.

.

.

.

The Snake-who-lived

Book 3: Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter 5: Memories

.

.

In the peaceful small street of Privet Drive, on which twin rows of nearly identical houses rose on each side, was a very unusual home. Not only for the fact that the most disused-looking house of the street was its immediate neighbor – and isolated from it by various wards and a large and ugly sick-looking hedge covering a white picket-fence – not only because it held, in its living room, a pair of brooms displayed like one would a game head, not only for the sheer attitude of the lady of the house, but also because the two thirteen years old friends – a boy and a girl, to boot – were all alone, the father being at work while the mother having mysteriously vanished – through the chimney – once more. At the moment, both teenagers in the throes of puberty were in the girl's bedroom…

…doing homework.

What were you thinking? Never mind.

Or at least Blaise was doing her homework. Harry had already done his – or most of it, he hadn't felt up to writing that History of magic essay – how Hermione had survived writing eight rolls of it escaped him – and hadn't been able to see Orion in the constantly misty near-London skies of Surrey.

Therefore, here he was, on the last day of the summer holidays, propped up on his elbows on Blaise's bed, his feet hammering the girl's pillows rhythmically while his eyes and mind tried to take in the twenty-seventh goblin act, which was in almost every way identical to the twenty-sixth, except for the rule regulating whether or not there would be a period at the end of the Gringotts motto (written in Gobbledegook, the Goblin's language, so nobody understood or cared) inscribed on sickles.

"What's the wand movement for the cheering charm again?" Blaise asked. Although he had nearly finished – and what he had left would either never be completed or couldn't be done properly without library references – she had burst into his room, having apparently discovered that there wasn't a shadow month between August and September, and that she had three days to complete it all.

'course, she'd probably end up getting Hermione to do half of it for her once they got to Hogwarts. But while Blaise, as Hermione's best girl friend, could rely on her help and considerable knowledge, neither Harry nor Draco or Ron could claim the same.

…Draco's pride wouldn't let him ask her if his life depended on it and Ron would try but would invariably get chewed up. As for Harry, he preferred staying on her good side and ask as little as he could, since it would probably come more useful later.

"Hm… Flick up left, flick up right, flip 180 counter clockwise from the right, big clockwise twirl from the top and point at the target." Harry replied, bored.

The girl shot him an awed look; that was a lot of movements to know by heart. "How did you remember that?!"

"It makes a smiley face, that's how." He explained, twirling the movements in mid-air with his index.

The girl repeated the movements in curiosity before shrugging. "It's not like I'll really need that charm, anyway." She snorted. "I can see it now: 'hey, mister dark wizard! Suffer my cheering charm! Smile while you're aiming that killing curse at me!' Great plan."

Harry smiled while his hand poked the blunt end of his pen on his chin. The piece of parchment in front of him was as empty as the Weasley's Gringotts vault – whoops, not anymore, that's right… - and the text in front of him had yet to step one timid foot into his brain.

With a frustrated growl, Harry stuffed the blank parchment in the book like a makeshift page keeper and then shut the heavy volume violently. Sounds like he wasn't going to be getting any work done for now. He rolled off his friend's bed, got up and stretched his aching muscles while Blaise shot him a dark look from her desk.

"You're giving up?"

"For now," he replied with a nod.

"Ssslacker." Nemesis hissed, lazily coiled in the sunbeam that crossed the floor in front of the window as he was.

"Look who's talking," Harry shot back before walking out.

.

Without Blaise's parents, the house was amazingly dull. The rooms, while not Spartan, were mostly functional and didn't bear all that many decorations or distractions. Passing down the stairs, Harry gave a quick look at the pictures hung on the wall. Most of them were of all three together, or at least of Mrs. Zabini and Blaise, and none of them moved at all. He supposed that, for a half-blood family, such a deal was more useful…

…hm… did the family of the Muggle have the right to know about Magic?

…did Mr. Zabini even have family?

Chuckling to himself, Harry shook his head. Bah, there he went again, nosing about on things that weren't any of his business.

Passing in front of the kitchen door, which was separate from the combined dining and living room, he paused momentarily. He hadn't eaten a thing since this morning, and Mrs. Zabini's gastronomic food – read: instant noodles with soy sauce in bags – did not make for a satisfying breakfast.

…for a reason he ignored, the image of a penguin falling over in a dead faint from food poisoning came to his mind.

He pulled out enough to make a sandwich from the fridge and put it on the counter, trying hard not to look out the window at the ugly hedge separating his current 'home' from his old one. Strange how about five meters changed things… if he had tried to make himself a sandwich while under the Dursleys' care, he would without fail have Dudley popping up and stealing it. Here, though, he could do what he wanted…

A look behind him made him correct that statement. He could do what he wanted, except going through the constantly locked basement door, set under the stairs and visible through the kitchen doorway. The only time he had gone down had been an exception; the everyday charms – a special ward that made a Muggle who, say, peered in the window, think he's seeing nothing unusual – had not been installed, and therefore Athena hadn't been able to come up.

However, he hadn't seen anything strange down there, even though he had been rather green with magic back then; it had been full of both filled and empty boxes – which made sense since they had just moved in – but had nothing that required a locked door.

So then, why?

'Maybe there's nothing,' Harry mused while upturning one slice of bread on the other, 'or maybe there's something they don't want us to see…' He paused in mid-bite, giving a look at the door. 'It's just a basement… there's probably nothing… but then again, what does it hurt to take a look…'

As I mentioned before, one of Harry's greatest faults is his curiosity.

.

'The door is probably locked.' He told himself after having eaten. In a few strides, he reached for the door handle…

CL-CLICK

…that, after an instant of resistance, gave and turned, allowing the door to open in a barely audible creak to reveal a wooden flight of stairs and a dust-filled room. The basement, lit up through a pair of small windows set at floor-level, was smaller than he remembered, though he doubted any magic other than life's miracle of growth was to blame. There were noticeably less boxes and many more shelves that seemed to have sprouted out – possibly from the aforementioned boxes, or perhaps were they the boxes themselves? Floating about the room was the faint odor of moss and utter silence, except for the light singing of birds seeping through the open window – it had only been opened recently, if the smell was any indication.

Guided by his curiosity, Harry carefully stepped down each of the stairs, wincing at every protest of the planks, as if fearing Mrs. Zabini would suddenly pop out of the fire and put him in the frying pan. The basement's floor was made of bare concrete, but it felt surprisingly warm; more magic at work, probably.

The shelves, not made of nailed or screwed planks but instead single large blocks of carved and polished wood – or most likely transfigured – were filled with bottles of spices and potion ingredients; side-by-side, two bottles were respectively marked with parsley and porcupine quills. Some of the boxes were still sealed with transparent tape, but others were open; 'Shadow of a Doubt' by William Coughlin met 'Hextraordinary Jinxes, Respelled Edition' by Marie Withridge.

He noticed one of them, a conventional square cardboard box set down on a locked black chest, had no tape sealing it, but still had its top closed. Curious, he opened it.

The first thing he saw inside was an adult-sized partially burned crimson-colored battle robe that gave the impression of having been unceremoniously dumped in the box. More delicately set underneath was a bunch of Auror manuals – similar to the one Blaise had received over by owl post the previous year, perhaps it had been pulled out of this box – and…

A bunch of partially burned wooden shards in a plastic bag. Broom shards? Wand shards?

Pushing the discovery aside, he dug deeper, finding a golden medal bearing the inscription of 'Campionato annuale di duello de Roma, divisione dei bambini, #1 posto' in very small lettering, before he decided to push the manuals aside and find…

"What the…"

There, at the bottom of the box, was a small stone basin, filled with… something. He couldn't really tell if it was liquid or gaseous, nor could he tell what it would feel like to the touch, but it was silver. And glowing. And moving on its own accord, as if an unfelt wind agitated the small pond. Or perhaps like wind. Sealing the top to prevent leaks – or to prevent someone from touching it – was a piece of saran wrap.

Curious, Harry pulled it out of the cardboard box and put it down on the floor. With one sweep of his hand, he pulled the wrapping off the top and held his breath – potions class had taught him that bit of caution around unknown substances. However, when he saw that there didn't seem to be anything coming out, he exhaled loudly – then cursed himself for being loud, and cursing himself again for being a coward.

Examining the basin further, Harry didn't seem to be able to find anything else about it; the symbols or runes carved around its surface were all unknown to him and he just couldn't tell what the… stuff, was. It looked interesting, though, almost like liquid wind… it did kind-of look like multiple strands of hair, though, but last time he had checked hair was not silver – well, Professor Dumbledore was getting close… – and did not glow – even on him.

