Green Eyes Chapter 3: III, a harry potter fanfic

This marks the first real chapter written by moi. It's near fifteen thousand words, so I hope it makes up for the long wait. .-.; Sowwi.

Please, if you see any mistakes, don't be afraid to tell me. I hate errors. I know I have one in there that mixes up the usage of 'lead' versus 'led', so if you guys would, please find it for me. I can't find it. D;

Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series or the first two chapters of this fic, as it was adopted. The chapters written after chapter two are my original chapters.

Warning: Not the most light-hearted of fics. It's not going to be a complete smut-fest but it's not going to be unicorns and rainbows either. This fic will be dark. There will be torture, murder, and a few lemons eventually. Do not be surprised if you suddenly see some detail about evisceration.

Pairings: F!HP/TMR, TBD

Intrigue Part III

Of fire, lies, and... turtles?

Violetta Lilith Potter, 4 years old

4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, England

31 July, 1984

Violetta Lilith Potter knew it was her birthday today. It was engraved on the bracelet around her wrist. The thirty first of July, it said, with her initials on the back of a golden ball with wings. There was no way it couldn't be her birthday.

So why wasn't anyone celebrating?

There was much fanfare when Dudley had his birthday. And even though Auntie Petunia and Uncle Vernon acted like they didn't like her, surely they would give her something?

Violetta didn't want much. She didn't want the expensive electronic toys or the mountains of sweets that Dudley got. Maybe some new shoes, or a dress! Oh a dress would be lovely! A dress that was green, with ribbons and flowers! A dress would have been so much better than the loose clothes she had currently. Maybe the other girls in the neighbourhood would play with her if she had a dress.

And so the little Violetta waited in her little cupboard for Auntie to call her out. They didn't like it when she walked around the house unattended, so they kept her in there alone and in the dark. Dudley thought it was scary, the cupboard, because it was dark. She didn't know what all the fuss was about. It was only really dark the first few seconds after you turned the lights off anyway, then your eyes adjusted and you could see again.

Violetta waited, and waited, and waited. From her dark—and not scary!—cupboard, she could hear the sounds of the telly blaring out some of Dudley's precious programs. From the little hole in the door Violetta could see Uncle reading is morning paper at the table. She could smell the breakfast Auntie was making, eggs and sausage. Maybe she would get some sausage today, and not some old toast! It was her birthday after all!

Violetta felt her heart sink when Auntie called Dudley in for breakfast and not her. It sank even farther when she saw all three of the Dursleys sit around the table, paying her no mind. Auntie and Uncle began singing praises for Dudley again. Only four and Dudders could write the first five letters of the alphabet! Oh Dudley, you're growing so fast!

(Never mind that Violetta could do the whole thing and some words. Dudley was the smart one in the house.)

It took twenty minutes for Dudley to finally guzzle down the last piece of sausage, after which spurred on another round of praise from his two parents. Violetta sat in her cupboard, saddened by the events that just took place. It was like every other day, then. Today wasn't special to them at all. Just another normal day in the normal Dursley household, which meant—

"GIRL, GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW," Uncle Vernon yelled. Violetta quickly scrambled out of her cupboard, not wanting to make Uncle angry. The last time that happened...

He glared at her with undisguised hatred. "Clean the table, freak. I want it done nicely. If I see one speck of mess you will regret it." Vernon then shoved her into the dining area with his beefy hands. Violetta saw Petunia scowl at her from the corner of her eye. Dudley just sniggered at her misfortune.

"But it's my birthday," she said, feeling brave.

Everyone in the room paused.

"It's. Your. What?" Vernon said slowly.

Violetta gulped, "My birthday."

Uncle Vernon's face turned to a sickening shade of puce. He stormed up to her, pulling her off the ground by her collar and throwing her to the wall. Petunia led the smirking Dudley out of the kitchen.

"FREAK," Vernon screamed into her ear as she cowered, feeling his smelly breath fan across her tear-streaked face. "We take you in—"

He kicked her in the stomach.

"—we clothe you—"

He kicked her again.

"—we give your worthless hide decent food—"

He kicked her one last time, closer to her ribs.

"—and you have the audacity to refuse doing simple work because it's your birthday."

"But I wasn't refusing, Uncle, I was—"

He punched her strait in the jaw.

"Learn some respect, you worthless thing. Do not speak unless you are spoken to," he spat in her face before picking her picking her up and throwing her head first into her cupboard. She hit her head on one of the shelves.

"Freaks don't have birthdays!" He slammed the door shut on her ankle, reopened it, kicked her ankle in, and slammed the door again. He heard her whimper and banged on the wood. "I better not hear a sound coming from this cupboard, or you will regret it!" Uncle Vernon stormed off as the girl, beaten to a pulp, tried as best she could to writhe in pain silently. She knew better than to take Vernon up on his threats.

And that, my friends, was the day that Violetta Potter began to hear the voices.

Violetta Lilith Potter

Hogwarts, Unplottable Location, Scotland

Present Day

As much as the hated to admit it, Violetta really was tired. A tournament, two Cruciatus sessions, dealing with a traitor, and a Dark Lord resurrection tended to do that to a person. Anyone who claimed otherwise was either a god or lying.

Violetta let her eyes really close themselves as Moody transported her through the hallways. She lolled her head deeper into his—really Crouch's—shadow, feeling it curl lovingly around her like a dark, translucent blanket. Even through the jostling of his uneven gait, Violetta felt the familiar tendrils of sleep enter her head to try to lead her into unconsciousness, and she felt rather inclined to follow them.

Violetta let her drowsy mind wander to the letter the had sent to Voldemort. Many questions filtered into her mind. Was he amused or annoyed by her antics? What would he do with the silver pendant? Would he keep it or throw it away? Worse, would he curse it and send it back to her as his reply? Would he even reply? Did he even bother to read her letter?

It wasn't as though they were in good terms, after all. The last time she had met this Voldemort face to face, the real one rather than the memory, was when he was on the back of Quirrell's head. Violetta remembered quite clearly that she had burned him into ash, and that burning people into ash didn't quite endear you to them. Not to mention the little debacle over the Red Stone.

She wasn't an idiot. She knew that the Stone possessed unimaginable powers. Letting the Stone go into Voldemort's hands at the time, when he was rather insane and had a sadistic murdering streak a mile wide for her, was it to Dumbledore was out of the question too. He had the audacity to keep the thing in a school full of children, for Merlin's sake! And the obstacles surrounding the Stone were a joke, as well. Really, three ickle firsties practically lolly-gagging their way through the damn thing made their way out alive. If it weren't for the creepy Quirrellmort, Violetta was quite sure that she would've left the corridor relatively unscathed.

After it all ended and she was left alone with the Stone and the Mirror of Erised, Violetta decided that she would keep the Stone for herself. All it was doing was piling up dust anyway, and the way she would use it certainly wouldn't cause another wizarding war. Oh, she was sure that giving it back to Dumbledore wouldn't cause another war either, but was still a foregone conclusion at the time that he was most certainly not going to get his old hands on the Stone. Because, quite frankly, no man, no matter what his standing or prior achievements were, should be allowed to keep something that valuable in his possession when a dog named Fluffy was his best line of defence.

So she shrunk the Stone. She hid it in her sock so that no one would find it. Knowing that Hermione would've probably sent for help, Violetta thought quickly. Somehow, by using the cleaning charms Hermione insisted she learn, Violetta cleaned the room of any of Quirrellmort's remains. And by using one of the loose rocks on the floor, Violetta floated it above her head and promptly dropped it, knocking herself out in the process.

Thinking back, dropping a rock on her head to knock herself out probably wasn't the best idea. Violetta had a lump the size of a walnut on her head for days and a mild concussion that set her back from doing physical activities for near two weeks. But it got her the Stone and out of Dumbledore's suspicion, so it wasn't too bad.

Besides, watching Dumbledore's face when he found out that the Stone was stolen—by Quirrell no less—was priceless.

(Violetta decided to keep the Quirrellmort thing to herself. She needed someone to look like they escaped with the Stone, and why not the one that went missing?)

As these thoughts swirled around in her head, she let herself feel some sort of relief. No matter what Voldemort's reply—if there was one—would be, it wouldn't change the fact that Peter Pettigrew was still in custody. Sirius would be free after years of being incarcerated and on the run. He could adopt her, bring her home with him, and raise her as his own just like he had promised before the rat had escaped. She could be free from the Dursleys and finally, finally, live the life she was supposed to live as the last Potter heiress. She could finally have a real home.

