Still don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters!

December 1993

"I told you not to move," he snarled, and Daisy felt her blood freeze as she froze while on her way back inside from Hagrid's hut just before curfew.

"I didn't," she murmured, "You left, sir. What do you want with me?"

"What do you think? You're fourteen, without a wand – no thanks to me – and are a Gryffindor, like me, and are in love with Snivellous. Consider this a favor as me rescuing you from the oversized bat," he sneered before picking her up by her waist. "If you scream, I'll kill you."

"What do you want? If it's Harry you're after, you had plenty of chances," she whispered frantically.

"The rat," he said calmly, "Weasley's rat. He's an illegal animagus, Peter Pettigrew. It's because of that bastard that I'm in Azkaban."

"Then let me help you clear your name," she pled, looking up at the castle hoping someone would find that she was missing if she left a trail. But what?

The Tie!

She quickly shed her tie and twisted it into a knot and making a dog out of it before dropping it on the ground. She hoped to the Four Founders that Snape would find it or translate its meaning, and come to her rescue. Her Half-Blood Prince had always come to her rescue before, why should this year be any different?

She was taken through the night into a small, dark cave. She was thrown down brutally, and he started yanking off his trousers.

"Please, don't!" she yelled, "I don't want to know what's down there!"

"Then why the hell do you insist upon staying with Snivellous? You do realize he's married, don't you?" he snarled, "I pity the blind bat foolish enough to marry the greasy bat! And I pity their kids for having that bastard for a father!"

"Please!" Daisy pled desperately, "Anything! Just – just don't rape or kill me!"

"Oh, you'll be willing," he snarled as he pulled out Daisy's wand. "Imperio!"

Daisy felt the strongest urge to let him in and let him take her "to bed", so to speak, but she fought it tooth and nail.

"No!" she yelled, "I'll never let a criminal like you take me! Never! I'd rather kill Harry or Professor Lupin first!"

He froze, and the urge stopped. They were silent for a while before he was at her throat with the knife once more. In a desperate act of self-preservation, she quickly explained that by reading ahead in the textbook, she figured out Lupin was a werewolf, pieced together that Snape had been brewing the Wolfsbane Potion every month, and that Snape's wife was impartial to house ties, and that she'd never even met the woman.

"Fine," Black snarled, "But I'm warning you – any funny business and you'll be crying."

"Isn't that what you, Potter, Pettigrew and Lupin did during school? Make life hell for the Slytherin students for your own amusement?" she shot back angrily, and he slapped her so hard she was sent into the back of the cave.

Her head rammed against the back, and she felt her vision swimming and her world completely tilting on its axis. She closed her eyes and forced herself not to cry, forced herself to create an emotionless mask that Snape was so famous for. He slapped her again across the face, yelling angrily that if she mentioned the Marauders one more time that he'd make her wish she'd have never been born. She secretly thought that she was already beginning to wish just that simply by being in the same vicinity as him.

Over the course of two weeks, she always snuck the most recent newspaper Black brought back for reading and threw the previous one into the fire. It was in this method that she learned that the teachers had discovered that she had been kidnapped, and that Black had left a kidnapper's ransom on her head. The ransom was Harry Potter carrying the three familiars of him and his two best friends, as well as Snape carrying his familiar and having broken his wand. She cringed, knowing it was a ruse, but also that Dumbledore wouldn't allow it.

As Black kept going into Hogsmeade whenever it wasn't a Hogsmeade weekend for students, she kept working on changing into her animagus form. She then began projecting in her sleep and then realized that she was becoming close to being an illegal animagus. It was only a few days into the future, but it was close enough to trick Black.

It was just as the Christmas holidays began that he took the knife to her chest and demanded that she take him to bed. She flat out refused, and he ripped her shirt off of her and began tearing his knife in a large circle over her collarbone. She was silent and refused to cry, knowing he'd win, and she felt the blood cascading down her front. She felt him begin to take the knife lower, and she grabbed it and attempted to stab him.

In the process, however, he stabbed her near her heart and her near his stomach. he cringed and backed off, yanking his knife with him, and spat in her direction angrily before going to rip a piece of his clothes off to use as a bandage. Once he was done, he shifted and went into Hogsmeade. As he left, she began breathing heavily, her vision swimming from loss of blood.

It was just when she was feeling as though she were about to die that she felt a different kind of hot wetness on her chest, one that she knew must have been a phoenix. She felt Jade's familiar warmth and smiled gently as she tried to move her arm to pet her phoenix. It was of no use, and her arm only twitched before the phoenix shifted to try to heal her chest wound, which had begun clotting. With a few more minutes of tears, she felt her chest close up.

"Jade," she rasped, "Go-Snape-lead-here…"

Jade shed a single solitary tear before flying off to obey her mistress. Black was astounded that she had been so miraculously healed, but he saw by a single red feather that it was a phoenix.

"So, you truly are loyal to Dumbledore," he said calmly, "Fine, then. We'll see just how long he lets you rot here."

With that said, he began leaving her alone more and more often, distancing himself from her much, much more. As he did so, she went back to work on her animagus transformation and she finally did so just before Christmas. She could feel that it had fur, and that she was warmer in it immediately. Her projections kept petting her fur quietly and silently, never once uttering a single word.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, she tottered up and left the cave while Black was asleep. She raced unsteadily up to the Hogwarts Castle as fast as her weak legs could carry her, even though she fell often. She picked herself back up every time and finally tottered into the castle greenhouses. It was the first one, the least dangerous, and she collapsed under a table, relishing the warmth. Her entire body ached now, and she felt as though her head were about to explode as she fell asleep with her head on her paws.

It was the next day that Professor Sprout found her before floating her limp form up to the castle and into the staff room, asking very confused colleagues whose dog that was. It was a relief to hear Snape's voice again, and Daisy finally let herself stir just enough to whine as she heard his voice. Unfortunately, it wasn't heard by anyone.

"Pomona, is that thing even alive?" Snape scoffed as he flicked back open a newspaper.

"I don't know," she admitted, "I only thought to bring it in."

"And why, pray tell, did you cover it with your cloak?" he growled, "It's useless trying to keep a dead animal warm, you know."

Daisy managed to conjure enough strength to get up off the floor and take a few tottering steps towards Snape before collapsing and transforming back into her human form.

"Great Godric!" one teacher yelled in shock as she collapsed in her human form. "She's an illegal animagus!"

"That must be how she escaped Black," Snape said calmly, "nothing to do now but to get her up to Poppy."

"I'll do it," McGonagall volunteered, "she's my student, and I'm the one who taught her how to begin the training when she told me she'd need it at the beginning of the year."

"We'll need an alibi so she doesn't get killed," Flitwick squeaked.

"I believe I can help with that," a calm voice said, and it was immediately quiet to give the headmaster time to talk. "I'm sure Cornelius will understand if we are elaborate enough to convince him that this was the only way for her to escape Black."

"I hope you're right about that," Snape said calmly, "She'll die if you aren't. And we wouldn't want an innocent student's death on our head, would we, Albus?"

"Severus!" the entire staff room yelled angrily, and he calmly stepped over her unconscious body and swept out of the staff room.

"That man has some serious issues," Charity scoffed, "I don't know why you keep him headmaster."

Okay, so she's stuck in Black's clutches. This is why she comes to hate him in the end, and is glad to see him go come time for Order of the Phoenix.

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