Rude Awakenings.
A/N: Exposition! Because you know you love it! No, but seriously, this sets up the next arc of the storyline so that we can jump straight to the Dragon next. Took a while to write from scratch, what with all the bullsh-ahem, dramatic intrigue that has to be included, but I hope the character development makes up for it. Oh, and whoever guesses who the cameo at the start of the chapter is, gets to propose a name that will be included in the story later. And no, I am not crossing this story with the Cameo's universe. Adding Angst to a world that's about to go about as tits-up as you can get without turning the British Isles into a bizarre amalgamation of Eritrea, Yemen and Afghanistan would just be silly.
"Ha ha, very good little one!"
Rose's brain hurts. To be fair, everything hurts, but her head is the one that she's aware of. It was kind of hard not to focus on that when you could count every fold in your brain just by which bits wanted to make you scream.
"You definitely surprised me on that one" a voice, faint, melodic, told her. Rose went through the standard wake-up limb check, twitching each appendage in sync to determine what bits of her were broken, cut off, holed through or worse. Satisfied with the fact that she was only sporting a heavy bruise or two, she then proceeded to open her eyes.
Huh. She was in what, at first glance, looked like hell. She was surrounded by ruins. The gutted skeletons of skyscrapers loomed in the far distance, with the mounds of rubble closest to her being completely overrun with an evil-looking black moss. Glass, vehicles, plastics, bones, everything was old, broken, dead and strewn across the place. But that wasn't what one noticed first when looking at the ground. The two-three centimetre high tide of blood covering the floor was. What the? "Blood?" She croaked, her voice quieted by her wanting to not trigger the pain in her vocal cords.
"Oh, noticed that, did you? Everyone does." The voice said, forcing Rose to fumble around for her glasses as she tried squinting at the source of the sound. "Here, by the way." It said, handing her her specs. Rose put them on and took a closer look at the woman in front of her. Alabaster pale skin, blue hair, red eyes, petite bod, stark naked... Rose let out a small huh before focusing back on the girl's face. Well, at least she knew that blue was the lady's natural hair colour.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I have to ask this; have I gone nuts? I mean, I get abducted by a teleporting magical cup, surrounded by people with the worst taste in clothes I've seen outside of a Capitol TV studio and am given a wand that had me so high on crazy that I seem to have passed out. And now I'm... here and am talking to... you." She said, waving at the woman in front of her. "I mean, i've never heard of a flood of blood and I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't go walking through one without shoes on. Or pants. Hell, underpants should have been a given here, but-"
"Enough." the lady said quietly. "No, you are not insane. At least, you are just as insane now as you were before your graduation ceremony. And secondly, yes, I would not advise mortals to go walking through a town drowning in blood without protection. But!" At this, she pointed at herself whilst smiling. "I am not mortal. So I can dress however I like and never die. So there." And with that, she jabbed a finger into Rose's shoulder, eliciting a growl from the girl.
"Immortal, huh? Heard that one before."
"Oh no, I am most definitely not immortal. I can still die, it's just that I get to say when rather than having that choice taken away from me."
"But you just said that you were immortal."
"No, I said I wasn't mortal. That doesn't mean that I can't die. It's just... a more flexible kind of mortality than most get to enjoy, is all." She sighed. "Look, don't go around worrying your squishy little meat brain about it, alright? Let's just say that I am a higher being you cannot kill and leave it at that." The lady chuckled at Rose's expression. "Immortal huh?" She said in a fake tough guy tone before snorting. "Please, I've heard more ominous from people and things far dumber than you. You can do better. And that, in fact, is why I'm here."
Rose blinked. "Huh?"
The lady frowned. "Right. Guess this is all a bit of a shock to you then. Look, when you took the wand back there, what you were doing was accepting a bond with an incredibly powerful magical artifact. You're the first that this wand has done this with since its original owner and it's a bond that can only be undone by destroying your soul. So, since you were so eager to accept this bond, the wand decided to call upon its old owner and relay your demand with a little note saying 'do this for me please'. Well, that's not quite accurate, but close enough for cosmological work. And, since you asked for knowledge, tada!" The naked, red-eyed bluenette with drying blood splashed up to her naked calves shouted out. "Here I am. Knowledge, just as you asked."
"Ooooh-kay!" Yes, Rose thought, she had clearly gone as bug-house nuts as her old minions had said she was. "Well, while it was nice talking to you, do you know the way out of this, uh, dump?"