Her thoughts blackened at the memory of the rat. He deserved everything that was handed to him. Everything. All of the cuts and bruises and curses he had suffered under her hand was nothing in comparison to what Sirius had suffered in Azkaban. A dark frown suddenly settled into her otherwise peaceful face. Oh yes, the pain she had inflicted on Pettigrew was a mere fraction of Sirius'. Only thirteen years of being haunted and tortured by Dementors and Death Eaters interchangeably, if anything at all, would get him to rise above being dirt under her shoe.

Perhaps a worm, then. A worm she would then toss in a heavily salted cage.

A rat like that deserved no better. It was his fault that she had lost so much. Her parents, Sirius, the last thirteen sodding years of her life by staying with the Dursleys.

Staying with the Dursleys was hell, no doubt about it. Every morning, at 6:30 AM sharp, Violetta would be given an impossible list of chores to do for the day. It was a list that included, but was not limited to, doing the dishes, cleaning the laundry, weeding the garden, polishing the floors, and dusting the house. She wasn't allowed to clean the bedrooms (thank Merlin for that; Dudley's room was a damn minefield of mess) because the chance that she might do something freaky with her freakish abilities to their sleeping quarters was much to large, in their minds.

Going to school was not much better. While she didn't have to do a lot of physical work like she did at her guardian's home (like hell was she calling that place her home) the Dursleys still managed to haunt her. The whole school seemed to know how much of a delinquent she was. They all knew, with absolute certainty, how ungrateful she was for having the oh-so-generous Petunia and Vernon Dursley take her in. They didn't know why she insisted on wearing old, ratty boys' clothes, just that she did and didn't seem to want to wear anything else. She was quite dirty for a girl, always having a smudge of some type of dirt or another on her face.

Hell, if it weren't for her going into Hogwarts, thus getting a girls' uniform and better clothes from Diagon Ally, they would've all thought that she actually was a boy with the unfortunate fate of having the name Violetta. It was just another thing to add to her long list of freakishness.

Come to think of it, Violetta thought, things might have been better had she been born a boy.

A boy might have been able to defend himself against Dudley. A boy might have been able to fit in those ratty clothes of his. A boy might have had friends.

A boy wouldn't have had to worry about Vernon entering his room at night for something a little more than a small beating.

Hogwarts, Unplottable Location, Scotland

Present day

Twenty minutes hadn't even passed since Violetta returned, yet the whole school was in the frenzy. Albus Dumbledore was quick to ascend to the stand in an attempt to restore some semblance of order. All students were sent to their dorms, and all teachers were ordered to make sure they stayed there. A quick fire call to the Ministry had the Aurors popping in through the floo in droves. They had the area secure within minutes, standing guard at all of the Hogwarts entrances and the dorms. A few of the higher ranked Aurors immediately went up the Dumbledore's office, where Pettigrew was being held for questioning.

Albus looked grave as he exited is office, stepping to the side slightly to let the Aurors pass. He and his small contingent of trusted allies, Severus Snape and Minerva McGonagall, had just dropped Pettigrew off unconscious and unceremoniously on one of the odd chairs in his workroom. He would have stayed behind to witness the questioning, but there was more pressing information that he had to find out about first.

"And you're absolutely certain, Severus?" He said with the imperative gentleness that he had mastered over the years, "You're certain that your mark had flared?"

"Are you certain that it wasn't in your mind, professor?" Minerva supplied.

Severus Snape gritted his teeth together. He had told this story three times already. Three. No more, no less. It was the exact same thing every time he said it.

Some time after the end of the tournament, while they were looking for the missing Violetta Potter, he had felt a familiar burn on his left arm. The burn quickly spread to his upper shoulder, searing its way through his nerves and body tissue, before scorching its way down the rest of his body. Severus had bit his tongue bloody and held himself still. There were too many people, students and teachers alike, around him for him to react to the pain.

In the corner of his eye Severus saw Karkaroff cradling the same arm, quickly running to the exit. No one had seemed to have noticed him leave. They were too busy speculating about the Girl Wonder's whereabouts.

After what had felt like a lifetime of burning, the agony slowly—ever so damn slowly—receded, centring around his left forearm before it too disappeared.

It was then that he timidly, as though he was afraid that it was going to attack him, moved his left sleeve from his forearm. He knew that burning feeling all too well. He had spent near a decade diligently waiting for his master to come calling with it, and more than a decade afterwards fearing if it would return. Even if he hadn't spent that long experiencing the feeling, even if he had felt the Dark Lord's call only once, he still doubted that he would ever forget it. The burn of the Dark Mark wasn't something that one forgot, even after all this time.

Which was why he was surprised when there was no Mark on his arm.

It had been slowly returning throughout the year, the Dark Lord's Mark. It had been getting darker and darker and darker, the darkest being this morning when he had awoken. He had spoken to Dumbledore about this early in the year, stating that this was a sign of the Dark Lord's true return to the world.

Dumbledore had believed him, saying that it was an expected development and that they should quickly prepare for the worst. (How the fuck he knew that this development was expected was completely beyond Severus. Even though Dumbledore had said that the Dark Lord would return thirteen years prior, Severus hadn't the ability to truly believe him. He was still trying to process in his mind that Lily, his little flower, was dead.)

All of the Order members were immediately contacted and warned to look out for any strange signs of the Dark Lord's arrival. There were a few high enough in the Ministry ranks to keep watch on the Notts and the Malfoys, both well known to be former Death Eaters, though they had all reported back saying that there was nothing out of the ordinary.

It was a dead end on his part, as well. Even though Severus had the ability to say that he was one of Lucius' closer confidants, the Malfoy patriarch had refused to give up any information regarding his Mark.

Lucius had told him not to feel slighted, but information regarding anything to do with the Dark should never reach Dumbledore's ears (and thus Severus'. Malfoy was nothing if not intelligent. It was too much of a coincidence that the Dark Lord had fallen only shortly after Severus had become a true double agent.) Even if it had meant nothing, Lucius had said, the old coot would find a way to use the information, no matter what it was, to his advantage, thus giving the Light more power. This sort of thinking seemed to have spread all throughout the Death Eater ranks, and he was barred from their knowledge of the subject.

This meant that Severus' knowledge of the Mark only came from his own arm, Karkaroff's, and a few seedy, lower ranking once-Death Eaters who couldn't be trusted as far as one could throw a troll. Altogether, Severus had about eight accounts of the Dark Mark returning, including his own. One was suspicious, two was frightening, but eight was too much to be just a mere coincidence. Something had to be happening.

And this something was happening without Severus being on the inside.

"I am absolutely certain," Severus said, "as I have been certain the last three times you have asked."

Dumbledore's eyebrows knitted together. Nothing made sense. The only person who had the ability to make the Mark burn was the Dark Lord himself, and by Violetta's own admission, the ritual that would have revitalized him was a failure.

But how did she know that it had failed, thought Dumbledore. How could she possibly know that the ritual failed?

There was the obvious solution, of course: no Dark Lord Voldemort had appeared in front of her. Without a visual representation of his revival, it was easy to believe that he hadn't returned.

But Dumbledore knew Tom. He was sneaky, cunning, and intelligent. He would want everyone to believe that he wasn't there, even Violetta. Like a typical Slytherin, Tom would slither around in the darkness, controlling everything behind an opaque veil, before coming out in an intense show of power. He would make sure that the environment around him was in his control before going in it, his self-preservation not allowing anything else. Tom would be patient. Tom would wait for the perfect time to strike. He would wait for the wizarding world to be at its weakest, crippled, and unable to fight. Even with Pettigrew acting out the ritual, Dumbledore didn't have to stretch his mind very far to imagine that Tom would have found a way to come back.

Dumbledore was not not afraid to say that Tom Riddle was one of the most intelligent wizards he had ever met. His spell work, although dark, was some of the most ingenious acts of magic he had ever seen. There were many ways Tom could have used his knowledge to bring himself back, especially with Violetta, his vanquisher, as his catalyst. The confusing part was how Tom would have been able to return, call his followers, have Severus' Mark disappear, and still manage not to show himself. Dumbledore knew, from experience, that even a pair of strong Relocation and Distortion Charms would not have hidden a ritual this large.

Dumbledore straitened his back, a grave light growing in his eyes, and immediately took off in the direction of the infirmary where Violetta surely was.

"Where are you going, Albus?" Came a heavily accented Scottish voice. Two sets of footsteps followed him through the corridors.

"To speak with Violetta," he answered, "I need to know what happened tonight."

"You can't possibly be serious!" Minerva McGonagall yelled as they hurried through the halls. "She's tired—scared! She's probably traumatized! By Merlin, Albus, let her rest!"