Wondering what kind of feeling it had, Harry reached forward to touch the liquid…

…then immediately pulled back. Idiot! First rule in potions and magic in general; don't touch it if you don't know what it is! Whipping his wand out of his wrist-mounted sheath, he tried again, this time aiming to put the tip of his wand in it, ready to pull it back at the first signs of smoke.

However, there was none. That did not mean there was not a reaction, however. As soon as the wood touched the… stuff, it began to move in a lazy circle around the volume of the basin, emptying the middle like a cyclone to reveal an 'eye' of black.

No, wait. That wasn't true. It wasn't all black… there were a few, barely visible shapes moving…

Pulling himself closer to the strange liquid, Harry tried to see them, but they were just too small…

…and his nose touched the surface.

.

Immediately, he felt himself falling through the surface and down into the blackness of the basin. Strangely enough, the feeling made him think of that time he had fallen in Tom Riddle's diary, not that long ago. Reflexively, he closed his eyes and held his breath, even if, strangely enough, he didn't feel wet at all…he had fallen in something liquid, right? Or maybe it had just looked liquid? With magic, there was simply no way to—

His feet touched something with the softness of a cushion, cutting his rambling thoughts short. Exhaling the breath he had been holding, he opened his eyes…

…and stared.

Instead of the naked wooden ceiling, painted concrete walls and raw, dust-carpeted concrete floor of number six privet drive's basement, he found himself looking at familiar-looking stone walls, a tiled floor of a very familiar shape and a brightly burning fireplace surrounded by a bunch of large green couches he knew personally, having spent much time sitting on them himself.

The Slytherin common room. He was in Hogwarts, then. The people around him, however, were anything but familiar, and there seemed to be a tense atmosphere that made him think of the previous year, soon after Blaise had been attacked. Only this time nobody was looking at him.

A second look made him rephrase that; absolutely nobody was looking at him, as if he didn't exist. And if the feeling he'd had when he fell down 'here', wherever that was, was what he thought it was, then he didn't exist. For them, anyway; he found himself in a memory for the second time in six months.

Gathering his wits, he assessed the situation. He had found the… thing in the Zabini's basement. Therefore, it belonged to one of them. A very simple deduction later, he felt a pang of guilt; Mrs. Zabini would probably really not like it if she knew he was here. He'd better find a way out…

The scene shifted on its own, startling Harry. Was this some kind of magical recording device? A recording of memories? Of Mrs. Zabini's memories?

'Ok, first priority, getting out of here before she comes back!' He thought frantically, looking around as the scene reformed itself.

This time, he wasn't at Hogwarts. Though the room had tall stone walls like the castle's great hall, the school did not have, to his knowledge, tallmulticolored stained glass windows depicting the crucifixion and rebirth of the Christ, nor did it had rows of wooden benches aligned all over the room, or a priest standing in front with a white-dress and tuxedo-clad couple.

This was obviously a church. And if the woman's garb was proof of anything, this was also a wedding ceremony. Though he couldn't see the bride's features through the large white dress, he felt a pang of instant recognition upon seeing the groom's hair, but he couldn't put his finger on where he had--

"It's beautiful, eh?" A female voice said.

Startled, Harry whirled around. Did someone see him? Could someone see him?

However, he saw he was wrong as soon as he spotted the source of the voice. Sitting a row behind him, three teenage girls shared a bench. The first and farthest one had long, flowing mid-back length black hair, shocking almost golden eyes, a pale complexion and eastern European facial features and was holding a pointy witch's hat with an oversized brim on her lap.

The one closest to him had shoulder-length dark red hair and a childish grin; she had been the one to speak, apparently. Her members were all elongated and a bit knobby and her chest was relatively absent, revealing that she was still in the roughest parts of puberty. Harry almost didn't recognize her, until he noticed the very familiar playful glint in those dark, forest green eyes…

Mrs. Zabini?!

Finally, the one in the middle, and apparently the one the young Elmira Zabini had spoken to, gave a disdainful look at the couple in front with almost feline blue eyes. While the first girl's eyes were what remained ingrained in Harry's thoughts, what first struck him as soon as he saw her was a yellowish-orange V-shaped marking that went from the top of her forehead to the top of her nose and her long and unnaturally wild blue hair. Not indigo or hints of blue, but a brilliant, uniform and proud sky blue tint.

'Has to cost a fortune in hair coloring…'he mused.

"Pfeh," the girl spat, stretching with feline grace and laziness, opening her mouth spectacularly wide in the process, "'f I had my way, I'd've stayed'at Hogwarts." She replied with an unidentifiably accented drawl. "Bad 'nough she wanted 'ta have a damned Church weddin'… An' a Muggle one, 'too. 'Behave yourself', she says. Peh."

Mrs. Zabini chuckled and gave a look at the other girl, who grew a little pinker for some reason. With an impish grin, the younger future-immature adult turned back to the couple in front and the priest…

"You may kiss the bride."

…who had apparently just finished, as the man scooped the woman in his arms spectacularly and giving her a passionate kiss, cutting her startled shriek short and hiding both their faces from his view.

Strange, he just knew that man's hair…

"Ya go, 'gal!" The blue-haired wildcat shouted, jumping up to put a foot on top of the bench – never mind about the mousey-looking man sitting in front, who shot her a dirty look. The pale girl shyly tugged at her friend's sleeve, but all she managed to do was end up pulled up into a stand herself, her alabaster cheeks taking on a light pink blush of embarrassment while she dropped her oversized hat on the floor.

And the scene shifted again…

…into complete pandemonium. Everywhere, colors whirled into an indiscernible mess. Sounds, voices, noises mixed into an auditory mayhem, with only few words or sounds coming out clear enough to be understood or recognized.

A tint of glasses.

"Me? Marriage!? Why should I chain myself down to just one girl, it would be downright criminal!"

"Yes, the poor girl probably wouldn't survive the week, having to handle being around you all the time, Bl—"

A car's horn.

"—pin, für gott's sake, vill you ever shut der hell up?! Du dreibeinig hirntot Vulf!"

Laughter.

Cheers.

"Wizardin' superiority? Peh, they ain't invented anythin' like a television set yet—"

A gunshot.

"Um? Nein, danke…"

Voices.

"Alright. Who spiked the punch on my wedd—never mind, I know who."

More glass tinting.

"We wish ya a happy fuck-night, we wish ya a happy fuck-night—"

"LUCIA!"

Slow footsteps.

Long, ear-breaking ringing.

A loud, barking engine. A motorcycle?

Screeching wheels.

A growl. An animal?

"No… …stop…"

Something breaking. Glass. Wood.

A loud ripping. Cloth?

Childish, innocent laughter.

A loud thump.

"I vill make you regret this…"

A loud howl.

A horror movie scream…

.

And as quickly as the mess had appeared, it vanished. Harry barely had time to clear his eyes and try to get his bearings back – he was fairly sure he did not have three left arms – that the mists parted and he found himself in another scene.

The walls and the night-blackened view of the gothic grid-blocked windows told him all he needed to know about his new location; Hogwarts or, more precisely, one of the dorms room. Not his, though. However, unless things had been decidedly different in the seventies, the large poster of a nearly-naked 'babe' hanging over one of the beds told him this was the boys' side, never mind of who was in it.

Because there were girls here.

Three of them, and he easily recognized them; they were the very same three as in the church, only a few years older. This time, the blue haired one was wearing what at first glance looked like the Hogwarts uniform, apparently cut to reveal her midriff and shortened into a lower thigh-length skirt, held in place by a flimsy-looking belt.

Mrs. Zabini had grown, as well; no longer was she the almost toothpicky girl from the church, but she was far from being the curvy and wild beauty she was today. The Hogwarts robes clashed horribly with her hair, though; it was dark enough to make Harry lose exactly where they separated in the darkness of the night, giving it the look of a weird skin-tight yet baggy hood; a proof that Blaise's slightly lighter tint made a huge difference.

With them were four boys, also clad in Hogwarts uniforms and bearing the crest of Slytherin. None of them looked even slightly familiar, so Harry barely gave them a glance. One of them was speaking, though, in a low and ghastly voice of someone telling a ghost story, his face partially lit by the wand glowing under his chin, throwing what he apparently hoped were spooky shadows but were about as scary as the shadow of a roll of toilet paper.

"And then, when he woke up…" the boy continued slowly, drawing out the last word, "he had fangs as well!"

The story's climax left the room cold, though. The blue-haired girl gave the boy a withering glance. "That had 'ta be tha worst Vamp' story I've evar heard."

