19) Parallel Perils

Selected Listening: Smells Like Teen Spirit- Nirvana

Anastasia tried to tell Albus about how horrible Professor Moody had been to them on the first day of class, but Albus insisted Moody was only showing them the reality of life beyond Hogwarts's walls.

"By taunting us and bringing up traumatic memories?" she clarified.

"I admit his methods are not ideal, but they are effective. Did you know he gifted Neville an herbology book?"

Anastasia had seen Neville reading his new book religiously in the corners of the common room. She supposed that maybe grandad was right, and she was being overly defensive after the ferret incident. So, Anastasia departed with the hope Moody would temper his initial shock-value lesson plan and provide something with more practical application.

The other fourth-year classes had somehow increased in intensity, even from third year, as all the teachers had begun to impress upon them the importance of OWLS coming up in two years' time. Flitwick piled on readings for summoning charms, Snape threatened to poison them if they could not produce a competent antidote, and Binns could have asked them to recite the textbook after all the assignments they were required to do on Goblin rebellions. Anastasia was glad she was at least relatively competent at transfiguration after all her animagus practice, and found the switching spell fairly simple, to the jealousy of her peers. Minerva had her move on from turning pincushions into hedgehogs by turning the kappa from Lupin's class into its own kelp forest and back again.

She continued to visit Crenshaw, morning, night, and sometimes noon, to ensure his healing was going along well. On the Monday following his crash into the Black Lake, he was able to stand straight without falling in the direction of his bad leg and hooted happily at her with a smile.

"Hermione thought it might have been Mr. Malfoy who did it," Anastasia told Minerva during their first week of class teatime (which ended up being the second week of class teatime since Minerva had been so tied up helping the staff with Triwizard Tournament preparations).

"Does she?" Minerva chuckled. There's a way we can find out."

"Really?" Anastasia stared at Minerva, silently, fearing. If it did turn out to be who they expected, what would she tell Draco? "I knew there was a way to identify what spell a wand cast last, but not to identify the caster by the injury."

Minerva nodded.

"Come with me to the Owlery at lunch."

Anastasia didn't tell Draco where she was going. If it did turn out to be so that Lucius harmed her owl, she would want to break it to him herself, not let the spell do it for her.

They brought Crenshaw out of his nook and laid him on the center table, which was intended for writing letters, but mostly covered in owl droppings.

"Praecantator revelio." Minerva said, tapping his wing.

Before them, a cloud of blue mist swirled upward. Lucius Malfoy appeared above them, face glinting with satisfaction.

"What do we have here?" Lucius asked in a ghastly tone, taking the scroll tied to Crenshaw's leg, reading it, and burning it up with a smirk.

"That was the letter Draco sent me!" Anastasia protested as if she were there.

"You won't be carrying that anywhere!" Lucius shot Crenshaw with another blast, and then another that missed, the last launching him into the forest.

The cloud dissipated, and Minerva and Anastasia were alone again. Anastasia gently wrapped her arms around Crenshaw.

"I'll never send you there again," Anastasia said, and Crenshaw snuggled into her neck.

"How can someone be that cruel?" she asked Minerva as she placed Crenshaw gently back in his nook.

Minerva stared at her. Although Anastasia had grown, there were still many things in the world Anastasia was naïve about. Cruelty was one of them.

"The Malfoy family is trained to do one thing…continue their pureblood lineage. Lucius Malfoy knows you are committed to muggleborn wizarding rights. That means, even though you are pureblood with several esteemed bloodlines in your genealogy, you may allow your progeny to do as they like in terms of dating."

Anastasia blushed a deep shade of scarlet.

"But that's so far away from now…I mean, we can't even with the lifeline, we can't guarantee…"

"Trust me, it's the only thing they think about," Minerva remarked cynically.

"Well, then Mr. Malfoy can hate me forever then," she decided.

"That's the spirit."

