same would go for your nightmares. Tell me, in your dreams, have you died yet?"

Not knowing what what this had to do with the conversation, Phoebe stared at the boy in silence for a few moments.

"No."

"Killed anyone yet?"

"No, I ju-"

"You haven't known fear then, not the way I've known it. But you will if you continue fraternizing with me. You're not that afraid of me. In fact, you're only beginning to experience real fear for the first time in your life. If you were truly, very afraid of me, you'd stay away from me, and you'd never be here talking to me right now. It's true, I almost killed you, but I didn't really mean to. And you know that. I'm also tame now. You trust your friend - that nurse - so you know if I were really dangerous to you or any other students, I'd never be allowed to stay here." Phoebe was becoming less uncomfortable and more irked by Price's unhelpfulness. Price reached into his oversized robes for a moment, shook his head with a sigh, and drew his hand back out, empty.

"What's your other question, Price? Make it quick, because I want to get to mine before dinner is over. I expect Professor Snape will want you in your house by a certain time so he can run you through his orientation. He's the head of your house."

"Well, that was my other question. I was wondering who he was. I've heard a lot about him, but I still haven't seen him in person."

"Professor Snape? He's right there. He teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts."

Phoebe subtly pointed one finger without lifting her hand to avoid attracting attention to herself.

"He's the one with the black curtain-hair - who looks like he wants to kill himself all the time. Why?"

"Apparently, he vouched for me to stay here at Hogwarts...among others."

"I know. Although, I'm not sure why. He's not very fond of many students. Why are you so interested in him specifically?"

"No reason."

Not really believing him but eager for her patience to finally pay off, Phoebe refilled Price's bowl with broth to keep him content and focused for a while longer.

"Now, to my questions. I don't know why you're so interested in me or Professor Snape, but I believe it has something to do with your whole...deal."

Phoebe said this while gesturing to Price's bandaged wounds.

"So, what is your deal? What happened to you out in the Forbidden Forest? Where are you from? Why was your mouth sewn shut?"

For the second time ever, Leo Price's mouth curved ever-so-slightly into a genuine smile.

"You're not easily distracted, are you, Miss Walker?"

Phoebe couldn't help but return the smile. Though when she did, Price's countenance returned to a neutral expression.

"What kind of danger do you think you're in right now? How safe do you feel?"

Phoebe looked around at her surroundings, the professors, the other students, and to her right toward the Hall entrance.

"Besides you being here, pretty safe. I mean, despite all that's going on right now, we're at Hogwarts, and Professor Dumbledore's here, so how much danger could we be in?"

Price's line of sight turned to the teachers' table until landing on Dumbledore. He squinted his eyes, perusing every inch of the man, until, cupping his own left hand with his right, he jerked his eyes back toward Phoebe to avoid meeting the Headmaster's wandering gaze.

"Something tells me the old man won't be much help to us soon."

"What do you mean by that, Price?"

"He's got a curse in his left hand. It looks like it's spreading. You can tell by the blackened veins traveling up his forearm."

Phoebe's eyes widened, yelling, "What!" before catching herself and returning her voice to a whisper.

"Shouldn't we tell someone?"

"Don't you think he knows? Besides, if he hasn't let any students know, I'm sure he wants to keep things that way. The point is, there are forces outside these walls besides the Dark Lord, Miss Walker. There's another army out there, an unknown army, moving in the darkness as we speak."

At this, the night peeking through the vast windows on every wall of the Great Hall intensified, and visions of a legion in shadow flashed in back of Phoebe's mind. As Price said this, his voice grew darker to mimic the tone of the conversation.

"This was originally founded by the Dark Lord, but after his first disappearance nearly 15 years ago, the administration began to act on its own. In fact, even the Dark Lord himself is unaware this army still exists. His original intention for the army was merely an experiment that, if it worked, would act as his backup plan if his first army's efforts of striking against the free world failed him. As far as we know, he assumes it became unorganized and fell apart after his apparent death. Unfortunately, it did not."

"What's so terrifying about this army? How powerful can it be?"

