One Day at a Time

The London Underground

The first thing I thought when I next woke up was that I was far too disoriented to simply be waking up from a night's sleep. The searing pain in my chest was also a bit of a tip off. A breath in and fire engulfed my lungs. A breath out and it felt as if a dragon had taken residence inside my ribcage. I didn't try to open my eyes, instead resting in the blackness and trying desperately to recall the last thing I could remember. My mind was too disconcerted to concentrate, though, and instead I tried to figure out where I was. Wherever I was, I was lying on something soft and relatively squishy, a bed I would be willing to bet. I felt the blanket beneath my fingertips and decided that even if I was injured, I couldn't be in Hogwart's hospital wing, because their sheets were much more scratchy and rough. Could I be in St. Mungo's? No, it would be nosier then, with the sounds of other patients and bustling healers. It was very quiet in this room, wherever I was, and the only thing I could hear was far off tinkling noises.

I slowly opened my eyes, still trying to ignore the burning pain in my chest. I was lying flat on my back and the first thing I noticed was that the ceiling consisted of the large cinder blocks that only existed in the dungeons. From what I could see, the room looked extraordinarily like my quarters, except the belongings were different than mine and the door was on the opposite side. The small rustling sounds became louder and I heard someone walking into the room I was in. A voice with a hint of concern in it asked, "Are you awake?"

"What happened?" I croaked out, raising my head slightly so I could see Severus, the person who was talking to me. A rather blood-soaked towel was resting on my chest where the searing pain seemed to be originating from, and my robes appeared to be heavily blood-stained.

He returned to a brisk, business-like tone, "Carrow was aiming at an Auror but that wizard dodged the curse, so it hit you instead. Knocked you out cold, too." There was a moment of silence while I tried to regain my senses and my memory. I heard him walk to another part of the room, and soon there were more of the soft tinkling noises I had heard earlier. Was it glass brushing glass? My ears weren't well trained enough to identify the sound. After a few more quiet moments, he spoke again, in an almost conversational tone, "How long have you been a Death Eater?"

I felt my blood freeze, while my mind immediately started racing. "Who have you told?" I whispered in a horrified tone. I did not want him to know that I was a Death Eater, even if he was also one. I did not want anybody to know I was a Death Eather; my own Death Eater brothers did not even know. I saw every positive image anybody had ever formed of me going up in flames. I saw the end of my career, not only at Hogwarts, but just about everywhere. I was so entirely focused on what to do that I barely felt my wound from the curse.

"Why would I tell anybody?" was his response. I calmed slightly, but I was still shaking from nervousness and shock. I had tried so hard to build up a certain positive image of myself and, now, to be caught was almost unbearable.

I closed my eyes again and searched my memory. Slowly that evening's events came back to me:

I was building a card pyramid in the teacher's lounge when I felt the sharp pain in my left arm characteristic of the Dark Mark burning. After trying to leave without Sev suspecting anything, I ran towards the Forbidden Forest, where I changed into my Death Eater robes and touched my mark to apparate. I reappeared in a dark alley in some city, where other Death Eaters from my roughly ten person regiment were already standing. I did not know the name, nor the face of the commander of our regiment; I recognized his short, stocky figure only by the different cut of his robes. Energetically, he started giving orders and describing our mission to us: we were going to attack one part of the London Underground, and it was probably going to be an easy mission, he informed us, because it was a place where there was unlikely to be any wizards.

We strode down the stairs, and the head of our regiment yelled with an almost insane cackle, "Listen up, Muggles!" The Muggles standing nearby turned and gave all of us very confused looks. "Once the Dark Lord rises, you're going to be our slaves, our play toys, our target practice! So we thought we'd get a bit of practice now. And just to kill two snidgets with one Bludger, we thought we'd start to disable your pathetic method of transportation—you won't need it for much longer."

It was clear the Muggles hadn't understood most of what he had said, but they had clearly understood that it was threatening. The Muggles almost looked like confused, uncomprehending animals. One man yelled, "Freaks!" and his lone word echoed in the tunnel.

"You dare to call us the freaks, Muggle?" the head of our regiment said in a deadly tone, before whipping out his wand and adding "Levicorpus!" With a yelp the Muggle was suddenly hanging upside down in the air, almost as if an invisible hand was holding him by the ankle. He dropped to the ground again in a crumpled pile, before a Cruciatus curse elicited another reaction from him. "Well, what are you doing?" our leader yelled behind to us. "Go on, attack!"

