Chapter 2
The first few weeks of school pass without any major notable events. Dominique has her heart broken, as does James. Freddie and Julian are put into at least seventeen separate detentions between them, for 'unnecessary displays of public affection', which Roxy finds hilarious. Herbology with professor Longbottom is as erotic as ever, with Rose commenting, "Oo-er, I'd be happy to grasp his mandrake firmly." All of this occurring much to his daughter, Gracie's, disdain.
"I'll tell you who else's Mandrake I wouldn't mind grasping," Rose mutters sideways to Roxy as they meander away from the greenhouses and back towards the school entrance.
Roxy butts in, smirking up at her cousin, "Oh, are you finally coming clean about fancying Scorpius? Really, I thought we'd never get it out of you."
"No you berk!" Rose thumps her rather hard on the arm, glancing around, "Shush, I don't- Ew, just no!" Her face has turned bright pink, her ears the shade of beetroot. "I was talking about our own Professor Teddy Lupin." The way that she announces his title of 'professor', makes the position seem almost wistful. "You know I think he might even beat Longbottom soon with the amount of third-year girl fanclubs for him."
Eyes rolling, Roxy laughs. "They only want him because he's their teacher."
Rose shakes her head, shrugging. "I s'pose. What have we got next anyway?"
Pulling the scrumpled piece of parchment from her pocket, Rox squints at it, tilting her head very slightly to the side. It's become a yearly tradition for neither of them to bother learning their timetable. "Ooh!" She laughs delightedly, "Potions."
"Seriously? That's brilliant."
"What's brilliant?" Gracie, Neville's daughter, appears at Rose's side. "You guys heard the news?"
Roxy looks blank. "News?"
Rose, however, looks hopeful, "Has Scorpius dumped Chastity?"
Gracie frowns. "Yeah, he has, actually. I missed breakfast because I was trying to get her to stop crying."
"Oh crap." A hand flies up to Rose's mouth. "I didn't mean- Oh Merlin, is she okay?"
"She'll be fine." Roxy grips hold of her cousin's arm tightly and smiles at her reassuringly, "Don't worry about it. It's nothing Chas can't deal with, you know her."
Rose nods slowly, but I can bet you anything that she'll spent hours awake at night worrying about her jibe. It was a mistake, she couldn't have known, but kindness is so ingrained into Rose's DNA, it's difficult to tell where Rose stops and the kindness begins. Hey, maybe that's why she's so tall; maybe it's 5' 5'' girl, and 1' 2'' kindness. It would make sense.
Trying to find a way to get Rose's mind onto other things, Roxy turns back to Grace. "So what was the news?"
Gracie grins, her chubby face lighting up, "Well, I was talking to my Dad this morning, and he says that they're brought ahead the Hogsmeade trip. It's gonna be this Saturday instead of next week."
"What?!" Rose squeals delightedly, "Brilliant! That's great! Oh merlin, yes!"
"What's Weasley orgasming over this time?" From behind us there sounds a slight, toothy drawl. There's no mistaking that voice. It belonged to his Father, and now it belongs to him. Swivelling, Roxy comes face-to-face with none other than Scorpius Malfoy.
He's seventeen, even though he's in the same year as Roxy, Rose and Gracie. His birthday's on the first of September, and somehow that's another thing that makes him feel superior to everybody else. Tall, one of the few people in the school to even come close to Rose, he's blonde, dishy, and has the ability to make any girl he pleases, especially Rose, go weak at the knees. Roxy can't see the appeal though. She's thinks he's... slimy. Can you describe a person as being slimy? If you can, then that's what he is. He's like Julian, both of them complete and utter-
"Aw, what's with the scowl, dollface?" Scorp runs his tongue delicately across his bottom lip. "Are you not happy to see me?"
Roxy doesn't bother smiling back. "Not even slightly. I think Rose is, though."
Her face burning, Rose manages what I presume she thinks is a flirtatious smile, but in reality makes her look as if she has trapped wind. "H-hey, Scorp." She puts a hand on her hip and steps backwards, smiling using only one half of her mouth. She looks utterly bizarre. "So how's it, uh, hanging?"
The poignancy of her sentence is somewhat debilitated when she trips over her own feet and goes sprawling backwards, swearing viciously as she reaches out to grab onto the nearest arm to try and steady herself.
