"What are you doing here Lena?" Miss Stacy sighed as she looked at her. "Don't you have that thing- the feast thing for the first day of school? Don't tell me you're not going this year! You're too young to be skipping something like that."
"They don't like me, nor do they want me there." Lena moved to bus another table.
Catching her by the shoulder and spinning her around, the woman looked at her sternly. "Does everyone have to like you, Lena? Is that mandatory now? What about all the kids that like you so much they search all of London for one coffee shop? Can't you focus on your friends and just ignore the others?" The woman smiled softly, as if she was missing something big here, and pushed her shoulder slightly. "Go. I don't want to see you here tomorrow. You either find another job or go to that school and maybe I'll hire you next summer."
She sighed, taking off the apron and trading it for her jacket and backpack that had her trunk in it already. Nodding to the woman, who was smiling brightly, she left and slowly made her way to the Leaky Cauldron.
Sitting at the bar, she checked the time on her watch.
The train had surely arrived by now, the first years sorted and the feast started.
Rubbing her face in exasperation, she changed into her Slytherin robes and paid to use the floo, stepping out at the Hog's Head. Looking to the older bartender she remembered, she smirked. "Hey, Aberforth. You got a way for me to get to school or should I wait here?"
"Albus thought you'd be comin' by." The man set down a small slip of paper on the counter. "Take hold and say the password. It'll take you outside the entrance."
Nodding, she grabbed it and looked at what was written, smiling. It was a question. 'What do you carry in your pockets?' Shaking her head, she chuckled softly. "Peppermints."
The feeling that she recognized as being portkeyed somewhere, was absolutely miserable. Every single atom in her body felt as if it had been pressed into a bouncy ball and then thrown around a small room, bouncing off a wall every other second, before being flattened back out into a person-sized lump of goo that was somehow still standing.
Blinking to clear the spots from her eyes, she huffed and slowly made her way into the castle.
Walking past the paintings that greeted her with whispers and stares, she made sure her shoes were silent as she stopped at the edge of the open doors. The Head Table stared at her, Dumbledore's eyes twinkling as he continued to speak. "-dementors will be stationed at every entrance to the grounds, and though I have been assured that their presence should not interrupt out day-to-day activities… Dementors are not creatures to take lightly, as they are beings of fear, and fear is powerful." The man tilted his head slightly, imploring her to join them, to take that last step.
"Potter! Potter!"
Lena narrowed her eyes on where Draco was being a prat. The tables were changed around, Slytherin and Gryffindor in the middle of the room instead of on opposite edges, and of course the blonde had to egg on Charles.
"Potter! Is it true you actually fainted?!"
Flicking her wand to summon a newspaper and rolling it up, she walked down the aisle, hitting Draco over the head with a clean 'whack!'.
"What the-!" The boy turned, and much like the rest of the hall, gaped at her. "Lena?!"
"Lena!" Hestia stood, smile triumphant. "I knew it! I win the bet! Pay up sucker!"
Marcus groaned. "Come on- I thought you'd stay away for a few days, maybe even a week!"
Draco rubbed the back of his head. "What was that for?"
"You've regained the whiny quality to your voice. I blame your father... but still." Turning to look at Dumbledore, she raised an eyebrow. "Thank you for your patience. I didn't want to come... but it seems I was forced."
The man chuckled. "Thank you for your trust. And yes, my dear, you might have had a gentle nudge."
Snorting, she moved to the head of the table, Marcus making way for her to sit down without a word.
Blaise, Theo, and Daphne all grinned at her as the food appeared on the table.
"Be quiet." She scowled at them, then at her food as it was to blame.
The three just grinned wider.
"Hello, my snakes." Lena stood up after the normal speech by Marcus, smiling at the common room. "As I think you can tell, I'm back this year."
The room cheered and she huffed softly in humor, waving her hands to quiet it again.
"As you have already been told, there are dementors wandering our halls. As such, I have double the amount of chocolate I usually carry, so just find me should you need some or ask the house-elves if it's an emergency. Please don't try to just keep your nightmares to yourself, as I am known to stay up late and will usually be reading in the common room most nights should you have a nightmare or just can't sleep." Looking at the firsties, she sighed. "I'm not in the mood for a fancy demonstration tonight, if you wish to challenge my title as Queen then please do so in the morning. Goodnight."
