Generations: Waves of Time
Part IV
The sounds of panting and a leaking tap were the only noises to interrupt the eerie silence of the bathroom. Lying collapsed by the door Leshia lay unmoving, watching the pendant with impossibly wide eyes. She must have imagined it. It wasn't possible! Surely a pendant didn't harness the power to transport someone back in time?
"Agh, shut up, shut up, shut up!" the girl exclaimed loudly before she rolled onto her side and pushed herself to her feet. She threw her hands over her head, trying to force out the thoughts that were whirring through her mind. "No! I did not just travel back in time. It's impossible!"
But how else could she explain the events of that day? How had Rachel seen her when she had been out on the quidditch pitch? How had Hermione run into her, in her pyjamas of all things, when she should have been outside at the time? She had told her mother about the burn hours before it happened, that explained Hermione's astonished and fearful expression when the event actually took place. There were no other explanations. Leshia had somehow travelled back in time.
The girl's grey eyes slid unwillingly onto the pendant and she crouched down beside it. With trembling fingers she reached out and touched the smooth stone. It was positively radiating heat. Fighting the urge to withdraw her hand and run, Leshia picked the pendant up and slid the leather chain around her neck. Whatever its powers, she felt she needed to keep it. There was something very profound urging her to look after it.
Shivering slightly Leshia slowly made her way back up to her dormitory. Her friends were all still asleep as could be heard by their telltale snores and breathing patterns. The blonde girl stood shivering in the dark for a few minutes. There was nothing for it, she needed to tell someone, anyone!
"Rachel," she hissed, running over to her best friend's bed and poking her head through the curtains. The warmth inside the curtains was far nicer than the draughtiness in the rest of the dormitory, so Leshia clambered in. She shook Rachel's shoulder firmly.
"Rachel!" she repeated, louder this time.
"Bug'r off," the sleeping girl grumbled through her slumber. "S'not time to get up."
"No Rach, but I need to tell you something. Please wake up, please." Somehow Rachel must have perceived Leshia's desperation through her stupor, because moments later she opened her eyes appearing fully awake.
"Leesh? Is everything okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I don't know what I've just seen," Leshia replied panic-struck before she started twisting her fingers round one another frantically. Rachel reached out to stop her, concern filling her tired face.
"What's going on?"
Seconds later and Katie's face had poked through the curtains on the other side of the bed. She too seemed entirely awake for one who had been sleeping only moments before. Her friends' panicked voices had lured her from her bed easily enough.
"It's Leshia, she's gone mental or something," Rachel explained worriedly. Katie quickly climbed onto the bed while Leshia glared at the redhead girl.
"I have not gone mental," the blonde girl complained. "At least, I hope I haven't."
"Leshia tell us, what's going on?" Katie asked firmly. Leshia looked from one concerned face to the next before she sighed exasperatedly. With a firm tug, she pulled the pendant out from under her pyjamas and held it up to her friends.
"Just now I was lying in bed feeling really sick," she told them. "I suddenly got this urge to throw up, so I ran downstairs to the bathrooms. When I was there I noticed this thing glowing really brightly. It freaked me out as you'd imagine, so I took it off and put it in the middle of the room. It let off the brightest flash you've ever seen and the next thing you know I'm in a stairwell above the entrance hall. I went back. Do you understand? I went back to this morning! You know, when the chandelier fell. The reason I didn't know what you were going on about earlier Rach is because I hadn't been there yet. I wasn't there when that chandelier fell the first time, but I was there when it happened again…"
Leshia trailed off and looked forlornly at the confused expressions on her friends' faces. During her story of what had happened they had gradually moved through the motions from concerned to confused and finally mildly irritated.
"Don't look at me like that," Leshia complained. "I'm not making it up."
"No, but you have gone absolutely stark raving bonkers," Rachel complained. "You had a nightmare Leesh, that's all."
"No I didn't!" Leshia countered fiercely. Across the room an angry 'shhhh' wafted out from behind Ashley's curtains. Leshia winced guiltily, before carrying on in a whisper. "I'm not imagining things and I didn't have a nightmare. It really happened. This pendant dragged me back in time. Why won't you believe me?"
Rachel and Katie glanced to one another before they simultaneously shrugged their shoulders.
"Because your story sounds mad?"
"Rachel," Katie admonished, turning a much more sympathetic expression on their friend. "Look Leesh, it's been a really long day for you. I think you probably did have a nightmare…"
Leshia rolled her eyes angrily and pulled the curtains back. Before she could storm off to her own four-poster she lifted an accusing finger to point angrily in the direction of her best friends.
"I'm not mad, I wasn't dreaming it and I am not making it up," she exclaimed furiously. "This thing takes me back in time and one day, whether it be the last thing I bloody well do, I'll prove it to you."
There was an ominous silence before a shrill cry erupted from across the room, "Would you all just shut up!"
Leshia jumped slightly before she turned on heal and shut herself within the confines of her own curtains. Angrily she shuffled down under the covers, pulling them high up over her head to block out the world. Hours later, after fitful tossing and turning she fell asleep muttering to herself.
XXX
Barely a few hours later and Leshia woke to the sound of Rachel excitedly waking Katie up. Before she herself could fall victim to the attack, the blonde girl slunk out of bed and gathered together her shower things. Rachel's surprised utterance when she found Leshia's bed empty brought a small smile to the escapee's face, which she quickly forced away again. She wasn't going to forgive her friends that easily.
"Leesh?" Rachel called out, before her face appeared between the curtains from inside Leshia's four-poster. "You're up early. Wait for me, I'll get my things."
"Actually I'm in a hurry," Leshia countered snootily.
"Oh you're not angry with us because of last night are you?" Rachel asked sadly, her face doing a very good impression of that of a wounded puppy dog.
"I'm still angry with you because of last night," the grumpy voice of Ashley came from behind her curtains.
"Wasn't talking to you Ash," Rachel shouted out happily, before she looked back to Leshia. "Where are you going in such a hurry anyway?"
"Oh you know," Leshia shrugged. "Got stuff to do."
Quite suddenly the blonde found herself flung forward, propelled by a very soft weapon. She spun around to see Katie hovering behind her, a cushion in her hands. Before Leshia could arm herself she found herself under attack once more, this time, from the other side. Rachel too it would seem had found a soft weapon.
"Guys," Leshia warned as she backed into the middle of the room. Katie and Rachel mercilessly followed, their cushions held aloft. "This isn't funny!"
"I don't know," Rachel countered. "I think it's hilarious. Don't you Katie?"
And so the attack began. Leshia found herself bursting into hysterical giggles despite her anger, which in all fairness seemed to be ebbing away with every strike. By the time she had found her own cushion to protect herself with, only her good humour remained. Now all three girls were armed the fight turned into a messy opportunistic foray, one which left them all lying on Leshia's bed laughing hysterically.
"Come on," Leshia announced and she sat up, dumping her cushion back at the top of her bed. "We've got stuff to do."
"What stuff? It's a Sunday morning!" Rachel complained. She looked like she wanted to stay there happily chuckling to herself all day.