"This isn't just an army. This is a network of dark wizards, growing like a virus, spreading throughout the world, secretly enslaving populations full of wizards in hiding, laying down sleeper cells full of specialized soldiers, waiting for the right time to strike. It's called the Secret State. They intend to make the militant branch of this State the head of their intercontinental government once they take over. They're waiting for an opportunity, right when they're powerful enough to take over everything, wizard and muggle-kind alike. They also don't simply recruit the insane, animalistic, and sadistic. They grow their armies from children. They kidnap pregnant young witches married to wizards who are most likely to produce magical children. Of course, they only accept boys as soldiers. They'll simply enslave the female children and women and use them to produce more wizards later on. They take the young boys, and they brainwash them from childhood. They destroy whatever personalities they might've had, and they turn them into soulless creatures, fueled only by negative emotions. They torture them to make them ruthless and illicit violent responses so they can trigger their use of magic at a younger age. As you know, most wizards and witches experience their first signs of magic around seven or eight years old, but with these cruel methods, the soldiers of the Secret State are able to illicit magic from young wizards at four or five years old. From there, they only get more powerful with brutal training. While the Dark Lord's goal is first to gain a foothold in Britain so he may later gain the world, the Secret State's first and incredibly attainable goal is the world. Unlike the Dark Lord, who flaunts his victories and turns them into failures, the Secret State is cunning and patient. They're growing faster now than they ever did under the Dark Lord's leadership though."

"Who knows about this?"

"Very few. Even fewer now that I've lost most of my team. That is why I cannot tell anyone, even the teachers. If anyone knows about this, word may go out of the knowledge that the State exists. When this happens, every sleeper cell across the world will be triggered, and they will begin their attack on the world earlier than planned, and this war will be unwinnable on both sides. No one will survive. However, if we wait...If I only had a bit more time and resources…I could bring the whole system down when it's too big to remain stable."

Leo Price fell silent for a moment. His speech up to this point seemed somewhat easy for him to articulate, but now he had reached the difficult portion. His facial expressions faltered, growing somehow, even more serious.

"I was part of this army from birth. Until the age of eight, I too had become a soulless creature with no hope for freedom, fueled by my synthetically warped hatred for all life. Though a small piece of humanity remained in me that even I didn't know about, until a small team of spies that had infiltrated and joined the army as officers recognized that piece of humanity and brought me out of my madness. Ever since that time eight years ago, I had been rising in the ranks at a primary training base, and in secret, the spies raised me while teaching me advanced magic. Fourteen months ago, all was going as planned, and all of us moles were successfully infiltrating the base and leaking the location codes to all their bases and sleeper cells to contacts outside the inner-operation. Unfortunately, our leader was caught, and before he could even protect his mind from legilimency, his hippocampal barriers had been breached, and everyone on the inside was found out. I only just escaped after witnessing the rest of my team's execution. I had to…escape, I mean. You see, most of the men on my team had children within the army in order to hold their covers, and I promised, even if I failed in my overall mission, I'd free them before I die and raise them in secret. The only one who didn't was the leader. He was a high-ranking officer like me, and we two weren't required to have children. That's why I agreed to take on his name. I'm to carry on his family's legacy."

Enthralled in the conversation, Phoebe had already ignored all goings on around her long ago.

"You were in such terrible shape when you got here though. You still haven't told me what actually happened to you out there."

"I was getting to that. As soon as I escaped from the base, I began apparating everywhere to find a place I could be safe for a while. I've been on the run for more than a year though, and it hasn't been an easy one. Building up a sizable amount of food, rest, or money for any amount of time is rather difficult when you're always on the move, trying to keep undercover. Anyway, several different State bases were beginning to learn my patterns of movement, and they were tracking my location. I knew I had to settle down somewhere safe, and Hogwarts was the only place I could think of that had the type of security I needed. The State realized where I was headed though. I didn't exactly know where Hogwarts was myself, so I had to apparate all around the country and talk to many different wizards in order to find proper directions. The State was able to track where I was apparating to, as I closed onto the location slowly, only a bit closer and closer each time. I knew they would be waiting for me in the Forbidden Forest with a few battalions, so I knew I had to be ready. I fought them. I killed hundreds of them. They almost killed me, but in the end, that gigantic Professor found me and took me back into the boundaries of the school. Upon realizing I was already out of their reach, I'm sure they cleared away that same night. They definitely haven't forgotten me though. I suppose they know I won't alert the Wizarding World without an endless war breaking out, which is why it hasn't broken out yet. I'm playing the biggest game of Wizarding Chess ever, and I have to win. That's why I need your help. I'm at a stalemate right now, and in order to break it, I need witches and wizards who can help me finish the work my team and I started. Although, we no longer have the luxury of bringing down the Secret State from the inside. In short, I'm building a team of a few students to bring down an army of tens of thousands."

"I still don't understand. I could see why you were so beaten, but why was your mouth sewn shut?"

At this, Price's eyes faltered, and he suddenly became enamored with a fleck of dust that had landed on the rim of his bowl.