Minerva suggested she start using castle owls if sending anything to Malfoy Manor. Harry had to do the same because Sirius said Hedwig attracted too much attention. The two godchildren of the Black family now spent time in the Owlery, debating over which of the hundreds of castle owls were the heartiest deliverers, much to the chagrin of Hedwig and Crenshaw.

Anastasia decided she wasn't going to reply to Narcissa's half-hearted apology note. She concluded that it would be better for her to wait until Narcissa revealed whatever she would do to make it up to her rather than risk another owl's life.

Disheartened with the newfound knowledge, Anastasia also now had to plan how to tell Draco what his father had done and ask him if he would try to enter the Triwizard tournament. She finally found the opportunity on Tuesday evening, when Hagrid asked certain groups to check on the blast-ended-skrewts. She and Hermione were assigned along with Blaise and Draco. Their two friends were kind enough to leave them behind when Anastasia hinted she needed to speak with Draco privately.

"So, what is it, princess? Couldn't stand not having some alone time with me today?" Draco teased. He took her hand and tried to lead her to the border of trees outside the Forbidden Forest, but she broke away.

"No, your father…he…he attacked Crenshaw…and he burnt the note you wrote me," she sputtered all out at one. Otherwise she would never say it.

"What?" he asked, "How did you—?"

"Minerva cast a spell to indicate the caster of the spell that caused the injury. It showed us everything…" At first, she wondered if Draco would believe her, but he didn't have a reason not to. Draco bit his lip in fury to keep from shouting. He placed one hand over his eyes and took a deep breath, body shaking.

Then he tore away and started walking towards the castle, she ran behind him, passing the Black Lake together, their reflections walking alongside them.

"Are you alright?"

He half-spiraled around to speak to her but kept walking.

"No! I'm not alright. My dad is hell bent on doing anything to keep us from being together. He's determined to hate you—"

"Why is that?" she asked.

"Because you're Dumbledore's daughter. Because you're not Slytherin. Because no matter how many significant blood lineage's you have, it's not good enough unless you're subscribed to the blood purist doctrine yourself. Take your pick!"

Anastasia tried to force down the tears coming to her eyes. Most of those things were out of her control, and the one that was, she wouldn't choose it for the world, not even for him.

Draco stopped, turned to her, and paused, seeming to realize none of it was her fault, and she didn't deserve his resulting anger.

"I am very sorry about your owl. I wish I could have done something. How's it doing?"

"Crenshaw's okay," she shrugged. "Healing up."

"Glad to hear it," he smiled and slipped an arm around her shoulders as they continued walking up the hill.

"Hey, Draco," she began.

"Yeah?"

"A lot of underage Gryffindors are going to try to enter the tournament. Are you—?"

He smiled slyly.

"What? Am I going to enter? I don't see any reason in trying to do that. Not without the right help, of course," he remarked.

She scoffed. "What are you planning?"

"Depends on what it is, but Blaise and I are ready for anything," he said confidently.

She glared at him, then looked at the ground in front of their feet. Draco stopped, his brows coming together in an irritated frown.

"What? Merlin knows Potter is going to try. He's always stealing the limelight. This time, I want a fair chance. And can you imagine? If I were the school champion? People would forget all about the ferret thing and then maybe—"

"Maybe what?" she asked.

"Your father would take a liking to me."

Anastasia couldn't help but spurt laughter at his response.

"What? It's not funny!" he shouted. When she finally composed herself, she responded.

"Draco, why do you think grandad doesn't like you?"

"Well for all the opposite reasons my father hates you I assume."

She shook her head with a grin.

"My father doesn't hate you. He says he's happy with whomever I choose as long as I'm happy."

"Oh…" he started, "…and he's said this recently? And he knows we're dating?"

"Yes," she emphasized, taking his hand as they walked. "He might give Slytherin a hard time when it comes to house points, but he knows how much you mean to me…and I don't think entering a contest where you break a rule and place both our lives in jeopardy is going to earn you any points in that regard."

Draco nodded slowly, but she could tell her words only sunk in halfway.

