The Land Of Tears

This chapter is dedicated to Hydy, who drew a spectacular picture of Livia from the description in Chapter One. You can find it here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Draco_Dexter/files/Fanart/Hydy%80%A0%A0%B4s%20Artwork/Livia.jpg and it’s my first piece of fanart, so I feel special! Thanks, Hydy!

 

It is such a secret place, the land of tears.

—The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Chapter Two: The Quiet Types

And this warning take, I beg:

Not every wolf runs on four legs.

The smooth tongue of a smooth-skinned creature

May mask a rough and wolfish nature.

The quiet types, for all their charm,

Can be the cause of the worse harm.

—Histories; or, Tales of Times Past, Charles Perrault

 

Pansy Parkinson sat up in bed, cuddling her stuffed Nundu to her chest, and directed a beam of light from her wand to the magazine that lay open in her lap. She was short, with a snub nose and freckles and long blonde hair, slightly plump, rather dim, but endearingly eager to please her friends—or alienate anyone she didn’t consider worthy. It had become a monthly ritual that whenever Pansy received her copy of Teen Witch Weekly, she would read out the quiz to the three other girls in the dormitory, but tonight Livia wasn’t listening.

She lay flat on her back, staring at a crack in the ceiling. She was still at the awkward stage of adolescence where a person seems to have twice as many knees and elbows as usual, and was just under six feet tall, bony, and very skinny. Her hair was down to her waist when she let it loose, but right now it was braided and pinned securely to her head.

It was October 5^th. In a few hours, the other girls would drop off to sleep and it would be the 6^th. And five years ago, to the day, Augustus Rookwood had been dragged from his cell and taken to face the Dementor’s Kiss.

Not dead.

Worse than dead.

Livia could remember with awful clarity the wail from her mother that let her know what they had always feared had finally come to pass. The rest of the day was a confused blur of heavy rain, tears, an overdose of sleeping potion, being rushed to her aunt’s flat while her mother was hurried to the hospital…

And Livia had cuddled under thick blankets with a mug of hot Butterbeer and sobbed. Helena sat close and stroked her hair and let her cry. It was a gesture of affection Livia couldn’t remember ever receiving from her mother, and this thought made her feel guilty.

When at last the flow of tears lessened, Helena gave her a hug. "There are things you need to know, darling. Things about your father."

Livia nodded, her eyes red. "Sometimes I can’t remember Father. What he looked like, or sounded like."

"Your father was a Death Eater. You know that, of course. He worked for the Department of Mysteries, sending useful information to the Dark Lord—he was quite invaluable. Another of the Death Eaters, a man named Igor Karkaroff, betrayed your father to get himself out of Azkaban. He’s free…for now. When the Dark Lord returns, his vengeance will be terrible.

"Do you remember Otto Bagman, Livia? The painter?" At her niece’s nod, Helena continued. "His father was a close friend of your father’s. He was a Death Eater, but neither of his sons had the intelligence. A pity. Or perhaps not. You see, Livia…while Ludo and Otto supported the Dark Lord, helped pass information to your father, Abelard—that is, their father—was working against our cause."

"He was a traitor, too?" Livia asked quietly

Helena’s face hardened. "Yes. And I…I was engaged to him!" She was silent a moment, regaining her composure. "When it was discovered, he was killed. And Ludo Bagman testified against your father… Ludo Bagman sent him to Azkaban."

* * * * *

Four years later, at the beginning of the Triwizard Tournament, Livia Rookwood excused herself from the Slytherin table. She couldn’t eat with the faces of her father’s murderers—Bagman, Karkaroff—staring at her. She walked along the edge of the lake, looking up at the darkening sky, and saw the glimmer of a star.

The first star.

"Star light, star bright," she whispered, the lines of a spell so long forgotten it had turned to a nursery rhyme. "First star I see tonight… I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight."

And then she wished, with all her heart, for the Dark Lord’s return, and a chance to do what she felt must be done.

* * * * *

The common room hummed with low voices, the scratch of quill on parchment, and the occasional crackle of the green flames in the hearth. The room was very dark, smelled faintly of mildew, and gave off an overwhelmingly sickly impression. Everything from the upholstery on the elaborately carved armchairs to the flickering light of several dozen lamps on the low ceiling was green.

Livia was curled in an armchair well away from the fire, her knees drawn up to her chin against the damp cold issuing from the wall just behind her. The tip of her tongue poked out from between her lips, and she was deeply occupied in a thick, moldy tome entitled The Rise and Fall and Rise Again and Fall Again, and So On and So Forth, of the Dark Arts. She didn’t notice Pansy Parkinson until the latter stamped her foot impatiently.

"Mmm?" Livia said, looking up.

"Liv," Pansy whined. Livia had given up trying to keep Pansy from calling her that halfway through their third year. "How can you just read? For fun?" Her final word came out as a high-pitched squeal. Livia winced. "Anyway, Draco wants to talk to us."