"After a year on the run, I experienced a level of loneliness and madness I'd never experienced before. I became an animal. I wasn't simply looking for a safe place, I was looking for my humanity again. Even after eight years of constant therapy from my newfound friends, I still hadn't completely returned. Just like during my childhood when there was still a piece of humanity left in me, after all that time, there was still a dormant piece of my animalistic nature aching to break free. Solitude and paranoia toying with my mind every night, I became the very monster of the nightmares I've been having since I can remember. During a fight against the battalions a week before my arrival, I let loose every piece of rage and fury built up from all the pain I'd ever experienced. After what the State had done to me in my life, killing hundreds of both boys and fully-grown men in the most brutal ways possible at that point was quite easy for me. In the end, I even resorted to using my own teeth to take my victims, which leads me to the next dark segment of our business here. An unprotected blow to my abdomen during the fatal attack of a man's neck caused me to swallow the human flesh I tore from his throat. I didn't have time to try and make myself sick, since I was still in the middle of a battle, but afterward, my overwhelming shame pushed me over the edge. I used a stitching kit I stole to sew my own mouth shut. That's how soldiers used to be punished when they tried to cannibalize the younger 'recruits,' which happened a lot during famines. A week, and a few bloody fights later, I fought my way through eight battalions, and exhausted, I collapsed less than a mile outside of Hogwarts. As I'm sure you know, in order to create a Horcrux, a mere murder won't suffice. That's why when I-"

"A what?"

Price stared incredulously at Phoebe for a few moments.

"Don't they teach you about-? Never-mind, then. I'll just…come back to that later."

Leo Price shut his eyes tightly and laid his forehead in his hands for a moment before sighing and passing his hands over his closely shaved scalp.

"I believe I've told you everything worth knowing for the time being."

"Wait! I still have one more question. Who's Lazlo?"

"No more questions, Miss Walker...at least for tonight...at least from me. This conversation aside, I still have my own questions...about Hogwarts."

Snapping back to reality, Phoebe pushed her food away from her in disgust and attempted to mindfully follow the change of subject.

"I don't know if I'll be able to answer many of your questions, Mr. Price. Before tonight, I didn't even know you'd be attending Hogwarts at all."

"Well, I just need to know where I'm going. I have no idea where any of my classes are. They gave me a list of my schedule, and I think they were planning on giving me a guided tour tomorrow afternoon, but why don't you give me one instead?"

"How fast can you even walk? And I know you're skinny right now, but I'm still smaller than you. Do you honestly think I'd be able to support you? You still weigh more than me, even without any noticeable amount of meat on your bones."

"I'll manage."

"Fine. Give me the schedule."

Price fished the slip of parchment out of his right pocket. Phoebe grabbed the parchment from Price and instantly tucked it into her robes. "I don't know how you're feeling considering you've been lying in a bed for two weeks, but I'm quite tired. I'll look over it, and I'll get back to you in the morning when we can discuss more...at breakfast?"

Price raised his eyebrows but nodded.

"I heard we're in the same year. How'd they test you?"

"Most of the examination was all written, but the last quarter...about an hour and a half long, was practical...how to perform certain spells and charms and how to brew certain potions. That older witch…, Professor McGonagall - she wrote down all kinds of notes about how I was doing, and I left the room so the other teachers could examine my other work. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised at how easy the practical stuff was for me. I don't know why I'm not in sixth year. Although, I guess it's because of all that useless stuff that I didn't know as well. Whoever needs to know the spell to switch all of a book's writing upside-down, and how would anyone know if it's upside down or not if it's all upside-down? Couldn't you just turn the book itself upside-down too? It was more about bloat in knowledge than it was about practical application, especially in the field."

At this, Phoebe couldn't help but smiling a broad, truly amused grin.

"Well, not all of us are spy-soldiers, you know. Some of us do need to know how to turn a bottle into a wheelbarrow."

Catching her sarcasm, Price returned the banter with a smirk warmer and more good-natured than the fake one he used at the Slytherin table.

"Have you ever needed to know how to do that in a real-life situation?"

Forgetting herself completely, Phoebe winked at Leo Price and said,

"Never." After a few moments of easy laughter, Phoebe thought of something.

"Price?"

"Yes?"

"If all this information is so sensitive, why are you telling me?"

Instantly, Price regained the sensible animosity that previously existed between them as he impulsively grabbed his cane and painfully forced himself up from the stool with a weary groan.

"No one was paying much attention once the excitement died down. I doubt anyone heard this entire conversation, and even if they did, who'd believe a word spoken here?"

"Are you saying I'm a sucker?"

