Author's note: I am so so so so sorry, I have been a horrible writer and this is a really short chapter but I will update super soon.
Chapter 3
"There!"
"Where?"
"There, next to that statue."
"Wait, who are we looking for again?"
"Oh for God's..."
A slim, dark haired girl slipped out of an alcove in to the crowd and a taller, ganglier boy followed her.
"Stepha!" The red headed girl turned, searching for the person who had said her name.
"Hey Viola, hey Yuri." She smiled at the twins.
"Stepha, we wanted to talk to you," Viola started.
"About the whole Slytherins verses everyone else thing," Yuri continued.
"We just wanted you to know."
"We're on your side."
Stepha was filled with gratitude, "thank you."
"No problem."
"Hey, if you ever want some study partners."
"People say Ravenclaws are the best."
"Or you could let me copy your homework." Yuri finished with a grin.
"Don't listen to him, he's a genius, just a very lazy genius."
Stepha grinned as her two friends hurried off to the Ravenclaw table. She was half way to her own table when she was stopped by another duo. Mizuki greeted Stepha and Jasmine waved shyly from behind her curly blonde hair.
"Stepha, we just wanted to say that we fully support you and the rest of your house, and we think that this feud is stupid and useless," Mizuki siad. Jasmine nodded and said quietly, "Stepha, I think your really brave, and people should understand what they're doing is wrong." She smiled and blushed, ducking behind her curtain of hair again.
"Thank you." Her grin threatened to dislocate her jaw but she couldn't stop, she sat down at the Slytherin table still glowing with joy and grinning like a maniac. That was until a group of Gryffindors walked past and she heard one of them mutter, "Deatheaters."
Stepha glared at them and recognised one of them as Frank's girlfriend.
"That evil bitch." She growled.
"I feel we should do something about Miss Amelia McLaggen." Ken swirled his soup thoughtfully.
"I vote we lock her and her..." her words became incoherent as she muttered various obstinacies under her breath, "of a boyfriend in a room with an acromantula"
"Oh they aren't dating any more Stepha, don't you keep up with gossip?"
"Um no." Ken shook his head at his friend. Stepha and Scorpius shared a concerned look, wondering how their friend was. After he had returned from the hospital wing Ken had asked them not to talk about Frank, they had grudgingly complied.
"Stop looking at each other like that." Ken's two best friends squirmed under his gaze. " Look, it was my decision about what happened after the thing with Frank and this was my choice."
Stepha looked at her food, "sorry Ken, we're just worried."
"I know, but I'm fine," unconsciously he glanced at James and then back towards his friends. "We have a free period next, we should start our potions homework for Professor Samman."
XXX
Stepha hoisted her back up onto her shoulder, struggling under the weight of all of her books and silently cursing Ken and Scorpius who had left her earlier to get dinner. As she left the library two students came up to her, a Slytherin and a Gryffindor, both in sixth year.
"Hello Stepha. Can we talk to you?" The Slytherin boy smiled down at her.
"Hi. Sure, what about?"
"Not in front of everyone, how about in here?" he gestured to am empty classroom. Stepha shrugged and walked in to the room.
"What did you want to-aargh," she shrieked and fell, her whole body rigid as a board, the Gryffindor lowered their wand.
"Hello, mudblood," the Slytherin snarled, advancing on her with a sneer, "how does it feel, hmm, being a Slytherin? How did a filthy," he kicked her, "little mudblood like you infiltrate the house of the pure?"
"Andrew, I don't think we should do this." The Gryffindor looked uneasy.
"Shut up Clarence and watch the door."
The Slytherin, Stepha recognised him as Andrew Flint, turned back to his prey. Stepha felt her magic fighting to help her, to burn her threat and cocoon her in flames until she was safe. She tried to talk but her mouth was frozen shut.
"No point in trying to scream, Clarence put up silencing charms around this room." Flint slowly smiled and Stepha would have flinched if she wasn't frozen. Flint flicked his wand lazily at her and said, "Crucio," almost tenderly.
