Transformations
The steaming cloud lifted and Wendolin roused herself and felt her face.
‘This was not her face,’ she thought triumphantly.
She got slowly to her feet, unsteadily swaying slightly and slipped over to the mirror where she wiped away the condensation and stared unsurprised into a familiar face.
The face of Millicent Prudence Weasley.
* * *
Wendy looked down at her foggy watch and gasped slightly before rushing out of the room, her borrowed Gryffindor robes swishing in the puddles surrounding the sink. The heavy wood door slammed shut and her footsteps could be heard echoing down the Great Staircase below.
Giselle, Halle and Millie stumbled through the portrait hole, laughing, yelling and falling all over each other. They made it to the armchairs in front of the fire and giggled madly as Halle fell short of the chair and landed sorely and loudly on the hearth rug.
Giselle snapped her head back and laughed raucously. Millie too laughed, but not quite as loud.
“Shhh!” she warned, putting her finger to her lips and waggling her eyebrows up and down, which just caused Giselle to laugh harder. “Don’t laugh like that Gissy, you might WAKE SOMEONE UP!” she finished yelling.
Many shouts and disgruntled people could be heard upstairs grumbling about the loonies downstairs who must have gone off their rockers.
Halle reached under Giselle’s armchair, who was still chuckling, and produced a bottle of Firewhisky.
Millie howled and hooted as Halle downed the rest of the bottle, sputtering as the mixture burned her throat. She threw the bottle into the fire where it exploded and ignited the flames to burn high and bright. It broke into pieces and the neck flew out and hit Millie on the hand.
“Owww!” she moaned grabbing her knuckles where the glass had cut her.
Giselle clapped and stared mesmerized by the flames. “Pretty,” murmured Giselle, swaying slightly in her seat.
“You know, Gissy, I do love you sweeshie, oops, I mean sweetie!” Halle stumbled over her words and leaned over and planted a big wet kiss on Giselle’s cheek, knocking over a table in the process.
“Oops!” Giselle laughed and sang in the off-key voice she used whenever she was drunk. “Lalala, oops-a-daisy! Haha, Halle broke the glassy thingy!” She fell back on her chair and slid down it sluggishly until she was even with Halle on the floor, who was now saying sweet nothings into the neck of the Firewhisky bottle.
Millie hadn’t moved from her armchair and instead was looking into the now tame flames.
“You know what?” she said thickly, “This is the best night I’ve ever had in my life. You guys are the best,” she finished, but Giselle and Halle were slumped over each over and snoring loudly.
Millie slid down in her chair till her knees touched the ground then fell sleepily onto Giselle’s chest, which rose and fell with each steady breath.
Millie’s eyelids felt very heavy, and the fire’s flames blurred and shrank. She closed her eyes and started to snore loudly with her cousins in front of the Gryffindor common-room fire.
* * *
She flew high above the Hogwarts grounds; the lightweight air tickled her and pushed her hair into her face. She laughed loudly, but no sound came out except for the quavering note of a phoenix song.
All of a sudden, it started to rain, and Millie felt the wind race towards her and buffet her here and there, the rain mixing in with the coolness of the wind. The rain suddenly turned icy-cold and Millie felt as though she had just been dumped in Hagrid’s water barrel.
She flew closer to the castle, and still enjoyed the free feeling she had, away from all her troubles, and worst of all, the terrible hangover she expected the next morning.
She dipped and dived towards the Gryffindor Tower, and saw all the candles illuminating the foggy, streaked windows. She sliced through the air, coming to a halt just in front of the stain-glass window.
Then, without hesitation, she placed her hand on the cool glass and pushed with all her might. In slow motion; the glass broke into millions of tiny pieces and flew through the air just like the rain that was falling down in sheets all around her. She swooped into the warmth of the common-room and, to her surprise, saw herself lying soundly asleep, her head resting on Giselle’s knobby knee.
She touched down onto the wooden floor and heat radiated through her feet so intensely she fell to her knees and sobbed out another quivering phoenix note. She looked up through her dripping wet locks and saw, to her horror, a figure standing over her and her cousins; but even from this far away, she could see her eyes were fixed on herself. The girl, who Millie had now identified as Wendy, pulled out a knife and slashed her shirt open.
Mille pulled herself to her feet and limped over to the girl who didn’t look up until she was almost on top of her. She reached down to the Millie on the floor and pulled apart what was left of her shirt and carved the Dark Mark into the skin of Millie-on-the-floor’s chest.
Millie, who was watching the whole thing, suddenly grabbed her chest in the exact same place Millie-on-the-floor was cut. She reached out and grasped her arm with her wet, cold fingers. She gasped in surprise as thin lines of ice appeared where water dripped down the girl’s bare shoulders.
The girl suddenly spun around, throwing Millie off guard. She fell back into the same chair she had collapsed into earlier that night. She opened her slim lips and shrieked at Millie with a pitch so high that Millie almost couldn’t hear it - almost. It pierced her head with its sharp sound, and she brought her hands to her head and screamed too. This time a human scream came out, though it sounded more like a banshee’s scream. Millie’s eyes were screwed up against all the noise, all around her the world was spinning; she was becoming more real, everything was heavier, and finally, just as she was about to fade away under the pressure of it all, she heard someone saying her name loudly.
“Millicent!”
Her eyes snapped open and she stared confusedly all around her. People were gathered in a tight-knit circle, muttering and whispering amongst themselves.
“Heard her, I did. Screaming her bloody lungs out for the whole school to hear, she was.”