Albus gave Minerva a side-along glance as he strode through the stone corridors. "We need to know what had happened, Minerva. If Voldemort—" it was here that both of his companions, Severus and Minerva, shivered, "—can be raised, if he was raised at all, then we need to find a way to counteract it. The events surrounding this year are too suspicious to ignore."

They continued to walk through the halls with a purpose, weaving in and out of corridors and climbing staircases to get to the infirmary. They needed to see Violetta, if not to get information then to see if she was all right. Dumbledore was quite sure that she had her fair share of bruises and cuts from tonight's events. She had looked tired and near tears when she had returned with Pettigrew, and most certainly not just a little ruffled. Whether she noticed it or not, both of her arms were twitching—a telling sign that she was under the Cruciatus for more than just a few seconds. Minerva was right. She most likely was at least somewhat traumatized from tonight's events. Violetta would want someone close to her, for comfort and familiarity.

Dumbledore paused in the middle of the empty hallway, as if suddenly remembering something. His other two companions paused with him. He turned to Snape, giving him a meaningful look.

Merlin damn it, Snape knew exactly what that look meant.

"Why must I have to fetch the mutt?"

"He's her godfather, Severus. He has every right to make sure she is all right. Especially now that he might become freed."

Snape gave a low groan of resignation, pinching the space between his eyes. Of all people, damn it. Of all people.

With a large, bat-like swish of his cloak, he turned to the next hallway, murmuring something that went along the lines of "damn sentimental fools".

The two other professors then continued their way across the school, but not without a small shaking of their heads.

"Why didn't you send me, Albus?" Professor McGonagall asked when they had a reached the infirmary doorway, "I'm sure that... Snuffles would be much more receptive to me and that Severus would be better suited here."

Professor Dumbledore gave her a small, albeit pained, smile. "If Violetta is all right enough to speak, and I believe that she is, then I would think that she would be much more at ease speaking with you, a person of her own gender."

"But why would she—oh!" The cat animagus paled at what he was insinuating. "You don't think... surely not—"

The grave light in his eyes grew again, the light blue transitioning into a stormy grey and the laugher-wrinkles around his eyes forming lightning strikes. "I am afraid I do not know what to think, old friend," he said. The old professor did hope that that hadn't occurred, but Tom was ruthless. He wouldn't be surprised if Tom had Pettigrew under orders to rape the girl.

It was with a heavy mind that the two entered in the infirmary, sombre and silent. Madam Pomfrey and Mad-Eye Moody were speaking in harsh whispers near the entrance. Whatever they were talking about had Madam Pomfrey doing sharp, pointed motions with her arms, flailing what looked to be a Sleeping Draught around in her hands. Moody was no better, making wide gestures with his arms toward a closed screen, every movement attempting to emphasize his point.

There was a vague, feminine outline behind the screen halfway between sitting up and laying down. Dumbledore couldn't tell if the figure was sniggering or twitching or shivering, but he could tell that it was awake. There were more figures standing around the bed. From the splash of red hair he could see at the end of the screen, it wasn't hard for Dumbledore to deduce that Violetta's friends had come to see if she was all right.

"—even Dumbledore came here to interrogate the girl," Mad-Eye grumbled, pointing toward the two that had just entered the room. It was obviously the wrong thing to say, because it seemed to make the Head Nurse even more incensed than she already was.

Pomfrey's face turned red from frustration. Her hair was a tad frizzled and her lips were pressed in a dangerously thin line. "There will be no interrogation going on in my infirmary, Alastor Moody." She turned to Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall, shooting them with an accusing glare. "I do not care what you say. She needs silence and rest. I've already allowed that rowdy bunch to meet her and I will not allow you three to stress her out even more." She said these words with a rigid finality before turning her heel to the closed screen.

"Poppy," Dumbledore said with a gentle, imploring tone. The Head Nurse turned around, harassed-looking and annoyed. There was a tense moment that passed as the two met eyes, seemingly having a silent conversation.

Pomfrey's lips seemed to get impossibly thinner, shoulders dropping in resignation. "You have fifteen minutes, and not a second more." She glared at the three of them. "If she gets the slightest bit uncomfortable, I will boot you out of my infirmary."

The Head Nurse then lead them to the screen. On the other side was Mrs. Weasley, Bill, Ron, and Hermione all gathering around a rather tired and crumpled Violetta. She was still dirty and sporting quite a few bruises and scrapes from the maze and whatever came after. There were bags under her eyes and she was furrowing her eyebrows together, as if she were annoyed by all the noise. It looked as though she was in dire need of a good, long nap. Perhaps hibernation for a month would suit her well.

The atmosphere was tense on this side of the screen, and Dumbledore could feel a small bubble of privacy wards as he passed by the barrier. Whatever they had stumbled upon was awkward and meant to be kept in silence. Ronald Weasley was red in the face and angry—although that could have been misinterpreted as shame. Hermione Granger looked like she wanted to disappear in guilt and embarrassment. The other two Weasleys just looked shocked, pale-faced and shaking their heads in disbelief. None of them seemed to have noticed Dumbledore's group enter yet.

"If you two are quite done, then I'd like for you lot to leave," Violetta said, but not without some obvious hesitation and force. It seemed like she was trying not to meet their eyes. Her knuckles were bone white from where she was clutching the sheet.

'Hermione looked near tears. "Violetta, I—"

"Just. Leave."

"But—"

It was here that Violetta interrupted her with an angry retort in Parseltongue. She snapped her head toward Hermione's face, eyes glowing that bright Avada Kedavra green. Dumbledore didn't think it was possible for her to fist the sheets any tighter, but he could hear the seams begin to tear from her pulling. He repressed a nostalgic shiver. It didn't feel like too long ago when he had watched a boy with raven hair and dark aspirations speak in the same tongue, giving orders to a snake and opening up a magical diary.

Dumbledore didn't think Violetta knew she was hissing in Parseltongue. It must have sounded quite normal to her ears (at least that's what his research had indicated), while sounding like a conglomeration of random s's and h's and a's to everyone else (everyone else but one). The message she was sending was clear, however: Violetta wanted them out of her sight, effective and immediately.

Madam Pomfrey used this opportunity to interrupt, alerting the five to their presence. She quickly gathered the three Weasleys and Hermione and lead them out of the area, but not before looking at Dumbledore's little group with a stern eye. "Fifteen minutes," she said. The three nodded, and suddenly they were alone with Miss Potter.

Violetta slowly blew some air out of her nose. Whatever energy she seemed to have as she hissed at Hermione Granger was now gone, leaving behind a deflated, squashed cabbage leaf version of the Girl-Who-Lived. The glow of her eyes dimmed a little bit as she looked at them. She gulped, "I'm sorry you had to see that." Her eyes began to water and she looked down, fiddling with her hands.

Oh shite, Barty thought, sensing immediate danger. Even though he didn't have that much experience with women, Barty—who was now Moody—sure as hell knew when one was about to cry.

(He doubted the real Moody had much experience either. Mad-Eye wasn't exactly what one would call a 'lady-killer', so whatever reaction Barty would naturally have would probably suit the one Moody would have.)

Barty absolutely hated it when women cried. They were near impossible to deal with in a teary state. Of the times that he was actually there to bear witness to the crying, it was always awkward and strange. He always tried to leave the premises before he got sucked into the river of tears. There were only so many moments in his life where he was actually stuck trying to comfort a weepy female, and all those moments always seemed to lead them to be even more depressed or even angry at him. There simply was no way to console a woman when they got to this state. They were all barking mad.

Moody awkwardly shuffled his feet and rubbed the back of his head. There was no way out of this one. He had to stay, both to keep up the little lie he had going and to find out Violetta's—fake—story. He had tried to get the Head Nurse frustrated enough with his antics to force him out (Barty had to give tonight's events a few minutes—hours, weeks—thought; the girl gave him the shock of a lifetime), but he knew that his attempts were all in vain when Dumbledore walked in. Barty thought for sure that he would stay with the traitorous rat for questioning, not the girl.

(What Barty would give to see that rat squirm. All Death Eaters, including his Master, harboured a special kind of hatred for the bastard. He was too cowardly, too willing to switch sides at the flip of a hat. He stuttered. He was unattractive. He was weak. He was a waste of space and as such should have never been allowed to breathe the same air as his Master, let alone be the one to resurrect him.

Come to think of it though, perhaps this was for the best. After all, the ritual required a significant amount of flesh, didn't it? Better the worthless meat bag than someone more valuable, like Bellatrix. She would have been on the top of the world if the Lord had asked her to do it, though. Azkaban wouldn't have kept her from that particular duty.)