The other three boys chuckled at the fourth's discomfiture.

"I do have others, but some of us might get offended by the ending." The boy defended himself.

"Tha's what they all say." The girl snickered.

"Fine, you tell a story then, if you're so clever!" He growled. "Go on, since you're so much better than me."

The girl grinned and, in the darkness and the pale light of the boy's wand, he could have sworn there was a fang there, purred: "Jus' ya remember, Black… ya asked fer it…"

He perked up. Black?! Hadn't Mrs. Zabini said she had been two years younger?

"Nothing inappropriate, Ivy." Elmira warned.

The girl gave a playful glance at Blaise's future mother, throwing an arm around the pale girl's shoulders. "'depends on what ya call 'inappropriate'… we're all adults here… well, most 'a us, anyway."

Elmira growled. With a playful shrug, 'Ivy' let go of the black-haired girl – whose cheeks had pinked up a bit, possibly in embarrassment – and rested her weight on her arms in a move obviously meant to bounce her generous cleavage for maximum effect.

"Fine, no manhood eatin' briefs story fer tonight, then…" Her grin widened at the unconscious leg-closing of four members of the room, while the noticeably smaller black-haired girl shot her a disapproving glance. Elmira sighed and slapped her forehead in apparent exasperation. "What d'yall think of a scary story in a Harem?"

"Liebe!" The pale girl scolded, while the four boys grinned and nodded. The name, or at least nickname, was not in English, if the foreign-sounding syllables were any indication.

"Five 'ta two, vetoed!" The girl crowed, to her friends' frustration. "Ok, it's da story of an extremely beautiful gal'—" the girl cut herself off, her grin freezing in place, her hand tightly clenching around the pale girl's.

"Ivy? Is something wrong?" Elmira asked worriedly, walking on her knees, closer to the blue-haired girl.

The girl's lips moved in a faint whisper, but in the utter silence of the room Harry managed to hear the word: "James?"

Then, the yellowish-orange symbol on her face lit up and her face contorted in agony… a sudden blur of black ramming against Elmira and pushing her down… a terrified scream and many shouts…

…a deafening explosion…

…white…

.

Harry barely noticed the next few scenes; the images were blurry and contorted, as if he was looking at the world through the wrong pair of glasses. Shadowy shapes surrounded him, forgotten dreams or pain-filled delusions, he didn't know, couldn't tell…

Finally, it stabilized enough for him to recognize where he was, and it was with a groan that he did. The infirmary. Wonderful. However, it was still a bit blurry; as far as he knew – and he knew it, boy did he knew it – the room was rectangular and didn't waver around like this one did.

Faint voices came to his ears, but, just like the rest of the scene, they were distant, as if they were only remembered.

"—oor girl…-arely survived………onic energ… …omplicating my charmwo… …ppened, …lastor?"

Though he could barely make out the sounds, he recognized the voice as belonging to Poppy Pomfrey, the school nurse.

"…losion, but … don't kn… -hy. She's the only one still alive."

The last few words, said by a rather gruff voice he didn't know, were startlingly crystal clear, as if they had cut deeply through the woman's mind and remained perfectly ingrained in her memory.

"…y god… …obody left?

"...ell, they still haven't found …cKin…ey's bo…miss Noire is understandably h… … …"

"…es, …erstan……ire…"

.

His vision faded to black and Harry felt sick. How much longer was this going to last? He was beginning to regret opening that door and finding this place… was he going to be stuck in here forever, constantly reviewing Mrs. Zabini's memories?

…how pissed off would she be?

He decided that not thinking about it was the best course of action. Panicking wouldn't help. To his surprise and dismay, he found it still wasn't over. The next scene was in a relatively large room walled with jagged dark stones that looked more like masses of black knives than walls. The floor was cold and made of flat grey stones freckled with something that seemed suspiciously like blood, while the ceiling was both too far and too dark to see. The only sources of light were dimly burning wall-hung candles, barely enough to prevent one from ramming into one of said walls and quite possibly skewering themselves.

And, across the room, about thirty people were doing single-armed push-ups on the floor. Most already had a sickly red tint to their sweat-drenched faces and their arms were shaking from the strain, proving they had been at it for a long time.

He recognized the one closest to him at first glance. The dark red hair was a dead giveaway, even if it was unkempt and knotted. Mrs. Zabini, and she didn't look much different from the one of today…

…except for the eyes, which glittered not in the childish impishness he knew, but in a frightening cold and emotionless determination. Her arm was shaking just as much as the others', but unlike them, her pain didn't register on her face. Strange, he reflected as soon as he saw her: something else was different… wrong, somehow…

Scattered among the crowd, a handful of people were standing, all of them clad in black battle robes. Harry saw two of them taunt one of the exercisers, a middle-aged man who looked like he was on the verge of cracking. On the other side of the room, one of the black-robed men roughly shoved his foot on the shoulder blades of another, sending his face crashing against the cold stone ground with a muffled scream and the dull cracking of a breaking nose.

Mrs. Zabini was not exempted. A very scary-looking severely scarred individual with a long mane of dark hair whose face looked like it had been chiseled out of a block of wood by someone who had a very poor idea of what a person looked like, with one normal, black and glittering eye and the other just as glittery, but obviously artificial, blue, as big as a dime and, above all, moving independently from the other, was standing beside her.

"Feeling the pain yet, Zabini? At least the others have only a couple of hours more to go before they switch to their other arm… you don't have that luxury, you damned weak cripple!"

Mrs. Zabini seethed in rage and Harry immediately realized what he had missed with a deep sense of horror…

…The sleeve resting on her back was flat, baggy and empty. Mrs. Zabini's left arm was missing, he couldn't tell up to where.

Make it stop… please…

"That hurt, eh?" The man said gruffly, his nostrils spreading as he took a deep, audible and intimidating breath. Bending down over her, the man continued, on a lower tone, "maybe you should just give up and spare yourself the futility of going on. They'll never accept someone like you here…" His voice sounded familiar, and recent. Odd, he knew he would remember someone like that if he had seen him.

Mrs. Zabini looked up, right into his mismatched eyes, giving the man the hardest glare Harry had ever seen on her face.

The man's ugly mouth twisted in a dark smirk. "Feeling brave, are you?"

And he shoved his right foot, which Harry noticed was artificial, made of wood and, above all, clawed, against her ribs, hitting a good half of her sensitive breasts. With a gargling, wet cough of agony, the woman rolled on her left side, her sole arm going to her flank far below where she had been kicked, exactly where Harry remembered the scar was…

…where a bloodstain was forming against her clothes…

I don't want to see any more…

"Hurts, eh… it's not going to stop, you know. It'll just keep going on and on… unless you pack up like the weakling you are and leave…"

Shooting the man another glare through pain-ridden eyes, the woman pulled herself back on her stomach and, with apparently inhuman efforts, forced her trembling arm to push her body up…

Stop… that's enough!

And mercifully, the scene did stop.

.

Harry let out the breath he had been unconsciously holding and shakily drew in another. His stomach felt like it had discovered the sandwich had eaten was poisoned, his heart was beating like a punk-rock drummer and his throat felt both constricted and dry. Frantically looking around, he tried to find a way, any way, to get out of here, to not see any more of this…

…he resisted the urge to whimper the scene reformed…

…the very same room… the same cold, jagged walls, the same cold stone floor freckled with even more spilled and dried blood than before…

…but only three people were left in the room, laying on their sides and apparently sleeping on the bare floor, supporting their heads on their arms. Or arm, in Mrs. Zabini's case, Harry reminded himself morbidly. The woman looked, quite simply, like hell. Her eyes were tightly shut and her face set into an angry frown, even in sleep. Her hair was matted and, at some places, burnt. Her clothes had also not escaped damage, ridden with cuts and small droplets of blood; it was obvious she had not had the luxury to change them. Harry didn't know how much time had passed between the two scenes, but based on the condition of the room and its occupants, it had been brutal and long enough.

His observations were cut short when something entered his peripheral vision. He turned to face what it was—

—Mrs. Zabini's arm shot out from under her head, her wand seemed to appear in her hand from the sheath attached to her wrist—

—the blur's – no, the tormentor from the previous scene's – arm raised, a wand plainly visible in it—

"TARENTALLEGRA!"

"PROTEGO!"

Two shouts later, a brilliant beam of silvery magic bounced off a wavy translucent dome-shaped shield. Mrs. Zabini promptly shot to her feet without using her arm, which was pointed in the direction of the blur.