Blaise smiled at her as she passed him to her room and she laid back on her bed with a long sigh.
As she was taking Ancient Runes instead of potions as one of her base courses (and was at a sixth-year level for it), she decided to try Divination and Care of Magical Creatures, as there was a period of two weeks that she could change her mind on either of them.
But yet… Trelawny seemed a bit of a hack.
"Welcome, my children... In this room, you shall explore the noble art of Divination. In this room, you shall discover if you possess the Sight." Standing, the woman (wearing glasses as thick as the crystal balls Lena saw on a shelf near the back) stood, knocking into the table in front of her. Chuckling sheepishly, the woman continued in that horrible voice of hers. "I am Professor Trelawney. Together we shall cast ourselves into the future! This term, we'll focus on Tasseomancy, the art of reading tea leaves. So please- take the cup of the person sitting opposite you!"
Looking at Blaise who was sitting with her, Theo and Daphne sniping at each other at a table next to them, she shrugged and grabbed his cup. Making a wide-eyed look, she leaned towards him and shook her head as if deeply saddened, whispering. "You're going to get run over by a Centaur. What a shame."
The boy snorted softly.
The woman, however, was going around the room spouting nonsense. "-broaden your mind! Open yourself for the sight to flow through you!" The woman ambled their way.
Trying to look invested in the teacup, she sighed when the woman locked onto Blaise. "Oh! Oh, your aura is broad enough! Look- look at the cup! Tell me what you see!"
"Uh…" The boy looked from her cup to the book. "Well... I see something like a… rat? So maybe something about treacherous servants? And a broken sword with a clover? So some supposed enemy of yours will win… but you'll be happy about it…?"
The woman snatched the cup from Blaise's hands, looking at it and then gasping and pushing it from her as if it were poisonous, hands clutched to her chest as she looked at Lena. "My dear girl… you have a snake but- but not just any snake… you have a basilisk. "
Blaise looked to his book. "The symbol of... a surprising and painful death? Where did you see that?" The boy looked as if he was mentally writing up Trelawney's intake forms for a mental institute with every single minute that passed.
"Maybe she's going to try to kiss a dementor." One of the Gryffindors sneered at her.
Lips pressed together, she ducked her head, shoulders shaking.
"Lena? You alright?"
Unable to stop it, she burst into laughter, almost crying she was laughing so hard. "A-... A basilisk!?" Her laughter increased, shaking her head but unable to stop. Finally, she took a deep breath and calmed herself, smiling widely at the woman. "I'm excited to hear what else I might die from. This might be interesting after all."
She was still smiling widely when they followed Hagrid into the woods past his house.
Daphne peered at her. "Does this good mood of yours have anything to do with... Ginny's supposedly scheduled disappearance last year?"
"Maybe, maybe not." Lena chuckled, shaking her head, lowering her voice a soft mutter under her breath. "What an old bat. As if the basilisk would ever kill me. Nonsense." She walked on ahead, looking back to see the three staring at her with something akin to understanding in their eyes.
"You…" Theo moved to where she was standing, casting a privacy spell around them. "You're really the heir? All this time?"
Lena scoffed. "What, do you think I lied last year? Of course not!" Smiling, she grinned sharply at them. "I killed the last heir."
Then with a wide grin when their eyes all went wide, she started walking away again.
It seemed the three of her friends were starting to understand what really happened the year before.
Hippogriffs were beautiful.
Lena stared in awe at the creature unlike anything like she'd seen before (basilisk not included).
"The first thing you wanna know is they're very proud creatures. Very easily offended. You do not want to insult a hippogriff, as it may be the last thing you ever do…. Now, who'd like to come and say hello?"
Stepping forward while the others stepped back, she looked to the giant Professor. "May I? He's quite beautiful…"
The man beamed. "Go on then Miss Farland! But let him make the first move, as it's only polite. So step up. Give him a nice bow. Then you wait and see if he bows back. If he does, you can go and touch him. If not... Well, we'll get to that later."
"Alright…" She stepped forward, looking at the animal calmly, and went to bow-
Making a sound between a caw and a chirp, the creature put a leg forward and dipped its head, bending its other leg into what looked like a bow.
Giving a half-smile, she waved her hand as if to beckon it forward, the hippogriff trotting forward happily. Beaming at the creature as it nosed her with its beak, she chuckled. "Hello there. My name is Lena."
