Harry Potter and the Unlikely Gryffindor

The room was dark except for the full moon's glow illuminating the single occupant. She had long since turned in for the night. The room's doors were locked, and the window was Unbreakable, and she was exhausted.

Hera slept on her right side, her left shoulder still pained her. She was curled under the dark sheets, alone with her dreams. Her mind was restless tonight, and it showed on her face. She didn't have the peaceful look of deep sleep. Her brows were knitted together, her eyes darting back and forth under their lids.

The entire house was uneasy tonight. Voldemort paced around his chambers, while below, the other Death Eaters slept fitfully. Below them, the small window to the basement chamber glowed silver with the moon light, illuminating its guest.

XXX

The body of Remus Lupin still lay in the exact position he had been in when his blood had been drained. His skin still held its color, and his eyes had not gone glassy. The Stasis charm had held for those precious days leading up to the full moon, and now it faded from him. A few drops of blood still lay within his body, and fed by the moonlight, that blood began to move to his heart.

In that precious space of moonlight, the blood in Remus' heart, which had been but one or two drops, became ten or twenty. As the minutes went by, the drops became rivers, and then torrents. The gash that had allowed Severus the use of the werewolf's blood, slowly knitted closed. Then there was nothing. But if one listened carefully, they would hear his heart slowly beginning to push that precious blood into starving veins.

Ten minutes had passed by without a sound, until a harsh intake of breath broke the silence. The chambers lone occupant blinked, his eyes slowly focusing in the moonlit stone. At first, no thought entered the man's mind, but slowly, memories played out. He had been searching around northern Europe, looking for any sign of where the Death Eaters had gone, when Severus had ambushed him. He had used Greyback to do his dirty work for him. Remus had been unable to fight, and was overpowered.

He had woken to find Severus pressing a silver blade to his throat. He, at first, tried to plead with his one time friend, but it was not to be. The blade had bit into his flesh, and he watched as his own blood filled the cauldron. Panic had settled in and he tried to get away, but it only served to make his blood flow with greater ease. Time had passed all too quickly, and he felt his consciousness ebbing into darkness. But he heard one last phrase before all perception had left him. 'Tempus Resto.'

And again all human perception left him as his blood pounded in his ears. Remus could fell the pull of the moon on his mind, knew that he had not taken the Wolfsbane potion. Though he was almost glad to transform. He could break free of this stone prison, he could live again. And with that, all human thought passed out of his mind. He howled in pain as his bones twisted and reformed. His muscles lengthened and stretched, taking shape around crooked legs, and bent spine. His clothing burst off of him, and then his skin. The beast inside tore through its prison of flesh, happy to be free once more.

As the pain subsided, he reared back on his hind legs, and howled his joy to the full moon. The door did nothing to hold him back, and less still did the Death Eaters who had come down to investigate. Narcissa and Bellatrix stared in blind disbelief, as their worlds came to an end in the jaws of the werewolf.

XXX

Hera woke as Lucius Malfoy burst into her chambers, his hair disheveled and his skin flushed. Without explanation, he held out his hand, and clasped hers, dragging her through the halls in nothing but her night gown. She didn't have time to ask as he ran, forcing her to keep up as he turned one corner then another. She could hear the sounds of battle. Screaming, curses flying, and an inhuman howl.

Just as she turned the corner, a huge mass of fur burst through the far door, making a bead directly toward she and her uncle. Just as she believed she would have her back shredded, she was bodily thrown into her master's chambers, the door closing securely behind her.

For the second time, she found herself on the ground inside. Finding her feet, she stood up, her mind still reeling. Lucius had just put several different charms and wards on the door, and was now trying to catch his breath. She still dared not say a word lest the monster on the other side of that door burst through. She had no desire to be on the business end of those claws.

The room itself was now devoid of anything but themselves, and a four poster stone carved bed with ebony curtains drawn. The other occupant was striding toward her with the air of a man who would some day rule the world. Lucius bowed to Voldemort, his hair hiding his face. “All is in readiness, my Lord. I will ensure that you are not disturbed.”

Hera looked Voldemort in the face, determined to keep her eyes from venturing south. Lucius had the luxury of turning his back and focusing on the door. But she could not do such a thing. Voldemort reached his hand out, taking her chin in his hand as he had the first night she had met him. He pulled her closer, his hand venturing to the back of her head as he wrapped his thin arms tightly around her waist.

Her mind raced. She had left her wand in her room, but even then she had no hope of fighting the Dark Lord off if she wanted to. She didn't need her eyes to tell her that there was nothing between his skin and the open air. And there would be nothing between him and what he wanted, including her night gown. Within seconds, it lay on the cold floor, and there was nothing separating Master from Servant. She felt his presence in her mind, and everything softened into a dream like landscape as he locked her fears behind the same door that kept the werewolf out.

Lucius could feel his Master's glee, and fought back a shudder. He tried to concentrate on the door, refusing to listen as Voldemort began kissing her like it was their wedding night. In a way, this was a joining much deeper than the initiation ceremony. She would belong to him in every way. But he would also be tied to her. When Lucius chanced a glance at the Dark Lord as he pulled the curtains back, he could see the bedsheets glisten. It seemed as though they moved, shifting.