"Katie, when I explain what my mum said last night do you promise not to get too excited?" the blonde girl warned as she looked around for her shower things once more. Her more studious friend sat up quickly and nodded.
"I promise. What did she say?"
"Well, she told me she wants to get the whole class together and if we all work on separate parts of the assignment then we might get it all done in time. She was pretty surprised actually at how hard it was," Leshia explained.
"Well why can't she go and tell Professor Dumbledore and get us off the hook?" Rachel complained. A morning cooped up with Leshia's mother doing her runes homework had not been the Sunday morning she had envisaged.
"She wants to win I think."
"Win at what? It's not a bloody competition."
But Rachel's objections went unheeded as both Leshia and Katie headed down to the shower queue leaving their lazier friend to rush to catch up with them. Luckily there wasn't much of a queue and the three fifth year girls were soon on their way down to breakfast. On their way, Leshia and Rachel questioned Katie on the fact that she had been so excited to use the prefects' bathroom, but as of yet hadn't seemed to take advantage of it. The bespectacled girl kept very quiet and instead busied herself with ignoring her friends and drawing up a plan to let everyone in their Ancient Runes class know about the extra homework club they had been invited to.
By the time they reached the great hall Katie told the other two which pupils they needed to go and inform. Leshia was highly bemused with the list she had been given.
"No way Katie, there is no way I am going to be the one to tell the snakes," the blonde girl exclaimed fiercely.
"Oh come on Leesh, there aren't many of them," Katie grumbled. In truth she had given Leshia the Slytherins in revenge for her jeering about the prefects' bathroom. Rachel had only started because Leshia had brought it up.
"Yeah, you've only got to tell three people. I've got five. Why do so many people in Hufflepuff do Ancient Runes? I thought they were all thick over there," Rachel piped up.
"I don't mind telling the Hufflepuffs," Leshia quickly offered. "And look, they're all spread out along the table too, it'll take you ages to talk to all of them."
"How stupid do you think I am?" the redhead laughed. "Go on, go tell your snakes and I'll go and have a chat with those lovely Hufflepuffs. What are we telling them by the way?"
"My mum said the room of requirement at ten thirty."
"What and give away our secret?" Rachel complained.
"We can make sure the door is open before they get there. Now come on, let's go and get it over with."
Leshia felt her feet turn to lead as she walked across the great hall towards the Slytherin table. It was in completely the other direction to where she normally sat and as such many people were turning to stare at her, not least the entire Slytherin contingent. When it became clear the enigmatic girl was heading over to the snake's house most people in the room had turned to have a look hoping for a good show. Leshia ignored their gazes and held her head up high. She was very thankful that Julius Black was sat near Tamara Beckwaith and Tatiana Zambini, the other two Slytherin members of the runes class. Leshia headed straight for them, feeling the colour rising in her cheeks. She could positively feel the hatred radiating off some of the members of this house, particularly that tall and moody looking boy sat a few seats away from Julius. Yes, Damian Allseyer was having a hard time containing himself at the sight of his enemy approaching.
Before the furious young man could voice his objections though, Leshia crouched down between Tamara and Tatiana, blocking her from view. The two girls were staring at her in polite bewilderment, which made Leshia feel slightly better. At least they weren't glowering at her cruelly like many other people from their year group. Across the table Julius Black had looked up and was watching the spectacle before himself with mild amusement.
"I'm here about our runes homework," Leshia explained quickly. Instantly her three Slytherin classmates looked infinitely less surprised and distinctly more interested. "I showed the essay title to my mum last night and she was really shocked that Tripper's asked us to do something so difficult. So she had an idea. She wants us all to meet at ten-thirty to see if she can help us figure out some way of getting all the work done. You know, if we all work together that is. Are you lot in?"
Finally the girl looked up to meet Julius Black's eye. Gone was the amused expression and instead he was nodding firmly, as too were the girls Leshia had wedged herself between.
"That sounds really good," Tamara spoke up. "Thanks Leshia, you know, for including us."
"Of course," the blonde haired girl exclaimed in surprise. "Why wouldn't I? So we're going to meet by the tapestry of Saint Barnabas the Barmy. Do you know where that is? It's just down the corridor from Gryffindor tower." The three Slytherins nodded. "Great, I'll see you there then. Oh and don't be late, because we're not going to be holding the tutorial there, it's just where we're meeting."
XXX
Hermione beamed inwardly as she looked at the expectant faces of her once favourite class. It felt so good to sit in front of a class of pupils once more, even if they were sat on cushions in the room of requirement instead of behind desks in a classroom. For some reason when Leshia and her friends opened the secret room it had provided a very lavishly decorated den. Hermione would have opted for a much more studious setting, possibly with a whole array of runes books, but the girls had arrived first and this is what she had to work with.
The conscientious runes pupils had all been on time and it was Hermione who was last to arrive. Leshia had tutted and shaken her head, but the others had been delighted to see their former teacher, particularly as she was going to be helping them on their ferociously difficult assignment. So now they sat, an assortment of notes and textbooks in the centre of the room, all eyes trained on Hermione as though she might hold the magic cure to all their problems.
"Right," she spoke up firmly. "I'm not going to lie to you, this is going to take us all a lot of hard work to solve. There is absolutely no way any of you could have undertaken this on your own. So I'm very glad you have all agreed to work together. Now if I remember rightly, there is a very good spread of skills in this class. You're all obviously very bright and able with runes, but each of you has a particular area you are stronger in. If we can utilise everyone's different strengths then we might just get this done."
Across the room Leshia was smiling and shaking her head again. Why was it that as soon as Hermione came before a group of students she couldn't help herself, she just turned into a natural teacher? It was a crying shame for the Ancient Runes pupils at Hogwarts that Evie had come along and deprived them of the best teacher they could ever have had.
"Um, Hermione?"
Everyone glanced round to see Rachel had half raised her hand into the air, her expression a little embarrassed.
"Yes Rachel? Is everything okay?" the former teacher responded quickly.
"Yeah everything's great. It's just uh…you know how you're amazing with runes and all that. Well couldn't you just sort of, you know, tell us the answers?"
To the pupils' complete surprise Hermione started laughing loudly. So loudly in fact, that she placed her hands on her stomach to contain herself. Leshia grimaced a little embarrassedly.
"Mum," she complained through slightly gritted teeth. "Isn't that a good point?"
"Oh Rachel," Hermione chuckled, finally calming down. "You sound just like Leshia. I'm not superwoman! I can't do everything. There are over five hundred known rune families in existence, each one home to dozens of variants and thousands of dialects. It is absolutely impossible for one person to know them all. Yes, you get better and quicker at deciphering them once you've studied them for a long time, but even then nothing happens overnight. Added to this is the fact that Professor Tripper has asked you to compare two very large and very different families. Even if I spent every waking hour working on this, it would still take me weeks if I were doing so on my own."
Several faces, which had seemed so hopeful at the start of this session, suddenly fell. Hermione saw and quickly carried on reassuringly, "Don't worry. We will get it done. Gathered in this room are some of the brightest young minds in Hogwarts. It'll all be fine. Now then, who is going to be doing what?"