"Oh, sure!" She said, before reciting a string of gibberish instructions that Rose simply could not follow at all. "Ah, sorry, didn't catch that? Guess it's because you don't have the knowledge needed to get out of this, huh?" She then sighed and pouted at Rose with a definite 'spoilsport' vibe coming off her. "You're no fun. Look, you really aren't going crazy. For what it's worth, this is the point of convergence between your soul and the higher level Energy states of being mortals have taken to calling Magic. Pssht, as if you can boil down physical forces only attainable in dimensions your pitiful standard models can't even begin to guess at into a single bloody word, but anyway, this is where the, ah, magic happens, as it were. And I was called into being specifically to help impart knowledge unto you."
"Right." Rose nodded. Better to just follow whatever her new split personality aspect was going on about until she woke up and beat whoever had spiked her drugs of the medical variety with drugs of the fun variety into a weeping, twitching, pulpy mass. "And how do you plan on imparting that knowledge to me?"
The girl frowned and cupped her face in one of her dainty little arms. "Weeeell, I could just do the boring thing and spend the next ten years of your life forcing you to study in your sleep. Or we can go with the quick, dirty, painful and far more entertaining version. And, well, sorry but I am sooo not spending the next ten years haunting your conscience. I've seen what your meaty, squishy self thinks is a normal day and I really don't want to have a front row seat on one of your little adventures in massacre-land."
Rose paled in anger at the thing's words, but nodded nonetheless. It was an unforgiveable insult, but it also happened to be true.
The lady's smile returned. "Awesome! Glad to see some of those neurons of yours haven't short-circuited under the stress yet. Now look, this will hurt you and entertain me, so don't worry about screaming. Only I will get to laugh at your oh-so-delicious screams. Now git!" She roared, uppercutting little Rose so hard that the girl went flying into a far deeper pool of blood than the one she'd been standing in. And, as her scream of pain was drowned out by the crimson liquid suddenly seeping down her mouth and into her lungs, she had to say that the crazy thing's predictions of this hurting her a lot were spot on.
"I say that we kill her."
"Severus-"
"As soon as possible, Albus." The sallow Potions Master pressed on through his boss's objections. "Merlin knows, her putting a knife to the throat of the Supreme Mugwump counts as sufficient cause for having her executed." He finished quietly, his monotone pronouncement giving away just how badly shaken the Legilimens really was. Occlumency had a tendency to dull the display of emotions as the practitioner sidelined any potential backdoors a Mind reader could exploit to gain access to the deeper, more instinctual cortical functions. Killing someone with your mind was not an empty boast for a legilimens when they were capable of switching the 'breathing' function with the 'farting' function in the brain. And Severus was an unfortunately passionate man, a rare and short-lived breed of Mind Masters. For him to sound like a muggle automaton was a dead giveaway that he'd been seriously spooked by the Girl-Who-Lived's arrival.
A silence followed that statement, stretching itself over several minutes as the Headmaster pondered the Spymaster's implied report. Albus had no illusions as to just what made Snape toe the line he set the man. Severus had been openly derisive on the rare occasions Dumbledore or anyone else threatened him with Azkaban, stating quite clearly that he was due to end up there at some stage anyway. Ditto with murder threats from former colleagues who felt that he was coming far too close to betraying their cause for their comfort.
Mention Lily or Rose, on the other hand, and the man was putty in Albus's more than capable hands. A fact that, unbeknownst to anyone else, had him cackle madly in the dead of night. Here was a man proud and stupid enough to betray Voldemort at the height of the Dark Lord's powers, eating out of the old man's hand like a lost puppy. Yep, ole Albie still got it!
So if Severus Snape said that the daughter of Lily Evans-Potter was worth killing, he was effectively throwing away fifteen years of dedicated service, not to mention what the man saw as his belated shot at redemption. Snape had been convinced, by Dumbledore no less, that Rose was important enough to warrant protection. That Rose was his way of settling his debt to the only true, if slightly vindictive, friend he'd ever had. That Rose had to be kept alive no matter the consequences. That, indeed, that consideration trumped all others, including swift justice for the Death Eater's victims.
Karkaroff's little act was enough for Dumbledore to put away those he considered to be the greatest danger to Rose after the war, though the savage glee he'd experienced at seeing that idiot Crouch's face after Junior got Azkabanned was a nice bonus indeed. Severus's case was bogged down in the courts, often surreptitiously shunted into the farthest-reaching backlog stacks Dumbledore could find. Until Lupin had come forward and proven the old dog's innocence thanks to a careful re-creation of the Godric's Hollow fidelius charm during the hunt for Rose, Dumbledore had manoeuvred Sirius Black's trial right to the bottom of the Wizengamot Session's priorities list for the better part of a decade. Black still hadn't forgiven him for that.