Instead of asking why Draco couldn’t come over himself, Livia raised her eyebrows and carefully put the bookmark between pages two thousand forty-four and two thousand forty-five. She wasn’t quite sure why she was bothering to get up to talk to him. He might be from a Pureblood family as old as hers, but she found his habitual sneer grated on her nerves. Although Malfoy preached obedience to the Dark Lord, his eyes glinted with dreams of wealth and power, and Livia hated greed.

Crabbe and Goyle loomed on either side of Draco, looking dull and vacant. The pale boy glanced at Livia and his lip curled, ever so slightly. She stared back coldly.

Eustace was sitting on a footstool a foot or so away, his attention shared between Draco’s pale face and the bag of chocolate frogs in his lap. Leaning casually against the wall on Draco’s other side was Hadrian Ross, a smile to rival the Mona Lisa’s on his lips. He took in the title on the book’s spine and snickered. Livia ignored him.

"Rookwood," Draco said, and smiled. His teeth were very white and very straight, but the two canines were a little more pointed than was usual… It was not a pleasant smile.

She shook herself. "What?"

"There is some news…some very important news." He turned slightly to address them all. "Tomorrow is a Hogsmeade weekend. We—that is, all of us who are interested—will be met outside the Hog’s Head by a representative." There was a moment of dramatic silence. Draco Malfoy had always had an instinct for show. "The Death Eaters are looking for new recruits."

"And if we’re not interested?" Ross said.

"Then you don’t come," Malfoy replied with an elegant shrug. "But if a word of this gets out to the teachers—particularly from you, Mudblood"—Ross’s face flushed, since only his mother was a Muggle, but he didn’t say anything—"the consequences will be very painful." He smirked. "Very."

* * * * *

And so it was that Livia came to be standing outside the Hog’s Head with Draco Malfoy, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, and Eustace Nott. A figure strolled their way, wearing artistically tailored black robes. As he came closer, Livia frowned. He looked familiar, but with his pointed wizard’s hat pulled low, she couldn’t see his face.

When he finally stopped in front of them and offered a hand to Draco, shaking his firmly and drawling, "Draco Malfoy? Yes…you look just like your father." He took in the other boys with a nod at Eustace.

Then Livia realized who he was. Her cousin.

Emmanuel.

"What are you doing here?" he asked Livia, scorn dripping from his voice.

"The same as the rest of them," she said, aware that her tone was defensive. His condescending voice made her feel four inches tall although she was a good head taller than him.

"But you’re a girl."

"So was Giacinta Lestrange."

"That’s…that’s different!" Emmanuel spluttered.

"No," Livia said coldly, looking down at him. "I really don’t think it is. And anyway, it’s for the Dark Lord to decide, not you."

Finally, grudgingly, he nodded and reached into his pocket for a silver disc, six inches wide. "Standard issue Portkey," he explained to Draco. "Just all of us need to be touching it…"

They thrust their hands forward and grabbed it, and Livia felt a pull in the middle of her back, as if a hook was going right through her, and the world was spinning…

After mere seconds of this twisting, whirling mass of color and light, Livia felt her feet slam into the ground. She pitched forward, only just managing not to fall flat on her face, and saw that the place they had arrived in was very different to the one they had just left. They had landed on top of a hill, and all she could make out for miles around was other hills, each covered with heather in the few places where rock did not protrude from the thin soil. Other than the call of some wild bird she couldn’t identify, all Livia could hear was the gentle whoosh of the breeze as it skimmed over the tops of the wind-burned vegatation, and caused her hair to whip into her eyes, making them water slightly. It lookied like twilight, but it couldn’t be, could it? It had been early afternoon when they left Hogsmeade, and they had to be in Scotland, still.

Emmanuel looked around, satisfaction on his face, and pulled his sleeve up to show a black tattoo just below the inside of his elbow. A skull, with a serpent protruding from its mouth. He pressed his finger to it, and it glowed red for a moment.

There were a series of pops, and dark, hooded figures began to Apparate. One tall and bent, one short and plump with a silver hand, two huge hulking ones who waved surreptitiously at the students.

Then the last Apparition.

Tall, skeletally thin, and unhooded. A bone-white face, with slits for eyes as red as blood.

Lord Voldemort.

 

 

Thank you to all the fine folks who reviewed Chapter One: Winterbloom, yuubou, IckleRonniekins, Branwen, reethi, Marvo, Hydy (artiste extraordinaire, or maybe it’s just the subject matter!), DrummerGirl1, Gemini C, trepidatio, emmadrake, sexyme33806, and Caitlin Allyana.

Flatter me, and I may not believe.
Criticize me, and I may not like you.
Ignore and me, and I may not forgive you.
Encourage me, and I may not forget you.
—William Arthur Ward