I'll Stand Alone

Part 11: Caveat Emptor

Let the buyer beware

***
October, 1985.
***

She had really tried her best to shut the door quietly, but a bell tinkled softly, muffled against the many rows of dark wood that made up the small shop. She sighed at the noise, and began to turn.

"Good afternoon, Lady Woodville," a voice said quietly, very near her ear and the girl froze, one foot still in the air and her fingers clenched on the door knob. "I'd been wondering when I might finally see you--it's taken you far longer to come here then your siblings."

I...what? How? How?

"Seventeen is quite old to be getting your first wand," he added to her silence. "Though you did not really have a choice in the matter, did you? I wonder if your mother regrets that now...power will always find an out, no matter how one tries to stifle it..."

Liliana Woodville finished her turn and reached to push her red hood away from her face with fingers that had gone stiff with shock. Her cloak had been pulled tightly around her face...she hadn't even been facing into the store for more than five seconds...what the bloody hell?

How did he do that? How the hell does he know so much? Has he been reading my mind somehow? There were witches and wizards who had that power, though it wasn't exactly common...there was an odd feeling in her head, as if a finger was being slowly dragged through the folds of her memory...She clapped both hands to her ears and they stung fiercely from the blow. "Get out!"

Mr. Ollivander stood quietly, watching her jerky movements with his pale, shimmering eyes. The quiet was becoming quite uncomfortable.

"My mother is Lady Woodville," she told him curtly as she walked further past him into the shop, trying to find her tongue again. "I'm just a Miss."

He cocked his head and looked at her face for a long moment, his eyes intent. "No, you don't know, do you? Terrible shame, terrible," he finally murmured, breaking his gaze. "But," he added, seeing her mouth open to ask the question, "never mind that now--which hand is your dominant?"

"Right."

Ollivander's long, spidery fingers searched rapidly around the clutter on his desk. "Let's see, let's see...Hold out your right arm, please."

He stretched a measuring tape along her arm, checked it, measured her other arm, then her height, across her body--"Hey!"--then tossed the tape down and walked quickly towards a row of dusty boxes lining the far wall. Yanking one free, he pushed it into her hand and went straight back to the wall. "Elm and Dragon, 10 inches, try it."

Liliana had scarcely lifted it from the box when Ollivander grabbed it back and pushed another into her arms. "Ceder and Unicorn, 9 inches."

"No, no, that isn't going to work either," he muttered, a smile beginning to break out on his narrow face as he sprinted back to the wall yet again. "Fitted your brother and sister, mother and father, aunts and uncles and your grandfather right up--wasn't hard to figure out what they needed. Your father's younger sister was like you though--a different fit. Maple and phoenix, 11 inches. Go on."

This one felt a little different from the others, but Ollivander still grabbed it away. "Getting closer, but not quite right...ah! That might be the trick!"

His silvery eyes gleaming brightly, Ollivander pushed a filthy box at her, panting a bit as he did. "Rosewood and phoenix, 12 1/2 inches."

Backing away a few steps, Liliana lifted the lid and rubbed her fingers against smooth wood. It was odd, but there seemed to be a faint rose smell coming from the box..."Ah!"

Her arm shook as a violent tingle went through her fingertips all the way to her shoulder, and a small flurry of bright, silvery sparks shot out from the end.

"There's your match," Ollivander said quietly, a small, triumphant smile on his lips.

"Umm. Well, thank you." She twirled it a bit between her fingers, admiring the way the faint light glittered off the wood. What more can one say in a situation like this?

Liliana handed over her Galleons at the desk and tucked her new wand up into her sleeve, feeling quite satisfied with the whole venture. It had been far easier than she had suspected..."Lady Woodville?"

"What?" She looked back over her shoulder at the odd man, frowning. Damn, and she had almost been out the door too.

Ollivander was busily shuffling papers on his desk, and did not look up at her, but his voice was mild. "A humble word of advice; buy today's Daily Prophet at some point, but do not, I repeat, do not even glance at it until you are safely in private. Even given your...situation, I feel it is the best thing. Yes, the best way."

All her hairs were beginning to prickle. "Ah, yes. Okay, I'll keep that in mind; thank you for the wand, goodbye."

The bell tinkled once more on her way out.

***

Keeping her red hood pulled tight around her face, Liliana walked as quickly as she could through the hordes of people jostling their way through Diagon Alley. Every few steps she ran a finger over the bulge her new wand was making in her sleeve, and she couldn't stop smiling. Hah! I'd like to go home and wave this in Mother's face; not a good idea but so tempting. Turn her and Charles into toads and sell them to a potions maker.

As Liliana passed by the Leaky Cauldron, a loud tumble of voices suddenly broke through her happy reverie and she paused for a moment, remembering Ollivander's advice to buy the Daily Prophet. There were some on sale in a little stand near the pub's entrance.

"Just put it in a bag," she told the boy running the stand. "I don't want to read it yet."

He rolled his eyes at this strange request, but did as she requested. "Okay, miss."

"...finally got what they deserved," a man almost directly behind her said dryly. "Too bad it wasn't sooner!"

"The less Death Eater scum in this world, the better," a nearby woman replied and crossed herself. "Pity there's still more left where those came from."

"I wonder if there's a reward for findin' the girl heir?" another woman put in, her face eager. "Strange that the Aurors haven't tracked her yet. They'd prolly be grateful."

Liliana glanced from face to face, then down at their hands. All clutched copies of the Daily Prophet.

"I know they were responsible for the death of my son and daughter!" a large man shouted over the other voices. "They were two of the best Aurors the Ministry'd seen in a hundred years! I knew it was them! But the Ministry never did anything! Too scared to move because of their rank and reputation!"

Her eyes started to read the headline half-visible on one man's copy despite her best efforts to pull her gaze away. Double Murder Stuns Wizarding...

"Well, they'd dead now. Why don't we have a toast?" The speaker flourished her wand and produced a small glass of wine. "The Dementor's Kiss to Iolanthe Woodville--and may the rest of the lot burn in Hell."

Don't read it until you are alone...Even given your situation, I feel it is the best thing...

Little flashes of jewel-bright light fluttered in her eyes and Liliana could no longer feel her legs. "I'm..I'm going to be sick..."

The last feeling she had was the wood of the stand splintering underneath her as she fell on top of it.

***

THE DAILY PROPHET
OCTOBER 27th, 1985

DOUBLE MURDER STUNS WIZARDING WORLD
By Patience Applethorn.