Her being Rose, of course the nearest arm belongs to Scorpius.
They collapse in a heap, him on top of her and immediately scrambling to stand up again, glancing around to make sure that nobody saw the encounter. Holding her breath in a desperate attempt not to laugh, for Rose's sake, Roxy turns her head away as Scorp turns on his heel and runs in the opposite direction as fast as he can, his rucksack dangling from one arm and smacking against the wall as he skids around the corner.
Still desperately holding her breath, Roxy turns back to her cousin, expression sympathetic. Rose, however, is already on her feet, beaming.
"Did you see that?!" She gasps, staring between Rox and Grace, "Did you see that?! He called me 'Weasley'! He knows who am! He knows who I am!"
Laughing out loud, more in utter exasperation than hilarity, Roxy glances at her wrist, swearing. "We're five minutes late for potions, Te- Professor Lupin's going to kill us."
"Oh Merlin." Gracie dashes away along the corridor, fixing her hair as she goes. "Hurry up!"
Rose raises her eyebrows at Roxy, before the two of them bolt after their friend along the corridor, neither of them having the slightest wish to get on Teddy's bad side.
"Rox, where are we going?" The red-head giant of a girl draws out the last word, every syllable dripping with exhaustion. "I thought you said we were nearly there."
Turning back to smirk at Rose, Roxy laughs. "We are nearly there. Look, it's just over this hill."
"Ugh." Rose makes a sound like a caveman. "Hills."
Eyes rolling, my host carries on, the muscles in her legs straining. "Come on, I can see it from here. How are you all the way back over there? You're legs are about five foot lon-"
"Hey! It's not my fault you're such a midget. Such a healthy, quidditch-playing, exercise-doing, able-to-jog-up-hills midget."
"Rose," She sighs, folding her arms as she waits for her cousin to traverse the last ten metres up the hill. "When was the last time you did anything active?"
"Um," Rose's answer comes between pants, "When I was seven I went on a walk."
Roxy's eyebrows shoot upwards.
"Okay, so maybe Dad tried to take me on a walk and I got ten feet from the house and then threw a fit until he let me go back inside." She averts her eyes, scouring the landscape in front of them. "Where are we going then? What's the big surprise?" Her eyes fall onto the tall, crooked black building outlined by the bright sunlight.
She takes a step backwards.
"Oh hell to the no. No way. Nope. No no no. I am not going in there. Nope. No no no."
Hitching up her rucksack, Roxy rolls her eyes. "What? Are you scared?"
"Roxy." Rose's voice turns serious. "That's the shrieking shack. Aurors-for-parents 101: You do not go into creepy old abandoned buildings. Especially the shrieking shack. You know there are, like, thieves and murderers and stuff in there, right?"
"Oh that's just what your Mum tells you because she's so overprotective." Roxy puts her hands on her hips. "'Sides, when your parents were our age they were fighting You-know-who. It's just a building, nothing to be scared of."
Rose shifts her gaze to the ground, frowning. "I'm not scared." She mumbles, "I just like being alive. Is that a bad thing?"
Sighing exasperatedly, Roxy grabs Rose and drags her down the hill towards the Shack. "Come on, what's the point in being alive if you're not going to do anything fun once in a while."
Muttering under hear breath, Rose follows miserably behind Roxy, pulling her hood up to cover her face.
"Oh yeah, because if your Dad's got someone following you, that's really going to stop them from recognising you."
"Shuddup." Rose nudges Roxy, "If you were anyone else."
Stumbling over very slightly at her cousin's nudge, Roxy regains her footing and grins. "Yeah, yeah. C'mon. This is going to be so much fun."
Roxy isn't the most rebellious of teenagers, but she has her moments. She's never been as prone to trouble-making as Freddie is, and in her group of friends, she's generally the quieter one, but there's always going to be the part of Roxy that is me, and that doesn't love anything more than risking her neck on some stupid dare, or that sneaks into the Owlery just before breakfast and replaces the owl oats with a very strong laxative, and then conveniently sleeps in through the ensuing disaster. There's still a twenty galleon reward for anyone with information about the perpetrator of that particular prank. But who would ever suspect poor, quiet little Roxy? That's one of the advantages of being her. She might be George Weasley's daughter, but all anyone can see in her is Angie.