It was a pattern that repeated itself in thousands of little ways. He couldn't jail the Death Eaters without provoking them into rebelling. Indeed, if Tom hadn't been such a twit and allowed them to murder, rape and steal to their shrivelled, toxic little hearts' content, the assembled Death Eaters would have simply voted themselves into Government. That was probably what Tom had been trying for, too, and would have succeeded if it hadn't been for meddling old coots and nosy one-eyed dickheads with magical x-ray vision. With Tom at the helm, the Death Eaters had played at being Dark Wizards, killing for the sake of killing without stopping to think if there wasn't a more efficient way of doing things like, say, bribing their way into key controlling positions in the Ministry. But, cornered by the Law closing in, with everything to lose, Albus knew just what lengths purebloods in general and Dark Wizards in particular would go to to keep their position.
So legal eradication was out. A rebellion was expensive at the best of times and, with the number of Death Eaters with the keys to the Ministry in their clammy little hands, it would be a woefully short time before they were completely in charge of everything. Illegal eradication was out as well. For one thing, who could Albus trust to kill them all off and not turn around and do exactly what the Death Eaters intended to do in the first place, namely take over Magical Britain and use it as a springboard for invading other magical nations? Albus, never having had much of a stomach for assassination anyway, had shelved that one faster than he should have and spent many a Wizengamot session brushing the dust off such thoughts & calculating the total cost, in galleons, of killing every Death Eater stepping forward to denounce their country's erosion of traditional values & cultural integrity and how enslaving the mudbloods would solve all their muggle contamination woes.
No, Albus did none of these things, even if he fantasised more about those than he did about what Minerva's grandmother's tits had looked like back when the two of them had played quidditch together. The uniforms were far more liberal in his day... Wait, he was gay now. Gellert's abs had been quite firm too... mmmm.
He started drooling before getting back on track again. No, he settled on doing something less satisfying, too wimpy for his normal tastes but far more cost-effective in his opinion. He neutered the bastards. Their political, economic and social power structures were mercilessly demolished whenever and wherever Albus found a weakness. It was a ruinous enterprise, draining whatever was left of the Order of the Phoenix's war chest dry, but it did have the positive effect of driving the vast majority of Dark Families straight into the poorhouse. In fact, of all those that had explicitly supported Voldemort, only the Malfoys were still rich and powerful enough to influence matters decisively. However, watching Lucius fume as he compared his fortune to his wastrel of a grandfather, a man who loved gambling as much as he loved making bastards every time he whipped out his equipment, gave him joy in his supposedly old age.
Though it did satisfy the little vindictive urges to whip out his own wand (dirty old man, he thought to himself) and turn all those murdering assholes into mayflies, it was done for the same reason as everything else; the Greater Good. If it meant that his country recovered and went on to become stronger & more equal after the war, then he would endure the pleading eyes of those that had lost parents, siblings, husbands, wives and offspring when they came to ask for him to personally intervene and speed up this procedure or that trial evaluation meeting so that their dead could rest easy once and for all.
Hell, if it meant the ultimate defeat of Voldemort and the end of any chance of another Dark Lord rising in his wake, then he would gladly Kedavra the lot of them and blame it on a bunch of half-blooded orphans, a tactic favoured by Phineas Nigellus Black during his Mugwump days. Of course, the sight of Phineas laughing in that mad way of his was often more than enough to prove his detractors right and probably question the timing of the combustion said to include the orphan culprits, which wasn't a mistake Dumbledore would make. But... no. No, he was trying to repent for what happened to Ariana, not add to the tally of things he needed to repent for as much as was absolutely necessary.
Same with Snape. The man did what he did to redeem himself, though not for the Greater Good, but for Lily. Rose was Lily's daughter, therefore Snape would protect her with his and everyone else's life if need be. For him to come out and want to kill her meant that Rose was a danger to everything. If she was simply a danger to the faculty, the students or even the muggles of the world, Severus would have kept his mouth shut. What's one or two corpses to a Death Eater? If Rose did what she was supposed to and offed Tom, then both Snape and Albus would cheer her on even if she got tattoos, started calling herself Candy and took to wandering down Knockturn Alley in her underwear. What this plea said was that the Potions Master believed Rose was a threat to the memory of Lily, that his one true friend he'd loved with all his heart would forever be known as the mother of a monster, a woman who'd died so that something horrifying was allowed to live and would have been disgusted had she lived to see her daughter's actions.
