Chapter twenty three; Now or Never

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It had been nine days.

Nine days since she'd almost killed Harry due to her lack of control.

In those nine days Olivia had moved swiftly all over the country while scheming. She was spending her days, while not trying to get killied, creating a plan to fix the mess she had created.

Nine days ago Olivia remembered the letter she had written to herself in July, charmed to open with her own blood. It was a simple requirement really, all the letter needed to be opened was a single drop of her blood. A small prick of the finger. And when it had opened, and the inked letter appeared it was .. kind of worth it.

In Olivia's own messy styled handwriting, on the back of brown parchment paper was written, 'You know already of its home, in a place you've spent the last six years of your life. In a room where a status is required to have access.'

She read over the scrap of parchment again from her hiding spot in the shadows in the alley way. She was ready for this, she'd been watching and preparing for five days. She knew what she had to do, how she had to do it and how to be cunning about it. Of course she wanted to succeed but she wouldn't mind rubbing peoples noses in it either, she wanted them to know that she was still around and wrecking up havoc everywhere she went.

She wanted them to know that just because she was on the run, didn't mean she wasn't gone forever. She wanted him to feel threatened that she was still about, and that she could still do anything.

Olivia stepped out from the shadows of the dark alleyway and peered behind the wall concealing her. She knew every nook and cranny, the inside and the outside, of a place that had changed so drastically in the short space of four long months.

In around about ten minutes the village of Hogsmeade would 'close' for the night and the patrons would disapparate to their homes until the morning. After that those stationed around the village as guards, or Snatchers, would patrol the area carefully. If there were any indication of an apparition or spells being cast blaring alarm signals would fire out, pointing to the foreign intruder who had stepped on the grounds after closing time.

It was all she had, ten minutes to get herself ready and up to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry before she had the chance to be caught too early on in her shite plan.

She knew there'd be a fat chance that she would have access to the Seven Secret Passages scattered around the castle. She reckoned they'd of been sealed off to stop anyone from slipping in or out undetected.

Olivia pulled her hood further over her head and stepped into the partially lit streets, treading through the snow to The Three Broomsticks. She slipped past the patrons and its visitors with ease before walking past a series of posters. Olivia payed the posters a single glance before rolling her eyes distastefully, couldn't they of found a better picture of her?

She felt the urge to tear the poster down, along with the one next to it, and momentarily changed her course to pull the two posters down from the wall they had been pinned on to.

In her hands was a poster of Harry Potter, labelled Number One; Undesirable. Underneath Harry's poster was one of herself where she was labelled Number Two; Undesirable. Olivia was the second most wanted witch/wizard in the Wizarding World and the thought made her gulp. She crumpled the posters up and put them into her coat pocket for the time being before entering the pub she had become so acquainted to since her third year.

She slipped into the girls lavatories undetected and locked the door using the 'Colloportus' charm.  She pushed her hood down and spread her wild hair over her shoulders while staring at her reflection in the small wall mirror. The underneath of her eyes were dark, black and purple, with bags from her lack of sleep. The colours contrasted against her white skin. Her hair, that had grown almost a quarter in length, fell down to her hip bone and was no longer naturally wavy. Her hair had started to fall into ringlets from Olivia's lack of effort to tame it. She, in some twisted way, resembled Bellatrix slightly with how her hair had styled - it caused Olivia to shudder distastefully.

Olivia pointed her wand to the roots of her hair and uttered a spell she had grown to hate, 'Colovaria' she muttered whilst cringing. She watched as the roots changed colour first before the rest of her hair followed, and to her relief it turned to a mousey brown colour, similar to Alexis' hair. Then, she flipped her hair over and bent over so she was upside down before proceeding to tie it into a ponytail on top of her head.

Olivia then tucked her long ponytail underneath her coat before wrapping a scarf around her neck and lower face for some protection should anyone recognise her. She pulled her hood back over her head and picked her bag up again, slinging it over her shoulder and unlocking the door.

She left The Three Broomsticks and walked briskly through the dark street and up towards the castle on top of the hill before the village closed. The snow crunched underneath her boots with every step as she went through her ill-thought out plan once more.

Her bag was half full with products used for the purpose of a quick get away, created by the best pranksters arguably in the Wizarding World; Fred and George Weasley. She would use anything and everything in her bag as a distraction to help her escape incase things went horribly South.

Olivia determined her best bet at getting into the castle would be through the Astronomy Tower. It was the most open place in the castle that would have little students and faculty members around at almost eight 'o'clock at night. All she had to worry about for now was getting into the grounds.

This is where things became tricky for Olivia.

She figured if the new Headmaster, Professor Severus Snape, was anything like Dumbledore, he'd have protection charms, shields and barriers placed around the walls of the castle. If it were the case, and she didn't doubt that it were, then she'd have to create a distraction on the opposite side of the castle to ensure she could get in undetected. She just had to pray that Professor Sinstra wasn't in her classroom.

Given that the Astronomy Tower was located in the middle of the grounds, Olivia decided it'd be best she pin-pointed her distraction near The Forbidden Forest and Hagrid's Hut. When she got there she picked up two rocks, both of a similar size and pocketed one for later on. She took deep breaths while tossing the rock into the air in level with her face for a short while before taking the leap and throwing it over the castle wall.

