Animalexus

Hermione hurried across the lawns towards the stables. It was early yet, but the Hogwarts Express would be leaving soon, and she knew Marie often rose at dawn to tend to the horses. She glanced down at the package in her hands. She hadn't known quite what to get her new friend, but then she'd happened upon Colin Creevey and his blasted camera--it seemed he'd been at the stables that first day, too, and managed to get a picture of Marie and Mash flying over the jump. Hermione knew Marie was highly suspicious of all magic, but she figured a moving picture of her and Mash--complete, she noticed, with the big gray horse occasionally showing off for the viewer, prancing about and tossing his long forelock--could only be welcome.

Hermione stopped short at the entrance to the main barn. Something was not right. The horses stood unfed in their stalls, and whinnied or nickered loudly at the sight of her. Had Marie overslept after the Yule Ball last night? It didn't seem like her, but maybe the festivities had exhausted her... Hermione set her package down and threw two flakes of hay apiece into several of the stalls. Not one of the horses moved to touch it, not even Geoffrey, gluttonous as he was.

A horrible scrambling and crashing sounded suddenly from the rear of the barn, and forcing down a wave of dread, Hermione hurried back to find Mash in a froth, his coat dark with sweat, pounding at his stall door with his hooves. He reared up when he saw her, his head coming dangerously close to the beams above, his hooves striking the wood sharply again on his way down. Hermione took a half-step back; and Mash opened his mouth and let out an ear-piercing shriek, echoed by several of the other horses.

"I don't...I can't understand you," she stammered, beginning to panic. Surely if Marie were upstairs in her apartment, she would have heard this?

Mash whinnied again, and rolled his eyes back into his head until white rimmed them all around.

"Just...just wait. Just a minute." Hermione dashed towards the stairs, but only had to get halfway up to see that the door to Marie's apartment was ajar. She went inside, but nothing else seemed to be amiss, save the undeniable fact that Marie was missing. The neighs and whinnies from downstairs only made her feel more helpless; without Marie she had no hope of learning what the horses obviously knew.

Hermione had never crossed Hogwarts' grounds so quickly. She ignored the polite greetings from several of the other students, didn't even hear Ron call her name. She forced her way past all of the other students making their way outside, not caring if she pushed or was otherwise rude. She didn't even stop to consider the fact that the statue outside of Dumbledore's office let her up without even requesting a password until she was already upstairs, faced with both the Headmaster and Professor Snape.

"Sir, you have to--Marie is--that is--" Hermione cut herself off as her mind processed what she saw before her: Fawkes, perched on Snape's chair, head hidden; Snape himself, still dressed in his formal robes, an expression on his face that was more drawn than sour; Dumbledore, sitting quite still opposite, his eyes somehow troubled but betraying no hint of panic or even mild surprise.

Hermione took a step backwards. She glanced quickly between the two men--Snape's hair was tied back, she noticed abruptly, and the instant she thought it he cast an especially sharp look in her direction and snatched the ribbon away and let it fall--before she finally turned to address the Headmaster. "Sir...you know?"

He said nothing, just met her gaze soberly.

Hermione searched his face for sorrow, for guilt, for something, anything...and found nothing in those quiet features but an unnerving blankness. She swallowed hard. "You...God, you didn't...you..." She finally gaped openly, waiting for the reassurances, the confirmation that it was all a misunderstanding, that Dumbledore had not allowed this thing to happen. She prattled on when the comfort did not come, irrationally hoping that her words--if only she used enough!--could somehow forestall the inevitable news from reaching her ears. "But Marie is...sir, you have to protect her! You can't simply give someo--her up to...you know...to...not when she's done nothing wrong!"

Hermione stopped. She suddenly felt very, very young, and equally naïve. Until this moment--this moment, here, in this room--she had truly continued to believe that the Order and its followers would be somehow protected, somehow saved, simply by virtue of being the 'good' side. It sounded ridiculous put that way, of course, but the sentiment had been there nonetheless. There was the case of Cedric Diggory, certainly, but that was different...and there was Sirius. But, Hermione realized, she had not been so terribly surprised at Black's death; he had seemed, in retrospect, to have been on the fringes of life, somehow already ruined, ever since leaving--or perhaps entering--Azkaban. But Marie--she wasn't the same, not really. She hadn't been involved at the start; she was just unlucky enough to be the Animalexus. There had been no choosing of sides for her, just coercion and horror. She was simply a victim, albeit one who had managed to keep at least something of herself intact, and to throw her back into that...

Hermione might have accepted, even, that these terrible things could happen, that those who deserved good would not always receive it, that pain found its way to innocents...but it was supposed to have been the fault of the Dark Wizards, wholly their fault, not because someone else--not because Dumbledore had made a determination that one life had to be valued over another's... It was supposed to happen only in spite of the best efforts of the Order, not because of them.