Dumbledore relaxed and fixed Severus with a stare. "And pray tell, Severus, just why would I allow such a thing to happen?"
"She threatened you with a knife. She moved like a trained killer, and trust me when I say that she was well trained indeed. She has the Elder Wand. Said Elder Wand caused her to radiate magic like a beacon, a feat not even you are capable of, and only passed out when she put her wand up to her scar and seemed to blow it up. Her dress uniform includes three knives, a concealed pistol, a wallet full of muggle currency, identification neither me nor any of my contacts have ever seen and a swathe of medals for merit in combat. Combat, Albus. She is a trained killer who officially posesses two out of the three Deathly Hallows and has seen enough warfare to be decorated for actions in battle by the age of sixteen." He enunciated, carefully lifting a finger for every point made during his little speech. " Do tell me how she isn't Dark Lord material."
Albus sighed, fixing the tired-looking man with his patented 'me-the-old-man-is-disappointed-in-you-the-young-boy' stare. " Using that description, Severus, you would have to include me on that list of potential Dark Lords as well. Remember that I too was trained in the Arts of War and have utilised said training to the fullest extent on battlefields up and down the globe. Have you even thought about the fact that she may not be that dangerous? That her history as a soldier may be of help to our ultimate goals?" He let the silence linger for a bit. Good. Snape was listening, at least.
"Listen, you know as well as I do just how much of a chance our graduates have of surviving an encounter with a Death Eater Severus. I try oh so very hard to find and keep good quality instructors, but that search has largely been in vain. The curse on the position has grown in power with each passing year, power fostered by the belief of the people in its existence. I never put you in that position, no matter how many times you asked for it, because you are worth more to me alive than dead and you know it."
Albus then leaned forward, deliberately opening his thoughts so that Snape could read his sincerity should he so desire. If you're faced with a Slytherin, when in doubt, go for honesty. They never expect it. "Rose may just be what we need to at least give our students a fighting chance if they are attacked. Her experience could prove invaluable to them and make the difference between life and death for Rose in the coming tournament. Hell, her background may well just provide her with the power the Dark Lord knows not."
The Potions Master wasn't buying it. The scowl breaking through the emotional suppression impressed and rather worried the Headmaster. Despite this being the default face of Severus Snape out in public, having that scowl appear on Severus when he'd almost completely shut down any subjective feelings whatsoever indicated that he was either on the verge of an apoplectic fit or of putting all that experience with Dark Magic to work hexing things and people with spells that should never be used outside of a laboratory of some sort.
He then snorted and stood up. "That's not the only reason, is it?"
"No" He admitted quietly. "The prophecy is clear on that much; she is the one that will end Riddle. To kill her before the prophecy is fulfilled..."
"I understand." Severus turned around and looked at all the portraits staring back at him, a forlorn look on his face as he finally dropped the emotional supression. Albus had rarely seen the man look as sad, hurt and lonely as he did today. "But my instinct tells me to be very careful around that girl. It tells me that she may well be worse than Voldemort. That instinct was only ever wrong twice, and while those two times cost me dearly, they didn't balance out the number of occasions on which my instincts saved my life. Personally, I hope that I am wrong and will continue to operate on that assumption for now. But if I am right, it may be too late to stop her should we let her loose now."
"It is for the Greater Good, my old friend. Either fortune favours us now, or it won't have mattered either way."
"... Good day, Headmaster." The surly Potions Professor said, making his way to the door.
In the meantime, Albus rifled through his drawer looking for that bottle of whisky he'd transfigured into a lemon drop packet. Spies. Always so bloody emotional, the lot of them. "'Nooo, mister Fleming, of course writing a book about Secret Agents is okay!' Bloody bastards, bloody idiot, bloody prima donnas." He grumbled to himself.
Really, what he wouldn't give for a good old KGB officer to coerce into serving his interests again. Standards really have fallen if he had to put up with Mister Whiny Disgrace to Gothhood for his spying skills. Oh, he liked and respected the man, but he could be so bloody fucking stupid at times that it reminded him of Flashman. Shuddering, Albus stopped hunting for the glass and opted to drink from the bottle instead. Minerva would understand. And, if she didn't, mentioning her grandfather's name was sure to get her to join him anyway. It wasn't like there was anything important on his agenda today. Surely, Fudge could last an extra twelve hours in office without his help, right?