"Not bad, Zabini… but—"

Her eyes widened and flickered to the left…

"PETRIFICUS TOTALUS!"

"—not good enough!"

The woman twisted her body, barely avoiding the yellow beam of magic that sped past, burning some hair, before harmlessly fizzling out against the far wall. Her wand was immediately pointed toward the source of the spell and, with blurry motions Harry wouldn't have followed had he not known the spell himself, shot a stunner that was barely avoided.

"EXPELLIARMUS!" The first one, now behind her, cast. Already twisted and tangled, she was unable to avoid the spell and was sent flying, her wand landing at the first's feet, her body hitting the floor about six feet behind, at the feet of the other.

To Harry's surprise, she gave a sharp tug with her arm and her wand was suddenly sent in mid-air, flying in her direction—

Only to be intercepted when the other attacker caught it.

"Nice try." He said with a grin, teasingly dangling her wand just out of her reach from the invisible wire tied to its back. His foot roughly pressed on her chest and his wand pointed directly at her right eye. "Crucio."

And she screamed. She screamed like she was being torn apart, like her limbs were on fire, like someone was cutting her legs off with a steak knife…

And she shook, her body trembling under the assault, fighting futilely against the weight holding her down, trying to push away the pain but unable to…

Harry closed his eyes and tried to block out the sounds. The screams seemed only to become louder, though, become unable to ignore, unable to forget…

.

And the scene mercifully shifted to black. The screams didn't stop, though. They kept going, resonating through his brain, tearing through his mind until their source turned hoarse, until he found himself unable to continue, until his throat simply became too hurt to continue… Hugging his knees to his body, he let a tear drip down his cheek.

He wanted to get out. He had seen enough, far enough, far more than he had ever wanted. He wished he had never come down the stairs, never found this damned thing… never opened the box… never learned what was behind Mrs. Zabini's past…

.

Hoping against hope that it was over, he risked opening his eyes and found himself looking at a concrete floor. Was it over? Was he finally out of the memories? Had he managed to get out somehow?

His hope was crushed into a fine mix of disappointment and despair as he found he was standing on a concrete walkway of downtown Muggle London. The sky was in an unnatural monochrome grey and there was not a sound to be heard. Looking around, he tried to find Mrs. Zabini, or at least anyone he knew, or anything he recognized…

Some distance at his left he spotted a mini-van, the long kind with a pair of doors in the back, parked in a dark backstreet entrance. That wasn't the fact that attracted his attention, but the fact that the water puddle behind it waved almost undetectably with the soft wind, whereas most of the street was frozen; apparently, the puddle was the only thing of it she could see if his memories of wading through memories were good. Reluctantly approaching it, he became aware of hushed voices coming from inside, unnaturally loud in the almost eerie silence of the ghost road.

"How far away?"

"Not very far… less than a hundred feet. I don't think he's alone."

"Who's with him?"

"Macnair. And someone else, but I can't tell who or how many they are."

Harry made it to the van and peered through the doors, which were partially open. The inside was dark, only lit by the pale light filtering through the small, dirty window of the van and the crack between the doors. There was a separation between the driver's compartment and the back, a thick metal barrier that seemed made to withstand strong hits, both magical and physical.

Sitting on a barely visible pair of benches whose cushions seemed to have kicked the bucket long ago, five green-clad Aurors were surrounding a sixth, who had his softly glowing wand pointed to his ear and was seemingly listening vigilantly; he was probably using some kind of listening device. Strange, none of them were Mrs. Zabini; he couldn't see her anywhere. So how could this wind up in her memories?

"Allright." One of them, whose robe bore a small golden star on the left breast, said. From the way the others immediately looked at him, it was obvious he was the leader of this group. "Listen up. Our objective here is the death eaters surrounding Malfoy. If Malfoy escapes, it's not too bad. By the time he notices the bug, we'll have one or two more groups captured.

"The more of them we capture alive, the faster this damn goose chase will be over, but we need to be quick before the Muggles arrive. I stress again, we need them alive."

"We know that, cap'tain." Another Auror, a young man who looked like he was barely out of Hogwarts, said.

The leader, temporarily dubbed 'cap'tain', gave a grunting nod. "I meant her."

"Oh."

All five faces turned to stare at the front of the van, where Harry's eyes, barely adapting to the darkness, managed to see a blurry shape. Since there was no other room in the van, logic decreed that this blur was Mrs. Zabini. Especially when what he identified as a leg moved into the light to reveal part of a pair of red pants or jeans, he had no way of telling for sure.

"Acknowledged, capture of the targets is the priority." Harry's heart froze at the icy voice. There was no trace of emotions whatsoever in it; she sounded like a machine. "Because of the time restriction, the fastest methods of disablement will be taken." And in a whisper Harry was pretty sure he only heard because he was in her memory, she added, "All who have allied with the dark shall die."

The man's face turned into an expression of disgust. "I still don't understand why they'd want to deploy you of all people… But I'm not your boss. Just do your job, Zabini."

And the blur moved into the light. Mrs. Zabini's body, completely clad in a vibrant red long coat that contrasted violently with the Aurors' green, looked almost exactly like it did nowadays; only her hair, now loose on her back, then tied in a tight braid, was different. That is, once again, except for the face.

Whereas the Mrs. Zabini he knew had eyes glittering with mirth and impishness – when she wasn't worried, that it – this one's were cold and as hard as flint, piercing forward like spears and striking a string of fear in Harry's heart. Her left arm was back, looking no different than a regular arm. With three long strides, heedless of the legs hurryingly scurrying out of her path, she reached the doors and pushed them open. Both her arm and the door passed through Harry's ghostly chest, to his discomfort.

Hm… strange, hadn't he bumped off Tom Riddle, back in the diary?

Whirling around, Harry immediately noticed that the street was suddenly bursting with life. A car cruised on the street, scarce pedestrians strode on the walkways, completely ignoring the van or the dirty backstreet. Overhead, the sky was suddenly alive with sinisterly moving clouds covering a dark grey sky that had nothing to do with the time or the Londonian climate. Even as he watched, he could see small wet spots of rain appear on the pavement, bricks and concrete of the street.

Mrs. Zabini silently strode toward the nearly empty street, her coat waving behind her from the waist, followed by the eyes of five green-clad officers of the magical law.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" He heard one of the Aurors ask.

"I never said that." The leader replied flatly, before he froze and became blurry; Mrs. Zabini had just turned the corner. Without really thinking about it, Harry followed her.

.

He saw her walk with long, even strides on the cold concrete, too fast for him to catch up, but slow enough to allow him to trail at a light jog. A businessman in her path scuttled into the street to avoid her; she didn't even flinch. Her unblinking, cold eyes were riveted toward a large Italian restaurant with a large table-filled veranda in front. More specifically, she was looking at the parking lot, where, among a few parked cars, Harry could faintly see five blurry shapes, about sixty feet away. His concentration was distracted when a drop of rain passed through his head and landed against the walkway. All around him, more water fell at an increasing rate as the storm picked up, the few thin trees bordering the street waving from the growing strength of the wind.

Her walk stopped at the edge of the lot, allowing Harry to catch up to her. Leaning against a modern overhanging street lamp, her lips twisted into a cold smirk as her eyes stared directly at the five men, whose faces were not quite discernable through the thickening curtain of rain.

"Hey boys, I'll give you a choice." Mrs. Zabini said in an almost teasing manner but with a definitely frightening tone of voice, at least to Harry. "One," she counted on the fingers of her right hand, "you give up quietly and nobody gets hurt except your prides, two, you resist and give me stress relief at your own risk, or three, you kill yourselves now and save everyone the trouble of wasting tax money by housing your sorry hides in Azkaban. What'll it be?"

As a response, the five slipped their hands into their coats, pulling out death eater masks to put on their faces.

"I don't think your realize you're outnumbered here, lady." One of them, whose cold voice sounded familiar, growled.

Five wands slid out of their owners' respective pockets.

"I take it that means number two." The woman noted.

Low, cold chuckles were her answer. Mrs. Zabini shrugged nonchalantly. Harry noticed that her wand was suddenly in her left hand.

"Had to give you the choice, last time I barged in without talking, I got yelled at."

Then, Harry didn't quite know what happened. He barely heard her mumble an incantation that was easily drowned out by five simultaneous castings and gun-like detonations from the other side of the parking lot. Five beams of light converged on Mrs. Zabini's location…

And then, with no warning or running start, she jumped a whole nine feet, straight up in the air, her lithe body curling into a ball of arms, legs and blood red hair. At the apparent apex of her leap, he saw her kick off the lamp post, crashing through the rain all the way to the back of the restaurant's lot before rolling to a stop behind a mini-van. Two spells impacted against its side a second later, leaving a searing red mark on the metal on which falling rain instantly wisped into steam and an elongated molten hole in the windshield. On the street, the few passer-bys who hadn't taken cover from the rain ran away in a screaming panic, one of them shouting about a crossfire.

