Harriet huffed and turned over on her side of the bed, feeling the rough cotton of the sheets scratch inquisitively at her skin. The whole damned day, Draza had been on her case.
"The windows," Draza had whispered fiercely, pointing up when she had dragged Harriet out of the bath-room. It had been mid-morning, evidenced by weak yellow light that filtered through the high slits on the wall. "I'm almost sure the wards don't go that far up."
Harriet had glared at her, yanking her wrist out of Draza's surprisingly damp grip.
"So?"
"Think, why don't you?" Draza had stepped close and Harriet refused to give her any ground, even though she was a lot shorter. "Use wandless magic and levitate your little trinket out a window. When it's past the wards, it can give out whatever signal your rescue team has."
"And what if the wards do go up that high?" Harriet took off her chain and looked intently at the finely-made stag pendant resting in the middle of her palm. It seemed to almost tremble against her skin and she attributed it to the fact that there was a lot of her own magic woven into it, this one piece of jewelry she owned so far; she fervently hoped that one of the Death Eaters had tried to take it off her: they would have received a bone-jarring shock. When there was no answer to the question, she looked up at Draza's face set so close to hers, worried and pale.
"Let's not dig into that right now." Draza set her jaw and stared at Harriet. "Go ahead. Do it."
Harriet had tried. Really. She had focused all her energy on the little piece of gold and tried to will it into floating up and away from her, imagining it to be the feather in Professor Flitwick's first charms class, bobbing smugly above their heads. The pendant slid once towards her forefinger, but otherwise did not move.
To her credit, Draza did not say anything derisive, but the mixture of anxiety and annoyance stamped on her sharp features made Harriet's stomach clench.
"Will you stop staring?" she had groused once, right after they had eaten, resting on the floor with her back against the bed. Draza had been kneeling right before her, long legs folded neatly underneath, gazing into Harriet's face. "You're making me lose concentration."
Draza had scoffed delicately.
"What concentration?" She had had a very slight smile on her face despite her scorn and Harriet shot her a concerned look; maybe Malfoy was feeling ill to be looking at her like that. Then Malfoy had scowled at her and called her stupid and Harriet had retorted with evil bitch and that had been the end of that conversation.
Now, after a long, infuriating day, filled with long silences, dry food and a nervous bath, Harriet folded her hands beneath her cheek, the little stag still squeezed tightly in one hand; biting her lip, she tried to fall asleep.
A faint tremor ran through the stone walls and she sat up quickly, feeling Draza jerk up just as fast beside her.
"Um. What was that?" she questioned weakly, the both of them unconsciously moving close to each other. Draza flung her arms around Harriet suddenly, squeezing her close. Another minute shaking of the walls (she could actually see a ripple warp through the stones) and Harriet clutched at Draza's shift.
"I---I think they're starting the final ritual."
"Now?!" Harriet pulled away and opened her palm, staring at the pendant in the dim candlelight. Her hands were shaking and she couldn't do anything but gasp wildly. She felt fearful, but not for herself: She had a deep conviction that Draza would be included as well in the final ritual...and it would be to her demise. "Look. You have to help me, or something."
"How do you suggest I do that?" Draza snapped. She put a hand over her mouth, wide eyes flickering between that space in the wall where the corridor door would surely open any second now, and Harriet's hand. Taking a few bracing breaths and shuffling around, she put out both hands and cupped Harriet's own. "Alright, alright. Let's try relaxing a bit."
"Easy for you to say, you're not the one trying to move this thing...shit, I need a wand. Oh, Circe, I think I hear them coming."
Draza moved her thumbs slowly against the sides of Harriet's hands. Her eyes took on a glassy sheen.
"Just shut up for a minute. You are a wand...think about it that way?"
Harriet pursed her lips and shifted her focus. She stopped bending her concentration on the pendant itself and went about it the same way she did magic with her wand, actually picturing the tip of the wand in her head. She felt an odd tingle, not unlike a persistent itch, build up in her right forefinger.
"Leviosa," Harriet whispered; the pendant rose a little way and stopped, waiting.
"More," Draza urged, her thumbs still stroking.
"Wingardium Leviosa," Harriet tried again. The pendant shot straight up and Harriet pushed her magic at it as Draza inhaled in sharp triumph, forcing it to the nearest window. It wavered right at the top of the window and Harriet frowned, all her concentration engaged; thin blue tendrils of light crackled briefly into view as the pendant seemed to skim the very edge of the wards. Almost at the same time, the corridor doorway appeared in the wall.
Harriet slumped against Draza in agony as Voldemort swept into the room.
"Hello, little dark lovely," Voldemort's dry voice rasped to them as Draza trembled behind Harriet, who was trying so very hard not to throw up from the pain. It was intense, drilling into her skull through the scar. She could literally feel the shape of it raised and painful against her skin and when Voldemort bent over and stroked long white fingers against her cheek, she grimaced and tried to arch away from the cold, slimy sensation.