The pupils leaned forward interestedly as Hermione picked up a neatly scripted piece of parchment. While they discussed the different areas of the assignment Leshia began to get a little concerned about the way her mother was avoiding her eye. In fact, she seemed to be avoiding looking at her part of the circle altogether. Why might that be?
It wasn't long before she found out. As Hermione started doling out the jobs to various members of the group Leshia became aware that she hadn't been mentioned yet. In fact, by the time Hermione had got to the bottom of the list, there were only two people left without a job. Leshia's face became stony as she looked across the circle to the dichotomous eyes of Julius Black. He too seemed to have come to the same conclusion and was looking a little put out.
"And that leaves us with you two," Hermione spoke with forced brightness. Her smile wavered slightly when the pair of teenagers glared at her. "I thought you two could work on the translatory index. You're both so very good at deciphering runes and you're both very creative and inventive when it comes to this sort of thing. So I was hoping, if you wouldn't mind, it would do us all a favour, that you two could possibly work together on this part of the assignment."
For a moment the general chatter in the room died down as other youngsters, who had already got to work, stopped to turn and watch the showdown. Leshia meanwhile, was getting to her feet and walking over to her mother, her expression slightly mutinous. When she reached the seated woman almost everyone in the room had turned to look.
"Not at all," Leshia finally spoke, her voice too betraying a forced cheeriness. "We don't mind, do we Black… I mean, Julius. We don't mind right?"
Just before Leshia watched Julius Black shake his head and claim he didn't have any objections she could have sworn she heard him sigh ever so slightly. And even though she wanted to scream in his face that she had no desire to work with him either, she kept her temper and reached out for the notes Hermione was passing to her. As Julius climbed to his feet the pair eyed one another suspiciously, before they went to find an unoccupied corner of the room to start their work.
Hermione watched them go with a proud smile growing on her face. Yes, it wasn't an ideal situation for Leshia and she was sure she would be told off quite severely the next time her daughter ran into her, but for now, everything was going swimmingly. She would help these teenagers pass their Ancient Runes OWL, even if she had to teach them herself!
That afternoon Leshia's second ever quidditch practice went perfectly. The girl had so much pent up aggression that she was easily able to display the strength a captain needed to control and lead her team. Her exercises worked perfectly this time and as the training came to a close, no one needed to visit the hospital wing. Feeling hugely better after her less than perfect morning spent working with Julius Black, Leshia was back to her happy self by time they were packing up the equipment. She even managed to force Owen and Rodeo to take the kit back to the equipment store as punishment for their rowdy behaviour at the last training, which left Leshia to amble in with a smile on her face. That would see to it that they didn't act like such brainless idiots again.
The cheerful end to the weekend set Leshia up for a positive second week back at school, which remarkably ran into a third week of very few difficulties for the usually troublesome girl. Quidditch practices were going well and despite having to spend a large amount of time working with Julius Black on the runes assignment Leshia felt the first few weeks of term had gone remarkably well. Rachel and Katie often coincided their study sessions with their counterparts at the same time that Leshia arranged to meet with Julius in the library to stave off any unpleasantries that might arise. This had worked quite well and would have continued to do so had Leshia and Julius not been given the most difficult task of the assignment, requiring them to work longer than the others. On the Saturday before the deadline Leshia and Julius had begrudgingly decided to arrange their final session in the library to finish their part of the assignment. Katie and Rachel had tried to get their partners to agree to the same, but they were finished and no amount of suggesting that their work might be flawed and needed to be checked could get them another meeting in the library. The two boys they had been paired with were ridiculously studious it was true, but all this extra time that they had been forced to dedicate to their runes homework had left very little time for other subjects. They had told Rachel and Katie quite bluntly that yes, they would be in the library on Saturday, but that runes would be the last thing on their minds.
Katie still insisted on joining Leshia, but Rachel rightly pointed out that Julius Black would soon cotton on that they thought Leshia required a chaperone and that this wouldn't do anyone any good. So it was with a heavy heart that Katie led Leshia to the library doors Saturday afternoon. Leshia was in a good mood as she had just captained a very successful quidditch practice that had seen her team pulling together in a way she hadn't seen before. She was quite amused by Katie's protectiveness and managed to bite her tongue when Katie started giving her suggestions on how to calm herself down if she started to feel wound up by her Slytherin nemesis. Rachel showed no such tact and burst into reams of laughter at the doors before dragging Katie away.
"Enjoy your studies Leesh," the redhead called over her shoulder cheerfully as they left. Leshia grinned and shook her head fondly before she pushed into the library doors. Instantly the calm studious air of the place washed over her and almost instinctively the smile fell from her face. She was a little early and so after dropping her work down on one of the octagonal tables, she ambled into the aisles of musty old books. With a slight spring to her step Leshia walked straight past the dusty old tomes about Ancient Runes and instead headed for a section she had spent a surprising amount of time lingering in recently.
Once she reached the shelf she sought the girl let her eyes travel over the titles: Time Travel: Unlocking the Mysteries, How to Bend Time, Wish You Could Go Back and Do It All Again? and her personal favourite Time: A Beginners Guide! She had flicked through each of these books over the last few weeks, looking for any clue as to the strange experience she had encountered that peculiar night. She hadn't dared mention it to her friends again and instead sought answers in Hogwarts' rather meagre supply of books relating to the concept of time travel. So far, she hadn't found anything that even remotely matched the pendant or what she experienced. The girl was starting to doubt it had even happened. Perhaps Katie and Rachel were right? Maybe she was losing it.
After pulling a few books off the shelf that Leshia hadn't explored yet she wandered back to her chosen table. It didn't surprise her that Julius Black had arrived while she was gone and was reading a page of notes he had written since their last study session. Upon Leshia's arrival he looked up and nodded courteously, before he looked down again. Leshia sighed and placed the books down on the table. As she sat down she noticed the peculiar boy steal a glance at the spines to read their titles. For a moment his right eyebrow lifted slightly before it quickly assumed its usual position. Leshia knew him well enough by now to guess that he had something to say about her choice of reading material, but that he would save his smugness for another occasion, one that suited him better. Inwardly she scowled.
"I think I solved the problem we were facing with the singular symbols," the boy instead said. Leshia nodded and forced a bright smile onto her face.
"Great," she beamed. "Was it to do with the fifth layer of translation like you thought?"
Julius Black looked up and for a moment her smiled darkly.
"No," he said simply. "I was wrong. It was your idea, the one about the second layer and the polar symbols putting everything out of alignment."
For a moment Leshia chewed the insides of her cheeks to prevent herself from bursting into a gloating outburst before she nodded stiltedly.
"Well I'm glad you figured it out. That means we're done right? We just need to decide how we're going to present everything for the essay."
"I agree."
And so the pair poured over their notes with Julius writing out their findings in his neat uniform scrawl on a fresh sheet of parchment. All the while Leshia's fingers wound their way round the pendant hanging from her neck. She didn't know why it felt so comforting, but somehow the warm stone cried out for her to touch it. When she wasn't in contact with it her fingers itched. Unfortunately, touching the smooth stone seemed to distract Leshia more than she would have liked. Every time she felt the indentation of the peculiar runes her mind drifted back to that awful moment when she had appeared on the stairs above the entrance hall. Sometimes she found herself reliving the entire experience.