"No, I just meant…quite the opposite, in fact. Not everyone has seen the things you've seen. I'd call you a fool if you didn't believe me. Anyway, as hard as this is for you to believe, I have had a more exhausting week than merely lying in a hospital bed. I'm officially done answering questions tonight. Therefore, I bid you a good night, Miss Phoebe Walker."

Before Price could escape the irony of the brightly lit Hall, however, Phoebe took one more venture in asking, "Price. You said you took the last name of your friend. What's your real name?"

She expected for a moment he wouldn't answer her final query, but he surprisingly obliged.

"My real name is Leo P-"

"Miss Walker, could I please speak with you for a moment?"

At that moment, Professor McGonagall was standing behind Phoebe with her hands on her hips and a stern expression dominating her features. Trying not to shiver from the excitable effects of the previous conversation, Phoebe stood up and turned to speak with the obviously irked teacher.

"Of course, Professor McGonagall," she said, as if oblivious to the suspiciousness of her current situation. Phoebe got up from the table and followed Professor McGonagall to the corner of the room.

"Miss Walker, I thought, surely, after all that happened to you, you wouldn't dare go near the boy. I see, however, that you don't see any harm in inviting him, a newly-dubbed Slytherin, to your table for a chat."

"Well, Professor...I assumed…"

Phoebe ran her eyes around the ceiling once, trying to remember Price's exact words.

"...If he really posed any danger to me or the other students, he'd never be allowed to stay here."

Professor McGonagall scrutinized Phoebe with a fiery glare for a few moments, but she could not afford to waste time interrogating Phoebe.

"Hmm… Alright. Well, I just wanted to offer you the rundown, as it were, that Mr. Price has tested into your year, and also I wanted to warn you that he will also be attending most of your classes."

"I know, Professor. Madam Pomfrey already told me."

"Yes, and I suppose that information would be obsolete anyway, seeing as you don't seem to mind him at all now. That being fully acknowledged, I would like to add that in our briefing sessions and during Madam Pomfrey's time tending to the boy's needs over the past few days, he has been particularly quiet about his past. We know he's been through a significant amount of emotional trauma, so we decided to let him unravel himself on his own time. We also thought it wise if we allowed him to open up to someone...perhaps another student to whom he's more partial. It seems to have worked. As just recently displayed, our young Mr. Price seems to have taken a certain liking to you from the beginning. In these past ten minutes, he's talked more to you than to either Madame Pomfrey or myself. I just want you to know, if he discloses any information to you that seems suspicious or odd in any capacity, you are to report it to me directly. Though he's possibly dangerously disturbed. I don't want you to get insensibly close to him to the point of compromising your own safety. Is that clear?"

"Yes, ma'am. So I'm to try and get close enough to him to get him to open up to me but not too close in case he turns dangerous again?"

"Precisely. I leave it to your evidently good judgement to decide what that point is. I trust Madame Pomfrey, and she seems to trust you."

"Yes, ma'am. Will that be all?"

"Yes, Miss Walker. That will be all."

Once Professor McGonagall had left the increasingly empty Great Hall, Phoebe turned back around to confirm a time of meeting with Price for tomorrow morning, but when she glanced back at their spot at the Hufflepuff table, he had gone. She then decided to join the other stragglers wearily exiting the Great Hall, heading to bed, grumbling about the homework she'd just remembered she'd been assigned for the weekend. Although, she couldn't complain. As a whole, Phoebe Walker's life was a lot more interesting than it was two weeks ago, before she had any of her nightmares, narrowly escaped a raging psychopath who enjoyed setting himself on fire, or agreed to help the very same psychopath save the world from a dark wizard army. And admittedly, for the first time at Hogwarts, she seemed to have found a pastime that didn't involve mending students' magically inverted fingernails.

Author's After-Note

If you like the way this story is heading, let me know! If you don't like the way this story is going, let me know! I promise, the entire story isn't going to be dialogue, but I do need to work up to the action, character tension, and overall excitement in the story. For instance, now that so much has been revealed in this chapter, in closely following chapters, the characters can get a lot done with the information given. As I'm still learning how to organize and present writing in a novelized format, I'm not yet that skillful at employing every element into a single chapter. And I bet mixing every element into a single chapter would be much easier if I were releasing the entire book at one time, instead of a chapter every once in a while. On another note, seeing as I did all of the writing, re-writing, and editing over the course of three non-consecutive days, we may all have hope that I can one day try releasing chapters weekendly(if that's even a word). Although, if you, the reader, feel the quality of my work is suffering at all because I'm rushing to push out more content, I'll definitely take my time and effort in regaining the quality both you and I desire out of my work.