Shadows
A/N Welcome reader - this is the sequel to my previous story, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix AU.
It's not critical that you read the previous story, but in summary the Ministry investigates Harry's claims about Voldemort's return, Sirius doesn't die, and at the very end Draco has asked for help escaping Voldemort. If you just need a refresher, hit up the second half of the Epilogue.
For my loyal readers I apologise for the months of waiting but I've got long-covid which really affects my energy and concentration - this delayed me posting and means I'm not entirely happy with my writing, but I'm pushing on and just getting it online.
Hopefully in the long delay readers from the previous story won't have forgotten about this story! I post on FF . net and AOOO, and will aim for at least every two weeks (please subscribe so you get chapter alerts, though I think AOOO is a little more reliable there).
On a final note I'd like to let readers know this won't be a Draco/Harry romantic fic (though much of the plot will revolve around them). I love a good Drarry story same is I adore Wolfstar, but that's just not the purpose of this fic, even as a sub plot.
It started with a shadow.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Her skin prickled. But when she turned around there was nothing.
It was paranoia, of course. Everyone felt it these days. You Know Who was indeed back, had come out into the open and revealed himself. Overnight their entire world was turned upside down. Of course she was on edge. Of course she was paranoid.
Passion made her a target. Naturally the Death Eaters didn't like what she did. Many reasonable witches and wizards didn't like what she did, with most of them barely managing to hide their disinterest - or worse, their disdain.
But most meant well, and for that reason she persisted.
The shadows remained. It was summer, and she was out in the big wide world again, no longer protected by centuries old walls and magic. A meeting with the interim Minister - she felt the shadows watching her. Tea with Arthur Weasley to go over the proposal - her skin prickled. Catching Albert King on his way through the atrium, pleading for just fifteen minutes to speak during the next meeting - she saw them.
It was just the flash of a face. Long, wild hair that was once beautiful - teeth curled in a mocking laugh, and eyes that spoke of depraved cruelty. The memory made her stop short, her heart pounding. Yes, Bellatrix Lestrange had broken out of Azkaban, but she couldn't possibly be here in the Ministry of Magic.
'Hello?' Albert was saying to her, impatiently waving his hand in front of her face. 'I said you can have your fifteen minutes, but I make no promises. The curriculum hasn't changed in nearly twenty years.'
'Yes, right,' she murmured, trying to collect herself. The face was gone. There was no one in the crowd. She was safe. Blinking she turned back to Albert. 'Yes, twenty years! Which is exactly why I am doing this. We're in an entirely different world, the curriculum must change to meet the times.'
Albert was already walking away, hastening to be shot of her. 'Bring Arthur Weasley, won't you? There's no getting around it, the board likes him.' He whirled around, remembering something. 'Just don't let him bring anything! Last time he brought in that noisy thingymajig with the tapes and the buttons, and it just - it's too much.'
'Of course. No thingymajigs.'
Relieved that she had her meeting she hurried back through the security screening and made her way back into the Ministry. It was strange visiting Arthur's new office, that she didn't have to sit on a teetering stack of cardboard boxes, but it was a delight. In the comforts of his new spacious office they celebrated the small win that would hopefully lead to another, and without delay he consulted his schedule which since his promotion was rather full.
'Come to the Burrow on Saturday?' he suggested, finding no space during the week. 'Molly would love to see you.'
'The children will be mortified,' she chuckled, collecting the stack of parchment they had collated during a hasty brainstorm. Into her moleskin binder they went, perfectly ordered alongside her revised lesson plans.
'Yes,' he agreed. 'Hand out some detentions won't you? They're driving us up the walls, the both of them. Ronald was close to sleeping in the garden last night.'
On a high she left the Ministry a second time, returning to her temporary summer home. In her delight all thoughts of shadows and creepy faces faded into the background, her mind set on a single track. She had not quite two weeks to prepare for this meeting - a meeting she had had more than once over the years, but always to no avail.
So wrapt in her excitement was she that she didn't see the warning signs until it was too late. That her front door was unlocked. That the electricity was turned off.
For a second time that day she saw the flash of a face that had haunted her once before - and then it was all over. Her sunny day became dark night, terror enveloping her as agonising pain engulfed her entire body, and all thoughts of excitement and hope were lost to her forever.
As Charity fell to the ground so too did her folder and stack of parchment, her grand plans for the future of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts falling beneath the feet of the Death Eaters who today would surely kill her.
Though she could not explain it if she tried, something was wrong.
It was impossible to put her finger on it. When she tried to align her thoughts she began to feel dizzy and confused. The room was moving without her, her brain tumbling over and over inside her skull. It compelled her to slow down, to breathe slowly and let herself settle...