Feeling it duck its head, she blinked when it pulled her dog tags out of her shirt.
"Those aren't yours, silly thing. Those are Jack's- no, please- let go of those please?" Her voice must have held some of the desperation she felt because the creature let go instantly. Her voice was a whisper. "Sorry, I'm sorry, I just can't lose those…"
The hippogriff pressed the bridge of its head to her forehead, making its funny squawking sound.
Chuckling slightly, she patted its side and then moved slowly back. "You're beautiful. Better-… better than the stories." Her smile was wobbly and she nodded to Hagrid. "Thank you."
Draco was head of the pack when she walked back to the rest, starting to walk forward, but she caught his arm in a tight grip, stopping him. Her voice was a whisper. "Just because it bowed to me does not mean it will to you. Either listen to reason for once or suffer the consequences willingly."
"I- I understand."
She let go and they moved in different directions, sitting against the boulder to the side of the clearing and leaning back against Blaise to steady herself.
The year before when she'd been studying the maps of rooms, she'd found one on the seventh floor that would change to whatever anyone who found it needed. However, as she had been pacing late one night and not clearly thinking, she'd found the room full of junk.
It was full of things that were curiously dangerous and books that she put away in her trunk, but when picking through the junk, she'd found an odd crown-thing. Warm to the touch like the diary had been, she thought she'd seen red eyes flash in the blue gems and had almost dropped it in surprise.
Handing it carefully, she thought of the normal room and a couch, the junk disappearing around her but the tiara(?) staying in her hand. Sinking to the couch, she slowly laid back, before putting the circlet(?) on.
Lena was not surprised to open her eyes in a different place, though the scenery of a shady bar was not what she expected. Glancing around at the mist-like people, she met the blood-red eyes of a man in his mid-thirties sitting in the back of the bar wearing a suit.
In full color.
Walking over, she sat down across from the man. "Riddle. You look older than the diary did." Tilting her head and ignoring his narrowed eyes, she blinked at him for a second before nodding and shifting so she was sitting sideways on the bench with her back to the wall. "Your eyes. That's the main difference. The other you had dark brown eyes."
"You seem to know me well and yet I do not have the same pleasure."
She smirked. "That's the point, Sherlock. I'm not about to give away my birthday and blood type to a Dark Lord… Though I guess you could call me the Queen of Slytherin."
Riddle tilted his head. "At your age? You are, what, twelve?"
"Thirteen." Her voice held no offense at the man's sharp tone, as she supposed she would have rust manners if trapped in a forgotten object. "Though I took the crown my first year and I bribed the others not to challenge me with chocolate."
"Chocolate." The man's tone was flat as if disbelieving.
Lena nodded. "Yeah. It's funny- the diary was quite interested in how I run my house through kindness and the minor reminder of my power every once and awhile. Talked circles around a girl he was possessing trying to figure it out."
Staring at her, the man leaned back. "You're lying."
"And here I thought you'd like to have company. I know the diary did desperately- well before he set the Basilisk on me." She moved to stand, the man reaching out to grab her hand, staring at her with narrowed eyes.
"You would be dead. If what you say you did happen, then you should be dead."
She smiled. "Great vote of confidence. No, I'm alive because I claimed my place as the heir." Reaching out to pull his fingers off her one at a time, she winked. "I might not destroy you immediately. You seem like someone I could talk to when I can't sleep."
Feeling blood-red eyes follow her, she walked out the door of the seedy bar and woke up in her body.
Interesting.
As no one was yet having nightmares and everything seemed to be alright of the western front, she stretched and thought intently of her animagus form.
Feeling the world seem to distort around her, she was about to pad out of the Common Room when she heard a shout and instantly ran towards it.
Finding a door blocking her, she pawed it with intent, internally grinning as she heard a click. Padding in, she realized where she was and who was yelling.
Snape.
With only a moment of pause, hearing the tell-tale signs of a nightmare, she moved back to the table to take the end of a chocolate bar in her mouth before waddling awkwardly into Snape's office while dragging the candy. Hearing the muffled sounds coming from another door, she bumped that one open with her head and climbed up to the man's bedside table, dropping the chocolate bar.
Wow, that was harder than she thought it'd be.
She meowed loudly, the man shooting up, and she found a wand in her face.
Making a questioning murp, she pushed the chocolate towards him with a fuzzy black paw.