Even if she wasn't really crying, Barty somehow knew that Violetta was enough of a bitch to keep the act up just to make them feel awkward. The dark girl he saw in the empty classroom, not this weepy invention she seemed to have conjured up, wouldn't allow any less.

He silently thanked the powers that be when Minerva McGonagall thankfully, mercifully, was the one to rush up a give the girl comfort. Moody met Dumbledore's eyes, wordlessly having a shared moment of brotherhood with the older wizard. There were some things that were better left in a woman's hands.

The stern-faced witch quickly gathered the girl into her arms, giving her a warm embrace. "Oh dear child, there is no need to feel sorry. It must have been terribly hard on you this year. It is understandable that you require some space."

The girl gave a muffled, heart-wrenching sob from behind the older witch's shoulder. Her shaking arms wrapped around McGonagall's back, clutching onto her robes. She looked absolutely heartbroken; the complete antithesis of the Violetta Barty had spoken to a few moments ago. It was then that he snapped out of the little daze the girl had sent him to. It wasn't like she was really crying, anyway.

Barty had to hand it to the girl, though. Her acting was definitely on point.

"Yes, yes," Moody interrupted. The two weepy witches looked at him as he lumbered his way to Violetta' bedside. "As touching as this is, we don't have all day to watch you two act like blubbery seals. Say your story and be done with it."

A thunderous look passed Professor McGonagall's face. "There is no need to be—"

"It's fine, Professor." Violetta interrupted, rubbing at her watery eyes and pulling back from McGonagall. "I understand."

The witch gave her a supportive smile, placing a hand at the younger girl's shoulder. A motherly look graced her normally strict features. "You are certain?"

Violetta returned the smile. "Yeah, I think I am."

Both of them gave a small smile to each other. McGonagall reached to hold the girl's hand as Dumbledore came up to finally speak.

"Violetta," he said, "I know that this is not what you need at the moment, but it is imperative that we know what happened when you disappeared." Dumbledore moved to her bedside, across from Moody and a little bit next to McGonagall. "Understand that we are not trying to make you uncomfortable, but we need information from you to decide the best course of action. Do you understand?"

They way the Headmaster spoke to her was grandfatherly and slow, as if he were speaking to a child. The tone of voice would have probably worked wonders for another student, but it only served to make Violetta silently seethe in anger. How dare he speak to her as if she were stupid? 'Do you under stand?' Of course she understood! She did speak English, didn't she?

If Dumbledore's voice grated on the girl's ears as much as it did his, Barty thought, she did a really good job not showing it. Truly on point, her acting.

Violetta feigned her anger as simply becoming tense, straitening out her shoulders and gripping Professor McGonagall's hand. She looked Dumbledore into his twinkling baby-blue eyes and said, demurely, "I understand."

She swallowed the bile that threatened to come up as she said it. It came off as a sign of timidity.

Professor Dumbledore gave her an encouraging smile, "So what happened when you had found the Cup?"

Violetta took in one deep, shuddering breath. "Cedric and I, we, um, came across it at the same time. I saved him from an Acromantula; he told me to take the Cup. I said he should take it, he said I should take it. We eventually had a duel for the thing. It was going along well until I, errr... tripped over a rock." She blushed, but not from acting. She really did trip. "He was surprised and ended up missing the spell he sent at me, so I stunned him. I then ran to the Cup and grabbed it. At first I thought the Portkey was going to send me back to the beginning of the maze, but..."

Violetta became silent and started rubbing along the cut on her arm.

"... It didn't," the Headmaster finished for her.

She shook her head, staring at the long wound. "No."

He nodded. "Where did you go?"

Violetta felt Professor McGonagall give her an encouraging squeeze on her hand. She squeezed back. "A graveyard. Pe-Pettigrew kept saying how he was going to bring the Dark Lord back, and that his Master's father was... was buried there.

"I ended up being stunned from behind. It wasn't strong enough to knock me out, but I think I hit my head on a rock." Violetta rubbed at the cut just above her right temple and winced. That part was embarrassingly true, as well. She and rocks didn't get along very well. "The next thing I remember was being tied to some platform and Pettigrew was cutting my arm. There was a cauldron behind him. He said something about needing the blood of the enemy, a father's bone, and a servant's flesh."

She shivered. "He cut his sodding hand off—his hand—with a knife and just dropped it into the cauldron like it was saffron." Violetta made a show shivering and becoming pale. McGonagall conjured a blanket and placed it around her shoulders.

"And then what?" Said Moody gruffly as she snuggled into the fabric's warmth, "It's not like we have all day, girl. Save the dramatic pauses for the Minister."

Before anyone else could say anything, Violetta quickly injected a sorry and went on with her story. "Pettigrew put all of the stuff inside a cauldron an we just... talked, I guess. Well, he talked, but he sounded insane. He was saying stuff about my parents and the Dark Lord. And then he, um, he—"

Violetta cut herself off mid-sentence and turned her head to the side, gagging. She could feel a mental probe, most likely Dumbledore's, enter her mind. She forced the feeling of anxiety and terror to the surface of her mind and supplied the according images to match them.

"He started to undress." She said finally. Violetta, in a deeper part of her mind where Dumbledore surely wouldn't enter, hoped that the visions the Headmaster was seeing looked real enough. While she did have a good memory, but it most certainly wasn't photographic. While she was having her... fun on Pettigrew she had seen parts of his body that were now etched permanently into her memory. The images Violetta had conjured up in her mind should have been at an acceptable enough level to not arouse suspicion, but she was a mere babe of an Occlumens compared to Dumbledore's master Legilimens, so he could find the faults in her thoughts very quickly if he looked hard enough.

The adults, with the exception of Booty (Barty as Moody; Violetta thought she was being clever with that name), looked as though they believed her. She felt the probe take one last skim at the surface of her thoughts before exiting entirely, leaving a serious looking Dumbledore in its wake. It seemed as though he didn't find any fault in her thoughts because he had a disgusted look upon his usual grandfather-esque serene face. She knew that it was from the images.

This time Violetta swallowed down real bile. Pettigrew Pimples—ew ew ew ew ew—weren't things that she, or anyone else on this earth, should see. Ever.

She paled again, looking as white as the sheet on her infirmary bed. Dumbledore then asked the million galleon question, although he feared he already knew the answer.

"Why did he do this?"

"Pet-Pettigrew said that the Dark Lord couldn't be revived, but had be reborn," she answered. The adults gasped.

"After he was done he would then," she gagged, "shove the potion into me to mix with his," another gag, this one stronger than the last, "errr... seed to complete the ritual." Violetta then covered her face with her hands, willing her eyes to spring fresh tears. She felt McGonagall whisper something incomprehensible before being wrapped into the older woman's arms.

Violetta then told them how she had escaped. Wormtail had, perhaps in a bout of madness, forgotten that he had set the knife down near her. She had used the knife to cut her bonds, and when she was free she grabbed her wand. Pettigrew recovered quickly even in his state of undress, and they duelled. After casting multiple cutting spells at each other, Violetta finally managed to disarm him and knock him out with a stunning spell. She used magic to redress him because she was most certainly not willing to touch a naked Peter Pettigrew. Once he was dressed Violetta then grabbed onto him and the Cup, and here they were.

The girl sniffled, wiping at her eyes to dry the tears. "So is Sirius going to be freed? Is he going to be all right now?"

The corners of Dumbledore's lips lifted up. The twinkle in his eyes had returned, although there was a strange light of suspicion hidden in its depths. Voldemort was still out there, and he knew it too.

Albus placed his hand on top of the small pile McGonagall's and Violetta's hands made. "Everything seems to be pointing in that direction, dear girl." He smiled at her, looking at the clock and noticing the time. "If at any point in time you remember any new information, my door is always open. Now, I believe we have kept you from Madam Pomfrey's caring hands for too long."

Said woman walked into the area looking as stern as ever. The Sleeping Draught she was waving about earlier was in her hands. After giving the small bottle to Violetta, she proceeded to shove the other three adults out of the infirmary, much to Moody's displeasure.

"Fifteen minutes is not near enough time to get anything worthwhile done, nurse. The girl needs to be questioned more! Much more! A healthy dose of Veritaserum should be—"

"Nip it, Alastor."

With all of the adults' backs turned, and two of them arguing up a storm, Violetta allowed herself a triumphant smile before downing the appropriate dose from the bottle. She had done it. She had successfully fooled Professor Dumbledore, the man world renowned for being a great master Legilimens, and therefore one of the world's greatest lie detectors. He was still suspicious, for sure, but as a great leader of a whole army, it was expected from him. Violetta would be feeling much pride from this achievement for a very, very long time.

