She almost looked, well for lack of a better way of putting it; evil.
It was a fatal metallic glint that shielded her eyes in steely armor and shadowed her face ever so discreetly that it hallowed out her cheeks and deepened the lids under the brow bones of her eyes. She appeared menacing, but just as suddenly as it came it left, leaving Remus in blatant disbelief of what he had just witnessed.
His eyes must have been playing tricks on him for sitting before him now was Addalynn Rose White; a very sweet, timid girl with a lack of social experience. That was not the "shadow girl" he had seen take Addalynn’s place only a few seconds before; she was some sort of link to evil, someone who lingered in the shadows as if she was a genuine mystery. Giving up all hope to solve this puzzle he shook his head, causing more stray locks of sandy-brown hair to fall into his eyes, in attempt to free himself from the frightening image.
Remus scanned his friends’ faces to see if they had noticed it too; they hadn’t. Maybe they just weren’t paying attention. Sometimes when things like this happen you just have to let it go so Remus decided to put it out of his mind…for now at least.
Going on about their usual light-hearted chatter and joking around like all teenage boys do, along with Addalynn, who occasionally stepped in when she felt she needed to put in her two cents or was invited into a conversation by one of the four.
Finally breakfast ended and, most unfortunately, it was time to make the dismal steps down to the dank, moldy, and depressing dungeons of the castle where the grueling and fine tuned process of potion-making took place.
All the Gryffindors hung their heads in dread while they all walked in a tightly knit flock down to what seemed would be their demise. The Potions classroom was a very depressing place to be for two hours. There were no windows to speak of which let the moisture of the dungeons create mold that gave the place a very…nasty…smell.
It seemed only a vampire could live in this awful place. With all its dark corners and ghastly spider webs, it was hard to believe that anything could live down there at all- even a Potions master.
In the Potions classroom, there was a large squat man sitting in a large chintz chair behind the desk at the front of the room who slightly resembled a walrus. He had graying brown hair and a goatee to match. His dandy clothing made a sharp contrast to the solemn surroundings. He stood up as soon as everyone had taken their seats and smiled at them.
“Welcome, class to another year of Potions at Hogwarts!” he said. A large wave of barely audible groans swept over the room; mostly coming from Gryffindors while the Slytherins sat in their usual, eerie silence.
Remus, who now occupied the seat next to Addie, leaned over and whispered in her ear. “That’s Professor Slughorn. He’s a bit of a dandy to be teaching potions. You’ll get used to it after a while. He’s always seemed a bit too happy to teach down here though...kind of creepy if you ask me. All the Slytherins seem to suck up to him; bring him candied pineapple and stuff. I've found that he has a taste for people with connections.”
“Now today all of you will be concocting a potion that I will choose…no, actually; surprise me with something from your Potions book. You may work individually, or, you may work with the partner at your table…” Professor Slughorn’s voice was an odd mixture of a male’s deep voice and the shine of almost maniacal happiness.
His voice droned on and on about “how wonderful you all are doing!”, and “oh…I wouldn’t do that if I were you…” and such nonsense. He talked so much his voice transformed from being jubilant, to being just plain annoying.
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“Well, do you really think that Moony will be alright with this?” asked Sirius.
“C’mon mate, Remus is just as much her friend as she is his. She has the right to know,” explained James.
“But who has the right to tell her? She might not believe us if we simply tell her…she might follow us out one night and get herself hurt. We might even have to show her to make her understand. Do you think she’d believe us?” Sirius asked.
He turned to face James with a torn expression on his face. James sighed and frowned. It didn’t look like he thought so.
“That’s not the question we should be asking Sirius. The real question is; will she be afraid when she finds out? She's a brilliant girl, but we don't know how afraid she would be,” said James as he continued to slice the goat liver into quarter inch squares; just like the potion called for.
They stood in silence for a while, thinking about what to do. Life is so darn complicated, Sirius thought. His strong hands sliced the fairy wings (from fairies that were already dead of course) that were surprisingly hard to cut. They were very strong, for the magic they contained was powerful for a creature so small. So strong that they could bend easily and be shaped in any way, but their fragile framework would never break. He struggled to chop and crush them into a finely ground powder. It shimmered in the candlelight of the dungeon and smelled like early morning dew. He poured it carefully into the cauldron right after James had stirred it exactly seven times to the left. The affect the powdered fairy wings had on it was astonishing as it turned the hideous murky brown to an airy, glowing green. Professor Slughorn finally walked around to James and Sirius’ station and peered into the still unfinished concoction, looking quite impressed.
“Ah, the Potion of Dreams. The one and only potion known to wizard-kind to be able to surface the pictures of our wildest imaginations. Drinking it before you go to sleep helps you dream all night and never wake up until the very moment the sun rises and taking a few sips on a stressful day will help relax the mind,” the jolly Professor said satisfactorily. But then he looked at them with an expression of warning. “Be careful of how you use that particular potion boys; wizards have been known to lose their minds to nightmares when they drink too much of it; it drove them into insanity, to which, may I inform you, there is no cure,” he informed them quite dramatically.
