Chapter 2: 1st Hour
A/N: Thanks sanbeegoldiewhitey, ILikeComps, ceo55, Dinomus for your reviews and I look forward to hear more from you.
Dinomus: Harry will be involved both in past and present in an OOC way.
ceo55: Astoria has no relationship with Draco.
Sanbeegoldiewhitey: Astoria lives with Daphne.
A/N: This is a short update as not much action was supposed to happen in first hour.
A/N: If you find any spelling and grammatical errors please bear with me and inform me.
'thoughts'
"dialogues"
Summary: Its been 5 years since the last major war in the wizarding world. 5 years since a Dark Lord commanded his reign over the magical community of Britain. 5 years of peace and tranquility. But this rule didn't apply to all. Harry is now an auror. Daphne works in DMLE but more under jurisdiction section. Some of original followers of Voldemort have decided to strike back with vengeance and take back what's theirs by their rules.
Chapter: 1st hour
8:30 A.M
A cold stream of water was dousing her already numb skin. She was standing in the shower for past 10 minutes; her psyche had refused to even consider its presence. Her mind was on auto chronic review mode. Every time those accursed words spoken nigh 20 min ago ran through her head she would feel emptier. A sudden pain revved through her chest as her body protested against the water. She quickly tapped a slender finger on the warm granite knob and instantly a Luke warm spray replaced the cold stream with a small amount of steam emerging from the floors of the queen sized tub just as she had preferred during this time of the year. This paltry little fact hit a not so paltry little blow in her head.
'Where is Tinge? She is the one who prepares the steam to exact temperature every morning.'
Her eyes widened to the size of saucers, as she realized that she had completely forgotten about her house elves. She hurriedly came out of her bathroom and ran into the passageway of the master bedroom, all the while drenching the floors wet not even bothering to think about a bathrobe. She ran up to the stairwell descending down to the antechamber of the house. She looked frantically about the place for any sign of some bobbling diminutive creatures making their way through the house. She softly mumbled, "Tinge… Tinge" her voice started rising, " Tinge… answer me. Tinge answer your mistress dammit." Still not even a whisper ensued to her demands. "Rolt, Beecks, Doggles, DAMMIT WHERE ARE YOU BLOODY ELVES." Her shriek rang unimpeded through the empty halls and corridors of the manor. Her visage palling as the sands run through the hour glass.
She quickly sprinted towards the kitchen her wet damp jet black hair running wild on her face. She abruptly halted at the sight in front of her. The once gleaming black marble floors of the kitchen, the pride of Rolt's workplace was now shade darker than acidic green. Everywhere her eyes moved the floor was looking as if freshly painted, just the paint was blood of the house elves working there. She sank to her knees, taking support of a wooden table where the prepared food was kept ready to serve. Her already pale visage went a shade or two greyer. Her eyes devoid of any expressions other than plain horror. There right in front her about 4 feet, were lying the best cook she ever met and best house keeper she came to know, both Rolt and Doggles were holding each other's ripped neck in their mangled wiry fingers as if they had a skirmish just now. Both of their eyes had glazed look about them. She looked away and closed her eyes trying to keep her mind clear of these living nightmares. These things brought back her chronic nightmares of living through the night of her parents' slaughter. The subsequent war hadn't helped her on recovering through it. She had spent almost a year away from this manor, at Tracey's, in fear of reliving the entire manslaughter every second she breathed in this Manor. However the war had hardened her to face such things.
She slowly stood up; her calves were coated with elf blood. She was now sweating profusely even though the temperature inside was near 20 degrees. She was about leave when she heard a shuddered deep intake of breath. She whirled around and was met with sight of small but quick rise and fall of Tinge's chest. Tinge was the head elf of her house and her personal caretaker as well; she was also the oldest house elf.
Daphne scurried over to the house elf. "Tinge… wake up. Answer me Tinge. Wake up please don't die on me. I need your help immediately." She whimpered for the elf to come back to her. She had picked up her wand on her way down. She quickly tried Enervate spell to bring back the life of elf. Harry had taught her some basic First Aid spells for healing and closing wounds, on the fly should anything happen to her or Astoria. After about fourth enervate, Tinge's eyes fluttered open but her breathing became more labored. Daphne tried all the first aide spells in her arsenal and was successful in bringing the situation under control. Luckily Tinge wasn't hurt overly in physical manner, just some internal injuries which Tinge could manage or get a friendly elf to heal her.
"Tinge how did this happen? And where is Tori?"
Tinge took in a shuddered breath and gasped through breaths, "Little mistress…Astoria…Mafoy scion…kidnap…Mistress…Daphne…Blackmail…Bad job…Bung…traitor to…Greengrass…followed…Malfoy…imperius…Rolt Doggles…Burnt…Beeks…alive…to help…Little Miss." There was a small knife lying harmless beside her. "Bung…use…cursed knife…to burn alive." Tinge managed to convey.