The next morning, the fourth years had their second Defense Against the Dark Arts Lesson with Moody. Anastasia tried to sit up tall, undaunted, ready to take on whatever Moody assigned. Draco came in moments later and took his seat.

"Are you ready?" she asked him.

"Let's see how it goes," he commented, adjusting his tie, shrewdly.

Moody stormed in, slamming the door behind him, and clunking up to the front.

"Today I will be testing the imperious curse on each of you to give you the chance to feel what it's like and try to fight it off."

Her gaze shot to Draco, and his to hers. They didn't know how the imperious curse would interact with the lifeline, and they certainly couldn't find out in front of everyone in their class.

Hermione attempted to argue out of it but failed. The lesson would continue, despite its illegality or abuses.

Moody cast a spell, and the desks and chairs all levitated to the side of the room. Students jumped off of the benches and congregated in the middle of the room with their belongings.

"Here, Patel, come up first,"

And so, the nightmare began. What for Lupin had been an encouraging and even motivating exercise—face your greatest fear—was for Moody an opportunity to humiliate each and every student personally by forcing them into the zaniest tasks. Parvati did cartwheels around the room, Seamus did a handstand and denounced the Irish National Quidditch Team, Millicent jumped onto the chalkboard and used it as a balance beam, and so it went, until he laid eyes on Anastasia.

"Dumbledore, you're up,"

Anastasia felt her breathing go short, and she looked desperately back at Draco and Hermione before stepping up to the front, wand at her side. No one had managed to fight off the imperious curse thus far.

"Now what shall I have you do?" Moody mused, eye spinning, hands folded as he paced in front of her, his smile taunting. His glass eye flashed towards the ceiling then back down. "Yes, yes. That'll be it."

Anastasia glanced nervously around the room again.

"Imperio."

A haze fell over Anastasia's consciousness, like she had been dropped underwater, and all the voices around her faded to echoes. She could see everyone, but couldn't interact with them, now nameless faces, and a voice whispered to her through the fog.

"Climb the column."

She looked at one of the many carved columns lining either side of the room. Though she fought against her own legs to do so, she found herself at the base of it, and jumped up to take hold. From there, she climbed higher and higher, until the ceiling was only a few meters away.

She looked down to gauge her distance. A familiar blonde boy stared up at her. He clutched his forearms across his chest, restraining them.

"I don't feel well," he stuttered out and bounced out of the classroom.

Anastasia turned her eyes skyward again. She continued climbing, up and up, finally, the fingers of her outstretched hand grazed the ceiling.

She hadn't been so high since she was small.

The students below her began to gasp. A voice in her head said No, stop, stop, stop.

"Alright," Moody agreed. "Alright, that's enough, come back down."

When Anastasia reached the ground, and felt the stone beneath her feet, Moody waved his wand again, and the curse fell. Sounds sharpened. She could recognize everyone's faces.

"Did you even start to resist at all?" Moody asked, chuckling harshly. "With your genes, I thought for surely you would hold your own."

Anastasia flushed red and backed into the crowd, holding herself.

Draco returned a few moments later, regaining her side almost immediately. They leaned back against the wall so Moody could not see his arm wrapped around her waist.

"What happened?" she whispered to him.

"My arms…they were starting to climb…I had to hold them back," he murmured into her hair. "This guy is really a disaster isn't he?"

Across the room, Anastasia made eye contact with the glass eye. It flickered between her and Draco as the other watched as he forced Pansy to do a jig.

Anastasia shivered. Would she have to do the same as Draco and flee from the room during his turn? What would Moody make him do? Turn into a ferret and dance this time?

She wanted to give the old auror a chance. She really did, but it was only becoming harder with each lesson.

Luckily, Harry had resisted the curse successfully, and Moody spent so much of the end of the class drilling Harry repeatedly that Draco's turn never came.

"Thank Merlin," she whispered into his shoulder, and he held her tighter against him.