For a long moment the room was silent, and Hermione looked to Dumbledore. Waiting, praying for an answer.

But it was Snape who spoke, at last, his voice as smooth and practiced as ever but with a disturbing edge, cutting through the heavy silence. "Belief in a just world, Miss Granger," -there was something almost wistful in his tone at those words, and then in an instant it was gone-- "is a luxury of children and the feeble-minded." He glanced up, and his black eyes glittered when they met hers. "I had not thought you to be either of these things."

***

Few things were more beautiful, Marie decided, than the sight of a horse from its back, the long neck arched and flexed, ears attuned, bristly mane whipping in time with his strides. Mash moved so easily, too; each of his gaits had an easy cadence and rhythm of its own. The jump was ahead of them now, and Mash had locked on to it, no turning back. Marie closed her fingers on the leather of the reins and--

--her father was on his feet faster than her eyes could follow, his book fallen from his hands, his eyes suddenly hard, his hands already up and moving when the green flash flared and when he fell his skull hit so hard and her mother screamed and then--

Marie's eyes flew open, and she felt a rush of adrenaline shudder along her spine as she sucked in a deep breath, clawing herself to a sitting position.

"I should have thought you wouldn't need to have your nightmares induced, Marie. On this night, at least."

A single flame burned at the tip of one candle at the wall sconce; it caught Marie's eye and cast the rest of the room into deep shadow. She knew who was here, though, and when she finally spotted a fleeting reflection of smooth blond hair, it only confirmed it.

"But then again," Malfoy mused, "Your dreamlife always has been untroubled, hasn't it?" His voice dropped and sharpened all at once. "I can change that."

"That will be all, Lucius," another voice interjected, quietly, measuredly.

Marie pressed her back harder against the stone behind her, searched the darkness frantically. This must be the same room she'd spent the past two years in; it was small, but her vision--usually so keen, but still blurred from the night before--failed her in this near-total darkness.

"I believe I asked you to take your leave," he repeated. Malfoy hesitated a second more, then moved to the door. No light entered the room when he opened it, but there was a slight movement nearby, and Marie finally managed to focus on a form there.

"You should not be as afraid of Lucius as you are, Marie," the Dark Lord admonished, his tone almost hypnotically even. "He is not so powerful, really. Most of his magic is little more than mere trickery. True, he does have a rather amusing talent with memory charms and the like, but in the end?" He took a step towards her, and Marie winced in spite of herself. She wanted to say something, to interrupt him, to stop the thin voice from rasping in her ear, but no words came. "In the end, Marie...you should be afraid of me."

The flickering light caught his features then, and Marie swallowed hard. She often overheard the Death Eaters talking about his serpentine looks, but what frightened Marie most, she realized, was what was left of the human in the Dark Lord. The flat nose and slit-nostrils and the red jewel-tone color of his eyes were monstrous touches, yes, but it was the tilt of his chin, the angles of his cheekbones that she held in her memory. The features that might be recognized as Tom Riddle's. The cold, malicious glint in those eyes, indicative of the all-too-human hatred and fire encompassed within, couched as it might be in magic.

"I am most displeased with you, Marie," he murmured, the words lingering in the still air.

She stopped the apology before it left her lips. It had done her no good the evening before, as her aching body reminded her.

He was just in front of her now, and she had an irrational impulse to bolt, as if she had anywhere to go. She had done it once; she was sure she'd have no chance like it ever again.

"I rather liked that dream of yours," the Dark Lord said, in what seemed like a non sequiter but was certainly not. "Before Lucius interrupted it, that is. It seemed so very, very..." He paused, as though searching for the right word. He turned and met her eyes. "...real."

The dream, the memory, was in her head, again, at the forefront of her mind. That first ride on Mash, the gray horse's impulsive decision to take the large jump in the arena, the delightful flight over.

"Is this one of your new favorites?" the Dark Lord demanded, harshly, intruding on the images. "I know you, Marie. I know you live in your head, you occupy yourself with your memories and your dreams. Did you honestly think I couldn't see it? Did you honestly think I didn't know, Marie? This" -the memory flared in her mind, impossibly intense for a brief moment-- "is how you survive the life I have imposed upon you." The Dark Lord's eyes were glittering dangerously now, furiously. "Do not displease me!" he roared, and as the words spilled into the air, Marie felt a sharp, sudden pain at the back of her skull, and then it was gone.

The memory was gone.

It was something about Mash...something she'd treasured...their first ride together? Had that been it? She wracked her mind, searching for that memory, finding nothing. Dozens of rides, yes, but all with a familiarity, all with a sense of coming after...after...what?

"What did you do?" she demanded, hoarsely.