"Rox?" Rose's voice floats to her from up ahead, "You okay?"
Snapping out of her train of thoughts, and nonchalantly bringing a hand up to her face to make sure that there are no tears, she grins, running to catch up with Rose. "Sorry. What'd you say?"
Rolling her eyes, Rose shakes her head. "It doesn't matter." She turns her face skywards, and looks up at the shack, now towering above the two of them. Having something tower above her must be a new feeling for Rose, I think. "So how are we even getting in? I doubt you have a key."
Roxy smirks. "Don't you worry about that, Rosie dear, "I've done this before."
"Of course she has. Of course she has. Of course Roxanne Weasley has broken into buildings before, why would I ever even consider that she hasn't?"
Ignoring Rose's sarcasm, she carries on towards the building, approaching the decaying wooden board nailed in rather crudely over the front door. The windows, too, are boarded up, giving the house a hollow, almost empty feel. If I could have shivered, I would have done.
"Roxy I don't like it?" Rose's deep voice trembles, and she grips Roxy's arm tightly enough to make her wince. "I really, really don't like it. Please let's go back, can't we go to Honeydukes again?"
Rox sighs. "You know there's more to life than chocolate? You can go back if you want, but I'm going in."
Rose gasps. "Going in?! Are you mad?! Freddie'll kill you. Your Dad will kill you. I'll kill you."
"It's just a building." She shrugs, "What's the worst that can happen?"
Trekking around the side of the house, searching for a weak spot to break into, she tunes out Rose's whining. Both of them have been stuck in Ravenclaw, but there's not a single cell in my being that doesn't believe that Roxy was born to be a Gryffindor. She's smart, yeah, but ever since she was three years old she's been as fearless as any Gryffindor. Angelina used to call her her 'little lioness', although of course she was supportive of Roxy's placement in Ravenclaw.
"I- I- R-Roxy, I'm going back to town. I can't stay here, I can't, I just can't-" Rose stands a few paces behind Roxy, the terror on her face absolute. "I can't- I can't- I'm-"
She turns on her heel and runs on legs that give her the impression of being a large grasshopper, her gangly elbows skewing out awkwardly. This is why Rose doesn't run.
"Wuss!" Roxy calls, cupping a hand to her mouth to make the sound travel further.
Fine, she thinks, that's fine, I don't need Rose. I bet she wouldn't be able to get through one of these windows anyway.
Feeling slightly bitchy, she carries on, smirking as she feels approaching the adrenaline rush that comes with rebellion.
Back in our day, me and George spent hours trying to find ways past the curses that guard the crumbling ruin. Why does it not surprise me that Roxy finds her way in in under ten minutes? Or maybe it's just that she had the foresight to bring a crowbar, rather than George and I's wands, and our limited third-year knowledge of curse breaking.
Of course Roxy knows the truth behind the shack. She wouldn't have been a Weasley if she hadn't spent hours stretched out on the sofa at the burrow, surrounded by her cousins, listening to Hermione's war stories, and Harry's tales of the Marauders. Roxy kind of likes that this place was built for Teddy's Dad. She wants to go inside and think about him, Padfoot, Prongs, gallivanting around the house, smashing up furniture and trying not to tread on Wormtail, the traitor, who might have been better off crushed under Harry's Dad's hoof aged fifteen.
"Ah, perfect." Roxy whispers as she wriggles in through the prised open window, shoving her crowbar back into her rucksack. "Child's-play."
In my defence, I'm pretty sure that the curses have been lifted since I was at Hogwarts, but still, the ease with which she managed to prise the board away from the window can only have been learnt through practise.
Landing delicately on the balls of her feet, sending up swirls of dust, she smiles, reaching into her pocket for her wand. "Lumos."
Even with the glowing ball of light, it still takes a few seconds for our eyes to adjust, and she gazes around, taking in her grimy surroundings with mild interest.
Her first thought is that this place needs a clean.
Her second thought, is that it still doesn't smell as bad as Freddie's bedroom.
Smiling at her own joke, Roxy takes a step forwards, raising her wand higher to bring into her view the entire room.
