They had only been back in lessons after the Ostara holidays for two weeks and already Quirrell had taken over their lessons more than Fawley being present. The lessons of each subject had started to become more tense, with exams quickly approaching and students worrying over whether they'd be able to return for their second year.
So as Quirrell became the main teacher for Defence Against the Dark Arts the students were panicking, trying to translate his lessons and revise what he had gone through in their own time. His temper also seemed to be thinning at a rapid pace, snapping at people to be quiet and standing behind the common miscreants to keep them quiet.
Theo and Aster were riddled with anxiety whenever they even saw the professor, trying to make themselves invisible, especially as they saw his eyes become permentantly tinted red and somehow nobody noticed it. When they went to Professor Snape about their concerns again, he explained that phenomenon succinctly:
"They're all dunderheads."
At least he was honest - although not particularly good at soothing their worries. But then again, neither Aster or Theo were used to being coddled and comforted over anything, let alone a possible psychopath who was scaring them in their lessons.
It was on one particular grey day that stuck with the two of them, their Defence lesson had once again been taught by Quirrell and the class had spent the time going through the Smokescreen Spell and its best uses. The lesson had been filled with childish curses as they couldn't quite get the incantation right, and laughter at the antics of their friends. Aster and Blaise had partnered for a change and had spent the time practicing - well Blaise was lazily flicking his wand to get enough to pass before letting Aster try too hard.
"M-miss P-p-potter. St-st-stay b-behind p-p-please." Came a stuttered request as they were packing up, making her freeze up and look at Theo with wide eyes.
The other Slytherins frowned as they left, sending a curious glance at why the quiet girl would be held back. The Gryffindors jeered at the fact Potter was clearly in trouble, Longbottom being particularly loud in his taunts and laughter. As the door shut behind everyone, Aster moved to the front, clenching her hands together so tight they looked like paper.
"M-m-miss P-p-potter o-only, M-mr N-nott." He warned, causing Aster to minutely relax that she wasn't alone. Before stiffening again at the sound of the door opening, and brushing shut.
"D-d-don't l-l-look s-so s-s-scared. Y-you're n-not in t-trouble." He chuckled, moving fluidly around his desk to stand in front of her, his robes whispering on the ground. The smell of decaying garlic engulfed her, making Aster gulp down bile as the stink wrapped around her.
"W-why," she cleared her throat, "why I am here, Professor? If I'm not in, um, trouble?"
She said lowly, keeping her eyes at the middle of his chest, noticing that the end of his purple turban had a stain on the edge of it along with dirt as if it had been dragged along the floor.
"Y-you've im-impressed u-us - m-me - w-w-with y-your s-s-skill."
"Professor Fawley and yourself, sir? And, er, what skill?" She gulped again, breathing through her mouth slightly open so as not to look obvious what she was doing.
"Y-your d-defence." He said, ignoring her first question entirely, before moving around her, to apparently look at something at a desk behind her.
She moved with him, keeping him in her sight as much as possible, narrowing her eyes slightly when she saw all desks were clear.
"Th-that's w-what I-I m-mean. Y-your i-in-instinct; t-to g-guard y-your b-back. E-esp-especially a-against th-those y-you d-dont trust." He chuckled, seemingly not realising his lack of a stammer on the last word.
"Sir?" Her arms rose with goosebumps, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end and her scar, which had been slowly becoming painful, flared in agony, making her lips purse into a thin line. The urge to whimper was nearly overwhelming, she couldn't remember a time when it hurt this badly. There had been times over the years where she would feel a flicker - like last summer there was a blinding flash, and over the school year it had been hurting on and off. But this was new: her hands were trembling due to how tightly her hands were clenched and she had paled drastically.
Quirrell seemed amused, taking in her appearance with a tilted head, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.
"Y-you a-always m-move s-so t-that w-I'm i-in v-view. W-why is t-that, hmm? W-what have I d-done t-to y-you?" He speculated as he took slow deliberate steps towards her, his fingers tapping against the desks he passed.