"Aha!" The Dark Lord laughed unkindly. "So she hasn't lost her tongue after all."

Marie wished it weren't so dark. Panic could creep up on you so much more quickly in the dark. "Give it back."

"No."

"Please, I--"

"It's gone, Marie. Forever."

"No..." She inhaled deeply. She promised herself that she wasn't going to lose it in front of this demon, and promptly broke her own promise. "Give it back to me!"

"Don't you ever presume to tell me what to do, slave." And then, too quickly to comprehend, another memory flashed into her mind--her mother, dressed in the flannel and denim she'd worn to work, laughing, behind the wheel of the veterinary-equipped truck she'd taken to farm calls; Marie remembered, they'd been coming back from the Andrews' farm, and they were laughing over something one of the sheep had said, something about--and then it, too was gone, leaving only the certainty that something was missing.

"NO!" she screamed, as if sheer volume could undo the last few minutes.

"Yes," the Dark Lord countered, calmly, the very picture of rationality. "I will make you sorry that you ran from me. And I will make sure that you do not do so again."

***

Snape stood before the third bookshelf in his chambers. It was unlike the others lining the walls in that rather than holding row upon row of books of all shapes and sizes, it held row upon row of bottles and phials of all shapes and sizes. He let his fingers run across their surfaces, lingering on first one stopper and then another. His tonic of choice was simple firewhiskey, of course, but that wasn't going to be nearly potent enough to appease his soul tonight. Snape finally picked up a tiny smooth-sided bottle with a single drop of red liquid inside. He held it up to the light and admired the perfection of the color; few wizards in the world could brew this particular potion to such flawlessness. That was one advantage of being a Potions Master, Snape mused: one could drug oneself into a stupor and call it art.

"I don't have to tell you, I trust, that the bottle in your hand contains an extremely dangerous substance?"

Snape's fist closed around the bottle; for an instant he was tempted to shatter it. Instead, he spun on his heel, best sneer in place. "And I don't have to tell you that it is extraordinarily rude, not to mention bloody well criminal, to enter someone else's private quarters without permission?"

McGonagall glanced behind her, sat primly in the chair she found there. "Oh, I highly doubt you would have let me in had I asked."

"What the bloody hell do you want?"

Her face softened into a disturbingly sincere expression. "How are you, Severus?"

Merlin. She wanted to make him feel better. Bit late for that. He put the bottle back in its place on the bookshelf, wished he hadn't already put his Gypsy wand away; he'd have liked to have it in his hands. "Let's see, Minerva," he said caustically, deliberately using her first name, "I'd like to go murder Albus, slaughter the Dark Lord and a choice few of his followers, put Marie Llewellur out of her misery, and then poison myself, but as I doubt I'd succeed and I'd inconvenience too many people in the process, I was going to settle for a temporary chemically-induced oblivion." He scowled. "And then you showed up."

McGonagall didn't, as far as he could tell, react to his words at all. "Marie's situation isn't your fault, Severus."

"No, of course not," he spat, unwilling to be placated, "All I did was murder her parents--in her presence, no less--abduct her, and hand-deliver her to the Dark Lord. No, of course, not my fault at all."

McGonagall still did not move from the chair--what was it going to take to get her out of here?--but her features darkened considerably. "Albus carries most of the blame. For then and now."

That comment did get Snape's attention. It was rare to hear the deuputy headmistress speak ill of her immediate superior and Housemate. Then again, McGonagall had seemed genuinely fond of Marie, something more than the mere pity most of the professors had exhibited. And Snape hadn't been so preoccupied that he'd missed the rumors as to where Marie had gotten the robes she'd worn to the Ball. God...was that only last night?

And here Albus thought he could play at being the kindly old man this morning. That might work with children and the multitudes of wizards who saw only what they wanted to see. Snape saw what was.

"The Headmaster has his reasons," he said, through clenched teeth. "Has to protect your precious Harry Potter, after all."

"He should have found another way to do it," McGonagall said flatly. "He should not have told that child he would protect her and then sent her back to that."

Snape met her eyes, smiled unpleasantly. "Even I know that much, Minerva. And I'm a Death Eater."

"Former Death Eater," she corrected, automatically.

He dipped his head dismissively. "As you will." He finally acquiesced to her unspoken pleas and sat in the chair opposite. "It makes me sick. And very few things on this Earth are capable of that anymore. The things I've seen, Minerva...the mere plight of innocents isn't enough to sway me anymore. And that girl has a black streak in her, though she certainly came by it more honestly than most of us. But something about her, and what Dumbledore has done..." Snape was surprised, after he trailed off, to see that McGonagall's eyes were glistening. If it were difficult to envision Severus Snape feeling ill over a matter of conscience, he knew, it were even more difficult to envision the situation in which Minerva McGonagall became teary-eyed rather than righteously indignant.