Daphne wasn't shocked by the news of Bung being the traitor to the Greengrass family. It was one day during her fifth year at Hogwarts that her parents had found him smuggling a Greengrass hereditary book of dark arts to none other than Malfoys. Her father Sebastian Greengrass had immediately banished him from the family. Since that day Bung had held a grudge against the Greengrass and had joined Draco in serving the Moldyshorts. She resolved to kill that bloody house elf with the very same knife within these 12 hours. She rested Tinge's head on the floor, "Tinge listen I will call Tracey's elf to look after you. I have to go and rescue my sister now." She regretted to leave her like this. Daphne quickly got up and rushed up back to her room. She got a bathrobe and wrapped it around her. She called for Trinkle, Tracey's personal elf whom she could trust as much as Tinge. She quickly informed her to take Tinge with her and heal her. She also instructed her acutely to not even breath about this situation to anybody without her permission. She requested Trinkle to treat Tinge in secret. After Trinkle left she disposed the robes and went back to the bathroom to clean her-self.
This entire ordeal had taken a heavy toll on her already ticking hour. As it was already 8:50 A.M by the time she came out. She quickly changed in a pair of slacks, a knee length pleated peach colour skirt, a lavender button-up half sleeve shirt with some inners inside. She walked back down to the kitchens all the while thinking of what to do next. The floors were still smeared and the place had started to smell. She quickly put a stasis charm on the remaining house elves to protect their bodies for a proper burial as was the Greengrass protocol. She evanesced the gore from the floors and various other spots. She rubbed her moist and bleary eyes to clear some of the strong emotions still filling her head. It was time to think clearly and formulate a plan to get out of this mess as harmlessly as possible. She first needed to measure the depths that she was told to dive into, to check how long she could hold her own.
8:55 A.M
Her black coffee was steaming between her hands. And in front of her, besides the slightly nibbled toast, were the three envelops, the doomed envelops. She steadily glared at them. Berating her sanity, she picked up the first envelope, and slowly slid an ivory white neatly folded parchment out. She unfolded it and frowned in frustration as she read the bold cursive list:
List of all the houses whose ledgers are required, and then needed to be merged with The Noble Houses whose list we will provide after completion of this task:
. The Most Noble house of Lestrange
. The Most Noble house of Nott
. The Most Ancient and Noble house of Gaunt
. The Most Ancient and Noble house of Avery
. The Noble house of Miltons
There were a few more in the list which were not so important for her to look over right now. The last few however caught her eye.
. The Most Ancient and Noble house of Sinclair
. The Most Ancient and Noble house of Peverells
. The Most Ancient and Noble house of Black
She snorted at childish wish of Malfoy wanting to merge the Black and Sinclair house with Malfoys. Even if law would allow such an illogical thing Harry wouldn't let it pass before an honor duel. And Malfoy definitely didn't stand a chance in such duels. He would most definitely try to drag her in the head butting they called duel, so she decided that once obtaining the easier ones she would try to negotiate with Draco to reach an understanding and avoid such worthless debacles.
She didn't know anything about the Peveralls and Gaunt lines of families as she never came across such names even in her own family tree line down in the Greengrass library. However she didn't have idle time to recall such names from long forgotten past.
She looked and reviewed the entire list a number of times thoroughly, and deciphered that this envelope would prove a little difficult but was at least possible to complete a fair percentage of it given her status and power of her position. She folded the parchment and placed it back in the envelope.
Next she picked up the mirror remembering vividly the last time she came across such telecommunication device. Unlike the previous one this was a plain and perfectly square of 3 inches side. She waved her wand above it in a dexterous manner and just as expected the little despicable thing had a standard tracking charm which she could remove easily and another one, more intricately woven with magic running in the object. The more disturbing fact was that the rune array was done in blood and she had a hunch as whose blood was used, this did get on her nerves even more. But she had to control herself as the ropes of this play were in that dimwit's hands. If she even tried an unsuccessful attempt at removing the charm, the entire magic in it will be disturbed and the mirror will remain just a plain reflective mirror. Not only that the reversal of magic on the mirror would cause the strength provider of the magic, which is the blood the donor, to lose their entire magic or worst their life. So she had to leave it as it is. But what astonished her more was the fact that since the rune array was beyond Malfoy's mental capability so who did he have on his side or was he simply a spokesperson for the mastermind?
She looked at clock. It was 5 past nine A.M and almost end of her first hour. She needed to be at her desk by 9:15. She summoned her traveling cloak and purse. She then put her sister's bracelet and the other vile objects (envelops and two way mirror) in separate partings of her purse. She just wished that security would take her for granted. She took out her Greengrass crest badge and port-keyed to the antechamber of The Ministry of Magic.
Chapter Ends…
A/N: This was a small update but next will be longer and elaborate.
Read and REVIEW. And I hope that this time I get some more than just 4 reviews.