Uninvited

Chapter 3: Meeting of Strangers in Strange Lands

"We look at each other

Wondering what the other is thinking

But we never say a thing

And these crimes between us go deeper." -Ants Marching by Dave Mathews Band

Draco slowly opened the parchment in his hand. He'd had it in his pocket since he received before breakfast, but he was only then alone for long enough to read it. His mother was passed out in his father's library and the servants had taken the opportunity to go into town.

He recognized Ginny's handwriting immediately. He had seen her doing her homework so many times, he could even imagine how she looked as she wrote it. It read:

There are eternities come to pass

Before this love is final.

This road been walked by many another

Before your step is sacred.

So wept until the fall was inevitable

Until the time had come to know you,

Now stands ahead, apart from, unnoticed,

Invisible.

Granted, he was disappointed. But more so, bewildered.

***

Blaise ran her hand over her stomach once more, trying to feel the life held within. She didn't know if she wanted it, but it was coming. Sara looked at her, confusion turning her features innocent for once.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, really," Blaise lied easily, wondering if she should tell Draco the truth. "I'm just a little tired."

"You're coming tonight though, aren't you?"

"Well...I mean Draco's not even going to be there-"

"Oh god! You're still whining about him? He's just a teenage dirtbag. You can find another one easily at the bar tonight."

"Sara, you know he means more than that to me."

"I know nothing and I don't wish to."

"Fine then. You'll have to just accept the knowledge that I will be sleeping while you have wild, animalistic sex with a perfect stranger."

"Hmm...I really can't see why you would choose sleep over that." Sara said lazily, rolling off her bed.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand it," Blaise flipped her platinum blonde hair over her shoulder as she turned to face her counterpart. "After all, how long do your boyfriends last anyway?"

"I don't like that word."

"Yeah, I know."

"Alright well, you stay here with your blanket of self-pity while they rest of us wild Slytherins are out blowing our minds to pieces and getting our fair share of-"

"Yes, yes just go already."

"You know," Sara whispered seductively as she reached the door, "You're really sexy when you get angry." She closed the door just as Blaise threw a pillow at her.

***

The room was dark and dingy looking, but that was to be expected. Blaise sat on the single, rickety wooden chair to wait. Soon, a tired girl of about 14 stepped out from behind the curtain. She smiled wanly at Blaise, and asked her "You here for this sin too?"

"Yes," Blaise replied to the girl with dirty hair, "Unfortunately."

"Well, not like it could be avoided. You gotta do things you might not want too sometimes, don't ya?"

"I suppose."

"Yeah, my brother runs this place but I never expected to find myself here needing this, eh?" She laughed, her anxiety obvious. "Anyway, Johnny, that's my brother see, he tells me to come out here an' keep you paying customers busy for a while. He ain't got no respect for a woman. I works for him here since I was old enough to stand on my own two feet an' for no pay too. An' I already had a baby, an' I didn't get no help from him then. 'Course, them was brighter times, huh. Then this place was just a tattoo parlor. Granted, still not the best of businesses, but it weren't a house for sin either. So, you got a name?"

"Blaise."

"Now that's a pretty name." She smiled again, and her beyond-age wisdom was evident. "I'm called Moll, but I don't got an official name. Jest like my babe, I was born with no daddy. Just Ma and her sister. Ma's been dead some time now, but Auntie Nat still keeps us stable."

"What's your baby's name?"

"She don't got one yet. Too young, I guess. Nat's just now taken her down to a doctor, cuz she thinks there's somethin' wrong wit her. I wouldn't have taked the babe down there myself, but Nat's got a way with words and money, so she'll get by." Moll talked with unusual intelligence and ignorance. She seemed a mix of the dirt from this place, her brother's place, and something higher and more refined. It was as though she'd tried to teach herself the rules of grammar without any evidence of what they were.

"So, your brother has done these often?"

"All the time. Girls come in here from all over. Girls who can't talk to no one about it so they can't get a proper thing done about their condition. Girls who don't like life none too much either, if you ask me."

"What does that mean?"

"Half the times they come in here, they don't leave the same. This ain't a clean practice, and it ain't a good way of things, ya know? The Good Lord looks down on this as sin, and these girls come in here instead of clean establishments. So the Lord, in his mercy, takes some of those lovely little things on up back to him. And by so doing, I believe all those who commit this are then forgiven. Just as he gave to us his Son, so he took him from us again, in order than he may take us up to him again in the end. So these girls, they don't care for themselves much, an they are sacrificed so that others may be thusly forgiven."