It's huge, most likely having been built to be a ball room. Something crunches underneath her foot, and she looks down to find the floor coated with thousands of tiny beads of glass, having shattered around the chandelier, which lies smashed in the centre of the room. Now this is far cooler than any old Muggle factory she's broken into before.
There's a bang from upstairs, and Roxy jumps, her hand flying to her mouth to stop her from gasping aloud.
Her breaths come in short gasps, and she stares up at the ceiling, every muscle in her body tense and ready to flee.
Absolute silence. Not even a whisper. She allows herself to exhale deeply.
Probably just a squirrel, she justifies to herself, yeah, just a squirrel, nothing to freak out over. Maybe it could be a bat? She wouldn't be surprised if there were bats in here.
"Breathe, Roxy, breathe." She whispers to herself, gripping her shaking wand as tightly as it humanely possible without snapping it in two.
In four steps she crosses the room, silently avoiding the largest fragments of glass and stepping neatly through the open doorway. Her fingertips graze the door-frame, coming away covered in a thin coating of dust.
Her ears prick up, but there's nothing to be heard apart from silence, and the sound of her own breathing. It's eerie, to say the least. She deliberates going back to the village to join Rose; evidently there's nothing else to see here. But then... Teddy's Dad. This place was built for him. Roxy knows how much Teddy missed his parents, even having never met them. Being here, she's closer to his Dad than he'll ever be. Besides, it can't hurt for her to just go and have a look upstairs, can it? Can it?
No, of course it can't. Navigating the filth encrusted corridors, she glances into rooms abandoned in various states of disrepair. It's like a maze.
Right, left, through a set of double doors, left, back into the first room, backtrack, more doors, left, right, there!
In front of us stands a crooked set of stairs, crumbling and mouldy.
Because they look safe, I think sarcastically.
Thinking along the same lines as me, Roxy tentatively places her foot onto the first step, flinching at the sound of wood splintering. Ever so slowly, she transfers her weight onto it, frowning. It holds, and she pauses for a few seconds, testing out the next step, before moving up onto that one. They're a lot more stable than they first looked, but it still takes her a good five minutes to reach the top, and there are two steps in a row that are completely rotted through, leaving Roxy to risk jumping over onto the next splintering stair. By some miracle, she makes it to the top unscathed.
Up here, the dust is even thicker, and she takes two steps before sneezing loudly, stumbling over a misaligned floorboard and swearing as she falls, dropping her wand, the thin fabric of her jeans ripping open at the knees. "Ah. Balls." She murmurs as she lifts herself to her feet, touching her right knee and feeling the wetness of blood. It stings badly, and Rose will probably freak out when she sees, but to be honest, we've had worse. Roxy isn't too concerned.
It's only when she bends to pick up her wand and notices the footprints that fear starts to well up in the pit of her stomach.
They can't be hers; they're too big, and there's definitely more than one set of prints. Lots of people have passed through here, and recently.
Oh crap. Oh crap.
Roxy, it's time to leave. I order her silently, trying to will her into the action, even though I know she can't hear me. Roxy, go. Please.
She doesn't hear me, she can't. Her heart pounds as she takes one step forwards, and then another, slowly moving towards the door the prints lead to. Oh no. Oh fuck. Oh crap. ROXY STOP. I bellow at her as she reaches out her left hand to grip the doorknob, twisting it and pulling gently.
Terror wells up inside me and with as much force as I can I scream at the top of my lungs.
Roxy stops dead.
Oh Merlin. Oh Merlin. Oh my Merlin.
Roxy! I gasp silently, You need to get out of here, please. please go now, please!
"What the- Who?! What?!" Tears stream down her cheeks. She stares around, desperately searching for the source of the ghostly voice. "Dad?"
I don't get time to answer before the door in front of her is wrenched open all the way.
For a slit second, she locks eyes with the tall, grubby, grey-haired and bearded stranger, and then she turns on her heel and runs.
Her heart hammers. We can hear the blood pounding in her ears. There's a yell from behind us, and she screams at the feeling of someone grabbing her shirt.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
She flies across the room, wrenching free of the grasping hands and tearing towards the staircase. The stairs groan under her heavy feet, but the first three hold.
Then she reaches the rotten steps.