It only took a second after she had set the bottle down for Violetta to feel extremely drowsy. She settled down in the warm, inviting bed, falling immediately into a deep slumber.

Unknown Location, Unplottable Location

Present day

There was a large, very large, difference between how Lord Voldemort treated his 'friends', his allies, his Death Eaters, and his servants (yes, there was a difference between all of them). Unless it had something to do with his plans, the Dark Lord didn't usually allow the four roles to mix.

While he never really had 'friends', there were a few people that he trusted more than his allies with certain... pieces of information or importance, so they were higher in that regard. Allies he had very few of, and they were treated differently from Death Eaters, who were to follow his every command to the 'T'. The Death Eaters were then placed higher than the servants, who were also required to follow all of his orders, but Voldemort didn't fancy the Death Eaters as dirt beneath is shoe like the servants. There were a many Death Eaters of his that he treated like servants though, simply because that was all they were to him: slaves to his cause.

With these boundaries in place, Lord Voldemort, also known as Tom Marvolo Riddle, had a blueprint for how to treat those around him. A 'friend' was to be treated with more equal footing (he was still the dominant in that relationship, however) and trust than an ally, and an ally was to be shown more respect than a Death Eater, and so on and so forth. Tom liked everything compartmentalised and orderly, even his relationships. Different situations required different roles for different people.

Tom likened his relationships to a puppeteer: the same puppet could be used in different scenes, as one only had to change the clothes the puppet wore. It was how he was so effective at planning everything. Everyone around him knew how to act their part when and where it demanded it. Lucius was his 'friend' when they were sharing a glass of Firewhiskey, Lucius Malfoy was a great ally when he was dealing with the Ministry, and Malfoy was the Death Eater diligently awaiting his next command. Exactly like the puppet. Different situations, different tools, different relationships.

It was simple logic. Anyone trying to argue against it was simply a victim of sentiment, and sentiment was what lead the greatest of wizards to their downfall. Take Merlin, for example. Perhaps the greatest wizard of all time tamed by the muggle King Arthur to do his bidding. Tom refused to be its next victim, and that's why he had compartmentalised all of the roles. It allowed for less unsavoury... affections.

However, there was a reason, only one reason, why any of those roles would ever have to collide: Tom's Horcruxes.

Tom trusted Lucius the friend with a piece of his soul, Lucius Malfoy the ally was to bring it somewhere safe and away from harm, and Malfoy the Death Eater to protect it with his life.

And it had been a while—a very, very, very long while—that Tom had the three roles collide so bloody fucking brilliantly that his head spun.

"§ CRUCIO §," Tom hissed in Parseltongue, making the curse stronger with the language. He and his Death Eaters had left the graveyard in favour for one of his many safe houses, as their previous spot was no doubt filled with Aurors now.

"You had one job, Luciussss," Tom said savagely at the writhing Death Eater as he lifted the spell. They were alone in one of the dark rooms in the safe house, as the others were sent to their homes to await further instruction. "One. To keep my Horcrux safe. Since that obviously did not occur. What. Did." It wasn't a question. It was a command.

Lucius pulled himself up with his shaking arms, knees on the ground. "I thought, I thought that you were still giving me my orders, my Lord."

'My Lord'. Good. Tom thought. Lucius knew he was in the Death Eater role.

"What," he deadpanned in shock.

"The reason why I hadn't gone looking for you, master, is because I thought you were communicating with me through your diary." Lucius looked at Lord Voldemort from his place on the floor, eyes speaking nothing but the truth. "I thought you did not want to be found."

Tom's eyebrows knitted together in frustration. "I cannot communicate with my Horcruxes, Lucius."

Ugh. Tom somehow knew that this would become a problem. His diary was his first Horcrux, and as such it had held the largest piece of his soul out of them all. Because it was such a large piece it had the ability to communicate to the outside world at its own will, rather than just coming out as a security measurement. Tom had given it to Lucius because he thought that the Malfoy patriarch could resist writing in the damn thing, unlike Bellatrix. He was obviously very, very wrong.

"But that still does not explain why it is now lost."

"You ordered me to infiltrate Hogwarts with it by handing the diary over to a student. It was..." Lucius paused trying to find the word, "It was planning something. Something big. I was acting on the assumption that it really was you, my Lord, and for that I am greatly sorry."

Tom waved off the apology. It wasn't like it was going to do them any good now. "And? What was it planning?"

"I don't know, my Lord. That year the Chamber of Secrets opened and a few students had become petrified, but everything calmed down after the winter holidays. There was no mention of any strange occurrences afterwards, not even a mention of any solution to the problem. They all thought that the issue had just faded away. "

Voldemort paused himself. He didn't even realise he was pacing.

So it's somewhere in Hogwarts, if not destroyed. If it did survive, why did it stop? And if it didn't, why wasn't there any mention of it? This was something Tom would have to think about further, most preferably alone.

"There is another thing, my Lord," Lucius said. Voldemort turned around to see Lucius on his feet, looking at him as though he didn't know how we would react.

To be honest, Tom didn't know how he would react if it was another surprise. Enough was enough for one night.

"Violetta Potter, the girl... She's a Parselmouth."

Tom swore he felt his heart skip a beat. He didn't even realise he had switched into Parseltongue.

"§ What?! §"

Well, the girl had definitely captured his attention now.

Now only if she would respond.

It took a while before Violetta noticed that she was actually awake. She had been drifting in and out of conciousness for what she believed to be twenty minutes (really five) and was much too comfortable to even consider moving. The bed was warm, her pillows were fluffy, and Sirius was holding her hand. It was all very—

Hold the fuck up.

Sirius was holding her hand.

Sirius Black was holding her hand.

Her Azkaban escapee, half deranged, corny godfather Sirius Black was holding her sodding hand.

Violetta immediately shot up, startling her godfather from his light slumber. He let go of her hand to reach for his wand, but then fell off the chair he was sleeping on to the floor unceremoniously (his legs were still asleep). Violetta quickly scrambled off her bed to help Sirius to his feet, tugging him to the exit. She needed to get him out of here as soon as possible.

"Come on you lazy ponce," she said as she dragged him bodily forward before he could say 'waaa'. "We need to get you out of here. There's a secret passageway I know near here—"

"Violetta..."

"—and I'm pretty sure you brought Buckbeak with you, so you could hitch a ride somewhere far. Preferably Uruguay. No one suspects Uruguay—"

"That's funny, Prongslet, but really—"

"—how did you get in the school, anyway? I'm pretty sure there are Aurors everywhere and—

"VIOLETTA."

Sirius gave one strong tug at her arm, forcing her to stop in her tracks. She whirled around at him, eyes blazing. Sirius set his hands on her shoulders in an attempt to calm her. "Everything is fine," he said gently.

"Yes, Miss Potter. Everything is fine," came a deep, resounding voice.

Violetta whirled around again, nearly giving herself whiplash. There were two people she didn't recognise at the doorway: one black man with a bald head and a single hoop earring, the other a woman with startling electric blue spikes for hair and a heart-shaped face. Although their faces rung no bells in her memory, their robes most certainly had.

Aurors.

Violetta set herself between them and Sirius in a protective stance, not understanding the situation but not willing to sit around and wait to find out. It was much too soon before they saw Sirius. He still had his 'Kiss on site' status.

Violetta instinctively reached for her wand in her back pocket in self-defence, and was startled to find that it wasn't there. As a matter of fact, nothing was there. Not even the pocket. Violetta suddenly came upon the violent realisation that she wasn't in her Quidditch uniform—the clothes that she wore at the maze—any more, but one of her green cotton nightgowns.

As a matter of fact, it seemed like she never had entered the maze at all. She didn't feel sore, her cuts and bruises were all healed, and her feet were bare. There was only the sluggish feeling in her upper arms that told her that she had been sleeping too long.

There was suddenly a loud, booming laugh coming from behind her. Violetta whirled around for the third time in just as many moments to find Sirius smiling jovially at her. "It's all right now, Prongslet."

"Whaaa..." she said, looking at Sirius inquisitively.

He just continued smiling jovially at her.

"I'm free."

Violetta's eyes widened comically. Her heart made a small leap in her chest and her breath hitched somewhere in her throat. "What? So soon?"

"It's been five days, Prongslet."

Her eyes would have widened even more if it were possible. Five days! Violetta thought. No wonder her body was so stiff. What had gotten her to sleep for five whole bloody freaking days?!

"That night depleted your magical reserves something Sirius," he answered for her as he rubbed the top of her head affectionately before pausing. "Well..." he continued with an eyebrow raised, "there's that, and the fact that a normal dosage for a Sleeping Draught is a few sips, not multiple swigs."