The two boys didn’t know about that last part; the instructions in the Potions books don’t have warning labels (thought they should). It was often up the Potions Master to thoroughly inform students of the full potential of the various complex concoctions.
“Yeah, the Potion of Dreams…er professor, what if one were to drink it during the day? You know, while they were wide awake?” asked James.
“Well it’s just as I said; on a stressful day it will help to relax the mind…” the professor repeated.
“Er, no professor, you misunderstood me. What if you wanted to live something out in your mind, but not fall asleep? Could you take the Potion of Dreams then?” James clarified.
“I don’t see why not,” Slughorn started. He gave the two boys an inquiring look and raised an eyebrow. Settling his hands inside his coat pockets he said, “But I would warn the drinker to concentrate very hard on what they wanted to see. For all they know, they might be forced to live in an everlasting nightmare…”
And that’s all he had to say, so he proceeded on to Remus and Addalynn’s work; The Dreamless Drought: made specifically to help those with nightmares and those who wake up at night with no reason, to sleep in peace without the disturbance of any sort of world around them, imaginative or real.
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The Slytherins audibly sniggered at her when the Marauders’ backs were turned away. This new girl hadn’t a clue about Potions. She kept doing things the wrong way. And yet Professor Slughorn still commended her on her efforts. It was a good thing she had that Remus Lupin as her partner or she would fail Potions for sure.
They watched her and studied her. Their attention had been on her since she arrived on Saturday. They saw how quickly she made friends. They watched her shy away from large crowds. No one else but them saw the way her eyes turned to black metallic liquid and her skin to silver metal that morning.
No one else but the Slytherins knew that she wasn’t at all what she appeared to be. They still didn’t know what she was, but as Slytherins, they had the drive to find out.
They continued to study her every move (from a safe distance of course). From the Monday Potions class they gathered she was helpless at Potion-making. It didn’t surprise them in the least; it took real brains to get good marks in that class.
Apparently she was a fair shot in Charms. But still again, that didn’t take much to do. You wave your wand and repeat a few fancy words: so what?
From a few fellow classmates in Ravenclaw, Addalynn White was most excellent in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The D.A.D.A. Professor was a duel master and had Addalynn and a young man from Ravenclaw, demonstrate what they knew; and to much of the Ravenclaw’s dismay, Addalynn White knew quite a lot. Now the Slytherins were finally getting somewhere with their observations; they now know that she is dangerous.
The Slytherins learned from a few of their own in Arithmancy, that she was also brilliant. She could calculate anything and solve any problem. Even just learning the basics of creating a new spell or curse was beneath the omniscient structure of her mind.
Finally on Friday, they came to a conclusion, they deemed Addalynn Rose White as ambitious, clever, cunning, and smart. She was practically the recipe for the perfect Slytherin, including the fact that she had one great flaw; unfortunately her great flaw was mixed blood. A mudblood. They did what Slytherins did best; they dug around for forgotten information and managed to uncover that her mother was a muggle: Mary Anne Lockson-White.
They didn’t deem her so worthy now, and not only because of that; it was also because since they noticed that she was a mudblood, they also started to notice her other non-Slytherin-like traits as well. She was also kind, compassionate, a good listener, was on all of the teachers’ favorites list, and had three undeniably true friends. Now they knew why she wasn’t in Slytherin. They could not accept her now, it simply couldn’t be done. They wouldn’t do it; they had no reason to associate themselves with such a low, filthy mudblood, Gryffindor such as her.
So now that they had ruled out the reasons to like her, they turned their attention to the reasons why they would make her life miserable. She was a friend of the Marauders. She was one of the most brilliant students. She was beautiful (sort of). Last, she was more powerful than they; therefore, they must bring her down; slowly and painfully…
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“You know James, I think that we should give the girl a proper initiation. What do you think?” said Sirius.
“We’d have to talk it over with Remus first. Peter will go along with anything we say. How about on the first Hogsmeade trip; it’s on the last Saturday of October: the 31,” James suggested. After a moment of thought, he realized once she knew about Remus, she’d also have to know about them. “Do you think we should teach her to become an Animagus too?”
“It might be dangerous, but yeah, that’d probably be a good idea,” Sirius said as he gathered his books and papers from the potions table, “How about we take her to the shack? That’ll be a good place to take her; if she’s not afraid of that then there’s no way she’ll be afraid of Remus.”
“Shh! Not so loud, she might hear you…” said James casting a worried glance at Addie, who was standing right in front of them.
“Sorry…but let’s not try and creep her out; if she doesn’t want to do it, then she doesn’t have to. We just have to know if she’ll be our true friend, a loyal friend,” finalized Sirius.
“Okay, in three weeks then.”
It was now very late in the boys’ dormitory and the moon was finally out. Mind, it was a waning moon now. But soon enough it would be full and all across the world wolves would howl in anguished unison.
The Marauders gathered around on the floor of the dormitory. James was cockily playing with the snitch as he lay down on his back.