Stepha was being ripped apart. Her veins were full of acid. She tried to scream but her lips were locked together. It stopped suddenly and Stepha tried to breathe for the few seconds of calm she had before her body was seized by pain. After a while Flint seemed to get bored of this and instead used his wand to cut into her skin, leaving behind trails of blood. Clear tears slid down her face and mingled with the scarlet marks. Flint alternated between angry bursts of the cruciatus curse and moments of complete calm and slicing into her skin, the time they spent in the room lasted only a few minuets but Stepha could feel unconsciousness and with it the explosion of flames that she was trying to control. As her brain finally shut down from pain and her vision went cloudy she could see the feather like flares flooding the room.
XXX
The clouds were warm and soft, surrounding her in the smell of clean linen.
"...accidental magic... lucky to be alive... don't know how far they would have gone."
Stepha stirred, vague, fuzzy images tumbled through her head. Helpless, fear, pain, crystal tears and ruby drops. She suddenly jerked up, expecting to see Andrew sneering down at her. Her eyes were wild and frightened and she whimpered and tried to scrabble away from the people at the side of her bed.
"Stepha. Stepha, calm down." Scorpius held his hands up in a placating gesture and Ken copied him, someone she didn't recognise left the room to find Madam Longbottom.
"Scorpius? Ken?" Stepha's voice was croaky and it trembled as she stared at the tiny, private room she had been given in the hospital wing.
"Yes Stepha, it's ok, you're safe."
"Flint?"
"Gone." Scorpius' eyes sparked with anger and his jaw tensed and Ken glared out of the window. The person, Stepha guessed he was an Auror, came back in followed by madam Longbottom.
"Stepha dear, how do you feel?" The matron bustled up to her and then turned to her friends, "out boys, she needs rest and an examination, you can visit her after dinner." Scorpius and Ken instantly started protesting.
"But she just woke up!"
"Why can't we stay?"
"Just ten minuets, please."
"No, you can go now and see her after dinner or you can keep on complaining and wait until tomorrow, now go, out." She ushered them out the door.
"We'll be back as soon as we can," Ken called over madam Longbottom's shoulder.
"You too Harry," the matron said, "you can talk to her later, she needs rest now." Stepha started at the man's name. She recognised him now, the dark hair, the green eyes behind circular lenses, and the scar.
"You look like Albus," she suddenly blurted, and then blushed at the stupidity of that statement.
Harry smiled at her and then turned to the nurse, " I'll be back in a while to ask her some questions, bye Hannah, good bye Stephanie."
"Stepha, please call me Stepha." Harry Potter nodded and left the room.
XXX
"I can't believe that you want all the homework you've missed," Ken looked outraged at the idea.
"There can't be that much, even if I was out for two and a half weeks."
"Still. Are you sure you aren't a Ravenclaw?"
"Shut up Ken." She shoved him but didn't smile, she felt too empty to do anything now: eat, sleep, talk. She felt sick, broken, something that should be left on it's own to waste away.
"So, what happened after I passed out?"
"Um, well Flint and McNair got arrested and are awaiting trial, but we probably shouldn't talk about it, I mean it isn't a great subject and err yeah," Scorpius awkwardly mumbled him self to the end of his sentence, ending inarticulately.
"Wow, you said yeah," Ken grinned at Scorpius from the end of Stepha's bed, "Yuri and Al have been trying to make you do that all week."
"Al, as in Albus Potter?"
"Yeah, him and Scorpius are in a star crossed love affair," Ken said, settling in to dramatic story mode, " two boys from households with a great history that spans many generations, the son of The Boy-Who-Lived and the son of a man who was forced in to a life of Dark Magic fall hopelessly in love at the bedside of a brave comrade."
Scorpius looked at Ken, raised an eyebrow and said with the utmost dignity, "you are the most annoying friend I have ever had."
"Yeah, but at least I have fashion sense."
Stepha felt the corner of her mouth turn up at her two friends goading each other and felt a spark of something, not happiness exactly, but something good, something she could work with. It was more than she had felt in the few days since she woke up.
XXX
After Ken and Scorpius had gone Stepha lay in her bed and tried to keep her self awake, she hated the dreams which accompanied her unconscious hours. The hospital wing was silent. Cool beams of crystal coloured moon light slivered through the window. There was a knock on her door and Stepha jumped, scrabbling for her wand.
"Stepha?"
"A-Albus?" He slid in to the room, a silvery cloak draped over his arm.
"Hey, I just wanted to see if you were ok."