Her foot doesn't even stop for a second. It's as if there isn't anything there at all. She simply falls forwards into nothingness, the rest of the wood splintering and smashing straight through as the rest of her body slams into it.
And then she's falling.
Unfortunately, there isn't long for her to comprehend the experience before she smashes into solid ground, her head thwacking into the floor, and the world slowly fading to blackness.
What happened when she woke up, she swore to herself that she would never recall to anyone.
I talked her through it, tried to comfort her, promised her that the pain was only temporary when they used the cruciatus curse, swore that it was going to end as they ripped off her trousers, cried along with her as the tip of a glimmering knife was dragged across her face, from just above her eye, along the curve of her cheek, and ending in a point at the corner of her lip.
When they're done with her, she lies quietly, face down on the grimy wooden floor, listening to them decide whether or not to kill her.
"She's not going to be able to hurt us. Look at her, she won't say a thing. She doesn't even know who we are."
"But they'll look for us. They'll have to."
"They're already looking for us."
"They'll look harder."
"As if they'll make the connection."
"They might. They'll ask her for descriptions of us."
"Wipe her memory?"
"That's no fun."
"Oh leave her be. She's just a kid. You've had your fun, she doesn't deserve to die. We were going to leave tonight anyway."
"I change in a few hours. If we pick somewhere new I can meet you there."
"Perfect. We just leave her then?"
"Yes. By the time they find her they'll be far enough away that they won't be able to find us."
"Good. We move out now then?"
"Unless there's something else you want to do first?"
"Well..."
A swift kick is placed to to Roxy's temple, and the blackness returns.
"Rose, please. Tell me this is a joke." That voice. It's so familiar. Oh so familiar. Please. Please let this not be a dream. "Why on Earth-?"
Roxy. I think, trying to figure out a graceful way to communicate. Roxy, it's time to get up. They're here. Everything's going to be okay, but you need to move. You don't want them to find you like this.
Her fingers twitch feebly, but she doesn't reply.
Please, Roxy.
"I don't understand. What would she want with this place?"
"I don't know."
Rose's voice, slightly more distant than Teddy's, but she's still close. Both of them are so close.
"Is that blood?" Ted's deep voice catches in his throat all of a sudden, and there's the sound of loud, heavy footsteps. "Roxy?! Roxy where are you?! It's me, Te- Professor Lupin, I'm here to help. Where are you?"
He sounds desperate. Rose's voice joins the calling, but the most that Roxanne can muster up in reply is a feeble, "mmm". Neither of them hear.
Do something! What if they leave?!
She can still hear me. She has no idea who I am, or why I'm speaking to her, but she can hear me. In any other situation, this would be a dream come true. In reality, it's all of my worst nightmares.
Please! They won't find you!
Apparently I'm doing nothing to help her. If anything my pleading is deterring her from action. Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
I don't know what I can do. What can I do.
If only...
Using every single ounce of concentration I have, I reach out with my consciousness, feeling the tips of Roxy's fingers, and, with an almost herculean effort, I clench her hand into a fist.
That's all I need. That's all I need to do to know that I can do it, I can take control of her body and make sure that they find her, that they can save her before, before-
"Help..." My voice, through her lips, is feeble. I'm out of practise for any kind of movement, and finding the right tongue shapes for the word doesn't come easily. "Help!" I manage to call, louder this time. "Help! HELP! I'M DOWN HERE! DOWN HERE! Quickly, please come- come-"
Black spots appear in front of her eyes, and I shut them quickly, suddenly dizzy. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to think. Everything hurts.
"ROXY." Teddy's voice sounds a lot more clearly, and as we peer through her eyelashes, past the blood coating her face, Roxy and I get a glimpse of a beam of silver wandlight. "Oh merlin, Roxy, oh fuck, oh-"
A pair of rough hands grip hold of her shoulder, rolling her onto her back. We hear a gasp.
"Oh fuck. Rose don't come in! I've found her, I've- Oh shit."
Her hair is brushed away from her face, sticky with blood and sweat.
"Okay. Okay." We can hear him trying to calm himself down and decide what the rational, responsible, teacher-like thing to do would be. Knowing Ted, he has no idea. "Alright. Rose, I need you to go back to the school and find McGonagall. Tell her that Roxy's been attacked, and I've apparated with her to St Mungo's. She'll know what to do."