It was like she'd expected, where the rock penetrated the wards around the castle walls the barrier shone a transparent white colour that ripped up towards the centre of the barrier at the very top of the castle. The rock had still passed through the barrier though and it was all she needed to know. A few short minutes after she'd thrown the rock the sound of people shouting could be heard in the distance over the castle wall. Olivia didn't want to, nor need to, stick around to see the outcome and so twisted on her feet before materialising into an ash of black and white smoke and flying away.

She stuck level with the castle wall to avoid being seen over the wall or by anyone on the ground. She flew round the barrier, to the opposite end of where she'd thrown the first rock before tossing in the second for good measure. From there she flew upwards, directly to the middle of the barrier at the very top before passing through herself and aiming for the Astronomy Tower.

She landed on the wooden floor of the tower, only stumbling fractionally to the side. She pushed her hood down, pulled her hair out from under her coat and ripped the scarf away from her mouth while exhaling. Olivia shook her head to herself while pushing the scarf into her bag, "Wish yourself luck Olivia," she told herself, "you're gonna fucking need it."

Now was for the harder part.

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Olivia had no idea how she'd done it, but she'd managed to sneak her way through the castle undetected and down towards where she'd lived for the most part of six years; the Slytherin Dungeons.

If she was on the right path, and she was fairly positive she was, then she reckoned there was a strong chance her bracelet would be in her Prefect dormitory. She had to give it to herself to hide it in there, but at the same time she honest to Salazar wanted to smack herself in the face. While it was all good knowing it was in her dormitory, the hard part fell with trying to find the bastard thing.

So far everything seemed to be surprisingly working in Olivia's favour. She was in the castle, no one had noticed her and she'd managed to overhear the password from a group of oldish looking students as they came back from dinner. To be on the safe side, Olivia waited behind the suit of armour she had be hiding behind for ten more minutes before she plucked up the balls to step out from behind it.

As she did she heard the sound of footsteps bouncing off the bare stone walls coupled with an older male and female voice as they came down the corridor, directly towards her, "If there is an intruder about Alecto do you really think they'd be hiding with a bunch of pathetic students?"

"What if the intruder is a student themselves—"

With her heart in her mouth and momentarily frozen in place in the middle of the corridor, Olivia was quick to panic. The footsteps grew louder as the people drew nearer and Olivia threw herself quickly into the closest room to her. She closed the door behind her and strained to hear for the footsteps again, all her ears picked up on was her pulse as it thumped rapidly behind her ear.

Oliva drew out a deep exhale as she heard the door to the Slytherin Common Room grind to a close. She opened her eyes and looked around the room she had slipped into to kill some time before the two people left. Her eyes adjusted enough for her to recognise the Potions Classroom. She dropped her wand from her sleeve and whispered into the cold air, "Lumos Maxima." The light emitting from the tip of Olivia's wand gave her a better view of her old classroom. She looked around curiously before walking over to the numerous shelves lining the walls.

She lifted her wand up to the shelves to get a better look of the labels that were on the jars. There were some ingredients left in the Potions classroom on the shelves, some significant and some not. Olivia thought of the store cupboards that held every ingredient for Potions. Surely Professor Slughorn would be fine with her borrowing some ingredients for her and Hermione to use in case of an emergency.

With this in mind, Olivia took two separate jars of Bicorn Horn — one powdered and one crushed — English Thyme, Fire Seeds, Lacewing flies and fluxweed. Olivia knew already Hermione was running low on the ingredients to brew another batch of Pepper-up Potion and she never knew if they would be using Polyjuice Potion again in the future, but it was worth grabbing just in case.

Olivia put the jars carefully into the bottom of her bag and heard the same two voices from before outside again.

Immediately her only just calming heart spiked again as their voices were loud and clear to Olivia, "It was probably just a bird and he's had us scouring the castle of intruders." The female voice scowled.

"I doubt three birds would penetrate the force field within a few minutes of each other. That thick-headed, good for nothing, Snatcher has the lump on his head to prove it." The male voice replied.

And then they started to drift away, carrying out of Olivia's earshot, "You still think someone's here—"

At the sound of their distancing voices, Olivia knocked the light off her wand and walked over to the closed wooden door, pressing her ear against to hear for when they couldn't be heard no more.

Like before, she waited an extra couple of minutes, just to be safe, before opening the door slowly and peeking her head outwards. Olivia looked down each side of the corridor to as far as she could see before deeming it safe enough to try again.

It was now or never, and she was quickly running out of time.

Stepping out of the Potions classroom, she closed the door quietly behind her and tiptoed over to the few stairs leading up to the stone wall that concealed the entrance to the common room.

With one last look she spoke the password with as much distaste as she could muster, "Mudblood."

To her upmost delight the stone wall slid to the side and granted her the access she wanted to the Slytherin Common Room. In front of her was the small stone passage way you had to walk through to get to the other side of the Common Room, and Olivia wasted no time in stepping over that threshold.

As an expectation when she became visible in the common room, it fell deathly silent. Every single student stared at her, all with a different expression written across their face.

Some sat bewildered, some scared or confused, others down right dumbfounded and for the most part, shocked.

Already anticipating the exact reaction, Olivia raised her hand and waved in a teasing manner,

"Did you miss me?"

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Sorry it took so long! I've been away over the weekend.