I'm No Angel

I sincerely apologize for this being on hiatus since the dawn of forever.  Most of this year has been utterly hellish and I've not had time to breathe much less write.  Things are starting to settle a bit now and I can get back to something I love.  Thank you all for being patient.

***

Lucius sighed and ran his hands through his hair.  “Are you certain of this, Ara?” he asked, looking at his longtime friend and former lover oddly.

“I heard it directly from one Mr. Potter,” Arabella said with a heavy sigh.  “We all knew it was a possibility.”

“Yes.  I’d only hoped it wasn’t a probability,” Lucius said.

“It’s done now.  They have a net out for her.  If she accesses anything in the wizarding world the Ministry will know about it and capture her.”

“I hope you’re right, Ara.  I have a bad feeling about this.”

“As do we all,” Arabella said darkly.

Can you remember, remember my name

  As I flow through your life

  A thousand oceans I have flown

  And cold spirits of ice

  All my life

  I am the echo of your past

***

Running.  She knew that’s what it was, simply running.  Only for the meantime though.  Just for now she would run. She would be more clever than those who would pursue her.  After all, she had outsmarted them for a very long time before.  It had been purely luck that they’d captured her in the first place.  Yes, luck and many working in concert, that had been the only way they’d managed it.  It had to be.  But she had others working with her as well.  Granted, they were in the same body but it was still better than being alone.  At least she had been told that they were in her body and not separate from herself.  Something in her had always seemed to know that but had ignored it.  She hated being alone.  She had always been alone with Lucius even when they were together and it had irked her more than she could say. It was from one of them, one of the other people inside of her, that she’d first begun to formulate the plan of escape and now the plan to avoid being captured again. She had been even more careful than before. She did have some secrets left than no one was party to, not even Draco, and that was what had kept her more or less on the go for the last twenty four hours. She’d been gathering the galleons, gold and jewels that were solely hers to make the daunting foray into the muggle realms. From now on there would be no apparating, no spells, nothing to leave a trace of herself in the Wizarding world. 

At the moment it was an experiment, hiding in plain sight in the muggle world was certainly a challenge to her sensibilities. The Tube, for example, had been quite a test until a nice group of American tourists had shown her how to use it properly, thinking she didn’t understand English.  This had been something she’d encouraged by speaking in halting sentences with accents she’d heard over the years in her father’s household.  They’d even offered to buy her lunch.  She hadn’t accepted but it had been  . . . fun.  She couldn’t properly remember the last time she’d been so amused. Muggle elevators were another interesting thing as were mobile phones, televisions and books on little electronic pads you could switch on and off for convenience.  She was looking on the whole thing as an adventure, thinking perhaps the next day or the next, she would venture out shopping for more stylish muggle clothing.  The rose pink skirt and cream blouse she was wearing was nice and serviceable but she wanted something with a bit more panache.

She smiled a little as she put the key into the lock of the very nice muggle flat she’d acquired.  True, it wasn’t as lovely or graceful as the manor house was but it was upscale and comfortable.  There were no servants but cleaning services could be hired for a pittance and just about any restaurant in town delivered.  She walked in and felt a sense of supreme satisfaction looking around at the neatly ordered flat.  Lovely, modern furniture graced the living room, state of the art kitchen, so she was told at any rate since she hadn’t a clue as to how to use anything there aside from the refrigerator. It would be like . . . starting a new life.  Reinventing herself in her own image instead of someone else’s idea of what she should be.

She sat down on the large, leather sofa in front of the massive flatscreen television and sighed happily.  It was amazing what a single galleon’s worth of gold could buy when given to the right people at the right time.  She had been careful and kept to those more interesting people that she knew from the days when her family had been powerful.  They had been more than happy to assist her with the sale of various things and pointing her in the right directions in the muggle world.  Not that she’d gone anywhere remotely close to where they’d advised, they were criminals after all and if the aurors came looking for her they would surely inform them of where they’d sent her. 

She frowned a little as her thoughts took a darker turn and the others inside her body eagerly pressed forward for attention.  She pushed them back for the moment, needing to think clearly for now.  She knew for a fact as soon as word got out of her escape that Harry Potter at very least would be looking for her, Lucius as well but he would take a vastly different route than the boy who lived.  At least he would providing the little muggle born trollop he’d been bedding down with the past two years hadn’t demanded he cease any and all nefarious dealings.  Now, there was someone whom she intended to make as miserable as humanly possible as soon as it was feasible.  Along with Lucius, of course, their son as well because he’d betrayed her and allowed her to be locked in that hospital prison cell for the criminally insane. 

They would pay for what she’d had to suffer through. Every last one of them.  She would make certain of it.

***Mad Ramblings aka Author’s Notes***

The song used in this chapter is Perfect Strangers by Deep Purple.