"Leshia? Leshia? Malfoy!"
With a start the girl realised she had been daydreaming again and she flicked her cold grey eyes onto Julius' peculiar ones. A small frown adorned her face while he smiled smugly.
"We're nearly done, do you think you can concentrate and read me that last paragraph about the translatory layers again? I don't feel like hanging out in the library all day."
"Neither do I," Leshia complained and she searched the notes in front of her for the paragraph Julius had asked for. The young man was still watching her.
"What is that thing anyway? You can't leave it alone," he finally spoke when Leshia looked up, the required paragraph in hand. She stared at him strangely for a moment and so he indicated the pendant around her neck. "That stone. You keep touching it."
Automatically Leshia's fingers flew back to the warm stone and a thousand lies flew to the tip of her tongue. Lying had always been an almost involuntary skill where Leshia was concerned.
'Why lie though?'she thought moodily.
"I found it on a beach at Ryan Lofting's wedding in the summer if you must know," she explained tetchily. "And I don't see what it's got to do with you so if you could please mind your own business then we might actually get this finished."
Julius Black stared at Leshia for a few moments, before he shrugged his shoulders and nodded.
"Well if you could read that paragraph to me that would be a good start on getting finished," he said simply. Leshia seethed inwardly, but nodded and continued to read. Though it called to her, the girl managed to leave the pendant alone long enough for she and Julius to finish their work. They would be presenting it to the group tomorrow at another session Hermione had arranged for the class.
As soon as Julius announced that he thought they were done Leshia sprang to her feet with her books clutched to her chest. After a curt goodbye she darted over to Miss Pince's desk where she checked the books out and then she was gone. Only once she was in the secluded safety of the corridor did she let her fingers travel back to the pendant around her neck.
"Ruddy Slytherin snake," the girl grumbled and she happily entertained herself with an angry rant aimed squarely at her study partner until she reached the Gryffindor common room.
The following day as Leshia and Julius presented their work to their Runes group under Hermione's supervision the former teacher smiled broadly at the intelligent pair and led a heartfelt round of applause for the two youngsters. They had undoubtedly been given the hardest part of the essay, but despite this they had excelled in equal measure to their peers. Hermione expressed how proud she was of the group and conjured, as though from nowhere, a delicious chocolate cake that she had baked to congratulate them.
As the youngsters munched happily on the delicious cake they copied the essay out into their own words to hand in their own individual assignments and by mid afternoon they had all succeeded. Leshia and Rachel were the last to do so, as they had rather managed to distract each other while the others worked studiously. As such, they were the last to climb to their feet and carefully put their essays away in their satchels. Hermione looked up from a book she had been reading when they did so.
"Ah! Ready at last girls?" she asked them fondly. The pair sniggered and nodded.
"Thanks for all your help Hermione, you really saved our necks," Rachel gushed cheerily.
"I didn't actually do anything Rachel, it was all of you who put in the hard work. Don't forget that," Hermione countered. "Leesh I was wondering if you wanted to come round for a Sunday roast later?"
"I'd love to," Leshia replied happily. "Just give me an hour to destroy Rach at chess and I'll be down."
At her side Rachel burst into laughter. The pair had been threatening one another with a chess battle all afternoon and it had led to some rather amusing 'trash talking' as it were. Hermione smiled after the pair adoringly as they walked out leaving her to gather together the notes the teenagers had left in their wake. She would need all the evidence she could gather to show Albus at the end of the year should that awful Silas Tripper try and deny these youngsters their hard earned Runes OWL.
XXX
Leshia sat cross-legged on the plush rug in front of the hearth laughing hysterically at her baby sister's face. They had been playing the same game for the last half an hour and it merely consisted of little Evie presenting a small toy for Leshia to hide. The resulting perplexed expression on the toddler's face as she tried to find said toy was so entertaining that Leshia could have played the game all evening if Evie wanted to. The latest hidden item, one of Evie's favoured toy rabbits, had been causing the little girl all manner of difficulty. Little did she know that Leshia was actually sitting on the poor animal and that all her efforts to search every item of furniture in the vicinity was going in vein.
"You're not winding that poor child up are you?" Draco's voice wafted out from his study. He had been witness to the first few rounds of this game and knew exactly what Leshia was up to.
"Dad you always think the worst of me," Leshia called back cheerily and she smiled even broader when she heard her father's soft chuckles. Evie by now had come to the conclusion that her favourite bunny rabbit wasn't hiding under one of the settee cushions and she turned her confused little face on her sister. With a frown she toddled forwards and stared with disconcerting concentration into Leshia's eyes, as though she were trying to read the older girl's mind. Leshia's smile dropped and she cocked her head to the side slightly. Surely there was no chance that Draco's natural gifts with legilimancy had passed onto her little sister? Yes, it was true, there had been the occasional time where Leshia herself had seemed to possess the mind reading gift, but there was no way her baby sister could harness the powerful trick. Surely not?
Evie though, moved determinedly towards Leshia until she was stood in front of her. Her right hand was permanently fixed to her little face these days with her thumb popped diligently into her mouth, but after a moment of clear thought, the baby lifted her left hand and reached towards the pendant round her older sister's neck. While the toddler's large dark eyes dropped to the stone Leshia's lips parted in surprise. So Evie could sense it too? This pendant was special and both knew it.
Evie stared at the stone in her pudgy fingers for a few moments before she looked up to Leshia, her brow furrowed in confusion.
"Ah?" the baby exclaimed in question. Leshia, who by now had managed to put together a working dictionary of what each of the baby's utterances meant clearly deciphered the noise as "What is this?". Theatrically Leshia added "And why does it feel so bloody weird?" onto the end of Evie's imaginary sentence.
"I don't know what it is Evie," Leshia explained and she freed her sister's hand from the stone and held onto it herself. "I wish I did."
"Dinner's ready!"
Leshia looked up to see that Hermione was lifting a beautifully crisp roast chicken onto the dining room table and the moment between her and Evie was gone. The baby was whisked from the ground and into her high chair by their father, who had come through at the smell of the delicious cooked bird. Leshia climbed to her feet and was at the table a few moments later, her fingers still laced around the pendant and her brow furrowed in thought.
"I can see Evie's been confusing you with her thrilling thoughts on philosophy again," Draco spoke up loudly, forcing his voice through Leshia's daydream. The girl blinked and looked from her little sister's thumb-sucking face to her father's amused grin.
"Huh?" she finally managed.
"Nothing," Draco chuckled. "You just seem a bit confused. Everything all right?"
As Hermione sat down at the head of the table and started doling out delicious roast vegetables onto Draco and Leshia's plates the teenager shrugged.
"I was thinking about time travel actually," the girl spoke up truthfully eliciting a frown from her father.
"Time travel?" he repeated incredulously.
"Yeah, time travel. It's been interesting me a lot lately actually. Do you know if it's possible dad?"