The only thing that helped was to recount her memories of the preceding days, to piece together the disjointed thoughts and slowly fill in the gaps. But it helped only for a short time, because inevitably she would be back. And that potion...if she didn't drink the potion, it would be bad...
Memories of recent days were hazy and confusing, but she was certain she remembered accurately. A great sense of excitement, a plan in mind and a presentation to make...but no thingymajigs...and then pain. Nothing but pain. Visceral bone breaking agony, the kind that made her certain of death, certain that no person could experience this and then live on afterwards.
It came and went, the pain. She felt it even now, little twinges in her muscles that sent her heart racing all over again. Flashes in her mind's eye. The shadowy figures standing over her, the red light of their wands and the curses. There were no faces, but she remembered the voice. A voice first heard long ago, that had once or twice woken her in nightmares through the intervening years.
'We hear you've got plans for the school curriculum,' came the voice. 'Funny. We were thinking the same thing.'
She had long been the target of those who hated her beliefs.
After the pain came the darkness, and it had been a blessing. A cold stone floor that soothed her aching bones. A darkness that helped ease her lingering headache. She couldn't tell how long she had stayed down there, it might have been days or weeks.
They visited her only once more. The black shadows. The voice she remembered from nightmares.
'Are you going to obey?'
'Yes.'
'Are you going to do as I tell you to?'
'Yes...of course.'
After that the darkness was gone, and she found herself enveloped in comforts. A soft, comfortable bed. A well adorned bathroom with a soaking tub and salts, all for her. And she couldn't help herself, she knows she used it...she was certain she had used it though her memories were still hazy. She needed to, her body ached like nothing she had felt in fifteen years...since the before.
An inviting sitting room. A welcoming fireplace that would be cosy in the winter time. A House Elf who tended to her needs.
At that thought she felt herself starting, her heart beginning to race. This was bad...the House Elf...the poor thing.
Drink the potion. Drink it, for the Elf's sake. Do not protest. Drink the potion - and then listen.
It was easier, now. The pains were gone, though she still remembered them. But the potions left her thoughts muddied, her memories tinged with a funny shimmer. It was still difficult to get her head around it...what she thought she knew was wrong, all wrong.
Except that wasn't true! They were trying to trick her. They were confusing her on purpose, twisting her thoughts and...and...
As soon as her thoughts began to align they scattered. And that pleasant shimmer obscured her vision again, making her blink.
Twice a day the door to this room opened. She would come in, bearing the next potion. And after she obediently drank it down they would sit together and talk.
'Yes,' she would hear herself saying, still blinking slowly. 'Dirty thieves...yes, we're better off without them.'
Except when the door opened today she knew it was too early.
The figure who entered the room was wrong. But somewhere in the back of her mind was a twinge of recognition, the sound of cocky laughter. A schoolboy riding on the shoulders of another, tossing one of his friends into the lake or diligently studying in the library. She stared at the wizard, eyes roaming his dark hair, the scruff of unshaven facial hair...
Black.
Instantly the truth came roaring back to her. Her thoughts began to align, everything started making sense, and the faint shimmer that tinged many of her memories and vision began to flitter away as her senses returned. She wasn't supposed to be here.
Sirius Black!
Though her thoughts made better sense she did not react. This was not the first time the door had opened at the wrong time of day, not the first time someone different had come in. Aurors had come here before, aggravating the Lady of the Manor, getting her riled up, bothering the boy...
But they could never see her. The first time the strangers came in she had practically thrown herself at their knees, pleading to the point of exhaustion, screaming for help until she was hoarse. They didn't see her. They didn't hear her. In fact they passed right through her as though she were a ghost, as though she were no longer real.
It was then she realised they couldn't see what she did. The bed she had slept in they didn't see. The towel hanging in the bathroom, unmentioned. The heap of a woman laying at their feet and clutching their robes. Unnoticed.
She was not putting herself through that again. It was clear already that Black could not see her. He and two others entered the room, the Lady of the Manor accompanying them. Each of their eyes passed right over the spot where she sat motionless, and there was not a flicker of recognition, not a glimmer that they had seen anything at all.
For a little while she studied Black. He was talk of the town these days, the infamous Sirius Black who murdered thirteen Muggles, who betrayed his best friends to You Know Who and sentenced a baby to death...innocent.
She had known him a little back in the First War, he and James had looked in on her after she'd been targeted. Black even brought her a bag of groceries while she lay in bed recuperating. Full of youth and passion, the Black firstborn who refuted anyone who commented that he was kicked out by his Death Eater sympathising parents.
'They didn't kick me out,' he would say shortly, looking offended. 'I left.'
Where there had once been youth and passion in Black's eyes there was now a hollow darkness, but not the kind that came from indifference or cruelty. The kind that came from pain. From suffering.
