Expendable Much?

Chapter 1

Miss Marionette, I Presume?

by Soyokaze Pazlar

"Dean?"

They'd been lying on the floor of the Gryfinndor common room, in their pyjamas, for quite some time now. It had something to do with the fact that the crimson carpet was comfortably spongey, almost like a flat matress, and something to do with the fact that getting up required fighting against gravity. Now, as everyone knows, fighting against gravity on a Saturday morning just to get up and write an essay is simply out of the question. That's what Sunday evening is for, children.

"What, Seamus?" Dean Thomas rolled over, propping himself up on his elbow. It was the third time his sandy-haired friend had spoke his name aloud in the past fifteen minutes, and the previous times had both been followed by totally inane questions. Dean was rapidly losing his patience.

Seamus didn't answer right away. He paused, probably for dramatic effect, staring at the cieling. Then, when he felt that a sufficient climax had been built, he turned toward the other boy and established direct eye contact.

What Seamus peceived as anticipation was really only Dean's agitation with him. "Come out with it, Finnegan, for pete's sake." He didn't usually call his best friend by his surname, only when Seamus was being particularly trying. Like now, for instance.

"Well, I was just thinking..."

"That's what I was worried about." muttered Dean.

"What?" Seamus had heard him.

"Nothing, go on." Dean grumbled, lying down on his stomach and staring into the fireplace. Last time Seamus had been thinking, his brain had been drawing a correlation between Professor Snape's bad attitude and apparent lack of a sex life, which led to a scarring discussion of which professors were shagging one another (in theory, anyways). This was not something Dean wanted to hear when he was feeling comfortable and safe on a Saturday morning.

"I was just thinking," Seamus began again. "D'you ever feel like-" he searched for the right word- "an extra?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know, an extra. Now imagine Hogwarts's student population is the cast for one of those Muggle teen movies..."

"You watch those? You're gayer than I thought."

"Stop interrupting." Seamus didn't mind jabs at his sexuality, he'd gotten over that after he'd come out two months ago, but he did want to get his brilliant new theory out some time before lunch. Dean might not be thrilled to listen to it, but at least he was listening. "Anyways, we're the cast in a teen movie, right? Harry's The Main Character, and Ron's The Best Friend..."

"Who's Hermione?"

"The Pretty Ugly Girl, you know the type. Thinks she's just an annoying know-it-all, but her inner beauty shows through to Ron. Cute, if you ask me." Seamus's tone didn't agree with his words. He rolled his eyes sarcastically and went on. "Parvati and Lavender are Hermione's Girl-talk Buddies. Ginny, too, but she's more The Little Sister. Malfoy's The Evil Bully, Crabbe and Goyle are The Evil Henchmen. Neville's The Loser Without Lunch Money. Cho Chang's the Sweet Popular Girl. Even the ex-Gryffindor's had roles, when they were around. Oliver was the Obsessed Jock, Percy the Obsessed Nerd. Fred and George were The Troublemakers, Lee Jordan was the Eccentric Kid, and Alicia, Angelina, and Katie were the Sporty Groupies..."

"So we're the Extras." Dean said, deadpan. "I get it, now."

"That's us." Seamus lamented. We've got two lines each to elicit a few cheap laughs for the audience, and if there's ever a remake we get cut out for budget reasons. What a stellar existence!"

"Does this conversation have a point?" Dean wanted to know. "If it doesn't, I'm going back to sleep."

"Life is meaningless? We're completely and totally surrounded by character stereotypes?"

"Nice try." Dean closed his eyes, all ready to rest, when suddenly /he/ started thinking. Damn that Seamus Finnegan for passing on his bad habits. "Seamus, we're not the Extras."

"We aren't?" said Seamus. "Do tell."

"We're the Represented Minorities." Dean explained. "I'm the Token Black Guy. You're the Token Gay Guy. Any questions?"

"Oh, so we're there to keep the Liberal Protest Groups from rioting? That's even better." Seamus cried. "If only things weren't so mind-bogglingly boring."

