The Potion Princess

Harry

She's not quite sure how it happened.

One minute, she's staring into the fire and waiting for Pig to come back with Fred's letter (they'd been talking all day) and the next second she's punching Draco in the face.  He'd been sitting in the corner with his goons and Pansy, proclaiming to anyone who would listen about how the dark lord's return was a good thing for them, how the natural order of things would be returned, muggles and mudbloods would be put in their rightful place.  Audra had seen his face the night before, heard the crack in his voice, and she knows that this is all just false bravdo to hide how worried he really is.  But he sees her little eye roll, and even though she hunches over the letter she's writing to her parents, Draco decides that she's going to be the next target that he's going to spew venom at.  "Sit on the sidelines if you want, but I'm joining the winning side while I can.  And if I manage to kill your precious bloodtraitor boyfriend or one of his friends while I'm at it,"  He stands up, walks toward her with his trademark smirk on his face, and she feels Emmeline tense beside her, watching the two of them with worried eyes.  "Then all the better."

It's not a decision to stand up, really, but she's in motion anyways.  The parchment flutters to the floor, and the ink well fall to the ground, a puddle spreading slowly over the ground.  It's red, like blood.  Draco looks frightened when she turns her wand on him, but not nearly as much as he should be.  She's having trouble deciding which curse to use, she's not sure that there's one bad enough for him, but she advances on him anyways, screaming curses.  The whole room is paying attention now.

He gets off a lucky disarming jinx, and had a second to look proud of himself before he realizes that she's going to hurt him, wand or not.  Audra flies at him with hands outstretched, and they both career backwards into the wall, stumble.  They hit the ground, and his wand rolls underneath the sofa, leaving him defenseless. 

It's so much better to hit than to curse, she thinks, as she hits him again and again.  He was crying, but she doesn't care, he wants him to cry, to send a message to everyone that threats on the people she loves will not be tolerated, to teach him that no matter what place he thinks he deserves in life, he will always finish last.  It's so much better to actually feel it, the skin on skin, bone on bone. 

He gives up on trying to fight soon and works on sheilding his face instead.  His nose is broken, and when he opens his mouth to yell, he spits blood into her face.  His head is already swelling from where she slammed it into the wall, bruises forming on his cheeks.  Audra wouldn't be surprised if she had broken his jaw, but she still kept going until Emmeline grabs her around the waist and pulls her away.  Audra still gets in a few good kicks to his ribs before he's out of her reach.

"Audra, stop!  Stop!"  Ariel is there now, helping to keep her away, and someone else is hovering over Draco, casting spells to stop the bleeding.  "Jesus, you're going to kill him, stop it!"

"He's going to be healed in a minute,"  She snarls, fighting.  "He'll heal, and I can break him again."

"Stop this."  The voice sounded from the doorway, the only one that could have made Audra stop fighting.  Snape sweeps into the room, robes spread out behind him, and kneels beside Draco.  In an instant, Draco was fine, but he still was lying curled up on the ground, gasping for air and staring at her, wide eyed.  The blood was drying on his face.  "Ms. Black, take Ms. Stanton to the hospital wing."

Audra only felt the pain when it was brought to her attention. Her lip was bleeding and her eye was going to bruise, she knew, but it was her hand that was screaming.  She was sure she had broken every bone that she had, and the skin had split.  Blood was streaming from her clenched hand, pouring from her knuckles.  It made a puddle below her.  "Come on,"  Emmeline hissed, pushing her forward.  Her lip was bleeding, too.  "Let's go."