"Nothing. Sir. I, er, I'm like that with, er, most, p-people." She gulped, taking a small step back as she chewed on her lip.
"Hm." He regarded her, before licking his lips and clucking his tongue. "W-Well!" He cried, immediately turning into the jovial nervous figure, "y-you're d-doing w-well. N-now b-best t-to h-h-head o-off. D-dont w-want t-to k-k-keep y-you." He beamed, letting her rush past him to the slightly open door and Theo who was lounging against the wall by the door. As soon as she was out of the dim room she swallowed the fresh air, letting the door slam shut on the now smirking professor, his eyes reddening to crimson.
"What did he want?" Theo asked lowly as they moved down the corridors briskly.
"To tell me I do well in the lesson. He's noticed I won't turn my back on him. Said I do that to people I don't trust." She uttered, fiddling with her hands manically. "Oh, bloody hell. How does he know? Does he know we've reported him?" She implored to Theo, jumping as he grabbed her hands to still them.
"Aster! Relax. He can't do anything. We're protected. It's OK. I think we should tell Snape."
Aster snorted. "Again? He won't do anything, Theo. Or maybe he can't. There's no point." She gnawed on her lip, her eyes flashing around her environment to keep an eye on who was around them.
"We've got to make him aware how much this is effecting you though. You're terrified!"
"Yes, Theo, I am!" She snapped, her eyes sparkling. "I'm scared out of my mind for no reason! All the man has done is look at me funny and basically ignored me until today." Aster laughed without humour, "I'm just a silly little girl. It's fine. I'm fine. It's fine." She sniffled before moving off, and gesturing Theo to follow.
Severus was sitting at his desk in his office marking in the idiot essays that had been flying in at a rapid pace as the idiots all realised that he was the one who decided their marks. He was absently reading an impressively dull essay from a sixth year when he felt the Wards inform him of a visitor outside his door, and continued to stand there for a couple of minutes before moving away a few feet and then returning. This happened for about five minutes, Severus going from amused to annoyed quickly as the flare of the Wards letting him know someone was near.
Finally, finally, there was a timid knock on his door. One quiet rap followed by two sharp ones.
"Enter." He drawled, making a show of him going through the pile of parchment on his desk before him, picking up his quill and slashing the work to pieces in scrawled red ink.
"Professor Snape?" Nott started, scowling at his shoes after a tense silence of another three minutes.
The man flicked his black eyes up at the boy, "You seem surprised. You knocked on my door. If you were wanting another professor, I'd recommend you going to their office. Its a funny system we have." Snape drawled, finishing with a flourish of disdain written on the essay.
"Yes. Sorry, sir. Um. I - I don't know how to begin." Theo admitted reluctantly, wondering if he was being an idiot in coming here after she had pretty much explicitly said she didn't want to.
"From the start usually helps, I find."
"It's about Aster, sir."
Snape's face shuttered even more, if that were possible as he leaned back in his worn leather chair. "And...what has Miss Potter done now? I have had no reports of...misbehaviour."
"She hasn't done anything - that I'm aware of. And...that's kind of the point."
"Mr Nott," Snape sighed, leaning forwards again and steepling his hands on the desk, "if we're ever to get to the end of this conversation you need to actually tell me why you finally entered after five minutes of wool gathering outside the door."
Oh Merlin - he knew that? He needed to tell the others, Theo immediately thought, his own face blanking at the chastisement.
"She's having...issues. With Professor Quirrell. Sir." Theo rushed out, bouncing his leg as he sat on the uncomfortable wooden chair.
"In what way?" Snape asked carefully while he checked his Wards to ensure nobody else was around.
"The usual, sir. He, um, he asked her to stay behind on yesterday's lesson." The boy explained, keeping his eyes looking at Snape's chin so he couldn't be told off for being disrespectful for not paying attention, but not making challenging eye contact. "She - she didn't do anything. Apparently he, um, he wanted to, er, tell her she was doing well."
Snape rose an eyebrow, "And that's cause for concern is it?"