Voldemort, accompanied by only a few cloaked members of his inner council, laughed softly. He was wearing some sort of glamour, or else the spell he had worked with Harriet's blood in the Triwizard Tournament was doing him a world of good. If she paid attention, she would have noted that he appeared almost human again, black hair thick and curling into a long braid, his skin flawless. Right at that moment, however, she was more concerned with resting back against Draza, trying to convince her limbs to move. She seemed immobilised with a sort of furious ache and with a flick of his wand, Voldemort bound them so that they lay side-by-side, joined together with curling red and green silken material. The red wrapped around Draza's neck and wrists, knotting with the green that slid around Harriet's waist.
"I'm sure Miss Malfoy told you about the ritual," he said with obscene mildness. "I need the magic that pumps her blood and provides the mechanisms of her thoughts, to power the implantation of my essence in you."
"What? Rapist," Harriet growled, twitching underneath the weight of a modified Impedimentia spell. "I won't carry any child of yours, you bastard." To her own ears, she sounded weak, ineffectual. Apparently, the Death Eaters and their lord thought the same thing, for they smiled at each other.
"Who said anything about a child?" Voldemort indulgently. "You, the great heroine of Mudbloods, are the vessel of my greatest rebirth. Your body infused with both our magic... and my mind controlling it."
"That's... that's insane," Harriet whispered. Beside her, Draza turned her face into her own shoulder to stifle a whimper.
"That's immortality. They don't teach you these things in school, my sweet?"
Voldemort motioned to his retinue; each of them took up a corner of the bed and held out their wands at chest-level; one's hand seemed to tremble slightly and Harriet spotted a wisp of blond hair escaping from underneath the black hood of that one, strands as white as Draza's. They began to whisper and Draza went into a deep trance, relaxing completely against the bed. As Harriet turned her head to look at Draza, she saw the already pale skin go completely ashen.
Extra magic started to shunt itself into Harriet and she struggled against the foreign feel of it. A bizarre sensation, another personality, skittered delicately against the outskirts of her mind; she saw rapid images, dark memories flashing across her fading vision, screams and blood and the scent of sulphur.
Then there were other images, comforting ones, that didn't seem to come from Voldemort at all: a sated chuckle, dark hair twined against almost-white strands. A hand sliding down a taut bare stomach.
"Transtuli," Voldemort murmured, leaning close. Harriet smelt the sickening sweetness of his breath. "Praesentia mei. Praesentia tui."
Draza gasped and shuddered beside her and Harriet fought desperately against the load of magic, Draza's surprisingly pure power being sacrificed to the seductively dark magic of Voldemort, pushing against her, pressing against her resistance.
"No," she spat, twitching. "Not me and not her." Harriet had always been told that she was the stubborn type; as if to prove this, she clenched her fists, pressed her heels into the bed and made a violent mental push, every muscle taut. Voldemort gave a harsh low scream and clawed at his forehead, the glamour falling away to reveal mottled skin, stretched thin over the jagged bones of his face; the immobilising spell he had placed on them faded.
There was a shout from one of the whisperers by the bed and Harriet nearly burst into tears to see Dumbledore materialise right beside the door. He did not pop in with the suddenness of Apparition; he simply seemed to melt out of the wall. His face looked mostly calm under his long white bead and hair, as if he had been invited for tea, but his eyes glared blue with fury.
"Professor!" Harriet cried, trying to scramble up. Voldemort whirled, snarling and Draza inhaled sharply; she groaned in pain as Harriet's movements pulled at the coloured binds between them.
"Sorry, I'm sorry," Harriet muttered, turning back and grabbing at the binds. They burned her hands but she tore them apart. They crumbled into ash between her fingers, Draza's eyes fluttering open; the whites had gone blood-red, encircling the grey irises. Harriet blinked down at her as she reached up a hand and skimmed trembling fingers across Harriet's temple, brushing sweat-soaked hair away. As the rest of the Order popped into view, curses and hexes flying over them, Harriet flung herself atop Draza, trying to shield her.
"Come along." Harriet raised her head and looked up into Dumbledore's unruffled face. He hovered right over them, completely ignoring the cries of battle, but Harriet noticed his wand steadily directed at Voldemort. As soon as other Order members distracted him, the Headmaster took her hand and one of Draza's in a dry, strong grip and with a stomach-turning jolt, they all three were standing outside the crumbling castle-walls, the damp grass ticking Harriet's feet. She was leaning against Dumbledore, Draza's limp form draped securely in his arms. The Order quickly Apparated around them; Harriet thought she could hear Voldemort shrieking in rage and pain.
"Time to get home, yes?" Dumbledore said in a content voice. Ron's father was there, giving her a grim grin and wiping his bloody forehead as he produced a little plastic shovel, a child's one for playing in sand. Usually, Harriet hated travelling by Portkey; but as she felt the hook catch behind her navel and drag her across space and time, she thought there was no better feeling.
"Those who fight and run away," Ron intoned from his curled position at Harriet's small feet, "Live to fight another day."