"I suppose that does make sense."

"Yes ma'am. You see, if these ladies had gone to better places in the first, they would not have Johnnie's wire contaminatin' 'em an' all. An' he tol' me one time a' how they died cuz he puts a whole in 'em. He don' mean too, 'course, but he says it happens."

"Moll," a pale boy of about twenty with a crooked nose stepped from behind the curtain, "I said to entertain the child, not scare her."

"Sorry Johnnie," Moll lowered her head as she answered him, "I'll just get going then. Things to do, ya know..." She trailed off as she left the room.

"So miss," Johnnie said as he turned toward Blaise, "You here for the same reason Moll came by tonight?"

"If by that you mean, am I pregnant, then yes."

"And you want it gone?" She nodded. "A boyfriend or parent who'd harm ya or leave ya-"

"Yes sir."

"Right then. Well, come on in. Let's do this before I return to grace."

***

Moll walked along the edge of the silent, blackened street. She had long ago learned that it was best not to think. When she thought, she was harmed. When she did not, nothing about the cruel world bothered her. When she was a girl, although truly still one, she was not considered to be, she had thought briefly about the possibility of magic. It had comforted her, but her mother's death had ruined the comfort. She felt she was much better off not remembering what joy felt like, and so the experience could not be taken from her. It was best, she had decided, that she remained ignorant of a better life so that knowledge could not destroy her. That was why she had not named her child, now only two months old, because she saw no use of giving a name to a thing born to such a life. She had decided that in heaven, God would name the child, and so the name would be sacred.

She was so walking, void of all thought apart from a meek What a pretty thing that girl was when she heard a movement behind her. She turned quickly to see a shadow flit across the edge of her vision. She spoke not a word, but instead continued to walk, now thinking enough to pray.

Another slight noise followed the first one. Whatever it was, it was big and fast. Moments ago it had been far away, yet now Moll felt a chill as she sensed it inches from her.

"Face me coward!" She called out in anguish. "Look at my face so I can see what kinda awful thing you are!"

Her wards were met with silence. The presence of the being did not diminish nor strengthen, but remained screaming at her. After a few moments, Moll began to walk again.

There was no warning before the creature sliced at her neck. Her blood trickled slowly, she had barely perceived the wound. Blood was already running down her leg as her uteral wall disintegrated.

She turned to accept her fate. The creature ran at her and pierced her stomach with a short dagger. She fell, silent, to the ground. The thing turned her body over, pulled out the dagger with a twist, and reached a claw into where it had been. It pulled her intestines, dragging the motion out. Moll moaned a little, but remained entirely still as the thing with yellow eyes began to eat.

***

Ron awoke in a cold sweat, having had another dream about Harry. It had been another death dream, another Voldemort dream, another end-of-the-world dream. He stood up and slid out of the room he shared with Neville and Seamus and went into their bathroom to pour himself some water.

He knew her had these dreams because of fear and that there was no truth to them, but they unnerved him. Harry had visited recently, and things had seemed fine with him. They seemed as though everything was normal, as though he wasn't preparing for a climax in the silent war with Voldemort. Silent, because there was no way to speak. Newspapers and magazines had stopped the presses, the radios had all mysteriously stopped working, and students were dropping out of school at an astonishing rate. Draco Malfoy was going to need to shag boys soon, as the girls who still liked him were running low in number. Lavender Brown had recently confessed to Ron that her parents were seriously considering pulling her out of school, even with only the rest of the year left until graduation. Ron hoped that it would all be over soon. He feared for Harry, but he knew he couldn't live with this anticipation much longer.

As he reentered the room, he heard Seamus mutter something about bananas and fishnet stockings in his sleep. Ron laughed, glad that there was something left to laugh about.

***

Dim winter light came in through the window of Dean's room. Hermione stood and pulled her shirt on before a silent departure.

She felt a little more at ease in her own room. Ginny was still asleep, as usual, in the form of an enormous lump of blankets. Hermione went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and tie up her hair before walking down to the Great Hall.

There she found Draco Malfoy to be the only person in the room. He didn't even acknowledge her presence, but she was used to that. His spiteful comments had ceased the previous year. Hermione sat down at the table and poured herself some orange juice as a strange-looking bird dropped a letter in front of her. She read:

Hermione,

I know I still don't have the right to ask of you anything, but I entreat you to join me tonight at the lake, where we spoke last year. You remember, don't you?

Remus sends his gratitude.

Love,

Harry.

Hermione sighed as the letter exploded in flames. She knew she would go, but she couldn't discover why.