"He...he commented that she doesn't turn her back on anyone she doesn't trust...including him, sir. And then...apparently he kept, I don't know, moving closer to her or something?" Theo sighed, shoving a hand through his hair before giving up and looking at his Head of House.
"She's terrified, sir. And...I can see why.
He's been getting worse, in lessons sir. And she's being watched by him - though I don't know if she's aware - and...you're going to think this sounds stupid." Theo confessed, before muttering "If you don't already."
Deciding to ignore that last comment, Snape watched as the boy heaved another sigh and finally looking him dead in the eye and his words making him freeze.
"Her scar is hurting as well, sir. It been getting worse throughout the year. She doesn't speak about it, but I know a curse scar when I see it. Please, sir. I know we're just first years, and this sounds absolutely ridiculous and - "
"I'm your Head of House, Mr Nott." Snape interrupted. "It is my duty to oversee the care of my students. Even if their concerns seem trivial. Now, you're right about Miss Potter's scar - it needs to be monitored. Which brings the question - why hasn't she come to me herself?"
"In all honesty she doesn't think you'll do anything. She doesn't think you can do anything." Theo sighed, "She thinks that everyone will brush off her fears - brush her off. Honestly? I think she's so used to being alone that she forgets she's not anymore."
Snape's eyes narrowed, "Has she said something?"
"What? No! Not - not that I'm aware of. It's - it's more how she acts and stuff. Like she's surprised anyone is there."
Snape hummed in thought, observing the boy in thought. "I can't promise anything will come of this. But - " He raised his voice and a finger when Theo opened his mouth to object. "I will do my upmost in helping find a way to assuage her fears. Shockingly, Miss Potter is right: I can't necessarily act. There is no physical proof of any...misconduct. And I can't petition his removal on a whim. I don't take the fact that you've come here lightly, Mr Nott. Or the times Miss Potter has accompanied you."
Theo nodded, "Thank you, sir. At least for listening. And...not dismissing her - us - as...well, children." He slid off the chair to his feet and went to the door when Snape gave permission for him to leave.
When the door shut quietly and his Wards said he was alone once more, Severus rubbed his eyes before looking at the door as if he could see the boy through it.
"I think...out of all the children in your year, Theodore...you and Potter are the least likely to tell tales." He murmured in the silence before sighing and picking his quill up once more and moving to the next essay.
Ever since that day Quirrell had held her back, Aster had been deteriorating - she lost weight, she barely slept and she was jumping at any small thing. When time came for Defence she would almost wilt and hide in the shadows, barely putting in a token effort.
Her circle of Slytherins had noticed - Pansy and Daphne had more than once woken in terror at the third girl's screams when her Silencing Charm broke. Blaise had noticed she barely paid attention to any of her subjects unless needed - or did the complete opposite and tunnel focus on to it, like in Potions and Herbology. Malfoy had seen how her robes begun to engulf her once again, making her seem possibly even smaller than she was than when they arrived in September. And Theo just wanted to cry. He saw how his best friend's eyes seem to grow haunted and heavy with exhaustion, how she'd clutch at her scar in pain and her appetite almost non-existent - only the bread her House Elf sent seemed to get eaten.
The professors too took notice of the ever growing solemn Miss Potter. Flitwick and Sprout tutted over her and what could possibly making her so low - they didn't know her particularly well, after all. Only that she was a student who actually paid attention most of the time. Severus kept an ever growing scowl on his face as he saw how the girl seemed to just...give up. After everything - after her parents had sacrificed themselves for her - after the agony he went through. He was both disgusted...and worried. The vivacious girl she was becoming seemed to just fall flat, with no willingness to come back. He couldn't help but flick his eyes at Quirrell, and not for the first time, saw something different to him. He had always been a bit off, but this past year his eyes seemed to have altered and a smirk always seemed to play on his face. He didn't like it.