“Remus, we’ve been talking today and we think we should tell Addalynn. I know it could be dangerous, but it’s not like we can stop being her friend. She needs us, surely you sense that?” considered James.
“I know. I just don’t want her to get hurt,” and that’s all that Remus said. He studied the words in his book for a moment, but didn’t take any of them in.
“Well, what exactly do you have in mind? And it better not be anything dangerous…” warned Remus.
“Oh c’mon Remus, the ghosts in that shack aren’t all bad…” said Sirius.
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The foursome approached the fence just outside the woods of Hogsmeade. They gazed upon a two story dilapidated old house from which, supposedly, the cries of tormented and lonely spirits erupted from.
“Okay, all I have to do is walk in,” she started, and the Marauders nodded their heads, “and find a letter somewhere inside one of the rooms?”
“Exactly!” James exclaimed grinning at her from behind round glasses and messy hair.
Gathering her breath, Addalynn took a few steps inside the fence and pulled her jacket closer to her. Suddenly she turned around with her eyebrows furrowed together. “Are you sure this is safe?”
James walked up to her and grabbed her gently by the arms and looked her strait in the eyes. “You know I wouldn’t put you through anything dangerous. Besides, we’ve all done it,” he said spreading his hands wide.
She nodded her head as she took in a deep breath. She began walking down to the Shrieking Shack. Even from fifty feet away she could hear the moaning of the wood. She stepped up the front steps and onto the porch that creaked loudly under her weight.
She peered inside just to make sure that there were no monsters hiding behind the door. Deciding it was okay, she stepped inside into a dark hallway. Every step she took let out a short lived ‘eeeaaaaeeerk’.
She looked in what she assumed was the living room. She scanned the bookshelves and the coffee table and found nothing. When she turned around to step back into the hallway she thought she saw a dark figure move rapidly to the right deeper into the hall. Shaking herself out of the possibility that someone else was in the shack with her was highly unlikely she moved from the hall into the kitchen.
Again, there was no letter. Obviously they’d put them in the last room on the second floor, she thought. The cobwebs covered the cabinets where the doors were hanging off the hinges. This place looked like it hadn’t been used in several decades. Everything was covered in layers of dust, all the furniture was broken and thrown about, and there were shadows everywhere that looked like they moved.
Again, just out of the corner of her peripheral vision, she thought she saw something move behind her as she ascended the stairs. Starting to feel a tad bit uneasy, she pressed on the room down the hall. As she scanned the bedroom she thought she heard faint breathing from behind her.
Okay, shake it off…there’s no one in here with you. James said this was perfectly safe.
Then she spotted it lying on the pillow. It was a fairly large envelope and it appeared to be quite thick, she was curious to know what was inside it. She picked it up and heard the swish of a cloak behind her. She turned around and her breath lodged in her throat; her heart picked up speed.
Standing the darkest shadow in the corner right in front of her was a figure in a long black cloak and a hidden face. She backed off from the spot where she stood and retreated to the other side of the bed where the door was. The figure stepped forward revealing a once-handsome, corpse-like face. His eyes were a hollow black and so was his long hair. He smiled at her, revealing two menacingly long fangs; a vampire.
She whirled around to escape through the door but he was already in front of her and no farther than five inches away from her face. “Why do you want to leave? I know we’d have such an excellent time together…” he said in a deep hissing voice.
He gazed steadily into her frantic eyes, slowly reeling her into a trance. He saw her internal battle trying to resist him; but she was starting to lose.
Addalynn was starting to lose her nerve, but not before she remembered that she had a wand with her. She pulled it out, backed up as far as she could before her legs hit the edge of the bed, and pointed it directly at his chest.
“Just what are you going to do with that my dear? Kill me? I’m already dead…” he said as he inched closer, his eyes fixed on hers.
She was trying to resist his calling to her. Slowly she tried to shut her eyes, but she couldn’t…then she dropped her wand. She had lost her only means of defense, not that it would’ve helped as she was starting to lose control of her mind as well.
He walked forward and reached out to her waist. His eyes captured her full attention and she was under his total control. He sang in her willing ears a mournful sound; almost groaning. Again he saw the battlefield in her eyes, but not to worry; it wouldn’t be much longer before she was entirely his. She was beginning to lose the battle against his powerful hypnosis.
No, this isn’t right, she screamed inside her mind. Her task was to come in and find the letter and walk back out …
She did the only thing she could think of; she screamed and a cold dead hand covered her mouth and silenced her. She prayed that her friends heard her.
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Remus, James, and Sirius immediately bolted for the Shrieking Shack as fast as humanly possible. All that they could think about was that they’d kill whoever was trying to hurt her…
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The vampire shoved her down onto the bed harshly with his hand that smothered her mouth. “Please be silent…” he tried to pleasantly hiss.
Her eyes opened wide as his head leaned over to her neck slowly. To her great relief she heard raging footsteps coming up the stairs. Please get here on time…
A blinding flash of light erupted as if the sun itself had entered the room. She blacked out from being under the influence of the vampire and she knew no more….