The boy was lucky to have him, she thought to herself. That name escaped her now, though she knew him quite well...she knew all the students, even the ones who didn't take her class. She wracked her brain, thinking as hard as she could...she had seen his picture so many times recently, he was all over the Daily Prophet, as was Black...
The Potter's boy. Their baby…all grown up.
Frustration peaked. For the life of her she could not think of the boy's name. The harder she tried the more muddled her thoughts became, whispers of sense slipping away the harder she tried to grasp them. There were two others, he was usually with one or both of them...Hermione.
Her heart warmed at the thought of her favourite student, and trusting that this thought made sense she clung to it. Hermione Granger. So thirsty for knowledge, so ready to argue a point of view...if only they had debating club. How one student could be both your favourite and the most exasperating was a difficult feat, but Hermione Granger managed it.
'Are you satisfied?' the Lady of the Manor asked impatiently.
Charity looked back around at the people in her room, the witch's voice echoing strangely. Black seemed to be ignoring her, which was quite rude given it was her Manor they were in. For a few moments she stared at them both, the glimpse of sanity beginning to slip away as confusion crept back in. Why was he ignoring her? Could he not hear what she said?
Still acting as though nothing were amiss Black continued looking around. He had been standing close enough for her to touch had she reached out, but he moved away now, peering at the bed again. As she knew he would he gave no sign that anything was amiss, that he could see someone had slept there last night. He glanced into the bathroom now.
It finally occurred to her to question what Black was doing here. How odd for him to be here of all places.
'Time's up,' one of the Aurors announced. 'Let's go, Malfoy.'
While the Lady of the Manor immediately turned and strode out of the room Black lingered a moment longer, but then he too hastened to follow. Left with plenty of questions and no answers she merely watched them go, and not once did it occur to her to try and escape, to rush at the door before it closed. The door was probably unlocked, but she wasn't interested. Little shimmers of light had her attention once again, a glittery sheen cast over the curtains of the four poster bed, and then finally her muddled thoughts began to settle into sweet nothing.
The former sense of ease returned to her now, and once again she relaxed back into the comfortable armchair she had been occupying for the last several days now. Or was it several weeks that had passed? Several months? As she tried to mull over this thought the confusion began to creep back in.
With a slow, deep breath she closed her eyes again. A voice echoed through her head, the words that brought peace and order to her mind. Thieves who steal our magic. Infecting our babies with dirty blood. Better off without them.
Even with her eyes closed she could see the shimmer...she could feel it within her, the potion working its magic.
Yes, she thought to herself. This is better. This makes sense.
And then finally - she was back. The long haired witch with the soft eyes...soft eyes that became cruel without warning.
'Hello Charity.'
Was it that time already?
Indeed it was. When she opened her eyes she saw the curtains had been drawn, that no light slipped in around the edges. It was evening...time for tonight's lesson.
Charity stared at the witch. Were it not for seeing Sirius Black that day she might not have made the connection, one that had been there all along but had been forgotten. Bellatrix Black...or Lestrange, as she was now known.
'Will you drink your potion?'
There was only one answer that Bellatrix would accept, and Charity knew what it was. She nodded, always so compliant, and then the poor Elf came forward. Nimry her name was, the unlucky being who would suffer along with her should she refuse.
She took the potion the Elf offered, the one that shimmered silver and gold, the one that tainted her mind. In a brief moment of clarity that seemed to arouse every time she saw another person she remembered what they were doing to her. That the potion, as inoffensive seeming as it was, was leaving her muddled and confused. But that didn't stop her. In fact, nothing could stop her. There was only one thing to do.
Charity drank the potion down in one gulp. Satisfied with her obedience Bellatrix dismissed the Elf, and while she sank back into her armchair and began to close her eyes Bellatrix sat opposite her, hands draped over the arms of the chair as she studied and admired her subject.
'It's time to listen,' Bellatrix said softly. 'Are you listening, Charity?'
'Yes. I'm listening.'
'Open it.'
A little slow to catch on Charity looked down, blinking slowly. Sitting in her lap was her moleskin binder, her pride and joy for lesson planning and organisation. As happiness swelled up within her the shimmering glimmer returned, making her blink so that she could see properly. When Bellatrix prompted her again she hastened to obey.
With a careful hand she released the clasp and opened the binder. There was a brief moment of confusion, because everything was different. Her lovingly curated collage was gone. Movie tickets and magazine advertisements for home appliances. An autograph from Rowan Atkinson, a cast photo from Coronation street. Two tickets to Alton Towers. The portrait of Princess Di. All the little treasures that connected her to the other world she was so passionate about, all gone.
Muggle Studies Curriculum.
First Year through to Seventh Year.
1996.
'Are you ready for tonight's lesson?'