The five death eaters spread away from each other, one of them taking cover behind another car, another hiding behind the trash container while the other three stayed standing, far from any cover. He didn't have time to question the decision that Mrs. Zabini moved again, this time running on the ground with long, weightless leaps, as if gravity had almost no hold on her. Three spells, launched by those not hiding, simultaneously impacted against the ground near her feet, only managing to lift up a cloud of dust, rubble and steam and hiding her from view, but her path had her heading straight for the trash container.

He missed what had happened next simply because he was on the wrong side of the action, but managed to hear a sharp, meaty crack and a shout of pain, soon followed by the dull metallic thud of a head ramming forcefully against the side of a container.

The trademark whirring and following roar of a starting engine had him whirl around, only to have him block his eyes with his arms as the headlights of a car cut brightly through the darkness of the storm. The second hiding death eater had apparently started up his cover and, based on the way his wand pointed at the dashboard, was remote controlling it.

Turning again, he saw Mrs. Zabini walk out from behind the container, her left fist dripping with drops of fresh blood. A screeching of wheels later, the car was sent right at her. Though he knew she would come out of this fight just fine since she was still alive today, Harry felt a chill of fear cross his spine.

He didn't need to.

"Expulsio!"

The car's nose rose from the strength of the banishing charm while the back wheels continued to push forward, sending the car into a spectacular flip, its metal hull creaking in protest to being stressed in ways it wasn't meant to.

"Expulsio!"

The second banishing charm caused the heavy mass of metal and glass to fly through the air. The back bumper dug into the ground, sending the car into an impressive series of deafeningly loud crashes and tailspins, right back at the stunned death eater who was…

…unable to avoid it. With a short scream that was quickly cut off, the man was crushed under the car's hood. A single arm escaped unharmed, flopping down lifelessly into a growing puddle of water and blood.

"Stupefy!" Mrs. Zabini's voice cut through the constant rushing of the rain. A ray of red flew toward one of the remaining death eaters who, like Harry, had been staring at the car in disbelief. Caught by surprise, the black-clad man was unable to avoid it and fell in a boneless heap against the wet pavement.

This seemed to knock the other two out of their reverie. Both simultaneously decided that staying and fighting someone who had taken down three of their own in less than a minute was foolish and promptly rushed for the doors of the restaurant. Once more launching herself in a dazzlingly fast dash, Mrs. Zabini hurried toward them, but couldn't make it in time to prevent them from getting inside.

Following the scene by walking through the wall, Harry found himself standing in the middle of complete chaos. The dining room, somewhat shaped like a P, still held a handful of people, who had been morbidly looking through the tinted windows of the restaurant. The two masked men's entrance seemed to make everyone realize this wasn't their imagination or a staged performance and promptly sent them in a screaming panic. Unfortunately, the entrance was also the exit, and the emergency exit passed too close to the death eaters for the scared clients and employees to attempt passing through.

One of the death eaters ran deeper in the restaurant, dashing between the tables and sending a plate of food crashing into the floor. The other hid on the other side of the door from the dining room, away from the windows and prying eyes, yet at grabbing distance.

Wait, how did she remember this, then?

Hm, she must have been guessing.

With enough strength to crack the window panel, Mrs. Zabini burst through the entrance, only to find herself tackled in the back and held in an arm lock by the much larger and heavier death eater.

"You've made a mistake, girly." The man growled angrily over her right shoulder. "See, if you had just attacked us, I would have just killed you. But, since you just killed my friend Nott, I'm going to fucking rape your brains out and make you beg for it before I kill you…"

Harry saw her eyes widen in the first true emotion he had seen from her; fear. Then, her face twisted in a ferocious sneer of rage. Unnoticed by her captor, Mrs. Zabini's left arm twisted backwards at a humanly impossible angle to point her palm near his stomach.

"…and who knows, maybe if I like it enough, I'll keep you as my toy—"

SLASH

"—URK!" the man gasped, his face contorting in agony. A second later, a few drops of crimson blood came from his mouth in a ragged cough while his arms dropped hers. Then, Mrs. Zabini pulled her arm away, an arm that suddenly held a bloodied sword that had run the man through his midsection. His blood flowing freely from the gaping wound, the man fell to the floor with a thud, his breathing stopping with a wet, bloody gurgle.

Where had she pulled the sword from, anyway?

Why was he asking himself that now?

Because it was safer not to think about the human part of what he was seeing. Puzzled and trying to ignore the fact that he had just seen his friend's mother kill not one person, but two, he looked at the blade…

…and noticed she didn't have a hand anymore. In fact, where her arm stopped and where the blade began was indiscernible. Her left hand had become the blade, just as it was morphing back into a bloodied hand under his very eyes and the terrified stare of the final masked man.

"So," Mrs. Zabini said with a humorless and frightening grin, crossing her arms and leaving a bloody handprint against the crimson fabric of her perfectly intact leather coat, "you choose. Number two or three?"

Springing into action, the man did what he probably thought was the safest decision to make; he grabbed the closest person to use a shield; a young teenage girl who looked like she was Harry's age. She screeched in panic as she was lifted up in a one-handed grip and held in front of the man, right in the line of fire. The man hid his wand and picked up a steak knife from a nearby table, holding it to the girl's throat in a stabbing hold.

"Checkmate, mudblood-lover." The man, whose voice was the familiar one Harry had heard earlier, growled. "Either you let me go quietly or you'll have this little bitch's blood all over you."

Mrs. Zabini did not reply. Her eyes thinning in cold fury, she lifted her wand directly at them.

"O-Oi…" The man growled, a nervous twinge entering his voice. "The girl…"

"STU-PE-FY!" The woman roared, over-exaggerating the spell's movements. With a deafening explosion and a blinding flash of red light, the spell shot forward, hitting the girl right in the stomach. However, the spell was so powerful it went right through her body and hit the surprised death eater. An instant later, both fell to the floor, one magically stunned, the other quickly emptying herself from her blood and coughing gutturally, the knife still protruding from her throat.

Then, without caring about the terrified Muggles or the mess she had caused, without caring that her hand was still dripping from the blood of the other man she had killed, heedless of the upturned car outside surrounded by a puddle of blood, she left through the entrance, picked up a small sphere of light from her crimson and bloodied coat's pocket and coldly announced,

"Mission completed. Waiting for cleanup."

.

The scenery blurred. Harry felt his heart constrict. His best friend's mother, who was easily the nicest and coolest adult he had ever met, was some kind of murderer? How was that possible? Did Blaise know about this? Did Mr. Zabini?

.

Before he could get his bearings back, the images reformed themselves around him; it was the same street, but this time the Aurors' van was parked in front of the restaurant. The rain was still falling and it was just as dark as before, if not darker. A team of white-clad witches and wizards were busily repairing the damage done to the parking lot and the mini-van. The upturned car was already gone and so, fortunately, was the body. He had no wish to see what was left of that man.

Mrs. Zabini was easy to find. Not because her bloodstained red coat stood out among the green and the white – and it did – but because she was currently being yelled at by the one who had given her the orders earlier.

"Is that what you call 'killing as a last resort', Zabini?!" He, standing on his toes, shouted right in the ear of the taller woman, who did not even flinch. "Out of five targets, you manage to kill half of them and give the fifth a cranial fracture he'll be lucky to live through, never mind heal! Never mind the property damage, and the life of that Muggle girl you practically killed yourself! What do you have to say for yourself?!"

"Who were caught?" She asked coldly, as if uncaring about the rest of it. Harry realized, with a chill, that this impression was probably right.

The squad captain gave her an incredulous look before his face contorted in fury. "Y—K…ARGH!" He threw his arms up and whirled around to face the closest green-clad man. "You deal with her, Dawlish!"

"Yes, sir," the man, a tough-looking, short and wiry-haired wizard, replied a bit pompously before turning to Mrs. Zabini. "The captured Death Eaters masks have not yet been uncursed. We don't know of their identities yet."

"Can't you just take them off?" The woman asked coldly.

"It's against the new regulations, since some death eaters have put nasty anti-unmasking spells on them. The regulations were established after Miss Wetherby lost an earlobe last week—"

"Shut up." She cut in with a barely audible voice, staring at something behind Harry. He turned to look and saw that two kneeling white-clad witches were busying themselves on a pair of black-clad shapes lying on the pavement, overlooked by a wizard in green battle robes.