"I don't know, I kind of like things to be mind-bogglingly boring every once in a while, you know." Dean stated. "Just for variety."

Seamus was about to protest, but he was soon interrupted by Hermione Granger bursting through the portrait hole. Her face was flushed with the vigor of studying, and she was carrying, as usual, the better part of a multi-volume encyclopedia. As fast as she could, she dumped the books onto the table, and stopped to regain her breath.

"Hallo, Hermione." Seamus greeted her genially. "Been doing a little light reading?"

"Very funny." she replied. "I see you're still in your pyjamas."

"Go pick on Harry and Ron." Dean mumbled from the carpet. "They're still in bed. At least we're out."

"Scratch that." said a the voice of another pyjama-clad figure, blindly stumbling down the stairs.

"Ron!" Hermione sounded shocked. "It's nearly nine-thirty. I've been up since six."

"You've missed the better part of the day, Ron." The youngest Weasley son did a playful mockery of his female friend's voice. "I went off to the library and got three hours' worth of studying done, but that wasn't quite enough, so I brought back a few-" His eyes caught the massive stack of volumes on the table, and his voice dropped back to his normal octave. "-books. Oh, am I ever good."

"You're certainly the infuriating little pest this morning, aren't you?" Hermione threw her hands on her hips.

"Me?" Ron stretched, still waking up. "Does becoming a Prefect /always/ make one this sour and irritable, because I can remember the same thing happening to my brother Per-"

"Don't you dare compare me with him, Ronald Weasley." Hermione's voice took on a warning tone, but she didn't say anything more. Instead she turned to her other housemates, still lying on the floor like jungle cats. "What /are/ you looking at?" she demanded.

"The live entertainment." Dean snickered.

"You and Ron." said Seamus, feeling a snicker of his own coming on. "You two are /so/ melodramatic. Bicker, bicker, bicker, all day long, and then you have your sweet, sappy moments... I wish I had someone I could be 'just friends' with that well."

Denial was a bit more than a river in Egypt for Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Although the attraction between them was blatantly obvious, both hated any indication that their relationship was deepening. With an unbecoming scowl on her face, Hermione aimed a kick right at Seamus's feet.

The sandy-haired lad simply rolled out of the way and stood up, moving out of Hermione's range. "I'm getting dressed." he said, then turned to Dean. "Fancy a walk, Thomas?"

"Why not?" his friend agreed. "Doing nothing has its tedious moments."

At that, they left the redhead and his not-girlfriend alone, and headed back up the stairs to the sixth-year dormitory. The entire population of Gryffindor expected to find them making out in a broom closet one day; it was only a matter of time. /Shame they're so damn cute together/ Seamus mused, pulling on a sweater. /Otherwise, I'd have to be jealous of Hermione./ His Ron-lust wasn't much to worry about, right now. In fact, the thing he worried about most was not having enough to worry about.

Now, someone like Harry Potter had enough to deal with. First, there were classes, where the teachers expected everything of him simply because he was famous. Then, there was Quidditch. As the new team captain, he had to keep everything running smoothly. Classmates, too- evil ones like Draco or pretty ones like Cho- always were posing a problem. And, oh yes, there was that nasty bit about fighting the Dark Lord over there on the side. But, suffice it to say, his life was by no means boring.

By no means did Seamus want to be Harry Potter. Sure, the boy had adventures, but they were so cliched, so children's bookish, so undeniably heterosexual that they weren't the adventures for Seamus. Studying abroad in say, Greece or Egypt, that would be enough. And his escapades wouldn't have to involve evils or horrors of any kind- just a few good-looking men, thank you very much. Clothing optional.

Speaking of clothing... Seamus pulled on his pants before Dean could catch him drooling over his own fantasies. "Ready to go?" he queried. Dean nodded, and they began their walk through the halls of Hogwarts.

A strange silence hung in the air today; partially due to the fact that most of the other students were either still asleep or playing outside. And yet, the silence also seemed to be that of a museum, with all the artifacts resting, their time on Earth past. Not even the paintings shouted out their cheery greetings today. Usually their talkative demeanor was enough to try one's patience significantly.