"And don't worry that some of you didn't get a chance this time…there's more where that came from," Moody glowered threateningly.

Anastasia tried to tell Albus at their scheduled dinners in the kitchens, but he didn't seem concerned, only suggested that one of them leave the room during the other's turn or do their best to hide it. It would be too obvious—and clear favoritism—for Albus to only excuse the two of them from the assignment.

"I'm not asking for favoritism; I'm asking you to shut it down!" she implored, standing up from the table and slamming her hands down. The house elf who repoured their water skittered away. "It's wrong!"

The old man sighed.

"My dear, it's important everyone get some practice with this…lest it ever be turned on you in ill will," he remarked casually. Anastasia glared.

"Yeah, well, it already feels like ill will to me."

For a month, it continued.

More painful than resisting the imperious curse was resisting the lifeline, struggling to keep oneself upright while the other heaved over, keep one's feet still as the other danced across the room, keep one's arms pinned to one's sides as the other flailed around helplessly.

Neither of them was improving.

At the end of every class, Anastasia and Draco found each other in the hall and stared at each other despondently. They slipped into their favorite broom closet and touched each other's strained forearms tenderly, and then their torsos and lips, snogging until they forgot as much of the pain as they could. Sometimes, even, Anastasia let Draco's hands drift under her blouse…

"Draco," she warned gently the first time his fingers skimmed her rib cage.

"What?" he asked slyly, "you think people like snogging so much just for the kissing?"

"No, but…"

"Do you trust me?" he asked.

"Yes," she admitted.

"Then relax," he whispered, his scent overtaking her, and his hand slipped further upward.

And the sensation burned so new and wonderfully that the soreness in her arms faded away like a bad dream.

One day, as Anastasia readjusted her blouse and they prepared to leave the closet, they heard a heavy dragging of boots… a fake leg.

She creaked open the door and saw Moody heading towards the dungeons.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked her in a frantic whisper.

"There's something not right about him…I'm going to find out what…"

Anastasia paused. She didn't have her invisibility cloak, but she had another way of sneaking around, one that she hadn't told Draco about yet. She winced and pulled back from the crack in the door, staring up at him with wide eyes.

"Princess, if you're about to confess to a murder, just say so, I'll help you bury the body," he said half-sarcastically. She shook her head.

"Remember that night when we almost died last year? You ran after me onto the lawn?"

"Only the part Blaise told me."

Anastasia shifted into a fox, and paused, staring up at him in hopes that he wouldn't break up with her immediately. He shivered and blinked hard, refocusing.

"Bloody—" Draco rubbed his eyes again. "So that's why I've been all twitchy…you're a bloody animagus!"

She shifted back.

"Twitchy? That's all you feel?" she asked.

"Yes! And my eyesight gets all cloudy, and my hearing gets sharper. Are you even registered?" he asked as he blinked hard again.

"No, can't talk now, or we'll lose Moody."

"But what am I going to do? Oh no…don't look at me like that."

In the next thirty seconds, Anastasia came trotting out of the broom closet with a ferret clinging to her back. The halls, empty for lunch, greeted them.

Anastasia looked both ways and slunk off down the hall, creeping down the back staircase to the dungeons, Draco's claws knotted in her fur.

They didn't have to go far. She paused at the doorway to the corridor, then ducked behind the wall.

Moody stood at the door to the potion stores. Light from inside fell into the corridor. No one accompanied him. He was rummaging.

They stayed long enough to see him take what he needed, slam the closet door shut, and whistle as he walked back in their direction.

Anastasia ducked quickly under the staircase. Once Moody had passed, she transformed, catching Draco in the crook of her elbow and placing him gently on the ground before casting the spell again. Draco regained his human form.

He glared furiously.

"Look, Anastasia, I don't care if you rope me into your Gryffindor exploits occasionally, but you're never doing that to me again, understand? It's humiliating!"

She put up her hands in surrender.