Wordlessly, she got up and headed toward them, heedless of the protests of the tough-looking man. His hand caught her left arm in a tight grip, but she didn't stop or even slow her steady walk, thus ended up effortlessly throwing off his balance and sending him face first on the floor with one movement. As she approached, Harry heard the voices of the three Aurors clarify and strengthen, as if he was listening from a pair of earphones and someone approached a microphone to the source.

"…ne of those selective cursed masks: as long as he's unconscious, we can't remove it, unless we and everyone in an eight feet radius want to risk being cursed." One of the white-clad magi, a bossy-looking witch in her late thirties with shoulder-length blonde hair, lightly tinted round glasses and a small mole just under her left eye, told her colleague.

"And we do you know what curse is there, madam?" The other, a younger-looking witch with short brown hair separated on the left side, asked.

The older woman made a negative sound. "With the speed we're catching them, I'm pretty sure it's something along the lines of a killing curse."

The brown haired one gulped. Apparently deciding she had heard enough gloom – or trying to make herself forget she might be about two feet away from a killing curse-bomb ready to explode – she turned toward the wizard. "Any news about the one we found near the trash container?"

"None, sorry Maya." The man, a short-haired wizard wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses who looked like he was the same age as the younger woman, replied with a shrug. "Last I heard, he was in the emergency ward at St. Mungo's. Sounded pretty bleak, though."

'Maya' made a disappointed "Oh…" before she seemed to notice Mrs. Zabini. Her eyes trailed to the nearly dried blood on her coat a second before she gasped and stood. "Oh! Are you hurt, miss?"

Mrs. Zabini gave her a frosty glare. The girl squeaked and hid behind the older one, apparently noticing only now that the blood on her sleeve was not hers.

"Wake them up." Mrs. Zabini ordered.

The older woman's grey eyes tightened into a frown, but she didn't protest or contest the order. Apparently, Mrs. Zabini was higher on the chain of command than her.

"Enervate." She cast in an unsure sigh. Light green light surrounded both fallen forms for a few seconds before vanishing. Almost immediately afterwards, both men tried to sit up…

Mrs. Zabini's hand flashed. With one sweeping movement, she removed the mask of the closest death eater—

Harry's breath got caught in his throat. His heart stopped. His eyes widened in surprise and horror at the face he saw before him, under the cloak-uniform of his hated mortal enemy.

PROFESSOR SNAPE?!

It was… It was impossible! The man… was rough, tended to be mean to people he didn't like, was a cynic sometimes sadistic teacher whose style hovered around intimidation and threats to push them forward in class…

Hm... said like that...

But he also had a nice side that Harry had seen before. A side that made Harry trust him almost as much as he did Blaise and Draco. Plus, Dumbledore trusted him.

Maybe he wants to get closer to you and Dumbledore… a treacherous little voice whispered in his mind. To be in the perfect position to strike once Voldemort returns… And Dumbledore trusted Quirrell enough to let him help protect the stone…

That was… possible, he had to admit. But his behavior against Quirrell didn't fit the image of a Voldemort sympathizer. He had done everything to be in Quirrell/Voldemort's way. Maybe he hadn't known? But then, wouldn't he have tried to help anyway?

Hope for the best but prepare for the worst…

…that could also be it. The man didn't want Voldemort to come back, but just in case he did, he stayed near his and Dumbledore's back, ready to stab—

NO. That was Professor SNAPE, for goodness' sake. Not just anybody. What was that Mrs. Zabini had said? Shades of grey? Maybe he was a spy?

Maybe he was a spy against our side?

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts and chase the impending headache away, Harry decided not to think about it right now. The scene was continuing, after all, and unless he wanted to miss it

But, did he really want to see it?

he had to stay focused.

Mrs. Zabini's eyes were alive with emotions. She looked closer to the Zabini matriarch he knew than she had done since he had fallen in this… whatever it was. However, the feelings betrayed through them were strange and unfamiliar to him.

Recognition.

Surprise.

Anger.

Raw, unadulterated betrayal.

"Z-Zabini? Is that you?" Snape the death eater – no, better not get started on this again – asked, recognition also settling into his black eyes.

With a snarl of rage, Mrs. Zabini roughly grabbed his arm with her left hand. The two mediwitches and the Auror made a movement to stop her, but they were much, much too late. With an apparently effortless flick of her wrist,

CRACK

"ARGHH!"

she twisted his arm into an unnatural backwards angle at the elbow. Ignoring his agonized scream, she roughly pulled the mask off the other one…

DRACO?!

No, wait… though the resemblance was uncanny, the logical part of Harry's mind, which had been taking a serious beating from the emotional side since the start, reminded him that, at this time, Draco was probably either not yet born, or a little baby. He didn't really know when the scene was happening, but seeing as Draco was the same age as he was and that the man in front of him was clearly an adult, he guessed it was Mr. Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father. He wasn't too surprised.

What does that make of Draco?

No, enough suspicions about people he trusted. Next thing he'd believe, Blaise really was an alien that meant to take over the world to turn it into a gigantic strawberry patch.

The insane thought was enough to distract him enough for him to ignore the immediate connotations to what he had learned in the last twenty seconds – he was commonly around not one, but at least two people with positive connections to Voldemort – but not enough for him to miss what happened next.

Lucius Malfoy gave a look at Professor Snape, who was curled up and apparently trying to cradle his arm without touching it – no small feat – before turning to Mrs. Zabini.

"The hell did you do that for you crazy psychotic bitch?! We're caught already!"

What happened next was extremely quick.

The two mediwitches turned toward them-

The Auror tried to reach Mrs. Zabini's arm in a restraining manner-

Mrs. Zabini's eyes hardened in cold fury-

The squad leader approached, breathing in and getting ready to yell at her-

Mrs. Zabini's foot went up over Lucius Malfoy's legs, just over her knees-

The man apparently noticed what she was about to do and tried to roll away-

Her foot went down with bone-shattering strength-

The result was both fortunate and unfortunate, agonizing yet not so bad, but it was undeniably disgusting. Mrs. Zabini's boot – apparently made of leather but much too solid and fixed to be so – went down into Lucius Malfoy's right knee, shattering it with a sickening bony crunch. Because he had moved, however, his left knee had been spared of anything worse than a small nick in the cloth of his death eater cloak. His right leg, however, now hung limply at the articulation, the knee oddly flattened.

And Lucius Malfoy screamed. The Auror reached her and roughly pulled her away from both of them, right in front of the captain who was staring at her disbelievingly. The younger Mediwitch hid her face into the older one's shoulder, while said older one stared at the new injuries she had unwittingly helped cause.

Unseen by everybody, a blonde haired woman with curiously rigid curls, long fingernails and jeweled spectacles allowed herself a small pleased smirk while pulling a quill and a piece of parchment from her crocodile skin purse…

"Red menace… blood spiller…" She was muttering, as if trying to decide a nickname…

And before the yelling, recriminating, writing or healing started, the scene shifted. Harry allowed himself a relieved sigh.

.

How much longer was this going to last? How much time had passed since he had found this place? Was Mrs. Zabini back? Had Blaise decided to look for him? Were they still searching or had they found the basin? Was he missing something? Some way to get out, to prevent him from being forever stuck in here, to constantly relive Mrs. Zabini's past…

By the time the scene reformed, Harry hadn't quite managed to calm his nerves down; his heart was still beating so fast and loud he was sure the people in the memories could notice. He now stood in some kind of stuffy office. Though the walls were well spaced out and the room was quite deep, the large desk full of documents, files and other bureaucratic forms blocking access to two-thirds of the room shrank it to nearly claustrophobic dimensions. The uniform faded yellow brick walls and monotonous shadowless lighting – obviously magical, as it had no obvious source and seemed to come from everywhere at once – didn't help at all.

There were only three people, other than himself, inside the room. Mrs. Zabini, her hair groomed and tied in a ponytail, dressed in her bloodless crimson coat, was on his side of the desk while two men stood on the other. Harry recognized one of them on first sight; standing beside the only chair in the room was someone he had seen just a few months ago, back at Hogwarts. Minister Fudge.

The other was impeccably clad in classy business robes and would have looked for all the world like a very rich – and rather pompous – businessman, had his eyes not been burning in undiluted fury. To his credit, his face was nearly passive, even bearing a barely strained polite smile. Seeing as he was sitting on the chair and that the small carton set in the exact middle of the desk in front of it bore a name, it was safe to assume that his name was Bartemius Crouch. As for his title, it was written underneath his name: "Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement".