While Dean thought the silence to be a nice change for once, it was making Seamus nervous, so nervous in fact that he felt inclined to drum his fingers along the wall. Eventually, he picked a rhythm to match his footsteps. For a while, that was all that could be heard in the swallowing silence.

Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap.

Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, TAP-TAP.

Seamus instantly stopped. He would have never noticed under other circumstances, but the last tapping sound had been different. "Hey, Dean, listen to this." He tapped the panel again. There was definitely a difference- it echoed. In order to illustrate this point, he alternated between tapping the renegade panel and one of its more conformed siblings, creating a sound somewhat akin to a clock.

"That's odd." Dean commented. "Isn't that what walls sound like when there's a secret passage behind them?"

"Thank you, Nancy Drew." Seamus responded, staring at the panel and trying to find where a secret passage would open if there was one to begin with. "Surprises me that Potter, Weasley, and Granger never found this one..."

"Like they'd ever tell us if they did?" said Dean. "Not that it would ever make any difference. Those three think we're so oblivious to everything. Of course they forget that we share a room with two of them." A thin crack in the panel caught his eye, so he pointed it out to Seamus. "Try that."

"Hm." Seamus observed the crack, which was entirely too horizontal to have occurred naturally. "Got a file or something?"

"No, sorry." responded Dean. "Why are we doing this, anyway? Do we have any motive whatsoever?"

"Boredom? The fact that it's better than writing a Potions essay?"

"Fair enough." agreed Dean. Then something clicked. File... Potions essay. His notes for his Potions essay were on file cards. File cards located in his pocket. "Will this work?" He held up a card that said something pointless- and totally illegible- about wolfsbane.

"Thanks." said Seamus. "Hey, what's this written in, secret code? Or did you just dip a chicken's feet in ink and let it run across the parchment?"

"That's my handwriting, git."

Seamus laughed. Using the card as a very small lock pick, he triggered a spring through the crack and the panel sprung wide open. "Entirely too easy." he commented, stepping into the dark area beyond. Dean followed, and the moment both boys were standing in the secret passage, the panel slammed behind them, leaving them in the dark.

"Well, isn't this just lovely." complained Dean. As if hysterical, Seamus let out another laugh. Not amused, Dean poked him in the back. Hard.

"Ow!" Seamus cried. "What was that for?"

"Getting us stuck in here and then enjoying it." Dean snapped. "Tell me, what's our next course of action? Use up all of our air screaming for someone to let us out, or just accept our fate and quietly suffocate to death?"

"I'm sure we can get out any time we want to." Seamus assured him, then took out his wand. "In the meantime, we'd best create a cheery atmosphere. Lumos."

It was when everything was bathed in a pale, eerie light that they realised they were not in a secret passage after all, but a long-forgotten room, presumably that of a long-forgotten Victorian school girl... but who was she? And would she be doing at Hogwarts?

It seemed the answer was coming from the four-poster canopy bed in the corner of the room. Seamus didn't know how, but he sensed /something/ behind those curtains. Something... breathing. Or something that shouldn't have been breathing, but was. Something that shouldn't be.

It was calling him for help.

He grabbed hold of Dean's wrist and drew him towards the darkened corner. Feeling an unknown force coercing him to do so, he drew back the curtains on the canopy bed, lacey ghosts in the wand-light. And all around him, the air was still and quiet with death.

Lying against the white pillow was a girl, or what appeared to be a girl. She could have been fourteen, fifteen, but it was impossible to tell with her eyes closed. Her attire was more that of a doll's than a human's- a ruffly white pinafore over a dress of robin's egg blue. The billowing skirt came down to about knee-length to reveal stockings horizontally striped blue-and-white, like something out of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

By far the most unnatural aspect of the girl was her hair. Perhaps it was a trick of the wand-light, but her long hair was pink- bright pink, the pink of birthday cake flowers. If anything, that indicated that what they were dealing with was not human. She was not dead, and not alive. She simply was.