Minerva fretted over the condition of the girl. She had hoped, when she saw her at the Sorting, that she'd have left any worries behind her - she had left those Muggles and was surrounded by love and was cared for. She didn't seem to make friends easily but had quickly grown close to the two Slytherin boys, which she was pleased to see. But seeing her now, she was almost a shell of herself. Everything seemed to be done absently, as if routine. It seemed the girl who was overly possessive of her tea had ebbed away, leaving someone who would merely stare at the pot.
Albus was concerned. No doubt about it. Severus had brought the worries of Aster and Mr Nott to him, on every occasion they came to see him, and the sole time Mr Nott approached his Head of House alone. Albus had been suspicious of Quirinus for some time, especially after Yule, but he could not intercede. Not only would it ruin his plans to lure Tom out of hiding, but he couldn't act rashly, not without consent of the Board or unmitigated evidence. The Board was another arena of Pureblood propaganda, celebrating the triumphs of Wizarding kind, exalting the Decrees of the Ministry. Basically, nearly everything Albus hated and stood against.
Caleb Fawley was being uncharacteristically helpful - informing Albus of the workings of the Ministry and the latest ideas being tossed around for new laws and legislation. He tried not to be a paranoid man in general, however Caleb's sudden willingness to offer aid was too different for him to ignore. It could be that the man had finally started to see how moronic the Ministry itself was, but the coldness in his eyes didn't seem to fade. Caleb was rather like Tom in some regards - he would help only if it helped himself, or if he was amused. And neither reason was to be taken lightly.
So, as Caleb had to disappear more frequently than before, leaving his lessons in the trembling hands of Quirinus, Albus took notice. It didn't escape his notice that Aster had been on edge when this started to happen - but after the occasion where she was held back, she was positively panic stricken. It ached his old heart, but there was nothing to be done. Even if he could.
Due to Aster's disrupted sleep cycle, her dreams - or nightmares - were worse than ever. She was dreaming more and more of purple silk, pale hands and a bloody stone - literally. Mirror shards would splinter and projectile into her skin, piercing her as something felt like it melted, bubbled and burned underneath her hands, leaving them bloody and charred. High cackles would echo in her ears long after she had woken up, and the sound of a woman screaming pierced her through her head. She couldn't sleep - and when she did, she wished she wasn't.
Death was furious. That a puerile little man would make his Appointed, his Child, his Charge, to be so fearful and anxious made his own magics crackle in rage. His Guardians reported on her habits, as they always did, but their own worry for their Mistress shone through. That a Child of Death was so shaken by an abomination was almost laughable. And a few centuries he would have done - but he had grown to care for the girl, having to oversee her childhood and become an imaginary friend to her was novel to him. He had never done anything like that before, his Charges always had loving homes or at least somewhere to escape. But Aster did not. He had to become her escape, in a way. Could you blame a Primordial for falling prey to the allure of fatherhood after countless millenia?
But he could not help her, not with this. Several times he had tried to slip into her nightmares and steer her away from the terrors inside her head, but he could not. Every time he seeped into her conscious he was summarily kicked out with enormous force. Something was keeping him out, and he wasn't sure if it was Aster herself, or the thing inside her. He didn't know which he would prefer - his Charge having unforeseen power to do something so momentous, or his Charge being so twisted with a piece of Black Magic that it had evolved into a semi presence itself.
In anyway, he had to watch as she tortured herself in the few scant hours she managed to fall asleep, watch as her parents in a small frame cried as their baby girl wailed in silent agony, and witness his Guardians staying by her side, lending the little comfort and protection they could. Stephanus, and Asha, would curl up in the wild of her hair, nestle themselves so that their heads laid besider hers in silent solidarity as she battled her unconscious mind.
Something needed to be done. He couldn't watch her continue in this manner. Dumbledore could keep his machinations to himself, let him care for the Greater Good, or whatever he thought. His Child was in danger. And he was going to fix it - even without the help of Lady Magic if needed.
He was Death - nobody escaped him. It was time that this shade started to realise that.
A/N: not entirely sure on this chapter but couldn't quite get across what I wanted unless it was like this.
Hope you still enjoy though!