DARK HEARTS

Written by Grace Waterson and Lilia Le Fay

Nadia Volkov and Natasha Grazinsky are no ordinary witches, though no one would guess their true motives. Not unless one gazed deep into their souls. But of course, that would be unadvisable. For these girls have the darkest of hearts…

Chapter Seven - Nadia

(Grace Waterson)

I snapped my mouth closed and spun round on my feet. Sure enough, there he stood; Severus Snape, leaning against the bookshelf with such a casual air that it irritated me. His arms were folded, and he was looking at us almost amusedly, with one eyebrow raised; questioning. Once he saw that he’d got our attention, he stood up straight and moved towards us, his mouth twisted up into a snide smirk.

“You shouldn’t be here.” He said, taking care to keep his voice low, but allowing the malicious undertones to seep through, all the same.

“We go to school here.” I replied simply, refusing to be intimidated. I couldn’t chance a glance at Natasha, in case he’d think I was nervous, but I sure as hell hoped that she wasn’t quivering under his harsh gaze.

“I am aware of that.” He sneered back. “What I mean is, you shouldn’t be going to school here.”

“Why not?” I was surprised to find Natasha speaking from behind me, her voice steady and fair - curious but not accusatory.

“Let’s put it this way.” Snape leant in slightly, speaking each word slowly and carefully, pronouncing every syllable as clearly as possible. “I am… aware… of your little… mission.”

I swallowed, and threw all my effort into keeping a straight, reactionless face. That way it would be easier to feign ignorance, if it came to that. A deathly silence rung in our ears as he waited for one of us to say something in response, and we waited for him to continue.

“What I am trying to say is have you actually given this mission of yours any thought?” He continued. “You’re fifteen years old, surely you don’t want to be leading your fellow classmates to their ultimate deaths?”

“We do not know what you’re talking about.” Natasha said firmly.

“Don’t play ignorant with me.” Snape spat, glaring daggers at my friend. “You know very well what I am talking about, and if you had any sort of head on your shoulders, you would have worked out that I’m trying to help you.”

“We don’t want your help.” I spat back with just as much contempt.

“Be it on your own foolish heads.” He replied, rolling his eyes slightly. “But just because you’ve been given this mission, don’t go around thinking you’re all special.” He scoffed. “You are certainly not the first teenagers to be brainwashed by the Dark Lord, and you definitely won’t be the last.”

“We’ve been “brainwashed”, have we?” Natasha repeats from behind me, and though I can’t see her I can imagine her pursing her lips, the way she always does when she’s insulted.

“Oh come on…” Snape rolled his eyes, muttering to himself. “You’d have thought the Dark Lord would have chosen two individuals with at least half a brain. Actually, I have been wondering - why did he choose you?” He looks at us for a moment, his face completely blank, before sweeping over to the table Natasha was sitting at when I came in and picking up a book from on top of it. Natasha makes a move to grab it, but he has it too firmly in his grasp.

“Witches of Power: an index of the oldest magical myth” he read out, enunciating every syllable as he spoke. He looked mildly interested, and flicked the book open to a page that Natasha had folded over the corner of. “Hours witches.” He read the title of the chapter before snapping the book shut and I cursed inside my head. Not many people knew about the different types of witches there were, and it wasn’t something which we wanted to be spread around. There were people who would persecute us for what we are - there always used to be, which was why we moved out into small “cults” if you like, isolating ourselves from ordinary society. “That’s what you are, is it?”

“What do you mean?” I asked slowly, taking care not to give anything away. “We’re just witches like everyone else here.”

“Then why, may I ask, were you reading this?” Snape replied, holding the book up in the air with one hand.

“We like reading.” Natasha snapped back, and Snape rolled his eyes, bringing the book back down to his side.

“Oh, and this just looked like an absolutely riveting read?” Snape retorted sarcastically. “Once again, don’t play ignorant with me - it only makes things harder and a lot more tedious for all of us.”

There was silence for a couple of moments before he spoke again.

“Don’t even bother trying to pretend you’re not hours witches.” He said slowly. “It makes perfect sense; You come from some foreign country - from your accents it seems to be Eastern European, probably Russia - you both have the hours witch look. One of you is in Slytherin.”

Behind me, Natasha drew in a sharp breath and straightened up slightly. No doubt she took that last comment of Snape’s as a dig at her abilities, which I’m sure was Snape’s intention. But I was more bothered about the fact that Snape seemed to know what hours witches were - I was certain he hadn’t read any more of the book than the title, yet he was still able to determine our “hour witch look”. As I mentioned before, the existence of us witches is not common knowledge, and those who read books such as the one Natasha was reading earlier tend to just assume that we’ve either gone extinct, or that we’re just a “myth”. But Snape knows differently.

“What do you know about what we are?” I hiss, glaring at him.

“More than you think.” He replied simply.

“And how did you find this information out?” I continued, and Snape rolled his eyes.

“I read.”

It was clear that we weren’t going anywhere, and so I decided we might as well change the subject and work out what he wanted from us. Just as I was about to say something to that accord, Natasha opened her mouth and spoke just what I was thinking.

“What do you want from us?”

“Ah, we do seem to be going round in circles.” Snape said casually. “As I said at the beginning, I wanted to warn you. To tell you to actually give this mission of yours some thought.”

“We have given it thought.” I snapped back, even though it was a bit of a lie. “Besides, it’s the Dark Lord; even if we wanted to go against him, we couldn’t.”

“I know many people who have.” Snape replied. “You don’t have the Dark Mark - you aren’t bound to him like the Death Eaters are. If you chose to go against him, he wouldn’t be able to do anything to you through that Dark Mark. He’d have to physically find you. I know people who could give you protection.”

“And why should we trust you?” I raised an eyebrow at him, pouring hatred through my expression so that he knew we despised him.

“Why should you trust the Dark Lord?” He countered simply. He paused. “As the Headmaster would say, sometimes we have to make the choice between what is right and what is easy.”

And with that, he spun around on his heels and left the library, his black robes billowing behind him.