The Malfoy recognized what the Dark Lord was using. It was a potion used mostly in pure-blood weddings, when a child was sought after to preserve the lines. Lucius and Narcissa had used the potion their first night together, and Draco was the result of it. Lucius heaved his shoulders as the curtains closed, leaving him to his duties.

XXX

Ginny wandered the house while the other girls were sleeping. They had been grouped into fours, with one girl at least a six or seventh year in each group. She descended the stairs, holding her wand in front of her for illumination. She had already rid three rooms of Boggarts, and she wanted to be ready. She also hoped that with this being the cold storage for the house, that there might be something here to eat. She was starting to get hungry.

As she got to the bottom, she looked around. The cellar had enormous sheets of cobwebs, and was probably home to several families of mice. Sighing, she set about to cleaning the cobwebs and dust. Afterward, the cellar was a little less foreboding, but it looked an awful lot bigger. Slowly, she went through the boxes piled up along the walls. Most held useless things such as old clothing, pictures, and silverware.

But towards the back, the boxes got bigger. She dared not open them. They most likely held the pictures that had been hanging in the halls. They were stacked at least three deep, and there were at least seven stacks total, all leading back to the wall. Against the opposite side of the boxes, was a tall wardrobe. Ginny brought her wand up. Boggarts loved to hide in those things. She crept up to it, tapping it twice with her wand. She sighed, smiling. All that answered her was the squeaking of mice as they scattered.

Just to make sure, Ginny opened the wardrobe. The inside was not quite as dusty as the outside had been, but everything inside was a pale shade of gray, dotted with little fingerprints. Within a moment, the dust was gone, and what was left was an old looking jewelry box. The wood of the box was heavily gilded, and sported a lock in the shape of the Black family crest on the front.

Taking the box and shaking gently, she heard something sliding around inside. It was metal, possibly even gold. Ginny smiled, setting the box down on one of the large crates. There was no key inside the wardrobe she could see. She felt the walls, hoping to find a secret slot somewhere that held the key. Several minutes later, she had found no such slot. “Oh well. I suppose there would be no harm done if I took just a peek,” she leveled her wand at the box's lock. “Alohamora,”

She heard a click as the lock opened. Slowly she lifted the top of the box open, her eyes widening. Inside the box, was a beautiful golden locket. It had been carefully made to look as though the chain held a heavy tome. The gold itself was a greenish color. Ginny had heard that there was a mine in Colorado that produced green gold. It was beautifully inlaid with emeralds in the shape of a serpentine S. The eye was a tiny black diamond, and the tongue was ruby.

Taking it carefully out of the box, Ginny turned it over in the light. It had a seam, and hinges on the spine of the book. But, no matter how hard Ginny tried, she could not open it. Under the locket, was a small piece of parchment folded neatly. Slowly taking the parchment out, she unfolded it, scanning over the child like script.

“Oh my God!”

XXX

Neville sat in the empty locker room, his head leaning against the broom in his hands. There had not been a single cloud in the sky for the entire game, if it could be called that. Neville would had classified the fiasco that preceded his mope session, a slaughter. With half the Gryffindor team missing, the backups had only had a few days to practice before their first game against Ravenclaw.

The rest of the team had headed in about fifteen minutes ago, but Neville couldn't pull himself out of the locker room. It was almost funny, thinking about it now. But he had always imagined himself in Harry's position. It looked so easy from the stands, and seemed simple enough in tryouts and practices. But when he was on the pitch, with an actual game on the line, he had frozen on his broom. He imagined that Harry had felt the same way his first game.

What would Harry do? Well he certainly wouldn't stare like a brain dead house elf as the Snitch floated in front of his face for five whole seconds. He had stared at that golden ball as it zoomed off, followed closely by the Ravenclaw Seeker. To his credit, Neville had snapped himself out of his stupor and lit after the Snitch.

The Gryffindor Chasers had put up a monumental effort and scored over two-hundred points. But, Neville knew even though no one blamed him, that the game was lost by those five seconds he had spent staring when he could have easily reached out and caught the Snitch. The game had ended with the score 450-230, Ravenclaw's favor. Gryffindor had earned 230 points for their house than they had before, but it still put them in last place, behind Hufflepuff.

Katie Bell, who had been elected temporary Captain when Harry disappeared, had said that for a first game, everyone had done remarkably well. Though no matter what any of his team mates said, Neville still felt like he had let them all down. “Hey...”

Neville jumped slightly, his head coming up from where he was banging it on the handle of his broom. “Oh, hey Katie. I was just...um...” but he stopped mid sentence.

“Come on. It's nearly dinner, and the whole team is worried,” Katie smiled. “They think you went and fed yourself to the Grindylows in the Black Lake,”

Neville laughed, some of his confidence coming back. “Didn't mean to worry anyone. I'm hungry,” he said as he followed Katie out of the locker rooms. “I've been thinking, what with the beaters being as they are. What if we started using the Bludger to mess with the other players. No one would get hurt of course,”

Katie nodded, walking up the hill. “Sure, Neville. It pays to think on your broom. You can run it by the whole team over supper.”