Staring at her and the chocolate for a long moment, Snape fell back on the bed. "This is breaking about 16 school rules Lena… one being a student in a teacher's sleeping quarters."
Lena murped again, tilting her head slightly and pushing the chocolate further his way.
"Ridiculous." But a pale hand moved to take the chocolate from under her small paw, the man not bothering to sit up as he broke a bit off. "You're going to give me cavities."
Sneezing out a laugh, Lena jumped down from the table, padding towards the door.
"Thank you."
Looking back, she bobbed her head and then moved out of the room. Closing the door with her head, doing the same for the man's office, she gave a small sigh when done. Curling up on her armchair, she closed her eyes and sunk into a state of meditation.
She wasn't sure how to feel about the black mark on the man's arm that she'd seen when he reached out.
The mark of a Dark Lord's servant, faint but still there.
"Where'd the cat come from?" Blaise's voice woke her and she stretched, claws extending as she arched her back.
"Dunno. Maybe it's Lena's? It is sitting in her chair…" Theo reached out, poking her side and she blinked lazily at him, unimpressed. "It's really pretty…"
The other boy snorted. "Have you ever seen a cat before, idiot? Usually, you don't just poke animals." Warm hands curling around her waist, she blinked slowly as she boy pulled her up with a hand around her midsection and she gave a small murp at being displaced. "Come on then. Lena'll probably meet us at breakfast."
"You're going to take the cat?"
Starting away, holding her smaller frame in his hand like a grapefruit, the boy shrugged. "Why not?"
Looking up at the boy, who winked down at her, she tilted her head as if to ask him how he knew.
"An animagus book from Knocturn, remember? Come on Lena." The boy's voice was soft, shaking his head and tucking her in his shirt pocket. "You do make an adorable kitten though."
Narrowing her eyes on him, she wiggled to look around, wondering at how big the whole castle was not that she was tiny. Or- well- tinier than usual, as the snide part of her brain reminded her.
Blaise sat down, joining Daphne who was already there, Theo sighing as he sat down. "I still can't believe you brought the cat."
"Cat?"
Meowing, she looked up to Blaise, trying to get out of his pocket. It was hard to be tiny, okay? Just let her out of this prison!
Setting her down on the table, Blaise grinned. "Kitten."
Shove it in her face, why don't ya? She wasn't that small- Blaise had to hold her with both his hands when moving her! Padding across the table, she decided to start eating Theo's bacon in revenge for his poke earlier, ignoring his concerned mutters about how he didn't know if she could eat that while Daphne laughed.
However, her fun was sort of interrupted when Hestia and Flora and their gaggle of girls catnapped her so they could fawn over her small paws and 'soft fur'.
Escaping, she bounced down the table to jump onto the bench then the floor, breaking into an all-out run when the girls tried to come after her and accidentally running into a shiny shoe when turning the corner.
"What-" A man in nice robes looked down at her, grey eyes softening and a smile crossing his face as he scooped her up, his long black hair tied up in a bun. "Remus! Look at the little kitty I found!"
Another man- this presumed 'Remus'- was at his side, looking like a professor from a muggle university with his elbow patches and laid-back posture. The only thing wrong with that was the scars running across his face. Moving to the first man's side, 'Remus' blinked. "Oh wow… look at those eyes… they're so green ."
Someone cleared their throat, Snape standing at the entrance to the hall, blocking the way of the two men. "Black. Lupin. I would appreciate it if you unhand the kitten."
Both men blicked, the man holding her snorting. "You have a cat, Severus?"
"Kind of… she's taken to the Slytherins in general, not just me. Sleeps by the fire more often than not." The man's dark eyes lingered on her, promising suffering for this. "So. Unhand her."
"What's her name then?" The man holding her taunted, eyes mirthful. "You had to have given her a name."
When Severus seemed to still in thought, Blaise appeared by the man's side. "Queenie! I thought I told you to stay with the Slytherins!" Ignoring the three men, the boy stepped forward to take her into his own arms. "You're not big enough to roam the castle!"
Meowing, trying to express her displeasure, she narrowed her eyes at the boy.
"You're still too small!"
Biting the boy's hand, who just raised an eyebrow and flicked her ear, she huffed and turned her head. She was a ferocious beast, not some cute-... She sighed and just resigned herself to her fate when Blaise just grinned and gave her back to Hestia and Flora.