“Too true. She could have woken up a hibernating Thestral, if you ask me.”
“Alright boys and girls. Nothing to see here. Please go back to your dormitories where, in a few minutes I will see to you. For now, if you please, up to the dormitories.”
Millie dimly recognised the last voice as her Uncle’s. Harry bent down next to Millie and whispered in her ear. “Come on, up you get.”
He grasped her by the elbow and led her back over to the chair. She still wasn’t focused. She could still hear the ringing in her ears from the girl’s screaming.
Harry sat down next to her and Millie was numbly aware of Harry examining the cut from the bottle on her hand. The throbbing pain of her hangover combined with the shrill scream she was still hearing made her unable to do anything remotely mobile. She sighed and sat back in her chair. Harry tapped her hand with his wand and the skin healed itself. He then looked up at Millie and saw the lost look on her face.
“Millie, honey… how did you get that cut? It was pretty deep, you know,” he said concernedly.
Millie bit her lip and glanced over at Giselle and Halle who were watching her anxiously, pleading with her not to tell Harry exactly what they had been doing. She sat up straighter and her head throbbed in protest. She moaned in pain. Harry’s eyebrows rose into his untidy hair.
“Were you drinking tonight Millie? Is all this a terrible hangover?”
Millie slowly nodded her head.
Harry turned to Giselle who cowered behind Halle with a mortified look on her face. Halle threw her hands up in protest.
“No, no, no, Uncle Harry! Was not me drinking! I mean… drinking… me wasn’t I swear!” Halle finished lamely.
Harry’s eyebrows came together as he stared down Giselle, who gave her familiar lopsided grin.
“Marauders live on, right Diddy-Daddy-dums…just keeping up with tradition?” she half asked.
Harry’s face relaxed a bit but there was still a trace of hardness in his face. “What were you girls drinking tonight?” he asked. “There’s no use lying to me now, I’ve found you out.”
Millie had been the first one to break and was too tired to put up with this now. She had to get her point across. “Wendy… burnt… my feet hurt,” she mumbled. Harry turned to Millie.
“Wendy? Are you sure? What did you see?” he asked her, grabbing her shoulders urgently. His eyes roamed over her face searching for an answer.
“Standing over me, so hot… have to sleep… hurt me…” she trailed off and flopped back into her chair.
Harry misread her statement, thinking that her headache was causing her pain. He picked her up; she was as limp as a rag doll now, and her eyes were blank and creepily reflecting the firelight. He carried her up the stairs to the top of her dorm. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to enter the girls’ dorms, as he had found out in his fifth year, but as Head Of House, he had given himself permission. Halle and Giselle followed him giggling into the room, the alcohol still making everything seem extremely funny.
Harry lay Millie down in her four-poster and covered her with a thick woolen blanket. She stirred in her sleep, and rolled over just as Harry blew out the candle on her bedside table, ridding the dormitory of all light.
Slowly, very slowly, droplets of blood appeared on her shirt, for the Dark Mark had now opened and was bleeding freely while she slept. Wendy had left her mark.
Wendy disguised as Millie, slipped through the corridors of Hogwarts to where she knew Harry’s office was located. She opened the door with a click, just as her sister had done not long ago.
She shuffled around the office, picking up bits of random parchment and throwing them back on the ground when she realised they were not what she was looking for. Her head whipped around and her skilled ears heard someone fast approaching. She ran and hid behind the filing cabinet just as Harry entered his office, rubbing his tired eyes.
“Bloody girls. Need to realise what they did was dangerous and could have led to other problems. Should teach them a le-e-esson someday,” he yawned.
Wendy’s eyes bulged as she realized the danger she was in. Slowly, carefully, and as quietly as a mouse she crept out of the office while Harry had his face turned to the drawn curtains. She ran down the stone steps as delicately as she could and then sprinted along the corridor all the way to the Great staircase. She started to change.
Her hair remained the same silvery shade, but her eyes widened and narrowed. Her hands grew coarser, and her feet shortened considerably. It wasn’t painful changing this time, but Wendy was breathing heavily and painfully because she knew she would be punished for not doing her master justice. It was time for Plan B.
* * *
When she reached Gryffindor Tower and stood bent over, puffing and wheezing, she gave the password.
“Kneazles.”
The Fat Lady swung open and Wendy stepped quickly into the common-room. The fire in the grate had completely died down, and the embers were glowing harshly in the dim light. Millie, Giselle and Halle had been the last Gryffindor students downstairs, so now it was long deserted.
She walked into the middle of the room and raised her arms dramatically.
“Gubraithias Carpelious!” she hissed menacingly.
Sparks of fire shot from her hands and she stood still in the middle of the Gryffindor common-room, which was fully ablaze with Everlasting Fire. The smoke was making its way up the stairs to the dormitories, getting closer and closer to the slumbering teens that dwelled within them.
By the time Wendy had exited and started running through the halls of Hogwarts and down outside the grounds to her master, the smoke had entered Millie, Giselle, Tegan, Halle and Laura’s dorm, and was already on the way to suffocating them to their deaths.
A/N: Okay! So the common room is alight with fire! Thank yous to Lori for the Betaing! And a very redundant thank you to Chelsea for being the moderator so long ago and accepting this little piece! *smiles fondly*
*deletes a good chunk in hope of improving the quality of review spam*
- Lurid.
Malicious Intentions by Lurid
Chapter Notes: I am proudly wearing the stamp of an insomniac's editing services!