Dedicated to JeanieBeanie33 (I think that's your name) who gave me the idea of doing Rosmerta as a character. If anyone has any other ideas, or requests, of characters they'd like to see, please tell me in your review and I'll do them! Also, I've always had this idea of Rosmerta and Poppy being sisters. Deal with it.

D E M O N S

Rosmerta, once she's closed the bar and blown out the amber oil lamps, fights her demons.

They hide in the dark corners of the inn, sneers upon their faces. They're identical, often, pale and blond, and every night she curses them, throwing swear words and bursts of scarlet and sapphire light at them. They disappear into dust, only to revisit her nightmares. When the sun shines (or tries to), though, and she's relieved to have them gone, it only shines on a Hogsmeade she never knew existed, full of people searching for fugitives -fugitives that were once her best customers, a village swarming with men who bad breath and blackened teeth, asking for large amounts of alcohol and Rosmerta, needing to survive, can only oblige.

Tonight is no different. She's finally gotten the last, dirty Snatcher, who wore muddy boots on the table and pinched her thigh as she served him, away and out, and with a flick of her wand, the lamps dim to tiny drops of gold.

And the face appears. Pale eyelashes barely cover the grey irises as he stares at her.

"Get out!" she screams, and throws a curse at him. She drops her wand, and can't pick it up. She takes a broomstick instead. "Get out!" she shouts again and again, batting at him but he never leaves, until her make up has run and her vision is blurred. "Get out," she sobs. "I'm sick of you, I can't take it anymore, get out." She collapses to her knees. "Get out," she says, again and again, but the demon just watches her pitilessly and laughs.

"Rosy?" says a voice. It's not his, it's kind and familiar. She opens her eyes.

"Pops?" she asks with relief. Then her mind clicks back into gear. "Pops, there's a curfew."

"It's morning, Rosy," Poppy Pomfrey says, bending down over her sister. "Are you hurt?"

"No," says Rosmerta, hating herself. Her face is blotchy, her hair dishevelled and she's slept all night on a floor she didn't sweep yet. "I just, I," she struggles to find words, and begins to sob again. It comes easily. "I can't take it anymore Poppy," she says.

Her sister immediately bends over and embraces her. "You're alright, you're fine." Poppy was always a nurse, she knows how to take care of Rosmerta.

"I see him all the time," Rosmerta confides in her. "How could I let him do that to me?"

Poppy just shushes her and sends her away to the bathroom. Rosmerta wipes her face, taking off the clumps of black mascara and smeared red lipstick. They are as ruined as she feels, smudged, spoiled and dirty.

The pupils came for their Hogsmeade weekend a few weeks ago, and he did not set foot inside her bar. She was glad.

And yet…

And yet she's never wanted to turn people away. She steps into the shower and embraces the warm water. She sometimes wishes he'd turn up. Look what you've done, she'd say. You've ruined our lives. Look!

And she'd force the demon to see his reflection, but the reflection wouldn't appear in the mirror and when she'd turn round, the demon wouldn't be there either. He'd be gone.

She towels off her face. Her own reflection, free of make up, frightens her. Not because it's getting old- the Pomfrey family are blessed with fresh faces- but because it reminds her of just how vulnerable she is.

She dresses in a pair of robes- short Muggle dresses are out of the question given her new clientele- and goes down to where Poppy is brewing her coffee.

Rosmerta sits at her bar and realises just how wrong this all is. Poppy will never point it out, but she's a mess. Her slender fingers tremble when they hold glasses, and she's seeing enemies in the shadows.

But the whole world's wrong, in the end. Hogsmeade has turned black, the storm clouds rage overhead and Rosmerta knows that she can't do anything. She's a prisoner to the demons, both real and imaginary.

So she just shuts her eyes and remembers back, two years or more, before they appeared and she was free.