For a moment Draco looked to his wife, who merely shrugged her shoulders and continued to serve the dinner. To her it didn't seem too perplexing to imagine their exceedingly curious intelligent daughter pondering such a concept. But somehow Draco knew better. It was as though he had developed a sixth sense for when Leshia was hiding something and he knew this subject was treading very closely to one of his daughter's many secrets.
"Well it's certainly possible," he finally replied having decided that there was absolutely no possible way that his parting with information on the subject could lead Leshia into trouble. "Have you ever heard of a time turner?"
The teenager wrinkled her brow and shook her head.
"Isn't there some nursery rhyme about something like that? I can't really remember it. What is a time turner?"
"Hermione?" Draco looked to his wife, who was now passing him a plate of delicious food.
"I take it you want me to explain?" she asked warmly.
"Well you did have one once. You're probably the best person to explain it."
"You travelled in time?" Leshia asked incredulously, turning her dubious gaze on her mother. Hermione laughed loudly and shook her head.
"Yes Leshia, I travelled in time. It was in my third year at school. I wanted to take more classes than I had time for and so Minerva came up with a brilliant way for me to make all of my lessons. She gave me a time turner," the proud witch explained. Leshia frowned.
"Yes but what is a time turner?"
"I was about to get onto that you impatient thing," Hermione laughed. "They were invented by a very clever witch in the seventeen hundreds. The magic behind her invention has long been lost and by the end of the twentieth century there were only a few dozen left in existence. The Ministry of Magic had collected every single one, including the one I used after I was done with it. I don't think there are any left in circulation…"
"Mum," Leshia interrupted tentatively and opposite her at the table Draco looked up from his task of helping Evie cut her small portion of dinner into baby-sized chunks, to smile knowingly at his older daughter. "I know that you're a born teacher and all that. And I know you love explaining everything in, you know, a lot of detail and stuff. But I just want to know what it does? And also what it looks like." This last part she added as an afterthought, one that turned Draco's smile into a slightly suspicious frown.
Hermione, far from looking offended at Leshia's insistence that she speed her story up laughed and nodded.
"Sorry darling. Force of habit! A time turner looked like a small hourglass set into a golden pendant that hung from a chain. Whoever was wearing it could use it to travel back in time. Each time you turned the hourglass it sent you back in time by an hour. So if you turned it five times, you travelled back five hours."
"So you had to control it?" Leshia asked and she seemed disappointed.
"Yes that's right."
"And you could only go back a few hours?"
"Well I'm sure you could use it to go back as far as you liked, but mostly people only used them for short bursts. You see, once you were back in time, you had to live through that extra time. There was no jumping backwards and forwards. Once you were back in time you had to wait until you were back in your own time again. So there would be no point in using it to go back hundreds of years."
Leshia's eyes dropped to the table and her shoulders drooped. Hermione glanced to her husband with raised eyebrows, but he merely shrugged. He had no idea what was wrong with the girl.
"Okay, so is there another way to time travel then?" Leshia finally asked and she looked up at her father. "Oh and by the way mum I'm choosing to ignore the fact that you were actually swotty enough to travel back in time every day just so you could fit more lessons in!"
"Not that I know of," Draco replied. "Although why you're asking me I have no idea when you've got your encyclopaedia of a mother sat right next to you."
Leshia grinned and both she and Draco looked to Hermione, who looked as though she were wracking her memory for something.
"There is an old legend," she finally spoke up. "There was once a very old tribe who practiced natural magic who were reputed to have mastered time travel. They came from a very small volcanic island in the Pacific."
"The Pacific?" Leshia interrupted. "Isn't that where Ryan got married?"
"No," Draco replied. "That was an island in the Indian Ocean actually." Leshia stared at him in confusion. "Do you know what, I think I'm going to have to get you a globe for your next birthday. The Pacific Ocean is an incredibly long way from the Indian Ocean so no, it's not where Ryan got married."
"Oh."
Again Leshia's shoulders drooped, before she seemed to lift her own spirits and she snapped her eyes onto Hermione again.
"Can you remember what the tribe was called mum?" Hermione frowned and shook her head.
"Sorry darling. Now come on, the dinner is getting cold. I didn't spend the last three hours slaving away in that kitchen so we could just stare at all this food you know!"
XXX
Quick-paced breathing filled Leshia's ears in the darkness. She tried to open her eyes, only to realise they were already open. Absolute blackness surrounded her. A clammy breeze brushed past her skin and she spun around on a well-polished floor, searching the darkness for any sign of life.
"Hello?" she called out. Her voice was lost in the vastness of the blackness. Wherever she was, it was of enormous proportions. Leshia's panting sped up and she walked forwards in the immense emptiness; slowly at first, but soon she was running. Only the sound of her own breathing and her fast footfalls broke the silence of the measureless empty room.
Leshia skidded to a halt and stared into the distance. What was that peculiar golden light? It looked like the outline of a doorway. The girl gulped and she started stepping backwards. Why did that doorway fill her with dread? And how on earth was it getting larger when she was fast moving away from it?
The golden light was getting brighter, casting large shadows on the well-polished floor. Hundreds of stretched oval shadows littered the black marble and the sight of them instilled more fear in the girl than the doorway had.
"No!" she cried out angrily. "Stay away from me!"
The girl turned and ran as from the darkness dappled reflections cast light on thousands of spherical shapes in the murky darkness. The golden light was growing and in the distance the sound of…
Leshia sat up in bed gasping for air. Bright sunshine was creeping round the edges of her heavy bed curtains, but by the sounds of her still dormitory, the others were yet to rise. Trembling slightly the blonde girl lowered herself back onto her pillows and stared up at the canopy above her.
That dream. She had had that dream before. She was sure of it. Where was that dark place? And what were those awful shapes that reared out of the blackness?
Feeling uneasy Leshia lifted her fingers to her chest to seek out the comforting warmth of the pendant. As soon as she touched it she recoiled her hand in pain. For the second time in the brief few moments since waking up Leshia sat up straight in bed. The pendant, it was burning. The image of the stone glowing brightly was seared into her mind and as she shut her eyes Leshia prepared for the worst.
She was expecting the bright flash that penetrated even her closed eyelids.
Instantly the girl knew she was no longer in her warm bed. In fact, she seemed to be lying in something rather damp. Gone was her cosy duvet too and instead a cold breeze snaked around her pyjama-clad form. Gone too was the stillness of the dormitory, replaced instead by the far away voices of young people and a strange rustling sound. Were they trees?
There was nothing for it, Leshia was going to have to open her eyes. After inwardly counting to three the girl snapped her eyes open. A canopy of evergreen branches met her gaze. Leshia blinked rapidly, but this did not cause the trees to disappear. Panting, the girl sat up and realised that she had been lying on a bed of cold damp moss. Within seconds she had scrambled to her feet, searching about herself in the trees to get her bearings.
'I'm in the Forbidden Forest.'
The thought fell into Leshia's head like an anchor and the weight of it nearly threw her to the ground once more. So this pendant could transfer her outside of the castle as well? Shivering in her pyjama bottoms and skimpy vest Leshia looked down at herself and frowned angrily.