Violetta blushed. Whoops, she thought. Must have overdone the spellwork on Pettigrew.

She wasn't even going to acknowledge the 'Sirius' pun. Violetta had the feeling that somewhere down the line, whether it was because of his Black blood or Azkaban, Sirius' funny bone broke and healed the wrong way.

Violetta took a deep breath, looking Sirius strait in the eye. "So it's all good, then?"

"Not entirely, Miss Potter," came that deep voice again, from the bald Auror. Violetta turned around again to see the two officers walking toward them. "We have been charged with watching over your godfather over here to make sure he doesn't make a run for it, at least until Peter Pettigrew's official trial, which is set in the summer when you're out of school." He nodded to Sirius, who nodded back. "But in the long term though, yes, everything is fine."

Violetta was confused. "But why wait so long for the trial?"

The two officers looked at each other for a moment before the woman answered her. "There's... a lot of evidence to sift though. Theoretically we could get it done today, now that you're awake, but the Ministry wants to make sure that this is done thoroughly." The woman rocked back and forth on her heels, giving Violetta a significant look, "Wouldn't want to make the same mistake again."

Translation: The Ministry needs to make it seem like they're competent again, so they're going to take their damn sweet time to make it seem like they're actually doing something worthwhile and milk it for all its worth.

"Besides that," she continued gently, looking at Violetta more seriously now, "we wanted to give you some... time away before seeing him again. To help deal with everything."

Violetta swallowed. So everyone knew. Dumbledore must have told the story to them.

"You're a very strong young woman, Miss Potter," said the male Auror kindly, probably sensing an underlying current in the conversation. "I've met dozens of women who had been in almost your same situation, and a few of them couldn't stand to be in the same room with another male, let alone bear hug their attackers to bring them in. Your parents would be proud of you."

Violetta blushed again at the complement, but felt a little sour hearing it. She loved hearing about her parents pride in her, but loathed to know that it was for something she had made up. She did hope that they were proud of her for catching Pettigrew though, wherever they were.

She tried to breathe out the sour feeling, "Thank you... errr..."

"Ah," the woman exclaimed, "sorry 'bout that. The name's—"

"—Nymphadora," interrupted Sirius with a cough.

"—Tonks. Just Tonks," she said as she gave a scathing look to Sirius.

"What's wrong with it? It's a lovely name."

"Then you take it, Black."

"Why would I take it? I already have a splendid name. Siriusly."

"Ugh. Again with the puns?!"

As those two squabbled, the other Auror looked at her amusedly. "Kingsley Shacklebolt." He gave her a short bow.

"Violetta Potter." The two of them shared a small smile before looking back at the other two... 'adults' in the room. "They seem kind of close, considering it's only been five days," Violetta observed. It didn't seem like a closeness that resembled anything romantic; it was more like an older brother/sister bond. Violetta barely had any experience with romance though, so she could be wrong.

Her most recent, and only, brush with the opposite sex in that sort of way was during the Yule Ball. With her and Ron's relationship being rather rocky at the time, she had opted to go with Lee Jordan, a friend of Fred and George. He was rather funny, and when they danced he didn't step on her toes too much. Neither of them saw each other that in any sort of romantic way though, so they left the Ball with the same close-acquaintance like relationship they had before.

"Hm, I take it you didn't know, then?" Kingsley said, "They're cousins. Tonks' mother is Andromeda Black, who was disowned by the Blacks for marrying a muggle."

Violetta reeled her head back a little. "Wow." She really didn't know that, actually. She knew that Andromeda Black was disowned, of course, but not that she had a child. Violetta knew that she had a blood connection with the Blacks, as her grandmother on her father's side, Dorea Black, was one. It meant that she had many cousins, including Sirius and now Tonks, who seemed to be rather acceptable. At least she wasn't another Draco Malfoy.

Violetta shivered. She still hadn't gotten over the fact that she was related to the ferret, but that was a story for another day. Popping herself out of her head, Violetta turned their attention back to the other two.

"In what world is that sort of nickname acceptable?!

"It's fine! Really!"

"NYMPHIE? It sounds like a disease!"

"It's better than the alternative," said Sirius with a roguish grin. "You know the one. With the 'o' at the end."

"UGH," Tonks groaned. "You're impossible."

"No. I'm Sirius."

They all buried their faces in their hands.

Broken funny bone indeed.

It wasn't until later that morning that the Minister and his rather toadish looking Senior Undersecretary, Dolores Umbridge, came waltzing in with a scribe to discuss the events of that night. It was only the four of them, as Sirius and his merry band of babysitters had to leave for business of some sort.

It was with great pain and endurance that Violetta continued on with her blubbering act while retelling the story. Violetta was growing tired of being intentionally weepy. Not only did it actually put her into a bad mood, but her eyes were so swollen from tears that she could barely open them. The story itself was getting to be a bother, as well. The attention she got from it could handle, but the fact that everyone, especially males, tread around her like they were walking on eggshells was getting annoying.

Like the Quirrelmort-Knock-Yourself-Out-With-A-Rock Incident, perhaps faking a rape was going a bit too far.

Violetta soldiered on though, and the Minister lapped the story up like a baby. Yes, he was rather upset that he couldn't hide the fact that Sirius Black was innocent, and thereby showing that the Ministry had made an egregious mistake, but he was relieved to find that Voldemort's attempts at revival were foiled. At least then he wouldn't have to lie outright.

It appeared that Fudge was fully prepared to deny that the Dark Lord was back, and would completely disregard any sort of substantial evidence should Violetta have said anything about it. Peter Pettigrew was a different story, however. He did appear rather suddenly, and rather alive, in the middle of an internationally recognised event. Everyone recognised him immediately. His face was plastered in many international headlines for months right next to Violetta Potter's. No one would mistake Pettigrew's face for another's simply because it was too widely known.

This made hiding the fact that it really was Pettigrew virtually impossible. There were too many people watching, too many minds to consider. The amount of enquiries on the subject that the Minister had received on the night of the incident had forced him to bring it out into the open, thus showing the world that the British Ministry had failed spectacularly. The look on Sirius Black's face when they had spoken this morning was right smug, and Fudge couldn't look him strait in the eye.

Black knew—he bloody well knew—that the Ministry would be in his pocket from now until the end of time. The incident had simply become too public. A special edition of the Daily Prophet had been printed out and sent to the masses. Even though they were just preliminary, the results and statistics of the reactions of the general public were tipped generously into Black's favour. It was about this time that Fudge, for the first time in his career, had cursed at the stupidity of the public's sheep like mentality. One sympathetic article and all of Magical Britain raised their wands at him in anger.

Black was a murderer not just a week ago. How, in the name of Merlin, was he able to get that much acceptance so soon?

The paradox mind-boggled Fudge, who was never fond of riddles or thinking in circles. It was in these troubling times that he was glad that he had Dolores on his side. She took care of everything that came in his path, only needing his approval on an action and she was off. Dolores Umbridge was an unnaturally kind woman, as well. Fudge had it in his good opinion that she should have been a Hufflepuff, rather than a Slytherin.

It was with great pride that he watched his right hand man—woman (toad, thought Violetta)—rush up to the weepy Gryffindor girl in a blur of fluffy pink cardigan. They had just reached the end of her tale, and the girl had looked as though she was in desperate need of a good hug. Potter looked momentarily surprised at the embrace. Fudge would be too if he was in her position, to be honest. It wasn't very often that one got a Ministry member so kind as Dolores, especially one that was prone to displays of emotion.

Violetta wasn't falling for any of it, though. While she did keep up the pretence of being an over-trusting naive Gryffindor girl, her mind underneath the mask was working in overdrive. Violetta was positive that Dolores Umbridge was faking everything. She was much too sugary-sweet, too overly school-girlish for a woman as high up in the government was she was. It was easy to tell, even from a small glance, that the Undersecretary had Fudge under her fat thumb and not the other way around. The way she moved, the way she spoke, the way her eyes darted to the Minister at every turn just screamed 'corrupt politician'.

Besides that... pink? Why would any self-respecting person wear that much pink on a daily basis? To traumatize people?

The sudden image of the woman sitting atop dozens of pink parchments of legislation came to mind. Violetta thought it looked rather like a hungry toad waiting on a fuchsia lily-pad for its next meal.

It was with these thoughts in mind that Violetta knew that she would have to watch this one. This woman was not to be trusted.

Violetta had the feeling that this would not be the last time that she would have to deal with Dolores Umbridge.

The day went on very slowly for Violetta after the two politicians and their scribe had left. While she did get a nice assortment of visitors to soothe her boredom, she was still stuck on the hospital bed. Madam Pomfrey insisted that she stay one extra day to make sure that she was right as rain.