Harriet pressed her soles into his stomach and pinched him with her toes. He was smiling at her, Hermione tucked up in her usual spot right next to Harriet. The three of them barely had enough space to fit on the infirmary bed; and yet it was not quite enough. Their smiles were a little strained, but Harriet thought that they were the loveliest things she had ever seen. Dumbledore had left her and Draza in Madame Pomfrey's bustling care with an airy smile; before he had turned away, Harriet saw the smile on his face fade into something awful and nearly unfamiliar. In that moment, she saw why people said Voldemort feared Dumbledore.
"They're going to put some sort of guard on you now," Hermione said primly, stealing some sheets and eying Harriet's potions on the side-table with interest. "At least you'll know better not to go running off next time."
"You make it sound as if I love running towards danger," Harriet mumbled and they both gave her pointed looks. "What?"
Hermione opened her mouth to explain something when the curtain was pulled to one side and Draza stepped into the small sheltered space. She was wearing some sort of dark sleep-robe, the style eastern with its high rounded neck. Against the midnight of the colour, her skin glowed pale...and were those chopsticks pinning her long hair in place? Harriet found it enchanting.
"You look nice," Harriet said shyly and Draza gave a very small wry smile. "For a person who was nearly murdered and stuff, I mean."
"Oh, well... thanks?" Draza's cool cheeks flushed red. "May I speak to you alone?"
Hermione turned large questioning eyes to Harriet, who tried to blink back innocently and failed. Hermione grappled with a gawking Ron and dragged him away past the slim girl. It was only when they left that Draza sank gracefully into a nearby seat.
"Thank you," she said simply, her voice tight; Harriet inclined her head. "I cannot go home, now, which is unfortunate, but..."
"But you're alive," Harriet put in. "I'm really glad you are."
Draza shifted in her seat and finally met Harriet's curious stare.
"While...while I was under that trance, I saw something. It might be a possible future, I suppose."
"Really?" Harriet leaned forward in the bed eagerly, tucking her hair behind her ears with her bandaged hands. "What was it about? Oooh, am I allowed to ask? But you wouldn't tell me if you weren't supposed to; really, you shouldn't be going around--"
Draza flapped her hands and Harriet snapped her mouth shut, looking sheepish. After a long look, Draza cleared her throat, ahemming with embarrassment.
"It was us," she whispered and blushed so deeply that Harriet feared for her skin. "I could show you. If you want."
Harriet hesitated and then reached for her wand stuck next to a bright blue bottle on the nightstand. She tilted it almost casually at Draza, trying to seem non-threatening as she looked Draza in the eye.
"Legilimens," she said in a low voice and tried not to trample her way into Draza's head in the same manner she did in her Remedial Potions. Draza's breath hitched a little and Harriet probed just a little more.
She found that a memory of a future-event was even more difficult to pin down than that of a past occurrence. It was akin to holding onto a greased serpent, the memory twisting and sliding away. Harriet forced her way a little more and felt Draza's hand clasp onto hers, careful of her still-healing burns. The recollection (or memory of a prediction, Harriet felt she should call it that) stabilised, steadying from a distressed rocking into a calm movement, before it stilled enough to be seen clearly; Harriet frowned, noting a dark room, the walls purple in the almost non-existent light. There was someone on a bed...no...two someones.
Two...it was them.
They were a little older but there was no mistaking the wild black curl of Harriet's hair, or Draza's fan of bright silk against the comforter. She was moaning up into Harriet's mouth and they were both stripped naked. Harriet's hands were all over, light questing touches along Draza's hairline, down over the curve of breast to give a saucy squeeze, one hand slipping with confidence in between Draza's long legs; Draza clutched at her, arching and crying out as Harriet's hand moved in maddening circles.
"Yes," The Draza in the memory groaned. "Oh...oh, more."
"Say it," Memory (Future) Harriet demanded hoarsely. "I want to hear you say it." Her hand was moving quicker, even as Harriet watched in amazement, causing Draza's hips to buck off the bed. Draza turned her head and bit into Harriet's shoulder, saying something that was almost incoherent. Sweat was trickling down their flushed skin.
"We already know that I love you," Memory-Draza panted before her body froze and then descended into shudders. Memory-Harriet was smiling as she kissed the blonde sweetly, nipping at her bottom lip.
"Yes.Yes, we know," Harriet heard before she pulled out of the memory and stared at Draza. Surprisingly, Draza seemed calm.
."Is that really our future?" Harriet whispered, dragging her thumb across the skin over Draza's knuckles. She hoped Draza felt this soft all over. Draza raised their clasped hands and considered them before placing a quick kiss on Harriet's fingers.
"As it is now," she said, giving Harriet a slow grin; Harriet returned it willingly; "It is the most likely one."
fin
Well, I do hope you liked it. Just a question; has anyone gotten replies to their reviews? I do try and reply, but I've always seen other writers reply after chapters in their fics and I was thinking that the replies were not sent out. Anyway, if you haven't, I do try reply, because I really appreciate you reading my stuff.