'Do I always have to be in my bloody pyjamas though?' she thought angrily. 'Because if that's the only time this damn thing works I'm chucking it away!'
Having figured out where she was an uncomfortable thought wormed its way into Leshia's mind. She may have been aware of where she was, but she had no idea yet as to when she was. After glancing around at the unhelpful trees for answers Leshia realised there was nothing else for it. She was going to have to find answers out in the school grounds and simply hope that no one caught sight of her in her pyjamas.
With a stone-cold expression on her face the girl stalked through the dank leaves and moss heading towards the sounds of the far-away youngsters. All the while she pondered why the pendant had brought her to this place and to this point in time, whenever it was. The last time she had travelled to a time where her quick actions had saved her best friend's life, but would she need to do so again?
Leshia froze. She could hear the sounds of a scuffle taking place several yards away. It sounded like a very one sided fight, as there were the sounds of lots of individuals goading each other on, but there came only the grunts and groans of one unlucky victim. Leshia furrowed her brow deeply and felt in the pocket of her pyjama trousers for her trusty wand. As soon as her fingers closed around it she felt reassured.
Stealthily, she crept towards the sounds of the fight, thanking her bare feet and the dank moss for the silent manner in which she was able to approach the scuffle. Through the branches she could just about make out the shapes of several uniform-clad teenagers around her own height and a crumpled tiny figure on the ground. An icy feeling started growing in the pit of her stomach. This seemed all too familiar.
"Look there!" an alarmed cry suddenly sounded. Leshia ducked down behind the branches, but the alarm had not been sounded because the vengeful attackers had caught sight of her. The bullies out there in the trees had seen something else. Something that instilled terror in them.
"Run for it!" a familiar snivelling voice yelped and Leshia watched with narrowed eyes as the Slytherin boys scrambled out of the trees and up the bank of grass into the grounds. She panted in anger, her fingers itching to lift her wand and send a few curses after them to help them on their way, but no, as much as she would like to, she knew she wasn't here to take her revenge on those awful Slytherin rats who had beaten her into a pulp in her second year. So why was she here?
While she relived the unpleasant memory Leshia jumped in fright as a figure stalked through the trees quite near to where she was hiding. Remembering suddenly the last part of the blurry nightmare, the part right before she had passed out in agony all those years ago Leshia suddenly felt her knees give way. As she landed on the moss she got a better view of the gangly hooded figure stalking over the sodden ground towards the small girl lying blooded and awkwardly in the leaves.
Leshia stared at her grandfather's back. How easy it would be to end his life now and ensure that he never caused her family the pain he had managed in her last year at school. How better to protect Evie than to curse him into the darkness in which he belonged?
With trembling fingers Leshia lifted her wand and aimed it at the old man's back. Tears started welling up in her eyes as she forced the hatred from her heart into the tip of her tongue, willing it to say the words she had read so many times. Words that this very man had shouted at her nearly ending her life only a few months ago.
But the words wouldn't come.
Leshia was many things, but a killer? No, she was no killer. She was not like him.
Feeling furious with herself the youngster dropped her wand hand to her side and peered closer through the branches as her grandfather closed in on her younger, incapacitated self. She could hear the hiss escape his voice as he uttered the words that had haunted her second year,
"You don't belong."
"I belong more than you know you old bastard!" Leshia hissed furiously. She had to act quickly to save her past self.
"Hey! Isn't that Leshia?" she called out loudly and she started crashing through the bushes, hidden from her grandfather's view.
"Who's that man?" she called louder, forcing her voice to sound different by assuming an Irish accent. Her ruse worked and Leshia watched as her grandfather retreated quickly from her unconscious form and ran through the trees. She waited several minutes until she was sure he was gone before she crept out from behind the trees.
Her second-year self was a bloody sight. The younger version of Leshia had passed out from the agony of the beating she had received and for a moment the older Leshia felt a deep pang of guilt. What had she put her parents through all those times? And for what purpose? All that pain just so that she could avoid being known as a grass. All that agony just to get her revenge on a snivelling thirteen-year-old boy.
"It's not worth it," the blonde girl sighed and she crouched down at her younger self's side and reached out to touch her blooded hand. "Take it from me. It's not worth it."
There was one part of this story left to complete and with a deep sigh Leshia lifted her wand and pointed it into the sky. After a quickly uttered incantation red sparks flew from the wand tip and out past the treetops. The flare would lure help to the fallen girl's side. She would be saved and nursed back to health, only to allow herself to be put in this exact position again a few weeks later.
'I was so foolish,' Leshia thought sadly as she retreated into the trees to watch as hurried figures crashed through the trees to the fallen girl's side. As the first of them reached her younger self a bright light filled Leshia's vision. She shut her eyes tightly once more and felt the cold forest disappearing and her warm bed reappearing in its stead. By the time she opened her eyes she was back where she had started, staring up at the canopy of her bed. Her clothes felt damp from her trip to the forest and the pendant lay smouldering on top of her vest.
"I'm not going mad," the girl whispered to herself. So she was travelling back in time, travelling to points in her life where she had played a part she hadn't known about at the time. First she had saved Rachel and now she had saved herself in an event that had happened three years ago. How on earth did the pendant do it? And who or what was controlling it?
Feeling altogether overwhelmed Leshia shut her eyes tightly and rolled onto her side, using her pillow to cover her head and block out the light creeping in. While thoughts whirred round her mind, staving off sleep yet preoccupying the girl so much she had no idea about what was going on around her, the rest of the dormitory woke up. Leshia was the last to rise and she only did so when someone wrenched the curtains to her bed open.
"Wakey wakey it's time to…"
Rachel's agonisingly cheery voice stopped mid sentence and Leshia felt something being peeled from her arm. The blonde girl threw the pillow off her head and looked up into her best friend's confused face.
"What the hell is this and why are you covered in them?" the redhead demanded amusedly and she held up a large sodden pine needle. Leshia frowned at the sight of it and looked down at herself to see her trip back in time had left her clothes festooned in debris from the forest floor.
"You honestly wouldn't believe me if I told you," Leshia replied stonily. For a moment Rachel glanced over her shoulder, before she crept inside Leshia's four-poster and drew the curtains.
"Go on, tell me," she urged comfortingly. Leshia sighed and hung her head. She knew little good could come from telling Rachel, as the redhead wasn't likely to believe her, but she needed to tell someone, she needed to say it aloud to prevent the words from bouncing around her mind.
"I went back again," she whispered hurriedly. Rachel frowned deeply and cocked her head to the side.
"Uh?" was all she managed.
"You know what I mean. Remember a few weeks ago when I told you and Katie about what happened to me in the bathroom with this?" Here Leshia lifted the still warm pendant from her chest and showed Rachel the offending item. "I went back that night and I did it again this morning. I went back in time Rach, only this time I went back to our second year, to the Forbidden Forest that time I was attacked by the Allseyer and his cronies. I stopped my grandfather from abducting me and…"
The girl trailed off. Rachel was trying very hard to look supportive and concerned, but Leshia knew her best friend's face better than she herself did. She knew the disbelief in those usually trusting eyes. She knew Rachel thought she was mad.