Visitors only had so long in which they could see her, so it wasn't like Violetta was able to talk for hours on end with anyone. Sirius came and went through the doors often. He couldn't stay for long intervals though, as he was, quote, "sorting out the rubbish and stupid umbrella stands—there's a story behind that, by the way—that need sorting out." Really, if it weren't for the horde of gifts and letters sitting on the two beds along both her sides then she would have died of boredom hours ago.

It really was a giant horde, too. Violetta didn't really fancy herself as 'popular' at any time during her stay at Hogwarts—most certainly not since the whole Triwizard Cup debacle—so to see that many gifts and letters was a bit of a surprise. A whole army of owls were perched on the bed railings, awaiting her order to come forth with their owners' messages.

Leading the pack was a rather fearsome looking harpy eagle. The way it stood was aristocratic and powerful, and it looked upon the other avians like they were mere plebeians under the claw of its godly self. Violetta didn't really have to think very far to know who that particular bird was from.

She took her time going through the letters and gifts. It wasn't like she had anything else to do for the day anyway, so she sent a small reply for thanks to all of the owls that stayed. She slowly opened up all of the parcels, carefully locating the edges as to not rip the packaging (a strange habit she had picked up after watching Dudley greedily rip apart his own parcels).

Most of the parcels' contents were candy or other miscellaneous items, some of them were books, and few amount of them were toys. She did get a few hilarious items (from Gred and Forge, naturally), and one of her visitors had the pleasure of trying one of them out for her (Sirius, after he had come back from one of his trips, began breathing bubbles out from his nose). It was about three in the afternoon when all of the gifts and letters began to dwindle, and suddenly there was only one left.

Violetta had been putting this one off, waiting until it was the absolute last one. She was doing figurative laps around in her head, wondering what that harpy eagle could have been holding. Quite a terrifying harpy it was, too. The whole time Violetta was opening her mail it stared at her unwaveringly. Not once did she see the thing blink.

Violetta looked around the infirmary. She had no visitors, Madam Pomfrey was in her office, and no other assistant nurses were milling about. She was alone.

With a sigh, Violetta looked over at the bird, beckoning it over. It looked at her as if saying 'about time, human'. Violetta was pretty sure she saw an eye-roll in there somewhere.

Oh yeah. I definitely know who owns this bird, she thought as it dropped off the rolled up parchment on her lap.

She ran a few diagnostic spells on it, eyes tracing over the silver ribbon tied around the green parchment. Finding no trace of magic on it (except for a few parchment-care charms) Violetta carefully untied the perfect bow and unrolled the scroll. And there, written in near perfect script, was Lord Voldemort's reply.

"Thank you, but your transfiguration could use a little work. :)"

Violetta stared at the little piece of parchment in her hand.

And stared.

And stared.

What the hell, she thought. Violetta felt the righteous indignation rising. That necklace was bloody perfect, you bloke.

She paused.

And what the sodding hell is with the smiley face?

Violetta wondered if Voldemort was intentionally being a bastard. She wouldn't put it past him. After all, what were Dark Lords supposed to do in their spare time if it wasn't terrorizing fourteen year old girls?

But what was it with the blasted smiley face?

He was trying to throw her off, she was sure of it. She knew was being cheeky when she had sent him that letter, so maybe this was his idea of being cheeky right back.

But a smiley face? Really?

It was so... out of character for him. It wasn't like she pictured smiley faces when she thought of the Dark Lord Voldemort—or any Dark Lord for that matter. They weren't exactly known for their sugar and happiness and rainbows, after all. The sudden image of a gory battlefield filtered into her mind, but rather than the usual Morsmordre skull and snake floating above it, she saw a bright, yellow, happy, solid smiley face.

Violetta shivered at the thought. Imagine if that was the Dark Mark. Bellatrix Lestrange proudly waving about a smiley face? The image was strange to say the least.

From the corner of her eye she could see the harpy eagle inspecting the note curiously, as if it was trying to read the parchment. If it could, it would probably be just as hung over about the smiley face as she was.

She looked at it; it looked at her. She raised an eyebrow at it; it gave the eagle equivalent of the look right back.

"Are you waiting for a reply?"

It squawked.

She took that as a yes.

Violetta looked around her and immediately located a quill and some scrap parchment (it was here that the harpy eagle gave her an admonishing look; 'So my human doesn't deserve a full sheet?'). She paused for a moment, trying to come up with a sufficient reply. She was going to one-up that smiley face even if it killed her.

Tom stared at the piece of parchment that his harpy eagle brought in.

And stared.

And stared.

And then stared some more.

Nagini, curious as to what had warranted her master's full attention, slithered up to the table. What had met her eyes was nothing special, really. It was just a piece of scrap, about the size of a small egg. It had rips and tears all over its abused form and had inkblot stains all across the jagged edges. It was just trash, and as such it did not need to command Tom's full attention.

But command his attention it did.

Tom had his brow furrowed in confusion as he ran a few diagnostic charms on the scrap. Had his eagle given him the wrong thing, or was Potter intentionally being annoying? He remembered quite clearly the piece of parchment he had sent her—tinted green, heavy, expensive, wrapped in a silver ribbon tied in a perfect bow. It most certainly was not trash, not like this thing that had found its way to his desk. Tom was quite insulted, actually. Even if the Girl-Who-Was-Untalented-At-Dying did not have that good of a stationary, surely he deserved something more than what would be found under one's shoe?

Looking through the diagnostics, Tom found that there was nothing inherently harmful about the paper. There were, however, a few relatively harmless charms placed on it that had piqued his interest.

Ah, Tom quickly deduced, is this her way of getting back at my comment?

It probably was. If Tom was correct, as was usually the case, then both the comment and the little smiley face end had served their purpose: capture the girl's attention. He needed that attention on him. That girl he saw in the graveyard, that cheeky girl who kidnapped her kidnapper from him, was interesting. He wondered if that girl he saw was a mask, or perhaps the mask behind the mask, or even the real thing. Either way, that girl he saw was most certainly not an ickle Gryffindor.

Show me your secrets, little closet Slytherin, he thought as he touched the scrappy piece of parchment.

The piece of trash suddenly leaped into a flurry of movement, startling both Tom and Nagini. Popping of the table, with sparks flying off underneath it, it landed at the corner of the desk nearest to Tom. Using its ripped edges as pseudo-limbs, the parchment mockingly bowed to him. It then moved on to tap dance around his desk, shooting of little sparks of green and gold underneath its 'feet'. Tom would have been amused, but at some point the thing landed into his ink well, and was now merrily prancing about his desk, happily gallivanting over important documents and his wand.

There were ink stains everywhere.

What in the name of... he thought, surprised and not just a little agitated. He quickly shot off a wandless burning curse at it. Amusing as the little scrap was, it just paper, and therefore flammable.

Yeah—no.

Just like he wanted, the little scrap immediately burst into flames. However, what he most certainly did not predict was the little scrap transmuting itself into an angry, snapping, fiery—

Turtle?

Tom instinctively jumped back at the flash of red-orange flame, right arm raised and prepared to douse it with water with a spell. He stopped himself when he saw that the turtle wasn't actually burning anything. It was just giving off heat and—by Merlin—was it smiling at him?

(Another look at it confirmed that yes, indeed it was.)

It was curious, he thought, that the girl would send him a turtle. Tom thought that she would've paid some sort of homage to her Gryffindor roots, like a lion, or even be cheeky enough to send a snake. Maybe a phoenix, or a unicorn, or a hippogriff. He most certainly did not expect it a turtle.

Said turtle looked to him, and then to Nagini, and then back to him. A noise then came out of it; a small, lifting giggle. It was not a poetic giggle by any means. It wasn't lyrical nor lulling. It was high pitched and overly happy, like a child's giggle.

And yes, it was giggle. Not a snort or a laugh or a snigger. A giggle. There were no other words to describe something so annoying.

The turtle focused its attention on Tom, quickly lifting itself off the desk and into his face. Smoke billowed from where it jumped, but it didn't leave any scorch marks on the desk. Tom, refusing to be intimidated by a fake turtle sent to him by a fourteen year old girl, merely looked at the floating thing with a raised eyebrow.

This seemed to set the turtle into another round of giggles, this one louder than the last. It kicked off from an invisible platform underneath its fiery feet, then flew around his office, giggling like a little school girl. Tom didn't think that the fiery turtle was solid—fire most certainly wasn't—but the way the thing flew into his belongings and knocked them down made him rethink his first impression.