Poppy was a diligent and highly capable mediwitch, widely known for not taking any guff from her patients. She had treated countless children throughout her stint at Hogwarts, mastered the treatment of everything from broken bones to Ebola Atlantis and had only lost an even dozen patients in close to thirty years working in a place chock full with stupid people that had access to near godlike powers. Her secret for success, if she had any, was as simple as it was hard on her mental state; she cared. She cared if someone came in with a bump from having hit their head on a wooden beam somewhere. She cared if a patient had a cold. She cared if they were on their deathbed, laying there watching her at her wit's end, deciphering obscure medical books written in Latin in the search for long forgotten cures. She cared for muggleborns. She cared for Death Eaters. She just, well, cared for everyone.
And when it came to the girl, sitting on one of the beds completely unconscious, she cared for her too, same as everyone. So when she showed signs of waking up, Poppy hustled to her bedside as quickly as she could. She was thrilled when the girl started to stir and moan.
She was probably less thrilled that, upon touching the patient, said patient's hand snapped out and knocked her out cold.
Which is how Rose came to wake up with 70 kilos of unconscious magical nurse snoring away on her torso.
"Fuck." Rose said as she wiped sleep out of her eyes and grabbed her new wand. "I need coffee." Squinting down at the figure still snoring away on her stomach, Rose unconsciously accioed her glasses to herself, levitated the witch onto another bed and stood up, eyeing her new wand with curiosity. The freaky naked lady thing had not said anything about learning any spells, but, with a bit of mildly painful digging through her hind-brain, she found a whole new cache of memories that she hadn't passed out on the floor with. When she tried to access them, all she got was a picture of a completely white landscape with a hiss of static for background noise. Seemed that she wasn't yet deemed ready to access them. Or maybe they were meant to 'integrate' with her other memories. Or that strange lady was more of a dick than previously suspected.
Oh, well. Something to ponder later.
The place she found herself in was interesting. Even in her sleepy, cranky, half-awake state she noted the walls fashioned out of heavy-looking stone and wood, admiring the dungeon-y look it gave the structure she was in. She found her clothes sitting on top of an office table of some sort, though everything but her gun wasn't anywhere nearby. She mourned the loss of her knives and three extra clips of ammo that had come with her during yesterday's teleportation session, nervously wondering where the closest supply hub that would take her ID badge as something other than an invitation to execute her for espionnage was. Still, she would figure out the details after tracking down whatever wake-up beverage the locals had on tap.
Right. Slightly frumpled dress uniform, check. Magical crazy stick, check. Concealed pistol, check. Boots... ugh, check. They were covered in some sort of black gunk. Eh, she would clean them later. Right now, coffee beckoned.
The infirmary had been pretty much like any other. The words clean, tidy, neat and hella boring came to mind. The corridors weren't. It being fairly early in the morning, only a few of the more militant early birds could be seen drifting through the place, each stopping to gawk at the strange girl dressed in strange clothes that had caused yesterday's little drama. However, they weren't the source of buzzing conversation she'd expected. No, that distinction belonged to the huge number of displays that looked like the paintings back home. Hell, remove the fact that they talked with themselves, each other and random passers-by such as Rose and you would have mistaken them for portraits from home anyway.
Rose sighed, wondering whether leaving the infirmary this early in the morning had been a good idea. Then she thought about the medic that was not going to stay unconscious forever and reminded herself that cold stone corridors beat having to deal with pissed off doctors every day of the week.
Then she reached the staircase. The gigantic staircase with bits that moved. She shook herself. Nope, still moving. She looked up and gawked. How high did these stairs go? Was this some whacky construct in her mind, designed to keep her unaware of some accident or attack that had happened to her? Nevermind, she had to get down them if she wanted to find that place she'd briefly been in yesterday.
Rose silently followed a group of half-awake kids around, content to let them do the pathfinding for her until she arrived at a pair of absolutely monstrous doors. She took a moment to admire them and glare at the strange statues that shifted a little mounted above the door's vault. Solid-looking wood run through with iron bands and nails, with strange scratchings barely concealed below the lock and hinges... each door was thicker than her outstretched hand could cover. What the hell kinda setup is that? It'd take at least two charges to breach this thing! Or, she thought as she checked out the walls on either side, she could simply blow two entrances on either side of them. Compared to the doors, the walls started to look flimsy. Alright Rose, food first, questions later. This was simply too goddamn whacky to be real.