Her boss, he realized.

He was also holding a rather crippled-looking document between his tensed fingers.

"Elmira Zabini," Crouch read, his voice devoid of the anger present in his gestures and eyes. "Born on October first Nineteen-sixty-three, joined Secret Unit sixteen on retired Auror Alastor Moody's recommendation. Was the only one to pass the selection stage, even with a serious injury. Completed her training on March of this year, first deployment on May seventh."

Here, he pulled out a file from the document and read it out loud. Harry noticed Fudge stretch his neck, trying to read over Crouch's shoulder without looking too obvious.

"Six targets were engaged," he read, "four were captured after incapacitation, one surrendered and the last died in an attempt to escape." He looked up to stare in the woman's eyes. "Almost every injuries were inflicted by you."

Mrs. Zabini only nodded, accepting the fact with no remorse. Crouch's upper lip stiffened in disgust at her stony face while his eyes went back to the file.

"Second deployment, June the second. Two targets, one capture, one kill and around two thousand pounds of property damage." Again, he raised his eyes directly at hers, "in a Muggle area."

Another indifferent nod. Fudge was now staring at her like she had two heads.

"Third and final deployment, July tenth. That's two days ago. Four targets and a blind mole were engaged. TWO captures, three deaths, not counting that Muggle girl. Official complaints were sent from the department of Muggle Worthy Excuses for making their job a lot harder, hence mister Fudge's presence."

The future minister gave her a small and very misplaced smile. She gave him a hard glare.

"They would have had a lot more work on their hands if those death eaters had remained free." The woman stated coldly, the first words she had said since the start of the scene.

Ignoring the interruption, Crouch continued. "The two captured 'death eaters', Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape, both received crippling injuries… after getting captured. Mr. Malfoy's knee will never be able to hold his weight for more than ten minutes without a cane for support; he's already having one custom-made for him. As for Mr. Snape, his injury is not as grave, but the arthritis resulting from the healing will be a problem with his job of potions maker."

"Having one custom made?" Mrs. Zabini repeated, her face widening in shock. "Am I to understand they were freed?"

"Indeed; Lucius Malfoy was found to having been under Imperio, while Mister Snape—"

"Imperio?! Bullshit!" She barked, uncrossing her arms to punch the desk strongly enough to send a pile of files toppling to the floor. "That son of a pure-blooded bitch doesn't need Imperio to kill people!"

Giving her a harsh glare, Crouch methodically pushed her clenched fist off his desk, pushed the files that had fallen in front of him aside and continued to read, "mister Snape's innocence was confirmed by Albus Dumbledore himself, the reasons why being confidential."

Mrs. Zabini gave a disbelieving snort.

"Maybe I would have given you a fourth chance, or at least kept you as a threat weapon," He continued, getting up from his chair to stare right into the slightly smaller woman's eyes, "had Mr. Malfoy not formally complained. But that's not the only problem."

Without looking, he pulled a desk drawer open and took a piece of Newspapers out. I say piece, because it was exactly that; a bunch of torn, ripped, folded and mistreated pages that one day had looked like a Newspaper. On the front page, still readable if only due to its large size, the title declared:

"AUROR TERRORISES MUGGLE DINER! FOUR DEAD, TWO INJURED!"

"Rita Skeeter struck again." Fudge explained unhelpfully. "I swear, she's as much a menace as you are." He added casually.

Mrs. Zabini's eyes became even colder at the declaration.

"Be that as it may, I'm afraid I cannot handle your… irresponsible and reckless behavior any longer. You are hereby stripped of your title and forbidden to do any kind of defense work again on English soil."

"Please understand," Fudge piped up in what he must have believed to be a calming tone, "that 'extreme' Aurors like you are no longer necessary in today's world. If you had been here a few years ago, though, it would have been different, but now… You-know-who is finally gone for good, after all. We don't want to look worse than him."

'Talk about rolling salt in the wound…' Harry noted.

Mrs. Zabini's face was completely emotionless, though there was a small glitter in her eyes. "I will leave, then." She said in a cold and slightly constricted voice.

Crouch grunted while picking up a file from the floor, not even bothering to look up at her.

"Have a nice day," Fudge said, smiling at the woman they had just fired.

She turned around and walked out without a word.

.

As mist surrounded him again, Harry couldn't help but stare blankly at where Fudge had been. No wonder she hated him, he had treated her sacking like a pep talk!

But he had to admit he didn't blame Crouch; Mrs. Zabini had been… dangerous, to say the least. Though the decision to prevent her from ever working as a crime-fighter again was a bit harsh. The Mrs. Zabini he knew would make a perfect Auror, of that he was certain.

The mists parted again, revealing Mrs. Zabini, standing in the middle of a small bathroom, staring blankly at a wall-mounted mirror. She was an absolute mess; her hair was wilder and more unkempt than ever, her eyes were bloodshot and bore enormous sleepless bags underneath. In her tightly clenched left hand was her wand.

"Useless…" She muttered, staring at herself. A lone tear escaped her eye, following the red path along her cheek to fall down her chin, landing into the glistening sink.

"No… need for me…" Her right hand went up and touched the mirror where her own face was reflected. With flawless dexterity, her want went backwards in a stabbing hold.

"Use…less…" Her left hand went up to point the wand's tip straight at her heart…

"Er… Elmira? Is everything all right?" A worry-tinged young female voice asked from the other side of the door.

Mrs. Zabini didn't even seem to notice. Her eyes closed as her other hand went to the base of her wand that began to glow faintly in regular, timed double strobes, like a heartbeat. The light became brighter with every beat, eventually growing even brighter than the bathroom lights. Her face furrowed in concentration and… hesitation?

'What is she doing?' Harry wondered. He felt an odd chill in his back; whatever it was, it didn't feel right to him.

The mirror cracked loudly as the light continued to grow in strength. The young girl's voice came back with alarm, but was mostly blocked out under an unnatural wind that picked up in the sealed room, knocking bottles of shampoo off the bath-mounted shelf with a plastic clatter. One of the light bulbs on the roof, sending glass shards raining down on the woman, who didn't even flinch, not even when an ugly-looking cut drew blood on her right hand.

"ALOHOMORA!" He heard from outside, a second before the door burst open in a windy explosion. A shocked gasp later, someone barged in the room in a black and purple blur, knocking against Mrs. Zabini and deflecting her wand—

KA-POW

--that burst into a deafening explosion of light not an instant later, digging a foot-wide hole in the wall behind the woman. The wand burst at the same time, exploding in a shower of charred wood…

…oddly familiar charred wood…

The wand pieces in the box?

And then, there was nothing but utter silence, except for erratic, shuddering breaths. In the newly born darkness, he was unable to see anything that was not a bare silvery outline lit by the pale moonlight streaming from the room beyond the bathroom door. He could see that the woman was entangled in someone else's much smaller arms and legs.

"…'dora…" He heard Mrs. Zabini breathe.

"Elmira…" The girl whispered softly, her shaky voice matching with the shudders of the breaths. "Why?"

"I'm… useless…" Harry had never heard Mrs. Zabini's voice sound so weak, so utterly despaired. "I have nothing left…"

For a few more seconds, there were no other sounds in the bathroom than slowly calming breaths and choked cloth-muffled sobs. The outlines did not move at all.

"That's not true," The young girl whispered. "There's still Blaise. You still have her. It's not too late…"

"Blaise…?" Mrs. Zabini repeated. "My…"

"Your daughter… little Bee…" The words were said fondly and with an audible smile; whoever the girl was, she knew Blaise. "You can't leave her an orphan, too…"

"Blaise… My daughter…" Mrs. Zabini repeated, as if she was remembering someone long forgotten. "Blaise… I… haven't been the best mother… I've barely been a mother for her… "

The outlines moved. Harry saw a glint of purple hair on the younger girl's head, but it could have been a trick of the light.

"It's not too late." The girl repeated, pulling Mrs. Zabini into a sit. "You can still be there for her."

"I… I promise… I will…" The woman said, conviction filling her voice.

"Good." The girl said, evidently relieved. The two blurry shapes shared a hug. He heard a loud sniffle, before Mrs. Zabini's voice came again, full of the strength he knew of today:

"I promise I'll always be there to help her… I'll be the best mother ever."

.

When the mist returned, Harry felt the oddest sensation of being sucked upwards, as if invisible hands had grabbed him and were guiding him towards the skies.

Ba-DUMP

"Oof!"