"Fine, fine, I'm sorry. The question remains, why would Moody need to pilfer anything from the stores?" Anastasia asked. "Shouldn't he have his own potions?"

"Maybe he forgot his at home?" Draco shrugged. "Isn't he overly paranoid after he thought someone attacked him there? Maybe he didn't want to risk hanging around to gather his things. Maybe Snape gave him permission! It's none of our business."

"Maybe…" she wondered. Moody was paranoid enough to abandon his house for what he thought was an emergency.

Draco placed his hands on her arms and drew her forward.

"Come on, we should grab lunch before the food gets cleaned up."

On the final day of the imperious unit, the day of their test, and the day of the other schools' arrivals, the Gryffindors and Slytherins stood anxiously awaiting their fate.

Anastasia wished she could have resisted any more than she did the first time, but nothing had changed.

"Climb the column," Moody said.

Anastasia watched herself scale the column as if she were in a dream. Below her, students gasped. This time, Draco was able to hold his arms firmly crossed over his chest and his legs glued together. He watched her warily. She looked back up, realizing she was almost at the top when her fingers brushed the ceiling.

"Now," Moody said, "jump onto the chandelier."

The students gasped below her. No! They shouted. It was too much! She'd fall.

But she didn't fall. And that was exactly the problem.

She sprang, and landed, hugging the cast iron fixture. One of the votive spikes, pierced her right side.

She heard herself wail. Warm blood spilled over the sides of the fixture and dripped onto the stone floor below.

The students began to scream.

"That's enough, stop squaking!" Moody levitated her down and lifted the curse.

Anastasia gathered her robes around her wound and stuffed them into her side. Draco pulled her left arm across his shoulder to brace her, yet he was also tilting on the right side. Anastasia looked up from her bleeding wound to see Moody's face, twisted and smiling in a horrible way. Prey, staring into the eyes of a hound.

"Why don't you take Miss Dumbledore to the infirmary, Mr. Malfoy. You look like you could use a tonic at least. If not, bandages yourself."

The two limped away in shock.

"You think he knows?" Anastasia whispered when they had hobbled far enough away from the classroom.

"Don't talk," he said quietly, but his eyes had filled with fear. "Let's focus on getting to Madam Pomfrey."

When they reached the entryway, she bustled to them in her habit-like robes.

"Of course, it would be you two visiting me in the first weeks of school! What in Morgana happened?"

Pomfrey gasped when Anastasia drew the bundle of cloth away from her wound. The healer ushered her behind a curtain, forced her onto a cot, and stripped her clothing with a simple spell so she could examine the wound more closely. From the other side of curtain, Draco explained.

"Moody is insane. He's been casting the imperious curse on all of us! He made Anastasia scale the wall and jump onto a chandelier. It stabbed her in the s—" the sound of him breathing heavily, pulling out his inhaler, and breathing deeply drifted back to them.

Madam Pomfrey sealed Anastasia's wound and gave her a blood replenishing potion before running to his side to tend to him.

"Let me see—"

"It's nothing."

"Let me see,"

"G'off"

"Malfoy!" she said sternly, and he finally gave in. "It's not that bad," she sated.

"Told you," he replied.

"What?" Anastasia demanded, dragging on her own clothing. "What's not that bad?"

She rounded the curtain. Draco held the hem of his shirt and sweater vest above his ribs so Pomfery could see. A trickle of blood dripped down his abdomen. The wound had transferred to the point of breaking skin. Madam Pomfery sealed the wound and handed him a bandage to hold on top of it.

"I'll get my salve," she said and departed for the cabinet. Draco tried unsuccessfully to pull his shirt down around his wound.

"Don't worry about it, Stasia—"

"Wait," Anastasia said, approached him, and placed her hand over the wound, grabbed his opposite hand and placed it over hers. She leaned her forehead against his, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

Sometimes it was easy to forget the lifeline had real consequences. Even when they were suffering from it in class, the dangers seemed miles away, like nothing could truly kill them both at once…

That illusion had been shattered.