The room on the other side was big. And open to the outside, if the lack of ceiling was any indication. No wait, hang on. She could clearly see the beams disappearing behind the sky... ah, just a hologram then. The other odd thing was that there were four huge tables that dominated the room, tables that were far too big for the room. Why didn't they have narrower tables? Ah right, they're too long. But wait, what about magic? Freaky albino chick had given her access to enough memories to tell her that physical constraints such as the rules governing structural integrity simply didn't apply to these people. So why bother building it like that? Strange.
She sat down at a random table with few people around it and glanced up at the others busy enjoying their meal whilst pointedly ignoring her. She just shook her head and looked for the carafe of black sweetness. Seeing none, she groaned out loud. "Is coffee too much to ask for?" She mumbled to herself. Pop! She fell off the bench she was sitting on, her head neatly connecting with the back of a boy that was sitting behind her. Ignoring the 'hey!' sent her way, she looked at a great big mug of piping hot coffee that had just popped into existence in front of her. "Apparently not. Thank you, weird magical coffee maker thingamajig. Hmm... Toast." Pop! "Eggs." Pop! "Uhh, cooked eggs, please?" Pop! "Better. Bacon." Pop! "Toasted friar's nuts." … Pop? " Uhh, not what I had in mind, but that'll do. Thanks!"
As Rose was eating, she chanced a glance around the table. At first she thought that the transvestites from yesterday were just a fluke of some kind but no, apparently everyone wore dresses in this place. And all her tablemates seemed to have a fetish for the colour green. Come to think of it, the other table was dominated by reds, another by blues and a small cluster of yellows were huddled together at the end of another table. Huh. Was this a class system of some kind? Back home, what clothes you were wearing was an automatic tell on your social status and general wealth. Suits, overcoats, skirts, they all told their own story about what a person did for a living and how good at it they were. Maybe these people were colour coded instead? She shook it off. More questions for later.
The coffee was good. As was the rest of breakfast. Rose stood up and went to one of the green-clad kids about her age. "You." She said, stopping behind one of the kids. "What's your name?"
The kid turned around, a glare on his face. He looked kinda cute, actually, the dark skin and blue eyes making an interesting mix. He held himself in the same way some of the Elites had back at the Academy too, a posture he pulled off quite nicely actually. "Blaise Zabini. And you're the girl that dropped from the sky yesterday. What's your name?"
"Rose. Rose Snow." She said, extending a hand in his direction. He just looked quizzically at it before looking up at her with a questioning from on his face. "Guess you don't shake hands here, then... No biggie. Look, I'm looking for someone to help me find my way around this place." She stated. "Know anyone who could help?"
"Hmm, let me think about that..." And then he got an evil smirk on his face. "I think I know just the girl." To drive this rude little mudblood bitch up the wall, he added to himself in the back of his mind. "Name's Hermione Granger. Frizzy brown hair, lotsa books, can't miss her." Not to mention that, when she gets going, the mudblood never shuts up. But he trusted that this Snow would find out soon enough. "Oh, and she'll be sitting over at the other table with the people dressed in red. They call themselves Gryffindors. Tata!" He said, waving her thanks off without looking back.
Daphne Greengrass looked up from her meal and eyed the stupid, stupid boy in front of her coldly. "Zabini, I have said on occasion that you were amongst the dumbest political geniuses I have ever met. Never, in all my years, would I have believed to see the day that you agreed with me on this." At his surprised look, Daphne just sighed. "Think, you berk." She ordered in that monotone she reserved for when she lectured people. "Yesterday, just before the girl appeared, what was it that the headmaster screamed out? Here's a hint; it was someone's name. Think, Zabini, back through the aeons to yesterday's entertainment. What was the name Dumbledore said just before the guest you so expertly handed over to the Gryffindors just now appeared?"
"Rose Po-No!" He said, his smirk gone. "No way."
"Yes way." Greengrass smirked, even as little Astoria started snickering. "You just blew off the Girl-Who-Lived. I daresay that Madame Zabini is going to be very disappointed when I tell her the news."