"In the middle of the night?" He shrugged and sat down in the visitors chair next to her bed.
"I wanted to talk to you alone. I'm sorry, I was childish and spiteful, I didn't understand what was going on at this school and I did what was expected of me without thinking about the consequences, James agrees with me and we're both going to help you make other people see what's going on too."
"Thank you Albus." Stepha felt A warmth spreading in side her and she smiled and reached for his hand, "thank you." He shrugged and returned the smile.
They sat in companionable silence before Stepha spoke again.
"So what really happened afterwards, the others won't tell me, they're treating me like a child."
"They just don't want to upset you."
"Albus, I am far past the point that they could upset me."
He sighed,"when you passed out you kind of exploded with accidental magic, Flint and McNair were both pretty badly burnt. They ran into professor Janes trying to escape, she thought they were just pulling some type of prank and took them to professor McGonagall they said they had just found you but they looked at your memories and-"
"Wait, they what?"
"Err, they examined your memories, only the ones to do with the case, your parents gave them permission." Albus shuffled in his seat but Stepha just nodded slowly.
"Then what?"
"Well, after they looked at your memories they arrested Flint and McNair. They needed a team of Aurors just to keep the crowds back. Your whole house showed up, I thought they were going to lynch them. Everyone looked pretty annoyed. You've made one hell of an impression on everyone. Anyway," he said, glancing at the clock, "I should go, we have lessons tomorrow." He stood and picked up his silvery cloak.
"Good bye Stepha."
"Bye."
His hand was on the door when Stepha spoke again, "Albus." He turned, "thank you."
XXX
Harry Potter stared at her. "Stepha, I can't do that."
"Why not, you looked at my memories and you only had my parent's permission, not mine."
"We looked at your memories, we didn't delete them."
"Please!"
"No."
"This is my head, we're talking about, my memories, I DON'T WANT THEM ANY MORE." She felt the tears welling up and tried to blink them away. "Please, I don't want to remember." The first cracked sob pushed it's way out, and before she could stop she was weeping into her knees. Harry reached forward to comfort her but she jerked away, she was so afraid of the world, so damaged.
"Stepha, I have seen things that no one should see, the monsters that people can become, the horrors people will do, and the lengths people will go to to help themselves, and there is so much I wish I could forget, but I can't, the things that damage you, the things that hurt the worst, they are the things that make you the strongest,the bravest, the wisest, the most loyal and the most cunning. Stepha, there is so much bad in the world, and we can't just delete it all, but going through it and learning from it is the only way we can save others from having to see it. Going through something terrible doesn't make you broken and damaged, it makes you strong."
Stepha raised her head, "did you get that from a chick-flick?" She said in mock suspicion. Harry laughed and Stepha felt a slight tug at the corner of her mouth.
"Damn, my secret has been discovered," he laughed and Stepha felt a smile stretch across her face, small but true.
XXX
Two weeks later and Stepha was walking down to the Great Hall, she was not yet fully discharged from the hospital wing, but Madam Longbottom, or Hannah, as she insisted on being called, had allowed her to join the rest of the school for meals, and she would be re-starting her classes in a few days.
Stepha was halfway down the wing when she felt some thing wash over her, like a tingle of electricity, but instead of making her skin tingle it affected her magic, tugging at the dormant flames in the pit of her stomach. She turned, her senses pulling her towards a bed surrounded by curtains. She slipped inside the canvas walls looked down at the patient. It was a young man, in his fifth or sixth year, his skin was ashen and his light hair fell in lank strands over his forehead, the robes draped across the visitor's chair told her he was a Ravenclaw. Stepha moved forward, she could feel the magic pulsing from his skin. She lent over him, her hair tumbling from around her face and on to his pillow, feeling something like a hunger.
Her fingers reached out and their tips fluttered against his cheekbones... and she lurched back as two words slashed through her brain. She span, arms flailing and stumbled out of the room, not stopping her crazed flight until she reached the Entrance Hall. But the words were there, like bloody marks on a white wall.
"Hello, Sister."
Author's Note: Muhahaha! I have left you with a cliffy, which you won't get any answers for for a long time, but my next chapter should be up soon, and it is a bit different from the rest of my chapters, it is going to be over a long time and be focused on Yuri rather than Stepha. So be warned that it will be different.
TheSlytherinBadger.