Up and Down

Cure and Poison

Dedicated to Xanti, Levi and Nuri, Tweet, Cran, Sin, Silver, Klove, Bee, Schivers, Jecksa, Hydref, Cap, Kiwi, Perpetualsg, Super Anon, RoseDelacourte, Gwynbleid, Morbid, Kot, and, even though you don't read this fic - Ady, Peanuts, Anto, Cuff, Juney and Nara.
As well as everyone who came out with supportive comments on the last chapter <3

"Yes, that would be all."

"What of the velvet gown I made for you last year, Miss?" Mr Hill looks rather disappointed by her request to adjust her old constellation-adorned blue gown for the upcoming Yuletide dance.

Nothing too major, though without magic she would probably have to have a new one made. As it stands, Mr Hill can add a couple of inches to the hem and some ease to the bust area of the bodice - over the past two years her form has filled in, becoming more womanly, and when she put the gown back on she was surprised to find the difference.

After all, to her eyes, it has all been happening slowly over time.

"Ah..."

There is a twist within her gut as she thinks of the last year, nearly making her heave. The cloth-covered body, the silken auburn hair under her fingers, and she can remember all too vividly the icy cold skin against her lips as she kissed him goodbye.

It still hangs in her wardrobe, the black velvet gown, its rich, fuzzy softness occasionally brushing against her knuckles when she goes to fetch something. But she cannot bring herself to wear it. Too much of it is tied up in the memories of a friend and ally now gone.

Mr Hill must have finally picked up on her pained expression.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry... yes, that sordid business with the Beauxbatons boy..."

"Yes, indeed..." Anna schools her countenance into a pleasant smile, "please take care of it before the dance."

"Of course."

Anne and Poppy are already waiting on the other side of the room, looking over some millinery in the meantime.

"The little Puffskein ornament is so precious," Poppy's eyes gleam as she looks at the fuzzy ball perched on top of an elegant brimmed hat.

Anna smiles, watching her friends. It has been a while since they got to have a girls' day out. For obvious reasons, she feels unsettled outside the castle walls... but in the company of Anne and Poppy, she has nothing to fear.

Besides, they are in Hogsmeade. It would be fine.

A small nagging voice reminds her how easily she was snatched by Rookwood's cronies, right in front of Ollivander's, in the middle of the High Street in broad daylight.

She is jumpy, her wand closer than ever before. She has taken to carrying it in a duelling sheath wherever she goes, no matter how strange it might look.

It feels like being in the middle of the struggle, back in the fifth year. The previous year she could at least pretend to be a regular student, not worried for her own life every time she sets foot in the Highlands... but it seems that trouble seeks her out.

And she can't stay out of it, either.

"Now that's done, do you want to grab a butterbeer before we go?" Anne's smile puts her mind at ease. The younger Sallow twin is almost as nasty in a fight as her brother, and now that her disease is naught but a dark memory, she is joining Poppy on her poacher crusade.

They would be fine. She has nothing to fear with her friends by her side.

Fear... she isn't used to being so jumpy. So afraid of shadows. But the manic eyes of the older Gaunt brothers were setting her teeth on edge. There is something insatiably cruel in them, broken and twisted, beyond anything she encountered even in Rookwood and Harlow.