XXX

Snape groaned as he woke up on the floor of the broom cupboard. His hands were still bound. And his head still hurt. He had tried, in all the chaos, to sneak out of Durmstrang. Though a rather infurated Moody had caught up with him. And completely forgoing a wand had aimed his cane directly at Severus' head. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that the stone floor was colder than Lucius Malfoy's eyes. “Damn that Moody,” Snape ground out around the pain in his head.

If that bloke had any brain left in his head at all, he would have listened. “You must take me with you,” he had insisted, folding his bound hands over his chest. He had tried to summon the authority he had wielded when he was the Potions Master of Hogwarts, but it only got him a rather stern look from Mad Eye. It had not mattered that he knew what Voldemort wanted Hera for. It didn't matter at all that as soon as he got it, Hera's life would be all but forfeit.

He had thought about this when he had been led into the great hall of Durmstrang with the others. Why would Voldemort have no qualms about killing Draco when he wanted to use their child? But it had not been long before he had substituted Draco's name for Voldemort's, and that's when it clicked. And if it was true, about the strength of the bonding ceremony between Pure-Blood betrothed, then there would have been no way that Voldemort could have even tried to 'assert' himself without being met with a nasty shock.

Draco was dead the moment Snape had informed the Dark Lord of Hera's return. Events just had to catch up with that decision. Then that would mean that Voldemort had exclusive access to Hera. And if she was indeed, pure in every sense of the word...

That thought had sickened Severus. Nothing had made him so ill before. Not when he was spying for the Order, escaping death by the skin of his teeth and a sore throat from screaming under the Cruciatis. That he could deal with. He could shut all the torture and the vileness out of his mind. But what he knew Voldemort would be doing, even now, made his stomach turn so that it threatened to flop its way out of his flesh.

The conception of a child was not the only way that Voldemort could acquire his long sought after immortality. He had never told anyone, not even Trelenwey herself. But years before the now infamous prophesy that had set Voldemort on his path of destruction, she had had another bout of 'seeing'. He had snook down the hall of the Hog's Head's upstairs dorms, drawn by muttering.

'Born thrice of darkest night, sight dying in brightest flash of light;
Purest of blood, raised in Mud.'

Even without knowing her as he did, Snape had gathered that this spoke of Hera. Her mother had given birth during the deepest hour of night. He could still remember Lucinda's screams. The first was always the hardest, as the Mid-witch had explained. But her labor had been unusually difficult, and she had been bed ridden for nearly two weeks afterward.

During early morning hours, three in the morning, to be exact, Draconius and Lucinda Malfoy had been arrested in their manor just hours after the death's of James and Lily Potter. Lucius Malfoy had given them up. He had caved in from pressure from the Ministry and every Auror within Owl shot. Hera had been taken as a ward of the Ministry, and placed in a foster home.

And again, not three months after she had been in that home, it happened again. That now, almost legendary night, when Voldemort had come for Hera. Possibly to make good on his desires. That was the night that Hera had shown that she was much more than a mere girl of three years old. Severus heard tell that the light coming from the windows as the two spells collided, was enough to blind anyone who had seen it. Even when that person was nearly three blocks away.

Again she had been delivered from harm, and spirited away to a muggle orphanage. There, she waited until she was nearly five years old. Scooting about with her walking stick, blinded completely by that encounter. Then, slowly, her eyesight had returned. Though her eyes were still 'scarred'. She was adopted by a couple from America. Muggles. Raised in 'Mud'.

'From her flesh, a Blood Stone the Dark Lord shall make; and eternal life from her child he shall take.
As the purest of lines end, her heart shall magic mend.'

This is what had sickened Severus to the point of retching. A Blood Stone was one of the most powerful magical items that could be made. Doing so required skill, tact, and an evil will beyond measure. The Blood Stone was not made from blood taken from the flesh. It could only be made with the blood of a woman whose lines were the purest of the pure. And not just any blood. Voldemort would need her Virgin's blood.

And if the prophesy was still true, it could only be sealed with the blood of a child conceived on that first night. He knew without asking that the Dark Lord would sacrifice a thousand of his own children for the sliver of a hope that one of them would have the blood he needed to live forever. He would use the Concipere Potion to ensure that a child was the result of their unholy union.

And if she was not under the influence of the Dark Mark anymore, then Severus knew that this would be his greatest failing as a alchemist. Potions were for the betterment of Wizard-kind, not its domination. This would be the single most vile thing he had done under the Dark Lord's command. The only decision he regretted, truly regretted. And it would take more than all the magic in the world to mend her heart, as the Malfoy line ends.

'For nothing forever dies;
He will come again, of mossy eyes.'

This last part, he had no clue about, though he suspected enough. And if anything made his heart sink, it was this. He had knowledge that he wished were blasted from his mind. Perhaps the fates would forgive him long enough to stop this last part from coming true. Children should never be made to pay for the mistakes of their fathers. And he had made one child pay for his father's teasing and pranks. It had been adolescent of him not to let the past go.

Oh, but if only he didn't have Her eyes.