Merlin, Blaise thought. His mother was going to murder him. Possibly in the literal sense of the word if Rose ended up in a relationship with one of the Gryffs. She'd told him, since he was a tender little eleven-year-old, that the Girl-Who-Lived was sitting snugly at the top of her list of girls a Zabini was supposed to try and entice into a marriage with their family. The gain in status alone would see them taking over the Wizengamot and finally being in a position to toss the Malfoys into Azkaban for the murder of Blaise's uncle. If it came out that he'd somehow blown his chances at appeasing his mother's brother's restless soul due simply to an early morning faux pas, then he would undoubtedly be spending the rest of his life paying for it. But there was a way out of this. Unfortunately, it involved a deal with Daphne. He sighed, preparing himself for the inevitable. "Oh, I am sure that there is no need whatsoever for that, my dear. Why, such a message would doubtlessly overshadowed by better news... Something I could help along with, say?" He drawled, his carefully bored exterior causing Daphne to smile.
"Why, of course. Maybe something along the lines of, oh, how dear Draco has finally given up trying to claim my sister as his own, perhaps. I am sure you can help in that regard." Oh, so that was the game. Zabini started to sweat. Somehow push the Malfoy eyes away from the youngest member of the Greengrass household, a feat that nothing short of murdering Draco in his sleep would accomplish, or face his mother with no time to adequately prepare his ground.
Blaise's skin prickled as he felt a cold knot of dread form in his stomach. What a fine morning this was turning out to be. He wondered, in the deep, dark recesses of his mind, just how hard it would be to off Draco. Certainly no harder than convincing any of the other girls in his year to go after the prat.
Hermione Granger was not what most people would expect. A lot of people expect a bookworm, a nerdish runt with no sense of style and a hairdo that simply begged for someone to run an electric current through it and see what happens. What most were wilfully blind about was the fact that A, she was a Gryffindor and B, she had been on the forefront of preventing five years' worth of disasters from killing off the entire school. In first year, Neville Longbottom had gone missing the night after the final exams. Hermione, just then recovering from being attacked by a troll, was the only one to notice. She gathered up the wonder twins Fred & George, who had taken to following her ever since Halloween, and went looking for the boy. Five hours later, she cast wingardium leviosa and managed to toss her defence professor for the year, who just happened to be hosting the spirit of the Dark Lord Voldemort, into the blazing fire that barred entry to anyone and everyone. Neville, though a bit muddled in the head after the incident, was fine.
In the second year, she was petrified at Halloween. Neville Longbottom, with some help from Susan Bones and an odd Ravenclaw called Luna Lovegood, figured out that it was a Basilisk and, thanks to Myrtle's memories of what the odd hiss she'd heard sounded like, opened the door to the Chamber of Secrets. Granger only found out after the end of the year though, and spent her first month of summer holidays catching up. The second month was spent preparing for her third year. She never wanted to be caught out ever again.
Third year saw Dementors attacking the school. They'd somehow gotten loose from Azkaban and had made their way to Hogwarts, forcing Defence Professors Sirius Black and Remus Lupin to intervene. Remembering her first two years at the safest school on Earth, Hermione approached the two for lessons on using the Patronus charm. Soon, everyone in the school was learning it and while It took Granger the entire year to get it, she eventually did. Just in time to be attacked by Dementors during the final Quidditch match of the year.
Fourth year saw Dolores Umbridge take over the school. After the previous year, the Ministry started to question just what had caused the Dementors to converge on Hogwarts. An investigation was conducted and the blame was put on Dumbledore's handling of the wards. Apparently, one of the Dark Creature repelling wards was inverted, which led to the school lighting up like a beacon to the wardens of Azkaban. Albus was summarily dismissed and Umbridge took the helm. Which was also when a bunch of Dark Wizards went hunting for artifacts belonging to a boy called Tom Riddle.
Umbridge didn't believe a word of what Hermione said when she told the story of how she'd come across a bunch of people loitering in the seventh floor corridor, assigning her a date with a blood quill for her trouble. After the 'detention', Hermione pocketed the quill and accidentally set her desk on fire to cover it up, forwarding the evidence to Susan's aunt. The Aurors arrived the next day. Coincidentally, this had also been the day the Dark Wizards had chosen to raid both Hogwarts and Hogsmeade in their search for that bloke Riddle's artifacts. Which was when Hermione found herself fighting for her life yet again. She survived, though, and had had the opportunity to taunt the toad awhile before the Aurors carted the irate bitch-witch off to wherever, so the day was not a total bust.
Fifth year, nothing happened. This may sound relaxing, but it's definitely not so for people who were used to waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was the most harrowing year of Hermione's student life at Hogwarts and saw her obsessively training and studying in order to prepare for whatever it was that would come at the end of the year. She was a nervous wreck by the time she boarded the train.