Dean and Seamus exchanged hesitant glances, totally unsure what to think.

"Who..." Dean felt the word escape his mouth.

"More like what." corrected Seamus, a glint of light catching his eye. It was reflected off some sort of pendant around the girl's neck, a pendant in the shape of a butterfly, set with a stone that reflected all the colours of the spectrum. Opal, perhaps? Whatever it was, it was giving of an almost magnetic power, one that slowly drew Seamus's hand towards it.

Cold. The butterfly was cold. And glowing. A blinding light overpowered the room, causing the two boys to fall a few steps backwards. Instantly they turned from the canopy bed, running as fast as they could towards the door-panel, forcing it back open and stumble back outside.

"See, didn't I tell you we could get back out?" Seamus insisted.

"Forget that." Dean told him. "That was too weird. What was that thing?"

"I don't know." Seamus shook his head. "But I don't think we'll see it again. We'll look it up in the library later." He looked at his watch. "Isn't there a Quidditch match in about five minutes? We should go get our cloaks and things, shouldn't we?"

"Right." Both of them were still a little shaken, only to get an even bigger shock when they got back to the Gryffindor tower. The Common Room and all the dorms were empty... or so they thought.

Seamus dug frantically through his trunk, searching for his red-and-gold scarf. It always seemed to missing the instant the weather got cold. "Now whatever happened to the bloody-" he muttered, but was interrupted by a voice from his bed.

"Are you Seamus?"

He turned around. It was the girl, sitting up, eyes wide open. They were blue, matching her dress as if painted with identical pigments.

"Bloody hell!" he screamed. "Dean! DEAN!!! SHE'S-"

Dean came running back into the room to find the mysterious girl alive, well, and standing across from Seamus Finnegan, whose face had totally lost colour. Seamus looked as if he were trying to say something, but couldn't.

"Are /you/ Seamus?" the girl turned to Dean and asked him.

"Um... he is." Dean was more than confused at this point, but at least he knew who his best friend was. Of course, if he had know the pink-haired girl was instantly going to embrace the boy, he wouldn't have told her, just for the sake of Seamus's sanity.

"What would you like?" asked the girl, after hugging Seamus warmly.

"I'm /queer/." Seamus said rather bluntly. "I'd like nothing. Just, please don't do that." Dean snickered. "Oh, shut up."

"Sorry. It's just... girls always seem to like the queer guys. I think it's funny." said Dean

"I don't." Seamus shivered, then turned to the girl. "Would you mind explaining who you are?"

"I'm a doll-spirit." she replied, as if reciting something before a class. "I am a magical familiar programmed to obey whoever wakes me. I can assist you in everything from spells to housework."

"Right." Seamus nodded. He'd look more up in the library later. "Can you be put back to sleep?"

"I can, but I can't tell you how. All I know is that I go unconscious before they put me to sleep." she explained.

"All right, I'll have to look that up, too. Dean, will you help me?"

"Sure." Dean agreed.

"This is Dean." Seamus told the girl. "He's my best friend. If you're going to listen to me, you should listen to him, too. Do you have a name?"

The girl curtseyed low, like a servant. "Some have called me Marionette."

Marionette... there was so much wrong with the name. It was a name that spoke of strings, blind obience, control... abuse. An unsettling feeling rested on Seamus's shoulders. There were disturbing details to Marionette's story, no doubt, and he didn't want to hear them.

Before he could find out anymore information, a shout from the behind the painting door in the Common Room was audible.

"LET ME BACK IN! LET ME BACK IN!!!"

Dean and Seamus exchanged a knowing glance. "Neville." they said in unison, suddenly realising that they were going to have a problem.

"If he sees Marionette..." began Dean.

"Can you hide?" Seamus asked the pink-haired doll-spirit.

"I will." She climbed into Seamus's trunk, curling into a ball. Feeling like he should just wake up from the nightmare already, Seamus shut the lid.

The nightmare was just beginning.

****