"Oh what's the use?" Leshia grumbled furiously and she thrust the curtains open before climbing out of bed. "I'm not mad, but there's absolutely no way for me to prove it to you."
With this she was gone, quickly grabbing her dressing gown, towel and wash things before fleeing the room to join the shower queue down in the common room below. Rachel watched her leave with a worried frown on her face. Within moments she was joined by Katie, who was rubbing at her eyes tiredly.
"What did you do to Leesh?" the raven-haired girl asked curiously.
"Nothing!" Rachel complained and she let her eyes fall to the leaf-strewn bed at the same time that Katie noticed the forest debris.
"And what the hell is all this?"
Rachel sighed and she turned the pine needle over in her fingers for a few moments before she let it drop onto the bed.
"I'm really quite worried about that friend of ours you know."
XXX
That morning over breakfast Leshia sat silently chewing on the corner of a piece of toast. When asked a direct question she would answer quite readily, but she certainly wasn't initiating any discussions of any kind. Rachel felt rotten about not believing her story and wished that she could dispel the doubt and tell her best friend that everything was going to be okay, she believed her crackpot stories and she wanted to help her understand what was going on. Try as she might though, she couldn't get the words to sound anything other than forced even when they were spoken within the confines of her own mind. If she couldn't convince herself, she would never convince Leshia.
Katie had been giving Rachel pointed glares across the table. She had badgered her cousin to tell her why Leshia's bed and been full of pine needles and why the blonde girl had stormed off, but Rachel had refused to talk about it. She may not have believed their friend, but she didn't want Katie jumping to conclusions and beginning to assume that all the trauma Leshia had endured the last few years had done something to her brain. After the last time Leshia had told them she had travelled through time Katie had had some pretty scary things to say about it in private; mainly, that Leshia was becoming a bit unhinged. Rachel refused to believe this was the case and so had kept quiet. Much to Katie's annoyance.
Luckily for the friends, they were about to receive a distraction worthy of tearing them all from their sombre moods. With the flutter of hundreds of wings, the post owls swept into the great hall bringing with them all manner of parcels and goodies for the pupils of Hogwarts. As usual, the Daily Prophet landed heavily on the table in front of Katie and most pupils in the nearby vicinity turned to stare at it. Large glaring letters jumped out at them all:
The Dark Rising has only just begun
While beneath this a smaller headline clamoured for space:
Three Death Eaters captured!
Leshia instantly snapped out of her trance and sidled closer to Katie so that she might look over the raven-haired girl's shoulder as she pulled the paper forwards and opened it quickly onto a large double spread plastered with the faces of three grim men. Finding it difficult to see, Rachel disappeared from her bench under the table. After a few moments she reappeared on the other side, pushing a disgruntled Nicola away from Katie so that she could see squeeze onto the bench at the bespectacled girl's other side. In silence the three best friends read the article.
All around the hall an unusual hush had overcome the pupils as one by one copies of the paper were being dropped along the tables. Once Leshia had finished reading the article she looked up to see her peers were all crowding together in small groups, their eyes trained solely on the papers on their tables.
Her gaze slid to Slytherin and with a brow lowered in suspicion she watched as Damian Allseyer frantically turned the pages of his copy of the paper. Though it wasn't immediately obvious to everyone, Leshia knew her enemy well enough to see that he was afraid.
"Afraid of what Allseyer?" she whispered darkly.
"What was that?" Rachel piped up and she tore her eyes from the fearsome faces of the Death Eaters. Leshia grinned and shook her head.
"Never mind."
"Can you believe this?" the redhead was continuing excitedly. "I can't believe they've actually captured new Death Eaters. I just can't! Your dad was right Leesh, they're swearing them in again, even though Voldemort's still a pile of dust."
"Don't be so flippant about it Rachel," Katie's admonishing tone came and seconds later the girl had appeared from behind the paper. She seemed stern. "This is very bad news!"
"It's not like we didn't know about them already," Leshia countered evenly. "In our Defence Against the Dark Arts lessons you all accept that there are new Death Eaters being sworn in, so why should it come as a surprise now? I'm glad they've caught three of them. Maybe they can tell us who all the others are and we can get rid of them in one foul swoop."
Katie frowned firmly at the blonde girl, but Leshia paid her no attention. Instead she glanced up to the teachers' table to see her father stirring his coffee with one hand and reading the paper with the other. It was a sight more familiar than most to the fifth year girl and it filled her with a sense of ease. While all around her the pupils of the school were whispering frantically to each other about the dark news the Prophet had delivered to them all that morning, just the sight of Draco going about his usual morning routine stilled any fear Leshia might have developed.
What did come as a surprise to the girl however, was that he was reading a page towards the back of the paper. He didn't seem too interested in the breaking news that had taken up at least four double spreads at the beginning of the paper. Come to think of it, he hadn't been mentioned in the story. And he hadn't been missing lately; Leshia had seen him herself over dinner last night. The blonde girl frowned now. It would seem that for the first time in her whole life, her father hadn't been the one to solve the case and had not been involved in the capture of the dangerous criminals. Remembering the events of last year and the suspicion Minister Crayik now held for Draco, it oughtn't to have come as such a surprise, but somehow it still did.
"Why are you glaring at Professor Sprout Leesh?" Rachel's curious voice broke through Leshia's reverie. The blonde girl blinked and realised that her gaze had slipped down the table and she had indeed been staring straight at the Herbology professor. Thankfully the stout little woman hadn't noticed.
"In a world of my own there," Leshia laughed and she smiled at Rachel to show that for now she was ready to be friendly once more and try and forget about that morning's events. Instant relief spread over Rachel's face and she beamed at her friend.
"Come on you two, let's get going. I want to get to Runes as early as we can so I can hand in this essay. It weighs a ton!" Katie spoke up cheerily and as though to prove her point she lifted her satchel onto the table with a thud.
"Do you know what Katie, I reckon the weight of your bag's got more to do with those gigantic Potions books you're lugging around, not your Runes essay," Rachel countered amusedly. "Besides, why are you even got them on you now? We don't have potions till the end of the day."
"Oh don't get her started," Leshia laughed and she quickly jumped to her feet, the Prophet rolled up and tucked under her arm. Over at the teachers' table her father was starting to get up. "Look I'll catch up with you two outside Runes."
With this the blonde girl was gone. Within seconds she had casually walked up to the teachers' table. So casually in fact, that only Draco looked up and noticed her. In a silent communication of eyebrow wiggles and head jerks Leshia managed to convey to her father that she wanted to speak to him. With an amused grin on his face Draco nodded and followed the girl out of the great hall into the entrance hall.
"Something the matter my dearest?" Draco asked as soon as they were away from prying ears. Leshia wheeled on him with a slight glare, urging him not to carry on with the endearing nicknames when her peers might be listening. Quickly she pulled the paper out from under her arm and lifted it up. The three grim faces of the Death Eaters stared up at Draco with menacing scowls.