We separated and I took to attacking the walls of the tunnel, figuring that would keep their method of transportation from working. I didn't like attacking Muggles, and I was happy to have an excuse to do something else. General bedlam ruled for what must have been ten minutes, with the Death Eaters in complete control, and me trying to ignore the Muggles' screams. Suddenly, though, there were yells from other Death Eaters, and other robed figures started appearing—Aurors. One witch started sending curses towards me, and together with another masked Death Eater we responded in kind. Even with the two of us, though, it was almost an even match. Finally, the other Death Eater disarmed and immobilized her. She was soon screaming from the Cruciatus curse, while I turned my attention back to the tunnel. I was noticing that it looked like another regiment of Death Eaters had been called as back-up, when the Death Eater who was next to me turned and said mock politely "Would you like a turn?"

"What?" I said, before I realized he meant a turn of using the Cruciatus curse on the disarmed Auror in front of us. "Oh, no, I'm good," I quickly replied, glad that the mask hid my unenthusiastic facial expression.

"You have a chance to cause this scum of the earth to pay, and you won't take it? Too weak, too afraid?" the other Death Eater was quickly becoming angry. "Almost sounds like you have Muggle blood. Maybe I ought to report you to the commander, huh?"

Behind my mask I pursed my lips and curtly replied, "Of course not, I just thought I'd let you have the opportunity. I'd love to." I was lying through my teeth, but I had no choice. "Crucio," I said, and with that the witch in front of me started screaming again. But now the ratio of Death Eaters to Aurors had changed again—the Order of the Phoenix had appeared, recognizable by their lack of a distinct uniform. "I'm going to take over damaging the tunnel again," I said, leaving the witch in front of us to the mercy of the other Death Eater as I ran a bit further down to where the tunnel was still in near perfect condition. As soon as I stopped, though, I felt something grab my robe. I jumped, startled, and saw a young Muggle woman holding on to the bottom of my robe with both hands. She was bleeding severely from many deep gashes, and it was clear she was in a great amount of pain.

"Please…" she was pleading, and I stood glued to the spot, horrified at her wounds and unsure what to do. "Please…help me…have mercy…" Judging by the amount of blood she was losing, it was clear she wasn't long for this world. By the time the battle ended, she would have already slowly bled to death or be too close to bleeding to death to be saved.

After a moment's hesitation I pointed my wand at her and whispered "Avada Kedavra." With a rush of green light her suffering was over. I looked at her still form and vaguely wondered what she had meant by "mercy." What mercy ever meant.

Looking around the tunnel, I noticed that it had become even more crowded with wizards and witches, only this time it was another reinforcement of Death Eaters. I was surprised that the Inner Circle would be summoned for such a small mission, but I supposed it was because the Order of the Phoenix was present. With so many people crammed into such a small space, complete chaos was ruling. It looked as though any deflected spells would be just as likely to hit a Muggle as an Auror as a Death Eater. I attempted to ignore the battles raging around me, but then I heard a voice that I recognized, one that stopped me in my tracks —Severus's. I couldn't hear the words over all of the echoing yells and screams, but I recognized the timbre and my eyes locked onto the masked figure which was him. I kept attacking the tunnel, but I also kept one eye on him the entire time, glad at his close proximity to me. He was battling an Auror, and further away, but in a clear line, there was another Death Eater-Auror pair. As I was watching them, this other Death Eater cast a curse, which the Auror dodged. The curse kept going in a straight line, though, and with Severus's back to it he couldn't see that it was coming towards him. Almost panicked, my feet ran in his direction of their own volition, and without a thought, I was standing in the line of the curse. It felt as though a Bludger had hit me full force, and I could feel myself falling backwards. I couldn't remember anything else.

"What happened after I blacked out?" I asked Severus, after what must have been a very long silence while I was going through my memories.

"The battle went steadily downhill as more Aurors started showing up. Eventually we were ordered to retreat and since I was nearby your body—or, I should say, some Death Eater's body, since I didn't know it was you—I grabbed onto it before Apparating away," he briefly summarized.

I nodded and was seized by a sudden fit of coughing; the pain intensified "So this is mine?" I gestured towards my bloodied robes.

"The towel is mine," he articulated almost sarcastically. "But, yes, the blood is all yours. I used a spell to try and cause the wound to coagulate but the curse was powerful enough that all it did was slow the blood flow. I'm brewing a blood-replenishing potion right now," he gestured with his head towards a part of the room I couldn't see.

"Where am I?" I asked, feeling almost childish that I had so many questions.

"You happen to be in my quarters. Your portrait wouldn't let me in and I didn't think it would be a good idea for Madame Pomfrey to see you like this," he drawled. I nodded again and closed my eyes. I heard the sound of footsteps and then the tinkling of moving glass. A moment later Sev was standing over me, holding a beaker filled with a bright red liquid. I drank the bitter-sweet potion, and closed my eyes again, feeling rather fatigued. "Liseli," he started in an almost hesitating tone of voice. "Why are you a Death Eater?"