"Ab di immortales!" Tom exclaimed in Latin after it dropped one of his scrolls. A few harmless charms, my arse, he thought. This is madness.

The turtle then had the cheek to fly its way right in front of him, mockingly waving with its stubby little legs. It gave one last giggle before floating high above his desk, then diving into it like one might do in a pool.

And there on top of all his ink-stained documents and quills, written in ash, was the most anti-climactic message Tom had ever seen.

;)

-VP

Tom didn't know what made him angrier, the fact that the girl completely ransacked his study with a turtle or the fact that she had made him wait a week for it.

The last month of the school year seemed to fly by after the end of the Triwizard Tournament. Voldemort had yet to respond to Violetta's last message, much to her disappointment. Perhaps I overdid the spellwork just a little bit, she thought one day over dinner while conversing with Krum and Diggory.

Even though the delegation from Beauxbatons left right after the Tournament's end, the group from Durmstrang stayed until the end of the school year. They weren't really in a position to go anywhere, either. The agreement that Headmaster Karkaroff had made at the beginning of the Tournament had stated that they would stay at Hogwarts for the rest of the year unless he himself said otherwise, and the Durmstrang deputy headmaster didn't quite have the authority to override the agreement yet.

No one knew where Karkaroff was, not even those closest to him. Many rumours about the flighty headmaster were being floated about. Some said that he was so ashamed at Krum's loss in the tournament that he fled to Egypt, where he could change his identity and hopefully regain some respect for himself. Others said that he had ran off to elope with a muggle woman somewhere in the middle of Siberia, and that he was already expecting a child (of whom he would name either Buford or Eugene; the name changed depending on who told the story).

Some off the wall rumour said that he was running away from the law because he was in league with Pettigrew to kidnap the Girl-Who-Lived to revive the Dark Lord. Some other sod added to the story, stating that the Dark Lord was indeed revived and that Karkaroff wasn't running from Pettigrew, but from the Dark Lord himself. The bloke that came up with that rumour was quickly silenced, though. The story was much too outlandish to accept.

It was because of Durmstrang's stay that many students could attest to seeing three of the four Champions start spending time together. The three of them had some sort of strange camaraderie between them, and it wouldn't be very hard to guess that the bond would be shared with the fourth Champion, even though she was all the way in France. Living through harrowing experiences tended to do that to people, they supposed.

Strange bond aside, however, the three could not forget the competition between them. The four of them, Fleur included, knew that the tasks were tampered with so that Violetta would win—though the other students didn't—and be the first to the Portkey. Violetta attempted to alleviate this by offering them the prize money, but none of the wanted it. It wasn't like any of them needed it, anyway. Krum had his lucrative Seeker career, Fleur was the daughter of an affluent French aristocrat, and Cedric, though he most certainly was not of a lower class, was much too honourable to take it. So, without any of the Champions willing to take the money, Violetta went for the next best thing.

"Vi, we can't..." said Fred.

"It's not ours to use," finished George.

Violetta smiled at them, closing Fred's large hands around the money bag with her smaller ones. "It is now."

"But—"

"I don't want it. Truly. This is you guys' chance to make your dreams come true."

A few minutes later, both of the twins were thanking Violetta fervently, shaking her up and down her sore arms and hugging her until she couldn't breathe.

The other Champions' refusal of the money didn't mean that they had accepted that Violetta was the true winner, however. The feeling of competition soon turned into an elaborate game of 'Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better'. They started off small: seeing who was faster on a broom, who could cast the better Patronus, and the like. It eventually turned into a full blown pissing contest where the three would have mock duels and competitions. Things got very serious when three new Quidditch teams popped out of thin air, captained by the three present Champion Seekers, and a small round-robin tournament was held.

(Krum and Violetta refused to believe that Cedric had won the tournament, thank you very much. Hufflepuff or not, the blasted sod was cheating.)

In between all of this nonsense was Finals. It was during this time that Violetta got caught into Hermione's whirlwind of studying, even though they weren't on the best terms at the moment. After many failed attempts at looking though a book, Violetta decided that she would just wing it. She had been at the top of her class since second year, much to Hermione's frustration.

Even with the shite Snape tried to pull off she was still at the top in Potions, so unless he actively tried to fail her, she doubted she would fail the Final. It was the same with Charms, Transfiguration, and Defence. It would take a Confundus, a very strong one at that, to get her to fail them. The whole reason she survived that blasted tournament was because of her knowledge on the subjects.

Despite Professor Dumbledore's attempts to get them to reconcile, Violetta's relationship between Ron and Hermione continued to be rocky. While she could see her and Hermione's bond coming to fix itself with time, she could not say the same with Ron. There were simply too many incidents over the years—incidents that showed that his loyalty toward her could be shaky and he wasn't completely reliable—and she highly doubted that those incidents would cease if she decided to forgive him now.

However, even though she had no intentions to keep her relationship with Ron, Violetta did stay close friends with the rest of the Weasleys (namely Fred and George). There was no need to sever good friendships just because of one stupid bloke.

Ron obviously did not take this very well. While Hermione just stayed silent, understanding that Violetta would need some time, Ron did the exact opposite. After realising that Violetta was not in a forgiving mood, and wouldn't be in one any time soon, he began to tell anyone who would listen how much of a complete bint she was. It was like he became the Gryffindor version of Draco Malfoy, only with red hair.

They began to argue constantly, much to the bouncing ferret's amusement, and it was beginning to fray on Violetta's nerves. She was quite sure that their screaming voices could be heard in all corners of the castle, and that her voice was going to be quite hoarse by the end of the year if she kept wasting it on the thrice-damned red head.

It was after one of these loud arguments that Violetta was found in her dorm room on the last day of the school year. She wasn't crying, oh no. She wasn't even close to being upset. She looked ecstatic. Her eyes were shining with obvious happiness underneath her glasses.

Today was the day that she would be leaving Hogwarts, not to go to the Dursleys, but with Sirius. He had finally secured guardianship over her this year and had been preparing Number 12 Grimmauld Place tirelessly for the past month so that they could live in it together. Sirius was waiting for her right now at Platform 9 3/4. The thought of him waiting for her, the thought of family that loved her was waiting for her, after so many years of being alone put a pleasant warm spot in her belly.

Violetta took in a deep breath. It felt like she had just ended a long, painful chapter in her life and had just began to start a new one. This one was bound to be even more exciting than the last. Oh the possibilities of living in the wizarding world for the whole year, rather than just for schooling, was amazing.

Perhaps she and Sirius would frequent a few Quidditch matches, go to the Pegasus Races, or even just floo to Diagon Ally to go shopping. They had more than enough time to spend together now that he was free. They could do anything.

She gave the room one final smile before she left for the summer, turning around to leave. She would come back to this same room on September first with no malnourishment or bruises. She would come back loved.

Just as was about the leave the dorm, Violetta caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye. Something on her bedside table.

Oh shite, she thought as she walked over and picked the little book up. Can't forget Tommy's little diary now can we?

Violetta Lilith Potter, Third Year Gryffindor, 13 years old

Hogwarts, Unplottable Location, Scotland

Circa 1993

A lone Violetta Potter sat on her bed, curtains drawn with a single candlelight burning within. It was just after eleven in the evening and all of the girls in her dorm were asleep. A small book was on her lap—a passer-by would have called it her diary or grimoire—and she was writing strange, unidentifiable scribbles that seemed to soak up and disappear on the pages before even more scribbles, these infinitely neater, appeared again.

"§ So by crushing the beetle, rather than cutting it— §"

"§ You produce more usable juice, yes. It leaves less to go to waste and is far easier to procure. §"

"§ I see. §"

There was a pause in the replies.

"§ Your handwriting is atrocious. §"

"§ My handwriting is just fine, thank you very much. §"

"§ Your Parseltongue is worse. Your vowels look more like botched up runes. §"

"§ Parseltongue looks like a conglomeration of botched up runes. §"

"§ Large word, conglomeration. I'm shocked that you even know how to use it. There may be hope for you yet, Potter. §"

"§ Oh shut it, Tom. §"

TBC

Ugh. I spent a week just imagining and listing out things that would occur in this fic. A whole damn week, and then some. This chapter was supposed to be a maximum of 7k words. Yeah. I shattered that projection by a mile.

I hope I didn't let you guys down.

"Ab di immortales" means "by the immortal gods" in Latin. Take it as Tom's way of saying "Jesus Christ" or "oh my god" while having that educated-old-person flare. I got it from my Latin class, which ended a few weeks ago. I think I got the translation right .-.;

Brownie points to whoever can answer where "a squashed cabbage leaf" was alluding to. No looking it up!

Adoptive parent signing off.