Delusion (A Severus Snape love story/Harry Potter fanfiction)

Chapter Twenty-Eight - Under Surveillance

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Melody sat on the doorstep of the Burrow, head in hands and deep in thought. She wrinkled her nose as the first snowflakes of the year began to fall and her mother called for her to come back inside.

Melody said nothing. Molly got Fred to try and coax her back inside but she just ignored him, only sniffing when he lowered a blanket over her shoulders. George tried to manhandle her through the door but she sat ridgid, fingers digging into the concrete steps so that it was near to impossible to move her. He gave up after just a few tries.

A faint, popping noise made her lift her head, eyes glazed over as she gazed off into the distance. Melody furrowed her eyebrows, seeing a small figure getting ever closer in the distance. She rose to her feet, sore and slow with underuse, and staggered over to the garden gate.

Grass snapped like glass beneath her feet, crunching noisily as she daintilly picked her way across the garden, blanket draping off her shoulders and trailing in the light snow as her wand slipped effortlessly into her ridgid hand.

A person was approaching, face obscured by tumbling snowflakes icing the horizon until the ground merged into the sky and all she could see was whiteness. She squinted into the flurry, making out the downturned face of fastly advancing man.

"...Oliver?" She frowned, stopping abruptly as he came to stand before her. "What are you doing here? Don't let my parent's see you-"

"Melody, it's fine. The Order have checked with them and they won't kill me." He smirked, going to wrap his arms around her when she pushed him roughly away, frightened expression on her face. He looked hurt and she quickly retracted, trying to give reasoning for her cruelty. "Melody?" Oliver furrowed his eyebrows and she frowned.

"We're being watched, Oliver." She whispered, eyes darting around the empty countryside rolling past the garden gate.

"By who?"

"Who do you think? He-who-must-not-be-named's followers! We've been under surveillance for months!"

"Why should it matter if they see me hug you?" He asked with a wounded voice.

"Because they can use you to get to me." She hissed, sighing exasperatedly as he looked confused. "I know where my brother is. They can use you to get it out of me where Harry Potter is!"

Melody fingered the shard of mirror in her pocket, speaking in a whisper as she tried to explain. In Dumbledore's will there was a small footnote saying that she should be given this parcel but no-one should know about it, not even Ron. She had opened it alone and was confused to find a shard of broken mirror. She didn't quite understand why Dumbledore had given it to her, that was until one day she was studying it when a flash of green caught her eye.

Pulling the mirror up to her eyes, they widened as she saw Harry looking back at her - Not that he knew it was her of course. She had been tracing their movement ever since, it made her feel fractionally less useless.

Melody grabbed his hand to get him to start moving before dropping it quickly, falling into step beside him as they walked in silence over to the frost coated burrow. He tried to take her hand again but she shrugged him off, occasionally glancing up to see him watching her.

Just as she had expected, the welcome was less than warm. Not even a second after he had entered the burrow than he had been pinned against the wall by a less than happy set of twins. Melody had to endure at least an hour of ranting until he was finally released and treated with less hostillity.

*~*~*~*

Melody sighed, tugging the dressing gown tighter over her body as she descended the stairs into the busy kitchen flooded with dawn sunlight. She smiled at Tonks as she groaned with the weight of the bump pressing upon her back and slumped into an armchair beside the stove.