And Harry found himself landing in a heap on a concrete floor. A quick look around later, he barely resisted the urge to bellow a cheer; he was back in the Zabinis' basement. The hated basin full of that silver thing – and memories… memories given a physical form? – was right there, in front of him, innocently shimmering in the dim sunlight seeping through the thin window near the ceiling.

Pausing only to shove the basin back in the box – against all laws of physics, no drops of the liquid escaped it – and cover it underneath the partially burned uniform

"The hell did you do that for you crazy psychotic bitch?!"

while wishing futilely that he could push what he had seen away and hide it as easily. Scrambling up the stairs to the first, then to the second floor, taking a second to kick the door shut behind him, heedless of the noise, he barged into his room – Blaise's door was thankfully closed – shut the door behind him and threw himself on his bed, burrowing his face in his pillow.

He could feel the fluffy mass of packed feathers and cloth against his cheek, feel the wetness left on it by the tears he was unwillingly leaving behind on its surface. Good. That meant he really was out. This was reality. This wasn't a memory. This wasn't a part of Mrs. Zabini's past, hidden and concealed away for a reason he perfectly understood.

Her past was simply terrible. Compared to her, he'd had it easy.

.

.

.

Author's notes:

BIG, BIG APOLOGIES FOR THE WAIT!!! As you can see, this chapter is a monster. Add to it a bit of self-doubt (I'm a bit embarrassed by the earlier books Oo), planning on another story, gaming/manga addictions [Like getting all 13 Lain episodes on my comp and trying to make sense of them]… well, I've been busy. Plus, re-reading this thing five times with my notes on Mrs. Zabini at hand didn't help.

Last Chapter's dream cameos: Detective Conan/Case Closed (shudders, damn dubs), Harry Potter (obviously), Pokémon (also), Trigun (the Random Black Cat), Bondage Fairies (…I'm a hot-blooded male. Sue me.), Aah! Megami-sama/Oh! My Goddess, the Alien movies and South Park. Ok, so not all of them were animes…

For those who haven't guessed, I've mapped out the Zabini's house. - (humming on Spiderman's song) perfectman, perfectman… he's obsessed, perfec-tionnistman…

Grr, removes asterixes... I hate it... and it kills my smilies...

I'm ashamed… I admit to having used Google's translation tools for the Italian parts… T-T Apologies (and demands for corrections) to native Italians… And same thing for Germans, if I made a mistake.

Dark chapter, eh? I've been waiting to write it for a long time. Mrs. Zabini's dark history revealed… well, most of it, actually. I actually scared myself at some parts; I wasn't sure I'd be able to write those scenes properly. Emotions, angst and horror aren't my thing, usually. But it was fun . Although some of the comments that Harry thinks, I'm not sure if it's him or me who thought them first…

Special dedication to anyone (or at least, the first one on each) who manages to make a proper guess about the things I've only hinted about it. It could be anything. And post them up on the group, please -. I've put up enough hints in there to last me all book 3 while keeping it cryptic enough that no one should be able to guess the important bits

The original version had Harry trying to decorticate the memories, but then I remembered I want you guys to try and guess it. I've re-read it enough time that I can assure you there are no mistakes.

Oh, and another dedication note for anyone who manages to find the anime cameo and everyone who's involved.

Again, sorry for the wait… Guess that means: Don't trust me when I say "It shouldn't take too long".

Next Chapter: Hogwarts, Dementors and Remus Lupin...

ANSWERS TO THE PENSIEVES OF THE REVIEWERS

Drunken Devil87: Sowwy!! I kinda feel bad about it, actually ;;;. I hope enough things happened in this chapter to compensate for the wait.

Jaz7: Here it is, at long, long, agonizingly long last!

JeanieBeanie33: Blah, already read a 100 (long) chapters story in five days . But thank you. pats your back To be honest, Grindelwald is about the only thing I didn't touch in the HP universe… gotta remedy that… Oh, and KrayZi apparently read it in 2 days, so… tough luck

NathanPostmark: Thank you

KrayZi: Erm… faster than a month…? Sorry! ;;; And I have a pretty good plan for the things I want to happen in book 3. Can't say the same for 4 and 5, though… = /

Hermionepotter141: Actually, I really have no idea of the final couples… Hovering around Harry/Blaise or Harry/Ginny, though. shrug Romance isn't my strong point or my priority.

Black Hood: Really? Why? They're fun characters…

Hinghing: Well, I'm honored to be the first and best thing you read on this site… - And I hope you don't mind if I call on you if I need Chinese for Xu…

Chibi Pyro Duo: Case Closed… twitch I cannot believe they changed Ran's name to Rachel… and Kogoro to Richard?! UGH! (murders translators, hugs the Scanslated versions). Improve character interactions, eh? I'll work on it. And I have a pretty good idea on how Harry gets the Marauder's map. Or at least someone near him does.

Fate: Glad you liked it!

-Sir. Noname-: Next time, do leave a name behind, please… As for the food thing: Harry is thin, but I guess I was a bit extreme, eh? Gonna have to correct it in the rewrites, I guess.

Torifire126: I think we're talking about the same theory, here . A good example of that is the game Chrono Cross… It was very interesting for me

Blip-Dragon: (blink) er… thanks?

Trugeta: Will do!

Tonnocal: Lol, that was the effect I wanted. Lol? "no, close aquatence? [in the tense of water, yeah, great spelling, I just can't figure out how to spell acquaintance right]" You actually wrote it the right way the second time around :P. And we have a winner, but I won't say to what. Unguessable, eh? Yay!

Stevethecool: Lol, sorry! Sorry you know peeps like Lockhart, I mean… Oo Erm… ;;; sorryforthewait?

Big D on a Diet: (O O) NO WAY! Dudley on a diet!? dies Ooh, I like that curse… And it's probably something along her private brand of Goldfish sushi (because it has no chance of spreading anywhere else, except maybe the garbage can). I like my review responses… =/ If pull a Nazi on me, I'm switching to schnoogle. And I'll bomb them.

High Serpent King: Lol. I have a plan for that, don't worry, it'll make sense (I hope). The seeds for that little thing were in last chapter, actually.

Risty: (O o) You poor, poor soul… No animes… I'd die. Thanks

Demon's soul of Baer: THANKS

Ran Hoshino: That's all right… just review next time cocks a gun. Conan/Harry, eh? Well, some of the characters fit the roles perfectly… though I guess it would be interesting to see Conan actually meeting Harry… Secret mission in Japan, maybe? HAH! You try to make sense of THAT mystery, Kudo!

Gryffindorbabe89: ALMOST everything. There are some holes that have been bothering me.

Flummox: Ack! (gets glomped) …wow… you are absolutely insane. If you want to know how Pokémon sounds in French… well, imagine the main character has a voice that sounds like he's 30 and trying to sound young (which is probably the truth… why they can't use female voice actors for kids like the original does I have no idea). And someone here has read Black cat… But Black cat has the Random WHITE cat, not the black one.

Blackheart Syaoran: Can't wait to see what you thought of THIS chapter…

Krissy Riddle: Really?! (O o) Do I normally make random insane scenes like that?

Dragonbrat: Eek… gonna kill me this time around… Good point :P

Lunawolf: I can see it now… Harry the monk… …nope, never mind. Can't do it. And yes, I'll have to think about it. I'm hoping the ending couple will jump in my face, though :P

I'm no the weakest link: thanks.

Lilyqueen777: What is she… good question . I'll answer it eventually (and cryptically hint it a LOT of times before I then).

Kraeg001: Hehehe… well, that's how I pictured it. I just had to write it.

Shadowface: I tried…?

Ranchan17: well, you found those in the Omake at least… A bit obvious, though :P

Volo: (shrug) Detective Conan (or… shudders Case closed… UGH. I HATE dubs.)

Athenakitty: Ack! dodges the pie breathes twitches

Dragonsprincess: Go watch Detective Conan, then… and not the dub. It already looks horrible and I haven't seen it yet. Here's hoping more Fanfic Writers find the Japanese version… If I read one more fic with 'Rachel Moure' and 'Jimmy Kudou' in it, I'll strangle someone. And nope, Black Cat has the Random WHITE cat. Erk, confusing. Trigun has the Random Black Cat… y'know, that cat that shows up every single damned episode… Eerk? Like Kaede, eh? Whoops, not my intention at all.

Kage Mirai: Thanks!

The Vampire Story Hunter: Eh? 16? I thought for sure it was 17…

.

.

NOTE: Since I'm starting to have a LOT of reviewers, I won't answer to those who pull one-liners from now on. Doesn't mean I won't read them all, though.