August 1995:
Draco Malfoy slipped quietly out into the dark hallway, silently praying that nobody had heard the slight click of his door closing behind him.
After pausing for a moment to ascertain that there was no disruption, he continued to tiptoe towards the stairway, all his senses alert for any movement.
For what could have been the millionth time this summer he cursed Potter and how he had freed their house elf back in second year.
This was so much easier when that Elf was here.
Scowling, he kept to the shadows as he made his way downstairs and was careful to avoid the third from the bottom that had a habit of creaking. He had had to find an explanation for why he was awake in the middle of the night a few years back, and since then had been careful to avoid that step.
The last thing he wanted to do was to get caught.
It was moments like this, when he snuck through his house, when he used to ask himself why he bothered? Why he risked whatever punishment his father would inflict on him if he were caught. But there was no particular answer that truly stuck out in his mind.
He glanced up at the Grandfather clock that stood before him, and briefly acknowledged the time; four AM. Taking one last look around he extended his wand, pressing its tip onto the number five on the clocks face, and repeated the action onto the three, seven and ten, before stepping back and holding his breath.
In an instant, the clock slid to the side, revealing a staircase leading down to a passage; Draco didn't pause before entering the passage.
He had followed the staircase, repeated the same pattern over and over for years. It had become his own dirty little secret, a forbidden pleasure that he had grown addicted too.
His lips turned up into a slight smile, one that would never be seen publically on his face, as he thought back to the first time he had seen her.
He had been lonely, having been brought up as an only child, within a family that was extremely particular about whom they allowed into his social circle; so when he had discovered her it had been perfect.
A friend.
A real friend of his own, under his very own roof.
Perhaps he had been too naive to see the signs; in all fairness he had been extremely young when they had met. Blinded by his own excitement, he hadn't bothered to question why she was locked in a secret room, or why she couldn't come outside and play, instead he had sat beside her whenever he could convince Dobby to apparate him down to the passage and talk.
But now, as a fifteen year old boy about to enter his fifth year at Hogwarts, Draco was very much aware of the situation she was in.
The fact that she was locked away, the fact that she had never been allowed to go to Hogwarts or even had her existence mentioned to him signalled that she was in an extremely bad position.
Frowning, and attempting to push away the small voice that plagued him, aching to know what use she had to her father, he quietly opened the door at the end of the passage.
Ready once again to meet with the-girl-with-no-name.
She looked awful when he saw her. She was huddled on the sofa in the corner of the room, staring blankly at the wall opposite her. Her complexion was pale and her clothes were ripped, stained with a reddish colour that looked suspiciously like blood.
When she noticed him at the doorway however, she looked up and smiled. Her grey eyes warming slightly round the edges.
'Draco' she breathed, shifting her position to face him.
He noticed that her movements were stiff.
'You're hurt' his words were not a question.
'How observant of you' she remarked, raising an eyebrow.
'What happened?'
She shrugged.
Her nonchalant reply irritated him and he scowled, frowning with annoyance.
He moved across the room and threw himself down on the sofa beside her, not bothering to reply, if she couldn't be bothered to speak to him properly then he wouldn't bother speaking to her at all.
'You seem angry Draco' she spoke quietly.
'I have no time for you being rude to me' he retorted 'if you're just going to shrug when I speak then I won't come again.'
They both knew that he was lying, but she turned to face him nonetheless, her grey eyes gazing searchingly into his own.
'I'm just so, so tired Draco' she sighed, leaning back into the seat heavily.
For a split second Draco had a crazy urge to put his arm around her, to push her hair out of her face and to comfort her. He ignored the urge, instead clenching his fists.
'Why?' he asked.
She didn't reply for a second, instead she closed her eyes and wiped her hand over her face as if attempting to waken herself up.
'Do you know what they call me Draco?' she asked suddenly, her eyes snapping open and her tone light.
'Sorry, what?' he asked bemused.
Even after all the years he had known her, he had never quite gotten used to the sudden changes in her moods. Unlike the girls at his school he had never been quite able to understand her, she was different; perhaps that was what intrigued him about her.
'Who're they? And what do they call you?' he quickly continued, picking up on what she had just said. It wasn't often that she ever opened up about very much, no matter how much he pried he rarely got her to tell him anything about why she was there.
'What do you call me, Draco?'