"You didn't have anything to do with this did you?" Leshia asked, her eyes wide and concerned. Draco continued to stare at the men for a moment, before he looked up and caught his daughter's worried gaze. For a moment denial lingered on his tongue, before he shook his head with a sigh.
"I can't really talk to you about that sweetheart, you know I can't," he told the girl quietly. Leshia frowned and dropped the paper to her side.
"The thing is dad, it says they were caught yesterday evening and well, you know, you were at home. I'm just confused. Aren't you normally at the centre of all of this sort of stuff?"
Draco stared at the girl for a long time. In many ways Leshia knew more about him than any other person alive. She knew more of his dark history than even Hermione and yet unwaveringly she had stood by his side, through even the darkest time of her life. He owed her something. He owed her more than a complete denial, but his hands were tied.
He had stalled too long.
"Dad? You didn't have anything to do with this did you?" the girl persisted.
"No, not this time," Draco replied with a sad smile. "But that doesn't mean that I didn't know about them."
"So Crayik's cut you out?" Leshia asked boldly. "But you're still fighting them, just not with Crayik. Does that mean the Order of the…"
Draco's face had changed and the sight of that somewhat fierce urgent look in her father's eyes meant Leshia's tongue stopped working. She clamped her mouth shut and smiled charmingly.
"Fine," she grumbled. "I get it, you don't want to talk about it."
"What I'm worried about Leshia, is why you want to know," her father complained brusquely. "You know how I feel about you getting yourself involved in all of this. You know that I'm not the only one Minister Crayik suspects of being involved in the dark world. I want you to stay out of all this. There is nothing you can do to help. You're a schoolgirl, it's time you started acting like it."
The words stung Leshia and she hung her head slightly. Yes, she was just a schoolgirl, but that wasn't all she was. Feeling hurt, she turned from her father, ready to head off to her Runes lesson. Draco bit the insides of his cheeks feeling guilty for the way the conversation had ended, but he didn't call the girl back. He would do anything to protect her and if it meant being cruel to her to get her to distance herself from the sordid world he had unwittingly thrust her into then it would have to be done.
Once she had taken a few steps Leshia paused and she turned around to stare sadly at her father.
"I know I'm a schoolgirl, but I'm also a Malfoy and because of it I'm lumped in with this lot." Here she lifted the paper. The three scowls glared out at Draco. "At least Crayik thinks so. I didn't get myself involved in all this dad. You got me involved and don't you forget it."
With this the girl turned and walked away, a cool anger bubbling away in the pit of her stomach. She knew why her father was acting this way, she knew he was trying to protect her, but a part of her was furious that he couldn't see she was now nearly sixteen years old. No, she wasn't an adult yet, but she didn't feel like a child either, so why did he have to treat her like one? In a year she would be of age. Would he treat her differently then?
'Probably not,' she grumbled inwardly as she stalked up a flight of stairs two at a time. By the time she had reached the Runes classroom a long line of pupils had gathered. Katie and Rachel were near the front and by the time Leshia had joined them she had forced away her negative feelings towards her father. Katie was clutching a thick sheaf of neatly bound parchments close to her chest and it seemed that Rachel was mocking her about it.
"Are you going to fling that at him the moment we set foot inside?" Leshia asked curiously, nodding to the raven-haired girl's essay. Katie rolled her eyes.
"The sooner I can hand this in the sooner I can breath a sigh of relief," she stated determinedly. "This has been, without fail, the worst homework I have ever had to do."
"Ooh careful Katie," Rachel piped up. "It might hear you!"
"Oh shut up Rachel," the girl's cousin grumbled. "Where's yours then eh? Probably in a crumpled heap at the bottom of your bag?"
"I'll have you know it's nestling safely inside my charms textbook. You may think I don't really give a rat's arse about homework, and generally I think I'd agree with you, but this essay has been the bane of my life for the last two weeks. So I'm not likely to let it get squished in the bottom of my bag am I?"
For a moment Katie beamed at her cousin with pride, but before she could express her feelings the door to the classroom eked open and out peered the anxious gaze of Professor Tripper. Within seconds he'd withdrawn into the safety of his classroom leaving the fifth years waiting outside to file in. They took their seats quietly, many of them clutching at thick essays in a similar manner to Katie. There was a bated silence while the meek man at the front of the room turned to his blackboard and started writing up the names of three new Rune families in a messy scrawl. He seemed not to notice the confused glances his pupils were casting one another. After he'd finished writing on the whiteboard the teacher turned around and actually took a step back at the mutinous gazes his pupils were casting him.
"Er, yes, well um, today," he stammered and then paused again as several boys at the back turned to each other whispering. "Uh, I say, please pay attention. Today we will be um, starting work on three new rune families…"
Silas trailed off again and scratched the back of his greasy head. He was used to the slightly hostile expressions his pupils tended to greet him with, but this deep mutiny was different. As he looked from angry face to angry face he started to tremble slightly. Why were they staring at him like that?
"Sir?"
That voice! Anyone but her.
"Sir?"
The girl sounded more persistent. He wouldn't we able to ignore her. Begrudgingly Silas Tripper slid his gaze onto the amused expression on Alecia Malfoy's face. Her hand was held lazily in the air, while her head was cocked to the side curiously.
"Yes Miss Malfoy?" Tripper replied quietly.
"Aren't you going to ask for our homework sir" the girl asked cheerily and then added, when she saw the blank expression on her teacher's face, "You set it for today sir. Two weeks ago. Do you remember sir?"
"Oh," Tripper managed. "Did I?"
The reaction from the class was a subtle one, but to the teacher it was as though an explosion had gone off in the room. All across the room the tense postures the pupils had been holding collapsed and several of them dropped their heads down on their desks. Quiet groans escaped from every corner of the room and the frantic whispering from the boys at the back took a decidedly furious tone. The words 'pillock' and 'idiot' seemed to be featuring quite regularly as well.
What was worse than all this however, far worse, was the gleeful smile that had materialised on Alecia Malfoy's face. It was a smile that spoke more than words ever could and it made Tripper feel an inch tall.
"We've all worked really hard on this essay sir," Katie now spoke up, anger lacing her usually mild voice.
"Well all right then," the teacher finally spoke, mustering an ounce of strength. "Please could you ah, bring your essays up at the end of the lesson and place them er, on my desk before you leave. Yes. Right then, onto um, today's lesson."
As he turned back to his blackboard Silas Tripper let out a tremulous breathe. He could sense her smug gaze boring into the back of his head. How he wished he could muster the strength to face her, to put her in her place and stop this ridiculous power she held over him.
But no, he was powerless to fight her. Alecia Malfoy ought to be feared. Who knew what she was capable of or what path she would take?
XXX
End of Part IV
*Update 03/01/2015*
It has been a long time since I updated this story! I apologise it has been so long. All I have is the excuse that life got in the way in the form of my ludicrously demanding teaching job and my now two children, who I certainly did not have at the start of this saga! I just wanted to say though that I am turning my sights back onto this story and I hope to be updating it soon. Thanks to any readers who check back for updates, I hope to have one for you soon.