Rose squeaks, and in the back of her mind, Roxy can picture her cousin's tear-streaked face.
"Please, Rosie, you need to stay calm. Do not speak to anybody else. Do not talk to anybody else. If somebody asks you where Roxy is, say you don't know. Go straight to McGonagall. Now, go!"
There's another squeak, and the sound of heavy, uncoordinated feet dashing out of the room.
Oh no. Roxy thinks, Oh Rose. I'm so sorry.
Teddy's attention is now back onto Roxy, slapping her good cheek hard to bring her back to consciousness.
"Roxy." He announces clearly, enunciating each syllable, "Roxy, I need you to keep calm, and focus on me. Can you do that for me, please?"
With a feeble moan, she nods, eyelids flickering.
He presses his wandtip to her cheek, and murmurs a spell. Almost instantly, a deep, soothing feeling of coolness spreads throughout the whole of the felt side of her face. I can almost feel the wound closing up.
"Ugh." Teddy mutters. "It'll do for now. Okay, Roxy, I'm going to pick you up now, and we're going to apparate to the hospital. Do you understand?"
He waits for a few seconds, but she's too out of it to answer. I'm too busy trying to get through to her to be able to answer for her.
Swearing again, he hooks his arms underneath her armpits and her legs, pulling her up into a cradle and rising to his feet.
Automatically, without any conscious action from me or Roxy, her arms snake upwards around his neck, her face turning to burrow into his chest. Wanting- needing the comfort of another human being.
"Oh Rox.." He whispers, voice thick with tears. "Everything's going to be okay, I swear. I swear it. We'll be at the hospital soon, and then-" There's a whoosh of air and the feeling of being pressed through a small tube. He's apparated. "Here, we're here. We can- HELP! LOOK, SHE'S INJURED, SHE NEEDS HELP, PLEASE."
In an instant we're surrounded by the bustling noises of hospital staff fussing and prodding, asking questions and swearing when Teddy answers that he doesn't know.
Roxy's body is plucked from Teddy's comforting arms and placed onto something hard and lumpy, but covered in soft blankets. She sighs.
Spells are muttered, numbing us and causing Roxy's brain, already hazy, to start to feel clouded over and murky. It becomes difficult to form thoughts.
"T-Ted." She manages to mumble, fighting to stay out of the blurry white mist. "Teddy stay withmeee."
Her voice slurs, and the last thing she feels before, for a third time today, the world fades to blackness, is a hand squeezing hers, his gentle voice promising. "I'm not going anywhere. I promise."
WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS, WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS, WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Okay, so, being the happy, wonderful person I am, I decided to give you all an update as a lovely Xmas present. And then, being the shitty updater I am, I finished it last night at eleven o'clock French time, in my apartment where I have no internet. Soooooo, one day late, MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Now this hasn't been looked at by my little edity elves, so there's probably 10,000 mistakes and it doens't make sense, but I'm posting this in the ten minutes I have before I get dragged off up a mountain, so bear with me on this. I'll be back tonight to edit it properly and read back through it to make sure it makes sense and stuff.
Okaaaaay, so on the last chapter, I got a lot of feedback telling me to tone down the swearing. I did that, and I'm happy with that decision, because I know swearing too much is a problem I have in real life, and I'm working on that, so it makes sense to work on it in my stories too. So when I started off with the mindset of no swearing, I was happy with that goal, and I liked the way things were going and then... everything kind of fell to shit, didn't it? (quite literally). For the sake of emotional realism, there was a bit of swearing. If people feed back and tell me it's too much, I'll go back and change it. But apart from that, I've left in quite a lot of swear words.
Second thing, at the moment, this story is rated T, because I figure that the only reason people ever search 'M' is when they want to read smut, which this story isn't. On the other hand, realistically it should be rated M, so I'm going to think about that, and most likely change it to M.
Anyway, as I'm being screamed at right now, I'm going to have to leave you. I'll be back later on, and as always, reviews and feedback are absolutely brilliant. I love the response that the first chapter got, especially the longer reviews, but really, just any kind of recognition makes me so happy. I love it!
Apart from that, thank-you for reading this far, and I hope you like the story.
From Hannah :)