So yesterday came as a relief to her. A strange girl had dropped out of the sky under mysterious circumstances. Evil was afoot and plots were being hatched. And Hermione had the best sleep she'd had since Umbridge was sentenced to life in Azkaban. Which was why she was positively cheerful and happy when she plonked down at the Gryffindor table without a care in the world, not noticing who it was she'd chosen to sit next to.
"Excuse me, but you wouldn't be Hermione Granger by any chance, would you?"
Hermione stopped daydreaming and turned to look at the girl that had talked to her. A girl with black and red hair, dead green eyes hidden behind glasses (oh god, those eyes!) and a scar that was practically worshipped in the Wizarding World. The girl from yesterday. The girl who somehow knew her by name. Fuck.
The girl next to her was weird. As in, way too weird. She looked like one of the brains that she'd know back at the school in District 1, before her Academy days. The plain, hard-working girl nobody really notices at all. But her instincts were telling Rose that this girl was more like the militia kids that would sign up every now and then. Hitting fourteen in a district without Career tributes meant that your chances of getting picked rose exponentially. A lot of them decided not to take chances and signed up for a year or two in the militia's infantry, thereby taking themselves out of the Games selection process entirely unless they volunteered on their return. They thought that, basically, a year or two in the infantry in exchange for immunity from selection wasn't a bad idea at all. What could possibly be worse than the one in twenty-four chance of survival in the Hunger Games?
They got the answer as soon as they were posted somewhere. Even at the best of times, the militia was charged with border patrol and what was officially called 'peace-keeping' missions. And there were a lot of bandits, bandits who raided the outer edges of Panem for supplies. They tended to be mean bastards, with access to weapons & equipment far beyond what happened to be the militia standard and had no hesitation whatsoever in killing anyone they came across. Put a bunch of fourteen-year-old kids in that kind of environment and what you get is a whole lot of corpses and a couple grizzled survivors.
And the ones who faced off against bandits were reckoned to be the lucky ones. Those sent off on 'peacekeeping' missions found out soon enough just what the militia did to people who lived outside of their designated Districts. The resistance was light enough, but suicide rates tended to run high amongst those who started out with these missions. They also tended to flip out at dead baby jokes, which made dinner in the mess hall all kinds of fun post-mission. Rose guessed that, once you've seen one of the officers decide to re-enact said dead baby jokes in real life before tossing them into the mass grave, you tended to not find those jokes to be as funny as before anymore. Didn't stop her from telling them, though.
Funny thing was, the militia's overall attrition rate hovered at around one out of every ten kids, which meant that the brats were right. A ten percent survival rate was loads better than the four-point-one-seven rates that were a constant in the games. This, surprisingly, didn't make them feel any better about shivering their asses off while waiting for a bunch of bandits with pre-War tanks to break through their buddies' defensive lines and tear the Base a new asshole or three.
Hermione looked like one of those kids. The kind that had that permanent oh shit, this was a bad idea look about them, who spent most of their time obsessively cleaning their rifles and other gear in the hopes that it didn't jam yet again when they faced the enemy. Rose couldn't relate at all, honestly. First, she was the designated scout, tasked with patrolling ahead of the actual patrol, alone, with nothing but her rifle and equipment for company. She'd faced off against traps, disarmed mines, disabled sentry bots, sprung ambushes and generally screwed with whatever game plan the other guy came up with. Second, it's what they'd signed up for. And they knew it.
Still, she sympathised. Even if it was a cold kind of sympathy, her job had been harder than theirs by choice after all, she could still see how these kids struggled through their new lives much like she'd done during ATP.
So that beckoned the question of just how the hell a fucking nerd in a fucking magic school that shat fucking rainbows and unicorns, if yesterday was to be believed, had gotten that same nervous vibe down she'd seen in combat vets? She was getting tired of having all these questions and no answers. It was really pissing her off. So she cleared her throat.
"Excuse me, but you wouldn't be Hermione Granger by any chance, would you?"
The girl turned to look at her and paled. Yeah, she'd seen the eyes first, then. Smart girl to go for the eyes.
"Y-yes." The girl struggled a bit with a squeak at the beginning there. "That's me. And you?"
"Rose Snow." She said, smiling a Corolianus Special at the girl. "I am very happy to meet you, Miss Granger. Very happy indeed." Yes, she loved scaring the shit out of people.
END OF LINE
A/N:Hoped you liked it, because the next chapter's going to feature a wild ride.