I was struck speechless by his question. "What—what do you mean?" I said, as though there was something I could fail to understand in his simple words.

He was looking at me with a thoughtful expression on his face. "Most Death Eaters either enjoy causing pain and seeing others in pain, or they're fanatical about pureblood supremacy. You…you don't strike me as being either."

I was still stunned at his question, and my mouth hung limply open, unsure how to respond. Part of me didn't want to respond at all, feeling that his question was far too personal. Finally after a long debate with myself, I asked him a question myself, bitterness slowly seeping into my voice. "Do you know what it feels like to never be good enough?"

"Quite," he replied, steadily holding my gaze.

"I was never good enough. Either because I was a girl, or because I was the youngest sibling, or because my family wasn't the type of proper wealthy Pureblood family that Slytherin mostly consisted of. I thought—I thought joining would help me become powerful, either as an individual or as being a part of the whole," I replied, almost embarrassed at the logic my seventeen year-old self had used when deciding to join. "What about you?"

He seemed startled that I was asking him his own question. "I liked Dark Magic," he said shortly, after a few moments of not replying. His rather succinct response surprised me, and I quickly reflected on all of the complaints I had ever heard from students against him; none of them had ever complained that he discriminated against Muggle-born students. How ironic, I thought, Neither of us are pureblood elitists, yet we're both Death Eaters.

I guess I fell asleep again because the next thing I knew I was opening my eyes to the faint rustling sounds of someone moving around. Severus strode into my line of vision and I noticed he was now wearing his normal black robes as opposed to his Death Eater robes, (which were also black, but a different style). "Are you awake?" he drawled while buttoning the cuffs of his sleeves, a safeguard against them rolling up and showing his Dark Mark.

"Yes," I replied, struggling to sit up, and desperately ignoring the searing pain ripping through my chest. Sev told me to save my energy, and with a slight frown I laid back down, hating myself for being weak. At least I had stopped bleeding, although my robes were still saturated with now-dry blood; the smell was enough to make me sick.

"I'll send for a House Elf to bring you breakfast," he replied distractedly as he walked towards the door.

"Wait!" I blurt out suddenly. "You're—you're not going to tell anybody I'm a Death Eater, are you, Sev?"

"Of course not, Liseli," he replied in a tone that made it seem that clearly he thought his course of action was obvious.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The House Elf that appeared to bring me food was rather oddly dressed. For one thing, it was wearing clothes, which in itself was odd. I suspiciously regarded its long neon yellow top, one yellow mustard sock, and one burgundy sock, and wondered if it was actually from the kitchens. It informed that it did work for Hogwarts and that its name was Dobby, before disappearing to bring me breakfast.

After what seemed like quite some time, the painting to the room opened again and Severus strolled in. "I informed them that the curse your brothers used on you has relapsed, and that's why you weren't at breakfast," he explained without an introduction. "Do you still have your wand?" I reached in my pocket, and took out my wand, wandering why he was asking. He touched the tip of his wand to the tip of my mine and said "Evincious." The wand became warm between my fingertips. "Pomfrey insisted that if you weren't staying at the hospital wing you be able to contact someone if your condition suddenly deteriorates." It sounded as though he did not think very much of Pomfrey.

"And how will this incantation help?" I doubtfully wondered aloud.

He seemed annoyed at having to explain. "If you say the incantation my wand will direct me towards you. Oh, and your owl delivered this," he finished and threw a small scrap of parchment at me.

I unrolled it and held it before my eyes. It was written in very shaky hand writing, with many of the letters misformed.

I know I said maybe we could do lunch again this week, but I'm not feeling well enough to leave the house.

Sorry,

Tarazet

I stopped thinking about what Sev had said, and concentrated my attention on the letter. Clearly, something was wrong. Tarazet was not the type to be a drama queen over an injury, nor was he the type to create excuses and lie to me. Therefore, either something was keeping him from coming to Hogsmeade that he was unable to admit, or he actually was too unwell to leave the house. I didn't write anything back, but his letter stayed on my mind for a long while.

…

A/N: So Liseli being a Death Eater isn't something that I decided on just now; I've known it since the beginning of the story, and I've been attempting to drop hints along the way (she refers to Voldemort as 'The Dark Lord', there was another time she felt a pain in her arm and had to suddenly leave, etc.) The problem with posting your first draft of a story on , though, is that it means when I realize I should have dropped more hints, I can't change the earlier chapters (or at least not drastically.) So, my apologies for that.

On a different note, thanks a lot to Mywaychan, tibys, angelofire, Leslie, and argyle owl for reviewing! Thank you also to everybody who had has favorited this or put this story under story alert. Reviews are always really appreciated; feedback, opinions on characters or plots, guessing what's going to happen, even just knowing that somebody's reading is great!