A group of Aurors summoned to a country manor by reports of a disturbance were shocked to find three members of a aristocratic wizarding family dead and the fourth apparently looting the manor.

Found dead were Lord Andrew Woodville, age 55, his daughter, the Honourable Maida Woodville, age 25 and his son, the Honourable Charles Woodville, age 27. It has been determined that Lord Woodville and his daughter were murdered with the Killing Curse.

After separating from his wife, Lord Woodville had been living quietly at the manor with his elder daughter and a small group of servants. It is nearly certain that his wife and son were deeply involved with He Who Must Not Be Named, but whether or not Lord Andrew and his daughter were also Dark Wizards has yet to be ascertained. "They were living quiet, just tryin' to live right for a change," said Jamie Hexton, one of Lord Woodville's servants at the manor. "My lord wanted his daughter to have some peace away from her mother. Miss Maida...her mind wasn't what you would call strong."

Authorities have managed to piece together a tentative sequence of the nights' events from the testimony of the sole witness to the murders, a servant who escaped detection by hiding in a nearby closet and whose identity is being kept secret by the Ministry of Magic.

According to the witness, Lord Andrew had been reading in his study with his daughter around nine o'clock that evening, when there was a sudden crashing sound from one of the rooms down the hall. Lord Andrew rose immediately and shouted for the servants and his daughter to flee, but the intruders--Lord Andrew's own wife and son-- burst into the room much more quickly than he expected.

"There was a tremendous fight, hexes and curses all over the place, so much destruction," the shaken witness recounted. "The other servants ran to the back to hide, and Lord Woodville told Miss Maida to go with them, but the Lady Woodville was too quick...she used the Cruciatus Curse on her own daughter and demanded to know where something was. I couldn't hear exactly, there was so much shouting. Lord Andrew yelled back that they would never know and hit his son with some kind of hex, which caused Mr. Charles to start writhing in pain. The next thing I knew, there was a flash of light. Lady Woodville'd used the Curse on her daughter and Miss Maida fell to the ground."

After killing her daughter, Lady Iolanthe Woodville apparently left at this point to conduct a search for this mysterious object, leaving Charles Woodville alone with his father. Mr. Charles "had a terrible smirk on his face and told Lord Woodville that he'd been waiting for this," and then lifted his wand, apparently preparing to use the Killing Curse on his father. However, Lord Woodville swiftly grasped his son's intentions and swung his own wand up, shouting the Killing Curse at the same moment his son did. Both quickly died.

It was at this point the Aurors reached the manor and found the victims, as well as Lady Woodville, who had been rifling through the rooms of the manor, leaving a trail of destroyed furniture and gutted rooms in the wake of her desperate search. Lady Woodville was apprehended in the back rooms as she tried to torture information out of the cringing servants and quickly brought back to the Ministry, where she remains in custody. Plans to remove her to Azkaban for trial have not yet been finalized.

With the deaths of Lord Woodville and his children, the Woodville title has fallen to the last remaining heir of the main family line, a mysterious younger daughter. According to the servants, the young lady had left the family and vanished some time before and all efforts to trace her so far have failed. Anyone with information on her whereabouts is advised to contact the Ministry immediately, as the authorities are quite interested in speaking with her.

***
December, 1995.
***

Early morning at Hogwarts, with the sun just visible through the Forbidden Forest's gnarled fretwork of black branches. Students and teachers were stumbling out of bed, sending resigned rumblings throughout the castle, and people were beginning to assemble for breakfast in the Great Hall.

Some people had more interesting things in mind than breakfast.

"They won't get away," Boy One said calmly, resting his chin against his younger companion's hair whilst he laced his narrow fingers through the soft strands. "Thinking they're so damn smart, so very brilliant. It'll be the death of them."

Boy Two shifted slightly and leaned forward, picking at Boy One's fingers with choppy plucks. "What exactly does the Lord want with her?" he asked, swallowing twice on this simple sentence.

"He didn't tell me, and it wasn't my place to ask," the first snapped and pulled his partner back with a sharp yank, resettling him into a more comfortable position. "She has assets that interest him...talents...a limited ability to do magic without a wand..."

The boy fell silent for a moment, then added; "Always so clever, so smug, so knowing..."

***

Snape looked rather awkward on a broom, with his long, thin frame hunched into an arch over the narrow handle and his black cloak flapping behind him like the wings of some great rusty crow, but he could fly very quickly. So quickly that he had nearly left her behind. Twice.

Her broom pitched abruptly, then swerved without warning for the fourth time in a fifteen minute flight. "Hold up!" Lilika yelled ahead, clutching at her broom with fingers that were rigid and gone quite numb from the wind. "I have to land!"

Snape turned his head just enough for her to see his familiar, crooked sneer through the lank strands of hair blowing into his face. "Again? My, my. We certainly don't have our brooms looked at often enough, do we?"

"Oh, shut up," she muttered through her teeth, and aimed her broom downward so she could land on the little patch of grass that was visible on her left. The broom complied easily enough for most of the way, then decided five feet from the ground that it wasn't going to work anymore and happily went dead.

Lilika hit the ground at an angle, smacking her hip and shoulder into the frozen soil, then rolled a few feet, coming to rest right at Snape's large feet.

"Don't you say anything," she snapped, wanting to quiet him before he could fire off the slur she could see hovering around the corners of his mouth. "I'm not in the mood for any of your lip."

Snape raised both eyebrows and crossed his arms as he watched her struggle to rise, black eyes gleaming coldly. "This was your brilliant idea, Miss Woodville. Need I remind you that we could have been to London and back by now? That is, we could if someone wasn't using a third-rate broom that kept failing every three seconds. Imagine; the heir of the terrifying Woodville family killed because all her Galleons can't teach her how to buy a decent broom. It might make a nice-sized column in the Daily Prophet."

Rage could do wonders for dispelling pain. Lilika jumped to her feet before he finished talking, took her broom in hand, and aimed a savage blow towards Snape's head. He caught it just as it was about to impact on his skull.

Unfortunately for Snape, all his Slytherin cunning failed to inform him that she was using the broom as a feint to keep him from noticing that her foot was about to deliver a savage kick to his knee. He collapsed with a groan, and she sauntered away to pick up her now useless broom from the dry grass.

"My, we are a little savage, aren't we?" Snape spat as he rubbed his knee, his long fingers touching the injured area carefully. "Instead of using your supposedly great intellect, you settle on violence as a way to even all your scores..."

What, and he had somehow failed to notice all those other times she had chosen to inflict physical damage on him instead of fumbling for the right words? She had wit enough, yet Lilika had long ago decided it was better to strike first, however crudely, and walk away when one's victim is still moaning in pain. Best to play to one's strengths.

Lilika marched over to the tree Snape had propped his broom against and picked it up with a grunt, rolling it between her fingers. It was a good bit bigger and thicker than her broom and made from some pitted dark wood that scraped against her fingers. "I'll fit." She turned to look at him, then sighed and walked the few feet back to where he was crouching, still unable to get up. "It's too far to walk to our next Apparation point; I'll ride on the back of your broom."

Snape lifted his head with an almost audible snap and stared at her, his black eyes wide. "And have you touch me? I think not."

"I'll sit right at the end." She demonstrated by laying the broom flat and straddling it near the bristles, keeping her hands between her knees to save space. "Plenty of room, see?"

"For you to fall off and kill yourself, yes." He began to rise to his feet, using a nearby tree as a crutch to drag himself up. "I won't allow it."

Lilika was about to kick him once more. "Then what do you propose we do?" she snarled. "We can't walk--too far for me to Apparate--"

"Yet another deficiency of yours." Snape reached over and yanked the broom away from her, settling himself back upon it with a ferocious sneer curling the edges of his mouth. "What a pity no one in your family taught you how to be a proper witch; it almost makes me feel like correcting their mistakes. Come here."

With a sudden pull, Snape had taken hold of her arm and was lifting her before she could protest; he then set her directly behind him, so close that her knees were pressing into his back.

"Put your hands on my shoulders and nowhere else," he growled, taking up his own place on the broom and facing front. His shoulders were stiff with tension and Lilika could almost give an exact count of the bones beneath his skin, as she could feel each of them distinctly. "If you fall off, I'm not going to save you."

She could see Snape gritting his teeth, his jaw line flexing out sharply as she peered over his shoulder. Well. If she was so hideous to him, then why did he have no trouble touching her? His long hands slipped all over her body with ease, but let her lay a finger on one of his arms and he tensed up so greatly one good poke would snap him in two.

Lilika clenched her fingers a little more tightly on his narrow shoulders as they left the ground and drifted upward on a rising breeze, Snape's cloak folding around her in thick ripples of black wool. Behind her hands, his shoulders were hunched into hard little peaks.

Snape really wasn't bad at flying, and if she leaned closer, she could smell his oddly pleasant scent of dust and dried herbs.

Best of all, he was blocking all the wind.

***

Snape had scarcely been given time to get his breath back upon their arrival in London before Miss Woodville had wrapped her wiry little fingers around his arm and dragged him amongst Muggles. "I'm starving!"

Pulling him from their concealed landing spot, Miss Woodville had led him off into the stream of swarming Muggles, many of whom stopped to gawk and gape as she pulled him along behind her as if he were no more than a kite. Snape quickly twisted his face in the most ferocious scowl he possessed and endured this treatment grimly as the girl tugged him down the streets, towards a small cafe that squatted on a corner like a giant pale mushroom.

The cafe was quite dark inside, but that hardly fazed Miss Woodville; she finally relinquished her grip on his arm and all but ran to a table set back and off to the side, hunched down in a chair and propped a menu open in front of her nose.

He followed more sedately, glaring at the staff to keep them away, and reached up to rub his arm as he went. There was a dull, steady ache where her nails had driven into his skin, and he found that he rather liked it.

Miss Woodville was still drooling over the contents of the menu whilst he sat quietly with his hands folded in front of him and used the quiet to study the odd little creature who was the source of so much discomfort to him.

Snape began to wonder, once again, why he was so attracted to this undeserving female. His dreams were still frequent and intense, but they were not the worst thing, the most unmanageable thing...

No. The dreams were mere piffle. It was the knowledge that she had somehow managed to override all his caution, all his control, all his loathing to lodge herself firmly in his brain and refuse to come out. He was quickly losing himself in a fog of lust, becoming slave to a girl who held an appeal he still could not fathom in the hope of lying with her and knowing he had made her submit.

Not that it was going to happen anytime soon.

"Oooh, they have duck here. I haven't had that in a while, and lamb too, and look! Salmon! And cheese tarts!" A little whimper of happiness escaped her lips. "So many good things to pick--why does everything have to be so difficult?" Watching her squirm about, Snape permitted himself a smile.

She still ate everything in sight, but her petite body was actually beginning to show evidence of this, and there was a pleasant new...bouncy-ness to certain of her curves, most apparent when she moved quickly...

"Snape. Awaken please. What are you going to have?"

He pulled a sneer to cover his lapse. "I had no idea my habits were so interesting to you. Tea and perhaps some toast. Why does it matter?"

"That's all?! Goodness, no wonder you're so scrawny." She reached for her purse and began rifling through it, head down. "You say I'm too thin, yet you're the one living on sugar-water and dried bread. Order something more. Indulge a little."

Snape jabbed a finger at her open menu and gave her a look of severe disbelief. "How can I, when you plan to devour every entree? What a pity that the rest of the Hogwarts staff has to make do with the pittance of our salary whilst you use your paychecks for play money."

Her lips were curling and a angry red flush dotted her pale cheeks. "Why should you be concerned with how much I eat when I'm going to be paying for everything?" Miss Woodville closed her purse with a snap, and looked at him as if he was a new kind of idiot.

"Who said you were paying for everything? I have money!"

"Do you? You were just complaining about the poor pay you draw from teaching and the Snape family used to be quite prosperous, but they seemed to have lost most of their fortune during the time of Johannes and Esmeralda Snape--your grandparents, I believe? because of that pair's fetish for gambling, and lately have been reduced to what is usually called 'genteel poverty'."

Snape tasted the inside of his dry cheek. "Have you been researching me?" he whispered.

"Mmm. Well, since you know all about me, I thought it would be fair to even the field." She tilted her glasses back up on her nose and one corner of her mouth folded in. "Severus Julian Snape, born January 17th, 1960. Your father Adrian Snape died about seven years ago and your mother Angela died when you were six. You have one older sister, Julia Severa, who is nearly seven years older than you and left Hogwarts as you were entering it."

Miss Woodville tapped two of her small white fingers together, then added: "Both of you were in House Slytherin--surprise, surprise, and your sister was also considered quite skilled at Potions. Family trait? Miss Snape was also known for being rather outspoken against the Dark Arts--obviously you didn't follow her good example--and sort of wandered around after graduation, not taking any jobs. She was last seen dancing on top of a table in Polynesia wearing a coconut bra and a grass skirt."

All the blood had drained from his face but he managed a few words through his parched lips. "That sounds quite like something my sister would do, yes." Thorough...thorough...but she hadn't been quite thorough enough. She would have surely said something by now if she knew...

Miss Woodville blinked at him. "Why is she blonde?"

"Because she dyes it, the wench," he snapped.

Her face had turned faintly pinkish and she played with her napkin for a minute, then threw it down and got up from the table. "You have a weird family. I'm going off to freshen myself. If the waiter comes by, tell him I'm not ready to order yet, and don't you dare try to pay for anything. I'll be right back."

"I have a weird family? I?" he roared at her departing back.

***

After Miss Woodville had been fed and watered to her contentment, they left the cafe and wandered the streets in search of a place where she could do her holiday shopping.

"Do you need to buy anything?" she asked, eyes straight ahead.

"No. I've already finished." Well, almost. Socks and books for the Headmaster, an twenty-foot inflatable snake for McGonagall (only reasonable considering that her Christmas present to him last year had been Gryffindor boxer shorts) a cactus for Sprout, wine for Flitwick and everyone else was too unimportant for him to bother.

He had not yet found a present for his sister. It would take some doing, he reflected grimly, to top the present she had given him last year; giant attack beetles from Madagascar meant to guard his chambers. He had given them to Hagrid, who was now using them to guard his vegetable patch in the summer.

"Excellent," the girl murmured, a gratified smirk drawing up the corners of her mouth. "More for me then. I can't stand watching other people shop."

They walked on, until Snape felt a small hand on his arm, turning him in another direction and he allowed Miss Woodville to guide him towards a brightly-lit jewelry shop across the way from where they were walking. The door was open despite the cold and loud, jangly holiday music gushed forth from the inside. He swallowed a gag.

The store was moderately full with customers, and Miss Woodville stopped just inside the door to peer at some glittery nonsense in a display case, Snape fidgeting at her side.

Hideously bored, Snape let his gaze wander across the store, lighting first on the customers (all fat middle-aged Muggle women and a few grey, harassed looking men) and then on the merchandise (all over-priced gaud and flash, but Miss Woodville could certainly afford it).

"Ah! Welcome. Are you perhaps in search of a gift for your gentleman friend here?"

Very slowly, Snape turned to see a rotund little man gazing at Miss Woodville with the hopeful look of a dog salivating for food.

Miss Woodville, to her credit, gave the man a glance that could have chipped granite. "He's not my lover if that's what you're trying to say, and I'm not shopping for him."

The man held both hands up in a placating wall. "My apologies. I merely wanted to know if I could be of assistance."

Her eyes became dark little slits. "You'll know if I do," she said and abruptly turned her back, reaching up to examine a bracelet and matching earrings on display nearby.

Looking slightly put-off, the man turned next to Snape, who was smiling very, very widely.

"Don't even think about it," he informed the man pleasantly and strolled away.

***

Nearly an hour had passed and Miss Woodville was still not finished. She had a small pile of gift-wrapped packages by her hand and was still fussing over yet another set of jewelry.

Snape had long since passed from boredom into frustration and he was now stalking back and forth in front of the door, trying to persuade Miss Woodville to leave on her own before he carried her out bodily.

"Will you hurry up?" he hissed for the fifty-third time. Several Muggles glanced at each other nervously and carefully side-stepped away.

"A moment," Miss Woodville said calmly--the exact same words she'd used the last four times--as she held a necklace up against her thin neck.

He spun around with a growl of deep annoyance and walked towards the back of the store, scattering Muggles as he went.

The back seemed to be the place where the less expensive pieces were kept, so it was relatively empty and quiet. Here, Snape paced restlessly up and down along the rows of cases until a smudge of darkness against all the gleaming brightness caught his eye.

Resting on a pad of crimson velvet was a little pendent of some dusky metal; blackened silver or some rare stone perhaps. The material had been worked in the shape of some bird, its wings outstretched and its feet curled close to its body, beak open in a smooth grimace against the velvet. Its eyes glinted redly at him.

Snape touched the display case above it lightly. What a curious thing.

"She would, at the very least, find it appropriate," he muttered, "and since she's so enthusiastic about Ravenclaw, she would probably be delighted."

Still he hovered, undecided. Snape doubted very much that Miss Woodville had gotten him anything--and even if she had, it would likely be some small, cheap trinket.

"I should get her something, though...just to show her up if she does neglect to buy a gift for me."

Besides, he liked the idea of something he'd bought for her resting against her skin, a small and constant reminder of his generosity.

Fine, he decided. He'd get it for her and savor the embarrassment that would come when her gift did not match up to his. The dark metal would look good around her white neck.

Just as he'd finished paying for it (he'd carefully timed his purchase so Miss Woodville would be too busy with her own interests to notice) Miss Woodville came up to him, looking a bit harried and out of breath.

"Were you back here all this time?" she demanded, afterwards glancing back over her shoulder.

"No, I momentarily stepped into a neighborhood dimension to get away from the Muggles," he snapped. "Of course I've been back here. Why?"

"Then you must have seen him."

"Seen who?" Couldn't she just give him all the pertinent details all at once?

"The man who was staring at me." A light blush rose over Miss Woodville's face and she preened absently, tossing her long hair over her shoulder as she looked at him. "The young one."

"What man? What young one?" Snape barked, fighting the urge to grab her shoulders and shake her like a tree in a strong wind. "The whole story if you please! Now."

The girl put a hand to her chin, considering. "Calm yourself. He did nothing but stare at me. I caught him doing it several times whilst I was looking at some earrings. He was about my age and rather nattily dressed in a pin-striped suit. Sandy blond hair. His clothes did look a bit old fashioned, but his entire appearance fairly shrieked 'toff'."

"Oh, the way your appearance does?"

"No, my appearance shrieks that I'm a throwback to the Victorian era. As does yours, Mr 'Robe of a Zillion Buttons'. The point is, I saw him heading back here and you say you saw no one else come this way."

It felt very much like worms were crawling about in his stomach and up his spine. "No, no one came this way."

Her eyes were grave. "A wizard with the gall to Disapparate in the middle of a crowded store."

His heart was pounding in an unfamiliar frenzy against his chest and when he took her hand she didn't pull away. "Let's leave."

Miss Woodville nodded in perfect agreement for once and they quietly slipped out the front door, heads down. At a tug from her, they started to walk back up the way they had come. "We can take this street west and then cut across..."

"Lady Woodville?"

She stopped dead in the street and Snape with her.

Standing on the pavement directly in front of them was a young man with sandy hair, smiling agreeably. He held up a small ball of what looked like crinkled metal and the light from the street lamp overhead glanced off it, sending sharp cracks of light in all directions.

"Catch," he said and tossed the ball at them.

"Don't you dare!" Snape hissed into her ear, grabbing her hand even more tightly in his, but the warning did them no good.

The ball smacked Miss Woodville lightly in the chest and with a tremendous gust of wind, the ground fell from under their feet.

***

They landed in among dead grass, still clutching the other's hand. Lilika spat out dirt and leaves, her thoughts somewhat jarred from their rough landing. "What was that?"

"Portkey," Snape growled from her side as he untangled himself from her arm and stumbled to his feet. Once free of his grasp, Lilika wasted no time in getting up. "We've got to leave now." She darted a look around; just grass and a few dried up trees. No clues to where they were.

"Yes."

It was an excellent idea but it came a few seconds too late; no sooner had the words left her mouth than a series of small pops sounded about thirty feet in front of them, heralding the arrival of the toff, who looked crisp and unhurried and a new face--his companion, a great slab of a man dressed in a workman's dirty greens and browns.

"I'm so sorry for the inconvience, my lady," the toff said smoothly, brushing a piece of plant off his suit and starting to walk towards them. "It simply wouldn't do to attract attention of course, hence the peremptory change of location."

"Naturally," Lilika agreed sourly. "It simply doesn't do to abduct a member of the nobility from the streets of London in the middle of everything!" To her surprise she found herself yelling the last words, chest heaving.

Anger is good. Keeps you from locking up in fear. Two against two. You've faced worse.

"So you are the new breed," Snape said, eyeing the Death Eaters with utter distaste. "The Dark Lord grows desperate." The large man scowled.

"Ah. You must be Snape." The leader halted and frowned, his expression distant and slightly troubled and this expression grew stronger at a nudge from his subordinate. "Our orders were to take her and kill him, yet I have heard the Dark Lord express a desire to see Snape face to face one last time. Perhaps..."

Snape smiled grimly. "One last time, eh? My, he's optimistic." He drew his wand with a quick, almost graceful gesture and shifted into a dueling stance. "Try. Just try."

The leader brightened even more. "I was fairly sure that I would have to fight to secure her," he said, almost beaming. "Excellent! I have been wanting to practise a bit."

Throwing open his coat, the Death Eater reached inside and drew out a long object, too thick to be a wand and entirely the wrong shape. Most wizards would have blinked at such a thing uncertainly, but she was not most wizards.

"SNAPE!" she bellowed. "Don't move! That's a gun! Magic isn't fast enough against it!"

"I know what it is!" he snapped in reply but he refused to back away, actually moving to place himself in the sights of the Death Eater and his weapon.

The young man smiled sweetly and saluted with his weapon. "Still determined? Well. Which is faster--your magic or my gun?"

Lilika took an unsteady step towards Snape, but the gun swung to point at her. "I will shoot you if I have to," the Death Eater told her pleasantly and with that, Snape charged forward with an incoherent sound of rage. "Cru--"

The toff waited until Snape had almost finished, then waved his gun lazily and a tremendous bang burst forth on a brilliant flash of light.

Snape flew backwards, kicking up dust and pebbles in his wake and slammed against a tree, his head thudding against the trunk with a loud, dull smack.

Smiling, the Death Eater watched Snape fall, then turned to her, his eyes earnest. "If you please, lady, will you come with us? Our Lord has been asking for you?"

Lilika stepped back and glowered at him, bringing her wand forward. "Whatever for?"

The young man actually chuckled. "Do you think he tells us? We are instruments of service, not of inquiry."

"Like all good pawns are." The tone of her voice could have eaten through steel, but the Death Eater seemed unaffected. "Perhaps. So, if we don't have your cooperation, we'll have to carry you off."

"If you know so much about me, you would know...you must know...that I would never go willingly."

"I am so sorry my lady, but you truly give me no choice. I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me later." He stepped forward and swung the gun in an odd, wavery pattern and spoke a word too low for Lilika to hear.

It started low, in her belly, and then the pain flew up to consume her heart, a network of white-hot wires twisting and twining inside her. Against this pain, her legs folded and left her sprawled on the ground, every muscle twitching madly.

She couldn't even scream.

Her tearing eyes managed to focus on the Death Eater, who had a look of sincere sorrow all over his face. "I did warn you."

It took several more seconds before she could bring air into her lungs without feeling as though they were burning away from the pain. To try and take her mind away, Lilika thought of the gun, it's oddly elongated barrel and lack of metal even in the trigger...

"That's no gun," she managed to whisper, nearly all her muscles still locked from the pain. "It's a wand..."

The man grinned, looking absurdly pleased. "How clever of you to tell! Yes, it is. I had it specially modified after viewing a fine pistol that had once belonged to my great-grandfather. I find it comes in quite handy."

Lilika was having trouble keeping her eyes open. "That spell..."

"Hush now, you really must save your strength."

"Tell me."

"Bruno?" the Death Eater called.

"What did you do?"

The Death Eater shrugged ruefully. "Merely twisted the remnants of a spell left in your body by your lady mother. I doubt that was the use it was intended to be put to, but..."

"You know about my seal?" she whispered, bitter saliva filling her mouth, and her ribs cracking faintly as she brought her knees closer to her chest. The pain had somewhat subsided whilst she was talking but it was still very hard to move. She slipped a hand under the waist of her skirts.

"Oh yes. Mr Anthony is quite fond of telling people about the novel way his aunt had disciplined his wayward cousin." He snapped his fingers. "Bruno, go get her, please--I fear we've taken entirely too long already."

Bruno started to walk and she forced her way past the humming pain in her limbs to reach further down and grasp the knife she kept under her skirts.

Why won't Snape wake up? Did they really strike him that hard? Is he feinting? If he is feinting, why the hell couldn't he give me some sign that he is? Bruno will be more stunned than removed and I don't think Mr Toff over there is going to be easy to deal with.

Her body now lay inside a circle of perfect shadow and Lilika adjusted her hold on the knife's slippery handle. A little pool of sweat had collected in the blood groove.

Bruno started to lift her up and as he turned her body to face him, Lilika plunged the blade into his shoulder.

He shrieked with the voice of a rusty gate being forced open, hurling her from his arms and through the dusty thump of her impact with the ground she heard Snape roar.

"Expelliarmus!"

Snape still leaned against the tree, but he had pulled himself up in a squat, one arm outstretched, the other clenched against the trunk for balance. Mr Toff's modified wand had been knocked a fair distance against the field, a light plume of smoke rising from where it lay.

Mr Toff himself had been thrown back several feet from the force of Snape's spell and he was just now getting to shaky feet, his face was grey and taunt with anger. Once up, he looked first towards his wand, then to Snape, his gaze passing over the bulk of his associate. One hand contracted into a fist but he made no move towards them.

"I see you have the better of me; there is no reason for me to stay," he said after a short silence. His voice was unnaturally slow voice and to Lilika's great surprise, he lowered his head towards her in a stiff bow.

Lilika and Snape watched this little performance through wary eyes.

"Until the next time, my lady," he added, and vanished with a pop, seconds before Snape's curse shot through where he had been standing.

Lilika shivered. A breeze nipped at her skin and wrapped around her hair whilst the branches above her rattled loudly.

She rose to her feet, then, shaking with every movement; Snape stood fixed in place for a few moments after the Death Eater had gone, with a grim curve to his mouth, then shoved his wand back into his sleeve and went over to where the other one had fallen unconscious from her attack.

He kicked the fallen Bruno, then stepped back and regarded him for a moment, his lips pursed in an ugly scowl. "No sense in waiting," he muttered, and drew his wand again, pointing it at the Death Eater's sagging form. "Ava..."

Panic kicked her hard in the ribs. "What are you doing?"

Snape broke off and scowled at her. "What does it look like, silly girl?"

"But...he..you don't need to go that far..."

"I most certainly do. Do you want to leave a Death Eater running about when you could easily eliminate him? He's no use as a informant; he's just big and stupid, like the other one said."

Her fear and disgust were rising to choke her, a weight pressing her voice into a whisper. "Like your Crabbe and Goyle you mean?"

Snape did not turn back around, but his shoulders went rigid. "Shut up."

"I'm terribly sorry. Did I remind you that the man you are about to kill is a person, not an object?" she asked, in her most politely frigid tone.

His ears had turned a dull brick colour. "I'm merely getting rid of a problem."

"A problem like you once were," Lilika spat. He did turn at that, halfway.

"Yes, except I've never been that large."

She wanted to beat him, smash his face and break his nose. "How can you? How can you kill him without him ever knowing that it's going to happen? Do you really need more death on your hands?"

The veins were standing out along Snape's throat. "Voldemort plans to take Azkaban--there's no solution there. Leaving him alive would leave one more Death Eater around to torture and kill and destroy!" His voice grew louder with each passing word. "You are not going to change my mind; we simply do not have the time to be arguing this! Go somewhere else if this bothers you."

Go or stay, run or watch. She jerked her chin down in a nod and on trembling hands and knees, Lilika slipped behind the tree, her heart pounding in her chest like a war drum. She knelt there and put her hands over her ears, humming so she wouldn't have to hear.

That man was unaware. Killing in honest battle, that was all right, but only as a last resort. Sneaking up and stabbing your enemies in the back--that was okay too, as long as you knew your enemies and knew they'd do the same to you.

Despite her family's activities, Lilika had never actually seen the Killing Curse used.

Darkness settled over her and she looked up to see Snape looking down his nose at her from above. "It's done. Can you stand?" He looped one large hand around her wrist, pulling her hand away from her ear.

Lilika got up then, slowly, and Snape shook his head, his eyes hard. "How weak you can be. You're the last person I'd expect to be squeamish about the Killing Curse."

"At least I'm not capable of just walking up to someone and killing them with a flick of the wrist," she snarled. "You disappoint me, Snape."

His eyes were glittering. "I've done that so often I simply don't care anymore." He released her wrist and walked away to start pulling off branches from the tree. "Come help me with these branches, if you're up to it. We'll need quite a few to make a fire large enough for the both of us."

"Fire? Are you going to burn the body? That's surprisingly decent of you, but we have to get out of here."

Snape stood there with one hand pressed against his side and muttered quietly to himself, looking simply murderous. "I transfigured him into a rock and I'm quite aware of the need to get away; that's what the fire is for."

Lilika broke off a few of the smaller branches and carried them to the pile, her hands throbbing. "Are you telling me we're going to Floo back to Hogwarts? Because the last time I checked, you can't."

"There's a special way to Floo in if there's an emergency. I have a password protected passage into one of my dungeons." She stopped piling wood to glare at him.

"Why wasn't I ever told about this? I assume the other teachers know, am I right?"

The dull salmon dots blotches that passed for a blush on him appeared on his face. "Never mind that now," he ground out between his teeth. "Just get more wood."

A thought suddenly poked her, hard. "Wait a moment," she told him and walked over to where she had seen the Death Eater's modified wand drop. It lay off by the tree, its brown sheen easily visible against the dead grass. Lilika looked at it for a moment, then took careful aim and fired. There was a most satisfying explosion.

She returned to where Snape stood, scowling and watching her with questions in his eyes, carrying a piece of the wand which she carefully stowed away in her pocket. "The Toff no longer has his toy. Mr. Ollivander, I'm sure, is capable of making an identification of every wand he's ever made even if there's only little bits and pieces left."

Instead of answering, Snape placed a hand on her back and bunched the material of her shirt between his fingers. "Hold on to me. Tightly." A jet of green flame sputtered from the end of his wand and ignited their wood pile as Lilika held on to his waist.

Fumbling with his wand as he tried to extract a small jar of glittering powder and open it at the same time, Snape's other hand gripped her even more tightly. "Close your eyes."

She did, and Snape muttered a string of words rapidly, then changed to a sequence that sounded almost sing-song in quality. The fire roared and it shone as brightly against her closed eyelids as the sun.

"Now!" he shouted and hurled them into the flames.

***

They fell, choking and gasping out soot onto the hard floor of his workroom as the fire burned away around them.

The girl lay prone and coughing, whilst Snape sought to make sense of his tangled thoughts. The Headmaster needed to be informed immediately and there were certainly going to be no more trips outside of Hogwarts for a certain female...

His fingers were still curled into Miss Woodville's shirt, and Snape was surprised to see that his fierce grip had actually left little rents in the fabric. He rose first, unclenching his fingers and Miss Woodville followed with a groan, her normal sickly pallor distinctly green under her eyes.

"Well, all our limbs are intact," she said, her voice steady but pitched so low Snape had to crouch down to hear her. "Though I may have misplaced my liver around that last turn."

"So this has all been very amusing to you, eh?" He moved away, trying not to let the pain from his wound affect the way he walked and lit a fire under one of his cauldron with a wand flick. He'd need something stronger than usual to deal with this injury and with his unquiet mind as well.

Why had that pretentious prat behaved so very deferentially to Miss Woodville? It had been true obeisance as well, not sarcastic pretense. Most odd. As a pure-blood 'traitor' to the great cause of her family she should had been treated with utter scorn by any self-respecting follower of the Dark Lord, yet that boy had looked at her almost worshipfully.

The stupid lemming had been acting like a boy with a crush, yet Miss Woodville had surely never seen him before or he her. Lust at first sight? Why would anyone other than himself want such a pale plain crumpled little thing? Besides, the only reason he wanted her was because he had gone insane from lack of sex. There was simply no other rational explanation for it.

As always, she distracted him. "There's blood on your shirt."

"That's what happens when you get a wound," he snapped. Slashed and burned, a nasty smarting thing to treat. He walked away and she followed.

"Let me see."

"Go away. You're not a healer."

"You have been hurt, idiot."

"Oh, and you weren't? Yet you don't see me asking to muck about in your insides." Why was she so bloody insistent about touching him? There was no real reason for her to want to.

After that, Miss Woodville hung back and quietly waited until he had foolishly moved into a spot between two work tables and a wall and trapped him. "Stop squirming!"

His hands were full of potions ingredients; he couldn't fight her until he had put them down and by then she was upon him. "Get off, wench!" The girl ignored him completely, placed one hand on his side and carefully pulled the blood soaked cloth away.

The wound was ugly, running thick with blood and a cracked mottled pink in the burned areas. She whistled. "Gods, what a curse."

Her hand was now resting on the bare skin above the wound, almost in contact with his blood. "How are you still standing?" One small finger moved then, and cautiously traced the outline of his injury, making a large circle. "You're so skinny," she muttered, "and you call me scrawny and yet you stand here with a wound that would have left me unmoving." Her hand came higher, under his shirt and traced a rib.

"Enough," he snapped and pushed a hand down on top of hers, trying to force her away from him. Her flesh was uncomfortably warm and dry, adhering itself to his, and if she didn't move her hot little hand this instant he was going to break down screaming.

Such a stupidly simple act of touch...If she wants the rights to my body, she's going to have to grant me the use of hers first. No one except a lover can just so casually put out a hand and feel.

Miss Woodville did not pull away. Her eyes were tight with some unhappy feeling, little folds of skin bunching between her eyebrows, and when she lifted her head to look at his face, her expression was of mute, stricken confusion. How odd. She was also strawberry red in the cheeks.

Inch by inch, she slid her hand away and Snape breathed out quietly. The muscles around his ribs ached. "Thank you."

The girl nodded, her lips straight as she regained her composure. "You're going to deal with that wound yourself?"

"Do you think I like people touching me?" he sneered in return, annoyed at the implied slight. "I've been taking care of myself for a long time, my girl, and I'm quite capable of healing myself. Don't trouble your little head about it."

Snape waited for an explosion, a storm, even a minor fuss or least a furious swipe at his ankle. Instead, Miss Woodville wandered silently across the room, one hand rubbing her side, and pretended she was absorbed in the various bottles of potions stored along the walls.

The quiet stretched away for long minutes, as Snape strode around, trying to finish collecting the materials he would need for his healing potion, and as he went he found himself having to clamp his lips shut on some comment, some little aside--he certainly didn't want to be the one to speak first. It wasn't his fault that she was a bad sport; let her have her little power trip to herself.

Miss Woodville moved towards the door, still crimson around the ears.

"I suggest you make yourself something to deal with any side effects having your insides twisted about might bring; a low-grade Healing Potion should be sufficient. You might also want to take a small dose of Sleeping Potion tonight to ensure you don't end up sleepless from discomfort."

She blinked, stepped further back into the room and one small hand wound a strand of hair round her fingers with short, jerky flips. "Why can't I just go see Madam Pomfrey?"

Snape nearly dropped the vial he was clutching and it took him a few fumbling moments to recover. "Because, my dear, it is not safe to tell anyone at Hogwarts about our little adventure."

Miss Woodville was rubbing her arm and staring off into space, the crimson spreading from her ears around to the edges of her cheeks. "No one? Not even McGonagall?"

"No one," he repeated coldly. "I intend to tell only the Headmaster. Don't you understand? There is a spy in Hogwarts. No one else can be trusted with any details of our activities." Why was her gaze darting so urgently around the room? "What is the matter with you?"

Her face was slowly turning purple. "I can't make those potions."

"Any third year could make those potions; why can't you?"

She was going to tear the cloth of her skirt in two if she continued to grip it that tightly. Not that he minded. "What I mean is that I can't brew potions at all. After I blew up my fifth cauldron my tutor decided I needed to concentrate on other things." She looked away, at a patch of floor, then muttered very softly, "Plus, I couldn't be bothered remembering all the how and what goes with what and you can't put these ingredients together else your skin will fall off."

Snape rubbed his ears, to make sure they were still attached correctly. "You memorised the entire encyclopedia on Dark Arts, and yet you can't manage a simple potion? Your tutor obviously wasn't up to snuff if he gave up on you that easily." He kept his tone harsh and chiding, letting his disdain pour through. What was wrong with this girl? Why had she never bothered to learn one of the most important and subtle strengths of a wizard's craft, instead just casting it all aside like that?

Clearly Andrew had not chosen the proper tutors for the girl...wait...

His fingers were suddenly nervous and unsteady and he cursed quietly. An idea had just skittered through his brain, pale and transparent still, but if he could make it work...make her agree to it...

Miss Woodville turned plum. "Don't you insult Master Hennings!"

"Bah. Your tutor was damned lazy at the very least, but think what you will," he sneered and turned away from her to hunt for a spare bottle on the table, thoughts frantically cramming his brain. His idea was nearly full-formed, but he needed a bit more time. "I still can't believe that you, you who hold yourself up as the paragon of all witches cannot brew even the most simple unguent to cure boils!" He shook his head in a slow roll of sorrowful wonder. "I thought I'd never find someone even worse than Neville Longbottom at potions..."

She had gone perfectly silent, which most likely meant a very great rage was coming on. Lovely. First the sweet and then the bait.

"I'll brew you some this one time...and some extra sleeping potion even...on one condition."

"What condition?" Ooh, she sounded ready to explode. Pity. All that good energy going to waste.

"Condition being that you spare some of your free time to take lessons from me. I simply cannot have you running to me every time you need something brewed." Snape narrowed his eyes and watched her face intently, a snarl playing over his lips. "I abhor stupidity in any form--as do you, I think--and it goes beyond disgraceful for a grown witch to be unable to brew potions even an eleven year old would find too easy!"

A dull, grating sound reached his ears; Miss Woodville was slowly grinding her heel into his stone floor.

He played with a bottle from the table, letting a smirk twist his mouth. "Besides, you can later boast you were taught by a master." His tongue gave an extra little curve to the last word. "You know how skilled I am. Is it so shameful for you to admit you need to be tutored?"

"When?" she snarled, a very low, thick and angry sound.

"Excuse me?"

"When?"

Snape made a show of putting the bottle down and rearranging some of his glassware, to hide his shaking hands. "Next Monday at seven?"

"Seven-thirty," Miss Woodville countered, looking as if she was just barely keeping herself from wrecking the room in her fury. "Good night."

"Good night," he said quietly in return, and some of her anger left, leaving her looking a little surprised and perhaps annoyed at his mild tone. She strode to the door, pale eyes gleaming, and left, shutting the door gently behind her.

The click of her heels faded as she moved away from his rooms, and Snape let himself breathe again, in and out, great steady heaving breaths. He hadn't really thought it would work...

Calm. You'll have her alone and to yourself soon enough. Patience. Did you really think she'd go so easily? It's not as if you've won yet.

From across the room, he could see himself in the mirror, his hair hanging limp to his shoulders and his face distorted with thinking. Such a peculiar little creature. Soon to be his. What did it matter why he wanted her, when every bit of him ached and was howling for satisfaction? It would be strictly a business relationship. Simply a matter of carnal pleasures. Give and take between two consenting adults.

A smirk bent his lips. Judging from the way she had flushed when he had laid his hand upon hers, perhaps Miss Woodville wasn't quite so indifferent either. It would be work to tease that indifference into willingness, but he'd be more than happy to let her take out any frustrations she might have on him provided he was allowed to do the same.

And when she lay spent and limp beneath him, it would become clear just who the true victor in their little power struggle was.

Snape moved closer to the mirror, lifted his hand and absently traced the outline of his face. Time to act.

"We'll have a mistress for you yet," he whispered.

***

Lilika did not discover the small welts Snape's fingers had left on her back until she began to undress. She paused, scowling. There was a raised ridge of nail marks right along her spine where he had gripped her and they stung as the air hit them.

"Oh, as if I hadn't been roughed up enough today," she muttered, quickly pulling her nightdress over her head and swallowing a wince as the cloth brushed her skin.

Even so, pain was a good distraction to keep harsher thoughts away; who was that Death Eater? What was the reason for his strange civility towards her? So, it was Voldemort who was after her and not her family? What the bloody fuck was going on?

"I don't want to say it," she grumbled, "but a certain person may have had a modicum of truth in his words when he said this trip was not a good idea."

Especially when the trip had proved just how comfortable a certain person was with the Killing Curse. She swallowed hard against a dry throat and tried to dissolve the memory of Snape standing over the Death Eater, wand in hand, his voice spinning out the syllables of the curse.

What of it? Lilika thought. How can I say whether or not my interference would have been for good or ill? She took a breath and rubbed her arm, pressing her fingers hard into the skin. If the Death Eaters had managed to carry us off, Snape would have ended up most definitely dead. I don't like killing at all, but I can see the necessity of what Snape did. It's just...Snape didn't give him a chance to face it head on...

Oh, enough about Snape and death! I want to stop thinking about him. Want to be free of him for just a little while.

But once the image had been summoned, the ideas would not stop cramming themselves into her brain, one after the other. She breathed a little harder. Snape's warm skin and glittering eyes, the peculiar note running underneath his voice when he had offered her potions lessons and the lovely twinge that had started in her fingertips and run, hot and feathery, through her skin when she had touched him...

...she was not going to give him that power over her. If anything, Snape would be the one undone and quivering for her touch whilst she ruled over him.

Not that it would ever happen. Even if she'd hadn't had sex in six years.

It was quite funny how nearly being abducted could make one so sleepy. Lilika struggled into bed, yawning all the while and laid her head against the pillow, thrusting all thoughts of Death Eaters and Potions Masters out of her brain.

***

Lilika is seventeen again, standing in front of her new home, hidden from everyone and happy about it.

There is a small popping sound besides her and Andrew Woodville appears, tall and bent with dark circles under his eyes. He smiles quickly at her. "A gift. From one escapee to another."

"Father?"

He holds out a small box on the palm of one hand and opens it with the other. She squints at the inside; two curved, golden earrings.

"Why are you giving me this?" She takes a step back and stares at his face, dotted with shadow from the trees overhead.

"They're yours now." Her father smiles, a bit stiffly. "Never, ever lose them."

She starts to speak again, but his form blurs and he vanishes within seconds. The box lies on the grass at her feet.

Inside Lilika's house, the box sits open on her dressing table, ignored for days until her new friend Amelia comes over for tea. She admires the earrings whilst Lilika is busily fixing the tea, reaching over to touch one. "Yah! It's hot!"

Lilika hurries over, tea left behind. "What's hot?"

Amelia shows her a fingertip gone bright red and blistered. "Your earring! I just touched it and it burned me!

Lilika taps each in turn. "Doesn't bother me," she admits, but a slow, cold idea is beginning to grow inside of her head. "Which one was it?"

"The left one."

It's easy enough for Lilika to put on the right earring, but her hand stops over the left. What the hell was my father thinking?

Key to the Dark Power, I summon you to your true form with my blood..

"And bind your children to my will," Lilika finishes in a whisper. A small flare of silver light from the earring slides around one finger and buries itself in her palm.

Amelia stares at her. "This is one of those wizard things, right?" she finally asks.

"Ummm," Lilika says as a way of not explaining. She puts the left earring on.