Seems that in Marie Llewellur they'd stumbled across real tragedy.

McGonagall took in a deep breath, stood quickly. "May she find the strength she needs to survive it."

Snape did not rise with her. "May she die quickly before she suffers more," he said.

***

Harry watched the stables from his perch atop his broom, high above the Quidditch pitch. The Hogwarts Express had left Hogsmeade; he could see the winding train moving away far below. As near as he could tell, Hermione wasn't on it; he hadn't seen her since she ran back into the castle almost an hour ago. He could still make out the horrible squeals and snorts coming from inside the stables.

Harry sighed, and tipped the front of his broom away, began a gentle soar around the perimeter of the pitch. He hadn't felt right about that girl, Marie whatever-her-name-really-was from the first time he'd laid eyes on her. He couldn't say why; he didn't think he'd ever seen her, either in life or in visions. Still, there was something about her, a feeling, an aura, if such things really existed.

She made him think of Sirius. That was it, of course. They shared a look about them, a dark cast to their eyes, a determined quality to their actions, as though they could hide their pasts through sheer power of will.

Harry had been almost relieved when Marie had gotten short with him and Ron that first day; it might even have been his goal, the reason he'd acted like such a prat. If she didn't bother with him, he wouldn't have to think of her, and wouldn't have to care for her or for what happened to her.

Harry could not stand another loss. Not now.

And his plan had worked, sort of. He didn't know what had happened to Marie--it certainly wasn't good--and he didn't really care, at least no more so than he would for any other anonymous person. But Hermione had not only gotten to know her, she'd grown close to her. Harry had never heard of his friend speak of anyone so highly unless she'd found their names in some history book. He knew Marie was far more to Hermione than mere teacher; she was a friend. Harry had avoided another tragedy; Hermione hadn't.

Harry took a moment to lean into the wind, to let the rain sting his face. The cold and wet made everything very real, very immediate. It almost made it seem as though there were nothing else out there, nothing to worry about. He took in several deep lungfuls of air, and savored their flavor.

And then he turned his broom around and set off for the castle to find Hermione.

***

Marie combed her fingers through her hair and found it damp with sweat. She was alone, finally, her back against the door. The Dark Lord had done his best to force her contrition, had taken and shattered a dozen of her most-treasured, most-referenced memories. She had lost moments with Mash, both of her parents, her old pet cat Abacus, and Hermione. Marie hadn't known it was possible for such things to be taken away, had thought that much was safe, had thought that she could continue to rely on her past for strength and safety.

She couldn't lose more. She would survive, if he took more of her memories, of course. It wouldn't kill her. But Marie didn't like to think about the person she would become.

This was, she remembered, her life as a slave. She could indeed be forced to do things she did not want to do, could be made to serve as interpreter for the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, could be locked up and used and forgotten when it was convenient. He could make her do these things. If not through threats, then through Imperius, or other means. Choice was a luxury not afforded to her in this life.

But Marie had decided that self-pity was also beyond her means. And so, when her eye caught the flickering single flame atop a candle in the wall sconce, she let the niggling thought at the back of her mind grow.

She stood up and pushed her cloak back over her shoulders, went to the wall. The flame looked perfectly real, blue near the wick and a ragged white-orange at the tip. It flickered the way real flame did, bounced with her breath, and discharged small puffs of dark, quickly-dissipated smoke now and then. But when she held her hand over it, and then in it, she felt nothing but the slightest of breezes on her skin.

Magical flame. It could not be blown out.

Marie moved opposite, sat on the very edge of her bed, not taking her eyes off the candle.

Snape was practical, to a fault. He wouldn't have had her practice without her wand if he thought it was an utter waste of time, would he? And that book Marie had found in the library...one sentence ran continually through her mind: 'It is rumored that every practitioner of wandless magic can trace his lineage back to the Llewellur name'. It wasn't a promise. Just a rumor. And it didn't say that all those with the Llewellur name had the ability to perform wandless magic. But Marie couldn't get the images Malfoy had called up in her dreams out of her head; again and again she saw her father stand and raise his hands before being struck down. Her father had done that with purpose.

Hesitantly, Marie lifted her own hand. The sleeve of her robe slid back several inches down her arm, but she kept her eyes on the flame across the room. She called up an image in her mind, envisioned the magic. It wasn't magic she'd been taught, or seen; perhaps it wasn't magic at all, just wishful thinking, something she'd conjured up in her own head. But she didn't think so. Marie went over the incantation in her mind, pulled in a breath to speak. Marie closed her fingers and dropped her hand at the precise moment she spoke:

"Nox," she whispered, and plunged her world into darkness.