'Me? I call you Eve...' he replied, growing increasingly worried that she had lost her mind 'but-'
'- And why do you call me Eve, Draco?' she asked, her voice sounding once again weary.
'Because you asked me too...'
'-And that's because of what they call me' she informed him.
'And what is that?' he asked.
'Eversor' she replied, her voice thick with disgust as she spoke.
'Eversor?' he repeated, smirking slightly at the word 'well that's a ridiculous name.'
'It's latin' she told him quietly, turning once again to look at him fully 'it means The Destroyer.'
His gaze wondered from her silvery grey orbs, to her blood stained clothes and finally onto the chains that bound her arms and legs.
Draco Malfoy didn't sleep a wink that night.
If her estimation was correct it had been two years since they had first gained control of her and it had also been two years since they had tried to do so again.
For the most part Alina had been left alone, she assumed that their either believed that she had fallen into insanity or that she had withdrawn too far within herself to ever resist them again.
They were wrong.
Her lips twitched into a small smirk and her blue eyes twinkled with the ghost of a glint that had not been present in them for years.
However, it had also been a year since she had sensed Sirius.
Logically, she assumed it was because he was no longer in great need of help or in any real anguish so in a way it satisfied her. But two years of total isolation were taking their toll, with no escape from her own mind into his she had no choice but to relive her own memories and pay attention to her own dreams.
Particularly those grey eyes.
They had been haunting her every thought since she had first seen them. They appeared to her in her dreams and whenever she let her mind wonder during her waking hours, their haunting beauty both terrifying her and intriguing her.
Who do they belong too?
Physically shaking her head to block the thoughts, she returned to her newest project; the sharpening of her skills.
Despite the length of time, her determination to escape had only increased rather than waver and she knew without doubt that it was essential that she regained control over her powers.
The idea had come to her when through boredom she had thrown a small pebble across the room.
She then progressed to attempting to move the pebble back to her with her mind; an action that took far longer than she had expected it too and made it startlingly clear to her just how much her powers had suffered over the years.
Eyeing the minute pebble lazily she narrowed her eyes and instantly the tiny stone flew up into the air at her command. With very little concentration she moved the stone around the room, weaving it, turning it and dropping it to within inches of the ground before making it stop dead in its tracks.
Of course, moving a person, or a rock or anything of any true mass would take far more concentration than what she was using on the pebble but the fact remained that her mind was sharper than it had been in years.
She was ready to escape; all she needed was for them to need to use her again.
The opportunity came in the middle of the night in mid August.
Alina had been sleeping, dreaming of standing hand in hand with Sirius whilst two haunting grey eyes stared at them, when she had been awoken by the sound of approaching footsteps.
She jerked awake and her heart began to thump wildly as the door unlocked.
Calm down she told herself I cannot blow this now.
Taking a deep breath as the door swung open, she slumped her shoulders and forced herself to stare blankly at the wall opposite her.
'Good Evening, Alina' he greeted mockingly.
She didn't reply.
'Are you going to behave yourself today?' he asked condescendingly, and it took everything Alina had to prevent herself from attacking him there and then.
You need to get out of here.
His low chuckle sent a heat wave of anger through her veins, and her blood began to boil.
How dare he laugh?
She hated herself for allowing him the pleasure. Had he laughed when he had killed Polly? Had he stood over her body in the same arrogant way he did to her now?
The rage felt good. She embraced it rather than ignored it; it made her feel powerful. Her fingertips felt riddled with electricity, as if her body were begging her to let itself go, to show them what she was really capable of.
Not yet she warned herself.
'Legilimens' he stated, and immediately she felt the effects of his spell pressing against her mind 'Imperio.'
She allowed him a small entrance, she did not want him to become suspicious just yet, and he seemed appeased.
'Stand' he commanded, and with a lump of bile in her throat she complied with his wishes.
'Put this on' he continued, throwing a black hooded robe before her, once again she did as he said.
He flicked his wand and the chains that held her captive fell loose; she was free.
'Come.'
He did not turn to see if she was complying; instead he turned on his heel and swept through the doorway and up the staircase.
Stomach riddled with nerves and with her heart threatening to break through her rip cage, she followed his lead. For the first time in fourteen years she was consciously leaving her prison and she knew that she would not have this chance again, she needed to ensure that she executed her escape perfectly.
He led her up the staircase and they came to what appeared to be a dead end, however with a swish of his wand the bricks in the wall shifted to form a doorway and without a moment's pause he led her through it.