Finally successfully escaping the watch of the overbearing Slytherins that thought her 'cute' and shifting back, Lena sat down at lunch with a scowl.
Blaise greeted her with a grin. "Funny seeing you here. Where've you been all morning?"
"Special transfiguration project." She sneered at the boy. "Not that you would care, as I hear you've been torturing my cat all morning."
Theo raised an eyebrow. "You have a cat?"
"Queenie." Spitting the name like a curse, she scowled deeper at the grinning Italian boy. "I hear you took her to divination and put her in a teacup. Be glad that her claws are hard to use or your favorite tie would be shredded right now."
The other two looked between her and Blaise as if trying to figure out a math equation before Daphne seemed to understand and burst into giggles. "No- no wonder she looked so unhappy with being manhandled!"
Theo just stared at them. "I don't get it."
"That's an okay sweetie. You've always been a bit slow." Daphne patted the boy's shoulder, starting them into bickering like usual.
One of the Gryffindors ran in with a newspaper, yelling: "He's been sighted! He's been sighted!" And even though he was asked about it, the answer was already clear. "Peter Pettigrew! He's been sighted!"
Lena rolled her eyes. "Ah. The madman himself…" She'd seen a picture of the man, as each Common Room had one on their billboard and it honestly was kind of pathetic. The man was a short, gaunt fellow with stringy hair and overgrown front teeth. The only thing about him that all was even slightly threatening was the glint to his eyes that told her the man was past all reason.
"Dufftown? That's not far from here!" Hermione Granger shared worried looks with the little group of children from mismatched houses.
Another boy sounded worried. "You don't think he'd come to Hogwarts, do you? With dementors at every entrance?"
"Dementors? He slipped past them once. Who's to say he won't do it again?!"
Lena turned out the rest of the conversation, looking to Theo. "Pettigrew… will he come after any of us?"
The boy glanced at the others, then at Marcus and the older years who were listening to them, before looking back to her with a grimace. "During the end of the last war, it was… rumored that the Dark Lord became a bit unstable, disregarding previous goals and- in one legendary example- going after children. The Potter and Longbottom children. And as such, it's a rumor that he found out Pettigrew was the Potter's secret keeper and broke his mind getting to the secret. Made the man into something even worse than the most sadistic of the Dark Lord's alleged inner circle." Theo's eyes were grim, lips pressing into a line for a long moment. "If anything, Pettigrew is worse than the others, because he believes every single word of the Dark Lord's corrupted ideals without knowing where they came from."
"So yes… if he was to find out that you and Ginny were in Slytherin… It might trigger something- like a reflex."
Looking down the table at where Ginny was eating with her friends, she nodded slowly and thought about her options. "I will be out talking to a friend tonight… as I might then know a way to add to the security of the castle." Humming, she narrowed her eyes. "I wonder if snakes have souls…"
The three by her looked at each other with wary eyes, but she just ignored them.
It was worthless to confront people about their bad secrecy when she usually didn't bother with her own.
:Darling! I'm back!: Lena wandered into the chamber, hand in her pocket as she flicked her wand, taking the time to apply her knowledge of cleaning charms now that she had the time.
There was the sound of scales against the stone, the snake sliding out one of the pipes. :You come to see me and even try to clean my home… I am grateful, heiress.:
Lena waved her hand. :Of course. This is my house's chambers and I would like to keep it from crumbling to ruin because I let it mold and leak a bit.: Eyeing the cracks in the walls and frowning at the moldy pool of water, she tilted her head. :Maybe I should get some plants that live in water. Like lily pads. They might keep the water clean for you when I can't be here… And maybe we could even put in fish once the plants have started growing well.:
:You are kind, heiress.: The snake moved to brush its nose against her skin and she withheld a shudder. :But why have you really come to see me?:
:There is a man, escaped from Azkaban, who is so vile they have put dementors out to watch the grounds. Only… I do not trust the creatures of hunger and desperation, so I would ask if you could keep an eye out while you roam.:
The snake hissed wordlessly. :You are smart not to trust the creatures of death, as their only thought is their next meal.: Curling around her loosely, the snake bobbed its head. :I will indeed keep watch for the man. I am sure he will reek of insanity.:
:Thank you, Queen of Snakes.:
:You are welcome heiress, as always.: