Go on, Scream

Probably the best part of making it to sixth year, Dria thought, was that you became one of only a handful of students studying a subject at that level. There were only twelve students enrolled, for example, in her Potions class. In fact, she had always rather enjoyed potion brewing- note, not the classes themselves. Snape rather ruined them for her.

Professor Slughorn, though, seemed positively delightful, if a little too caught up in his connections. It was inevitable, really, that Potions become her favorite class fairly early on in the year. Maybe that was why things happened the way that they did.

See, her father had always told her that her nerves were what would eventually bring out the banshee blood in her. It would take a combination of inner tension and outer emotion- emotions, you see, that could be leeched from others. Emotions for her to feed off of. It was the fear of this happening in school, in fact, that had made going off to America with her family so tempting. It was the only reason that she might have left Hogwarts behind.

Here's what happened. Audriell was doodling in the margins of her book, waiting for instructions from Professor Slughorn. She was always early, see. It helped her to keep her head. Calmness had been her ultimate goal for quite some time now, ever since the day that her father had explained just how drastically a lot of tension could impact her life. Sometimes, though, it doesn't matter whether you avoid tension. Sometimes, it finds you.

This was not the first fight that Dria had witnessed between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Nor was it, she felt sure, going to be the last. This one, though, is the one that set her over the edge. The worst part of it was that Dria never did find out what it was they were fighting about. Draco followed Harry into the room and shoved him a bit in passing. Harry glared but, at a quelling look from Hermione, headed toward his seat.

Then Draco threw a curse at him. Harry blocked it and responded with one of his own, one that gave Malfoy a spectacular purple, scaled complexion. Draco's retaliation missed Harry and came zooming at Audriell, barely missing her left ear. It was probably that instant of fear that did it.

Suddenly, she could feel everyone around her. She took in Hermione's tension, Ron's excitement, Pansy's distress. She took in the teacher's moment of panic when he walked out of his office and was confronted with a duel.

Most of all, she felt Harry's outrage and Draco's hate. She drank in the emotions, but it was the outrage, the righteousness that was coming from Harry that was the strongest. Of course, then, it was he who collapsed on the floor. The shock of it all is what snapped Dria out of it. She ran over to him, scarcely realizing what had happened. It wasn't until Professor Dumbledore had walked in and kindly asked her to follow him that it hit her: she had just consumed people's emotions. She was dangerous.

found out that there would be none. She was to get away with this infraction, considering the circumstances, according to Dumbledore.

"You must realize, Miss Everett, that if you don't learn to control yourself, you will not be permitted to stay here." Dria's stomach sank. She had expected as much, but that made his words hurt no less. Her mother would be thrilled, she thought ruefully, if she was kicked out of Hogwarts.

"I don't know how to control it," Audriell confessed.

"And why should you? You have never had to before. I'll give you a little tip, though. What you did back there, it was a promising start. I daresay Harry will be up and causing trouble again before dinnertime tonight. You were both very lucky, this time." Then Dumbledore stood and nodded at Dria. She understood that she was to leave and scurried out of his office.

Audriell's only thought was to get to the Hospital Wing, to see whether Harry really was alright. She didn't know how she would forgive herself if she wasn't.

As she ran through the halls, Dria noticed that people were looking at her strangely. They were backing against the wall as she approached, their faces blank with fear. A glimpse she caught of herself in a particularly well-polished suit of armor told her why. She was positively glowing. Her eyes were the brightest of reds, her skin was luminescent even in the low candlelight of the corridor she was in. Her red hair looked like it was crackling with electricity.

Seeing herself this way, even the distorted version of herself showing in the helmet of the armor, was too much for Audriell just then. She turned away and ran even faster.

Standing outside of the Hospital Wing, looking almost like a guard, was Dean Thomas, accompanied by Sara.

"What's going on?" Dean demanded.

Sara shot him a look and flung her arms around Audriell. "That can wait for later, no need to worry about it now. Honey, how are you feeling?"

Dria pulled away and stepped toward the Hospital Wing. "Better than Harry is, I'd wager." She drew in a shaking breath. The worst part of all of this was that she was, underneath the panic and shame, feeling better than she ever had in her life. This was a whole new kind of awake. She felt that the Patronus Charm, whose casting was her biggest goal, would almost be too easy were she to attempt it right now.

She would not, though. It would be too much like cheating. Dria moved to open the door and Dean's hand shot out, wrapping around her arm. "I wouldn't go in there just now. Seamus has taken it upon himself to watch over Harry."

Dria's brow wrinkled in confusion. "Seamus? Seamus Finnegan, you mean?"

"Who else? Point is, he knows more about banshees than anyone else around here- spent his whole childhood deathly afraid of them, you know- and he feels he owes it to Harry to make certain that this doesn't happen again."

"That's ridiculous," Sara cut in. "Dria would never-"

Dria shook her head. "That's just it, Sara. I did."

"Yeah, but not by choice!" Audriell found her friend's unswerving loyalty touching, but was getting exasperated. She exchanged looks with Dean, rolling her eyes. "I know how bad you want in there. You can just pop in and leave as soon as you've seen for yourself that Harry's alright. Quick and harmless."

Before she could think on it too much more, Dria burst through the doorway and rushed to Harry's bedside. She was so quick that Seamus was only half out of his seat before she was standing by Harry's bedside.

"You aren't welcome here," Seamus said in a biting voice.

Harry, who was quite awake and simply looking paler than usual, shook his head. "Seamus, it's fine. I've been wanting to talk to her."

"But didn't I tell you-"

"Something about banshees, yes. But I would rather hear it from her just now."

At this, Seamus swore lightly and stormed out of the room. "Don't mind him," Harry assured her. "He'll come 'round."

"I'm not worried about him, I'm worried about you. I'm so sorry, Harry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"What exactly happened, anyway?"

Feeling that she at least owed him as much of an explanation as she could give, Audriell launched into the story of her grandmother, a banshee, and her father's experiences as a half breed. "None of us were really sure how the blood would manifest in me," Dria finished, "so this has all come as a bit of a shock. Gran insisted that it would happen, but I guess I've been in denial. I should have been more prepared, I should have quit before I drained so much of you."

"What, exactly, did you drain?" Harry asked, looking a little off color.

"Your emotions. But my father warned me, if you take too much from one person, they go into a sort of shock. I should have known better."

"Stop saying that, would you?" Dria bit her tongue.

"Alright. I suppose I can apologize to you again later. For now, I think I had better try to get some rest." Harry nodded and Dria got the idea that he was relieved she had decided to leave.

When she was almost out the door, Harry called after her, "Thank you for coming to see me, and for explaining."

She forced a smile for him and said, "I really hope that you feel better soon. Good night."

After what Audriell thought of subsequently as That Day, she was treated like a pariah. All except her very closest friends took to avoiding her in the halls. They went quiet whenever she was anywhere near, giving Audriell the distinct impression she was a frequent topic of conversation. It was no less than she deserved, she thought, and took this without complaint.

The disturbing bit of it was that ever since That Day, she had grown increasingly sensitive to people's emotions. She could feel them all the time now, a constant hum. She went to bed every night feeling overstimulated and exhausted from it all, and from the effort it took not to feed on the emotions around her.

Harry had, of course, made a full, quick recovery and had even taken to asking after her own health. She supposed that she was looking a little shell shocked these days, and acting a little jumpy.

Another change, and the single most aggravating one, was that Seamus Finnegan had taken to trailing her around. Rather than avoiding her like everyone else, he seemed to have taken it upon himself to make quite sure that she was behaving herself. It didn't help that he was in half of her classes.

Eventually, it was too much for Audriell to handle. She was barely sleeping, she hadn't been able to get in touch with her family in the past week, and the pile of schoolwork that needed doing was increasing alarmingly fast. It was not a question of whether she would blow up on someone, but a question of when.

Unfortunately, the person who took the fall-out from all of the pressure that Dria had been feeling from herself and others was Seamus. He had been walking innocently enough behind her- after all, they had Charms together next, so why should they not be heading in the same direction?- except that he had waited outside of the girl's bathroom while she and Sara freshened up.

When she saw this, Audriell marched over to where he had been leaning casually against the wall and stood in front of him, seething.

"Need something?" he asked infuriatingly.

"Yeah, actually, I do." Seamus lifted a single brow and waited. Dria, who had always hated confrontation, swallowed before continuing. "I don't want you following me anymore."

"I can walk wherever I please," he said coldly. "I'll thank you not to try and stop me."

"This is getting ridiculous. I didn't mind so much at first, Seamus. I was actually a little grateful. You made me feel like people were a bit safer around me. But now it's too much. Look, I've been behaving myself. I haven't had a single other slip-up. Do you think I would risk my place here at Hogwarts like that, really? And even if I did lose control, what could you do to stop me?"

"I would stop you. Make no doubt of it. Me gran taught me how to deal with the likes of you."

Audriell blinked, shocked. She recovered quickly, though. "Well, you obviously missed the lesson on how to handle girls." Though she had made no conscious decision to pull it out, Audriell found herself pointing her ten-inch cherry wand at him, glaring over the tip of it.

Sara pushed Audriell's arm down and put herself between the two. "You're starting to attract a crowd. If you really want to make fools out of yourselves, you'll just have to finish it later. We're already late for Charms and today's the day we're supposed to be learning the Aguamenti Charm!"

This snapped Audriell back into reality. She knew that this was the on that Sara had been most looking forward to, for reasons known only to her. She shrugged almost apologetically at Seamus and strode down the hall without another glance at him.

When they were in class, five points having been taken from each of them for tardiness, Sara immediately started scribbling furiously on a bit of scrap parchment. 'Did you mean for your eyes to glow back there?' it read. Audriell shook her head furiously. "No!" she responded aloud.

"Is there something you have to add to the lesson?" Professor Flitwick asked her, his wand still trailing a stream of gold with which he was illustrating the proper movements to make when performing the spell.

"No, sorry, Professor," she answered hastily, cheeks flushing. Audriell's eyes darted over to Seamus. He was staring at her in apparent consternation.

Flitwick nodded his satisfaction and continued, with an amused glint in his eye, "Now, I'd imagine that today's lesson will run fairly smoothly- after all, how much of an explosion could our friend Mr. Finnegan here cause with water?- but I still must caution you. Now, if you please, begin."

Sara laughed appreciatively and smiled at the flushed Seamus before turning back to her friend. "Dria, it was a little scary, really. You got this look on your face when you were talking to him, like you were about to do... you know, it... again. He has to have noticed, too. Look at him. He's still a bit shaky even now."

And look at him Audriell did. Now that Sara mentioned it, perhaps he was looking a bit paler than usual underneath his embarrassed blush. She glanced at Flitwick and saw that he was watching her with a stern expression on his face. Being that she was in his house, he expected more from her. Deciding that she would worry about Seamus later, she turned to the glass he was supposed to be filling, pointed her wand at it, and said, "Aguamenti."

After class, Audriell hung back a bit, expecting Seamus to wait with her as he had taken to doing lately. To her immense surprise, though, he was one of the first to leave the room. She exchanged looks with Sara and said, "I think I had better go talk to him."

Sara shrugged. "If you think. But wasn't this what you wanted?" She waved farewell and headed off to Arithmancy. Audriell was at a loss. Yes, she had wanted for Seamus to leave her alone, but not this way. It made her feel like some kind of monster, like she was nothing more than a bully. Like she was the kind of thing that Seamus had been trying to protect everyone else from. It felt wrong to leave things like this.

She scooped her books unceremoniously into her satchel and hurried out of the room, running in the direction of the Gryffindor common room. She was unsure of exactly where it was, but if she was quick enough, she thought she might be able to catch him nonetheless.

Audriell caught sight of him just before he made a turn two corridors down. "Seamus!" she called. "Wait!"

The stiffening of his shoulders was the only indication he gave of having heard her. Audriell called out again and doubled her pace. On her way down the hall, she bumped into a first year- who could blame her, honestly? They were so small. But she did manage to catch up with him.

"Seamus, please. Can I just talk with you for a minute?"

"Oh, talk? Is that what you want to do?" he finally responded. Dean Thomas, whom he had been walking with, looked between them with barely disguised amusement.

"Fine," Seamus said when Audriell didn't reply. "You're just lucky you caught me during a free period." Dria decided against saying that he hardly seemed the Arithmancy type.

"Follow me," Dria said. There were altogether too many curious eyes turned toward them where they stood in the corridor. They went up to the astronomy tower, walking in utter silence.

At the top, Audriell perched herself on the edge of her favorite bit of wall, where it had crumbled so that she had the exhilarating feeling of danger. Perhaps, she thought ruefully, this was unwise, given Seamus' evident dislike for her, but she honestly didn't think he seemed like he wanted to hurt her unless she forced his hand.

"I'm sorry," Audriell said after a little silence. She tried and failed to meet his eyes. "Sara told me I got a little... scary back there. I didn't mean to. This is all just so new to me, and I'm freaked out already without having you following my every movement."

"I always thought that there was something abnormal about you, even for a witch," Seamus said, not bothering to acknowledge the apology though his features softened a bit. "I could never figure out what it was."

Audriell was so surprised at this that she blurted out her first thought. "You never seemed to notice me at all."

"I did." This time the silence was longer. Audriell slid down the wall and, cautiously, Seamus joined her, though sitting at a safe distance.

"What's it like?" Seamus finally asked her. She found that she could meet his eyes now, and having so done, found it hard to look away. There was an intensity burning there that was so compelling that words started spilling out of her.

"It's like being charged up with pure energy. It's feeling like you can do absolutely anything, if you only take in enough of it. It's intoxicating. And even when I'm not stealing any of people's emotions, I still can feel them. I still know, every instant, that I have the ability to have that high back."

"But you say you've only ever done it once," Seamus said quietly.

"Yes. On Harry. I didn't know what it was, not at first. Not until it was almost too late." Audriell finally broke their eye contact. She could feel that Seamus was trying very hard to suppress his alarm. He was doing rather well, she thought. Nothing showed on his face.

"I didn't want to believe it," Seamus said," when I heard what had happened. You always seemed so nice, so good."

"What, and now you think I'm not, just because I've got a splash of banshee blood in me?" She had opened herself up completely to him, she thought. And now he dared to insult her. She had half a mind to leave. Seamus reached out a hand and grasped at her wrist before she could stand, though.

"I never said that."

"But it's what you're thinking, isn't it?" Seamus' grip on her was released that instant. He shot to his feet.

"In fact, no." He made to leave but before he could, Dria was there in front of him with a hand on each of his shoulders.

"Then what?" Her expression was pleading and he felt his fear of her melt away. The change was so sudden that, by the time he had recovered, her eyes were already glowing heatedly.

"I want to protect you from yourself," Seamus said simply. Though this was not the answer he would have given just moments before, the words had the ring of absolute, undeniable truth to them. He didn't give her any time to absorb them before he had slipped away from her grasp, instead loosely holding one of her hands in his and pulling her gently toward the stairs. "You've missed lunch. Come on, let's find you something to eat."

Audriell let him lead her down to the Great Hall, where he encouraged her to sit next to him at the Gryffindor table. Dean was there, looking quite as befuddled by this latest development as Audriell felt. "How are you, Audriell?" he asked politely.

Seamus, meanwhile, was now avoiding looking at her altogether, instead focusing enthusiastically on his toast. She cautioned a glance at him before responding, "I'm doing alright."

"And you two have sorted out your differences, is that it?"

"Dean, stop interrogating her, would you?" Seamus snapped.

"It's fine, really," Audriell cut in, anxious not to get Dean in trouble. Seamus continued to look anywhere but at her, instead shoveling food into his mouth. Audriell decided to follow his example. If nothing else, it would remove the pressure she was feeling to make conversation.

An hour later, Morag found Audriell sitting in the common room, doodling mindlessly on what was supposed to be her Potions essay on the Draught of Living Death. He looked over her work, amused. "Since when has there been a correlation between flobberworm mucus and... what is that, a hippogriff?"

Audriell flushed and shoved the parchment into her copy of "Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six," which happened to be handy. "Shove off," she muttered.

"Fine, fine," he replied in an exaggeratedly reasonable voice. "But first, why don't you tell me how it happened that you ate at the Gryffindor table today?"

Audriell flushed. "What, have people been talking about that?"

"Is there a reason they should be?" Morag questioned, dimples flashing. He shook his head at her. "I was just asking because I noticed your absence and happened to catch a glimpse of you there. You're not exactly hard to miss, with that red hair of yours."

Audriell tugged on a bit of hair that had escaped its binds disdainfully and resorted to glaring out the window. She'd had quite enough of handling her classmates for one day.