The first thing she became aware of when she stepped into the hallway was the colour.
It danced before her eyes and she drank it all in hungrily.
Even if it was green, anything was better than white, she had to fight the urge to shudder.
Without making it obvious she allowed her eyes to flicker around the room and take in her surroundings.
It was obviously the main hallway to the house; the ceilings were high, held up by articulate marble pillars. A grand staircase took precedence of the room and reminded Alina faintly of her home.
She couldn't help pausing on the family portrait that held central place above the staircase, including three people all with white blonde hair.
She instantly recognized the man before her as one member; Lucius Malfoy, with his nose upturned and arrogance oozing out of the frame, and she assumed the woman and the child were his wife and son.
The monster shouldn't be allowed to breed
So this had been where she had been kept, where she had been moved to from the De'Valles; the Malfoy Manor.
Struggling to keep her composure at the thought, she tore her eyes away from the picture and forced herself to stare blankly ahead of her.
She needed to stay focused.
They waited for a few more minutes in the hallway, for what exactly she was unsure, until a grandfather clock that stood just before her slid aside and two figures stepped out from behind it.
One was instantly recognizable as Mrs Malfoy from the portrait she had just studied, and the other was concealed by a hood; one that was identical to her own.
'What took you so long?' Lucius snapped, his eyes flashing.
'She resisted' Mrs Malfoy replied quietly, looking nervously at the figure beside her 'she's doing more so with each time'
'Well I had no problem so I do not see why you should have' Lucius retorted coldly 'now we must leave, we cannot keep the Dark Lord waiting.'
The Dark Lord...
The words sent a chill down her spine and she felt her breath shorten. They were taking them to Voldemort.
For a second she considered making her move out of the sheer panic that flooded through her, but her sense told her that the house would have every device possible to prevent her from escaping.
Her gaze flickered over to the other cloaked figure beside her; who were they?
Another prisoner like herself?
But her thoughts were cut short as Lucius' cold hand suddenly clasped her wrist.
'Are you ready?' he asked his wife.
With a quick nod in reply, Alina felt herself being sucked up by the sensation of sidelong apparition.
When they landed, she felt sick and light headed, a side effect of not having travelled that way in fourteen, and it took a moment for her to take in her surroundings.
They were outside and it was dark, it was not, however, cold at all, which signalled a warm summer evening.
She did not pause to appreciate the sensation of the night air on her skin, the way it caressed her lungs like a long-lost-lover, for the foreboding manor house that stood before her made her chest painfully tight and her knees weak.
Looking at the house from innocent bystander's eyes, it would look nothing less than picturesque with the roses that framed the walls and the old fashioned beamed windows. But Alina was not an innocent bystander, she could sense the horror that was closed in behind the cheery red door, she knew without a doubt that if Voldemort saw her he would not for a second be fooled that she was under a spell, and once he knew that she would be killed.
She had to act now.
It didn't take even a second for her to succumb to the rage that had built within her for so many years, her fingertips crackled with unreleased power and her eyes were almost blinded by the electric vibes of her strength. She concentrated on the man beside her, who still had a firm grasp on her hand and she lashed out her free arm, her palm outstretched, heaving him from the ground and sending him flying several feet backwards with a startled cry. The harsh crack of his skull connecting with the brick wall that surrounded the property was enough to signify that he had been knocked unconscious.
The woman turned on her in an instant, sending a viscous beam of purple light towards her.
'Protego' Alina screamed in her mind holding her hands out protectively before her and flinched as a blinding pain shot through her skull causing her to stumble to the side.
Spots of white began to blur her vision and she felt her energy falling to a dangerously low level, but before the woman had another chance to attack she threw her arm out with a final swish and sent her stumbling backwards knocking into the cloaked figure beside her.
Completely drained Alina pictured the first place to come into her mind and span on the spot.
Just before she disappeared her eyes caught the cloaked figure whose hood had fallen down.
A flash of blonde hair and shocked grey eyes.
A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews and I am so glad that you're all enjoying the story! For those of you who havent reviewed I hope you're enjoying it too!
Now for the bad news, I am going away to Thailand for three and a half weeks (Bancock will have me) so I won't be able to update then...I will get another chapter up before I go on Thursday and will update again as soon as i'm back!
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and please review I really do love reading them xxx