Do or Die (HP FF)

The Muggle Experiment

A/N: New chapter yaaay! And I only got one vote on the last chapter. ;-;

Gaulda wasn't surprised. She always knew that he would be her Boggart, but she had never before tried. Lupin looked shocked, and Harry's big green eyes were drawn wide with a little bit of fear. Gaulda looked down with a little shame. She was scared of her own blood-brother.

"W-what was that?" Harry asked from the floor. He still hadn't gotten up yet. 

"My blood-brother," she answered simply, and Harry found it odd that she didn't just call him her brother. 

"Blood-brother?"

"Yes. He's not my brother; we don't have the same parents. Yet, we share blood. It's kind of complicated, but not really."

Lupin raised his eyebrows. There seemed to be a lot of that going on between the two of them. They could always surprise one another. Though, Lupin was intrigued. He'd never heard of anything like it. What was it? It sounded more solemn than the two of them splitting their hands open and pressing them together to exchange blood. No, something was definitely up. 

Gaulda sighed. She had to tell them, didn't she? Although she would rather do anything else right then, she knew she would have to explain what little heritage she knew about herself. And so she began. "When I was a baby, my parents thought I was a squib. I didn't show any signs of magic. They were surprised when I didn't show signs early, like they did. So, they hired someone to turn me into a witch. That family also had a little boy whom they thought was a squib. The family had figured out how to make squibs magical. All they needed was one other person to undergo the treatment with their son. Me.

"We went through the experiment, and after, figured out that we were magical after all, and we didn't ever need the treatment. That's where everything went wrong. We got these... powers, and everyone was afraid of us. So, our parents gave us away. Me to the goblins, Max to the dwarves. I still see him from time to time..."

Gaulda trailed off and was lost in thought for a while. Lupin and Harry exchanged glances, and they didn't like this story one bit. 

"And the tragedy?" Harry asked. He knew that every story had some tragedy behind it. 

Gaulda cast her eyes downward towards the floor. "The tragedy is that Max is a Death Eater now. He was recruited against his will. You guys saw Max as my Boggart, but all I saw was the Dark Mark."

***

The next training session, there was no Boggart for them to use. This time, there were no rattling wardrobes or quaking dressers. The room was silent when Gaulda and Harry walked in together. Lupin was sitting solemnly at his desk, awaiting their arrival. Something was up, and the two thirteen year-olds knew it. 

The two resumed their chairs from the last time and looked at the other professor curiously. He had bags under his eyes, and he didn't look so hot. But Gaulda knew that the next full moon wasn't for a while; it was scheduled to be over Christmas holidays, which happened in a few weeks. Maybe it had to do with Sirius Black escaping? Then again, Gaulda didn't hear anything about it since Dumbledore. 

"Are you two ready?" Lupin asked. 

Harry looked over at Gaulda curiously. There wasn't anything there for him to practice on, and Gaulda surely wasn't learning. She already knew the charm. But Gaulda didn't pay his look any attention. Her gaze was rested on Lupin as she nodded firmly. And so the session started. 

"Okay. Harry, you stand... there." Lupin pointed to about midway through the room. "And Gaulda, stand about five feet away. Give him a little breathing room."

The two did as instructed, and had their wands at the ready, like for a duel. Harry remembered his second year, when Snape and Lockhart (their previous DADA teacher) had dueled to show them what it was like. Chills raced down his spine at the thought of dueling Gaulda. She had a dangerous look in her eyes at that moment. 

"Gaulda... When you're ready?"

Gaulda took a deep breath and said softly, "Expecto Patronum." And what came out of her wand shocked everyone in the room. 

A/N: OKAY, I WANT SOMEONE TO GUESS WHAT HER PATRONUS IS. :D FIRST TO GET IT WILL GET A DEDICATIONNN!