Baby Does Bad Things

Zada stood out in Diagon Alley today. Well, Zada usually stood out. How many women. after all, could make olive green look exceptional? Zada had been designed to be exceptional from the moment her parents thought about having a child. She had become accustomed to turning heads everywhere she went and barely took notice of it anymore. It was expected. The last man who hadn't found her exceptional, well, he wasn't finding anyone exceptional anymore.

She had gone into some little bottom basement potionsworks in Knockturn, fried one of the women who looked to Zada like nothing more than a glorified cauldron stirrer, and had done it without so much as getting one of her pretty blond hairs out of place. She left with the entire contents of the one single bottle of the most rare potions herb the potionsworks had, paying half of the market value for it, and had tucked it into the stylish designer clutch bag she carried. She did so love the sizzle of smoldering flesh in the morning--if it belonged to someone who irritated her.

Ah, but the morning was still early. It was crisp and fresh and new and clean. As clean as Diagon Alley ever was. She could hear Big Ben off in the muggle section. It was chiming 9 am. She felt like a cup of decent tea. She decided to go and critique the so called gourmet bakery and see if the tea was halfways up to her standards. She stepped inside the bistro owned by the goody-goody daughter of the Minister and chose not to wait to be seated by the hostess. She chose the best table and snapped her fingers. She ordered an Earl Grey and an almond scone and settled back to look at her watch to time the little waitress to see if she was worth frying for tardiness with her tea or if she was worth the sparing.

The stylish French robes hung around Athena’s figure like they’d been sewn onto her. They fit like a glove and accentuated every flattering curve on her body as well as smoothing over the not so flattering ones. Her silvery-blue eyes, rimmed with kohl, swept across Diagon Alley from the top of Knockturn. Having spent the morning with her father in Borgin and Burke’s, Athena was rather looking forward to something a little less dark and dingy. Of course the place exuded the Dark Arts (that part she loved) but it was just a little bit too dirty. It reminded her of the squalor Muggles lived in, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Those two compulsory years of Muggle Studies did teach Athena something but nothing more than she already knew; and that was that Muggles were dirty filthy creatures and Mudbloods were dirty, filthy, magic-stealing heathens. So, to recap, she learned very little more than she already knew.

The hustle and bustle going on around Athena did not interest her; neither did she have the patience to try and find something to pique some interest. Still, she did have a few things to do. Inside the silk, plum-coloured pouch that had been tucked into her robes laid Galleons that she and her father had taken from Gringotts that morning. They had hastened for neither Athena nor her father wanted to spend more time than necessary with those wrinkly midgets. There was myth that if you stayed among them too long then you’d become one of them. Athena was just glad that it was only a myth. She didn’t want to become a walking, grumbling, wrinkly half-breed.

Sighing with discontent, Athena stepped out into the crowded street and dashed out of the way of a group of inconsiderate, gormless Mudbloods who were staring -- typical. Athena muttered something detrimental to the group under her breath before pushing some of her hair out of her eyes. She inclined her head and waltzed into Flourish and Blott’s determined to look every bit her father’s Pureblood Princess. And she was; don’t think for a second that she wasn’t. The manager, intelligently, knew this well enough to plaster a doting look on his face when she stepped through the door, her robes swishing around her.

A satisfied smirk appeared on Athena’s face and she drifted towards the back of the shop where the books on the Dark Arts were. She’d peruse the shelves every time she came to Diagon Alley and every time the manager seemed to be a little more terrified of her. It was as if he knew she had a Dark Arts repertoire that was more than enough to fill a few books. Well, Athena thought, At least he isn’t in denial.

Sitting at the table in the bistro, Zada saw a little pitiful excuse of a man who followed a handful of people into the bookstore. It raised her beautiful hackles. The worm owed Zada money and not a small amount either. She had allowed him to work it out, but the idiot was useless to her. It was time to collect. She left the bistro, carrying the cup she had simply taken off the table and had crossed her way over to the bookstore and went inside. The owner attempted to voice a protest at Zada for bringing coffee into the bookstore and Zada flicked her wand at her and erased the mouth off the store owner's face. She left the nose, out of generosity, but it would at the very least take a trip to St. Mungos to put some lips back on the woman's face.

She found the worm in question who immediately fell to groveling on the floor between the atlases and the biographies. She flicked her wand at him and transfigured him into a scrub brush to scrub her floors. She would not entirely nullify his existence until he did not owe her anymore. Her eyes caught sight of a reprobate of a man who appeared to be tailing some young thing that was heading for the Dark Arts section. Well, now that was interesting. He clearly had good intentions pushed to the nether regions of his mind where it came to the rather attractive looking young student. Zada's interests were peaked. She decided to tail him but to keep a respectable distance. The girl did look old enough to at least know perhaps a spell or two. Zada did not plan to intervene unless she believed she needed to, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. Was this nincompoop a better wizard than the young student? Doubtful. Or could the child take care of herself?

Was the person following her really idiotic enough not to think that she’d know he was following her? As complicated as that sentence sounded, it made sense in Athena’s brain and the answer was, as she thought: yes. He was getting a little too close for comfort but the closer he got, the further concealed they became. What he didn’t realise was that she was leading him to his death. How cliché. Either way, it was the truth and he was going to have to deal with a few things before she was done with him. Until that moment though, that precise moment, Athena let her close in on her to the point where she could feel his breath against her neck.

Her hackles rose and she felt his hands grip her hips painfully. She couldn’t quite let that smirk leave her lips though. She pursed her lips and closed the book in her hands. As the man’s face swept in again, Athena turned in his arms, clubbing him around the head with the weighty book. The man gave a yelp and Athena dropped the book, taking her wand from her pocket as she did so. She cast Silencio on him and advanced, binding his wrists and feet with a spell Apolline had taught her. The man fell to his knees and the binds reached out, winding around one of the columns and pulling him against it.

“Were you truly stupid enough to think you could place your disgusting paws on this body?” Athena hissed, advancing on him. Sweat broke out on his forehead and a sadistic wave of pleasure erupted from inside of her. Athena gave a short, throaty laugh and pointed her wand at him. The Basilisk core fizzled with power inside the wood and a beam of light appeared at the end. The man began to struggle and he could only do but watch as the pretty girl’s face was illuminated by the eerie light. “Scream,” she commanded before grounding out, “CRUCIO!” and of course, the man obliged but no one heard. They weren’t to know until he was dead.

"Oi! Paulie!" Zada heard a cockney voice calling from a few aisles behind them. "Paulie! Where have you been, Mate?" the voice called again. She heard approaching footsteps. The child's trophy, it appeared, had a friend, and she was about to be discovered. Zada had no idea why she was doing it, but she rounded the shelf and came forward into the main aisle of the bookshop finding herself almost nose to nose with the unsuspecting wizard.

He looked at Zada, and she could see that, had it been capable, his eyes would have bugged out of his head. "Well, well, Beautiful, where have you been all my life?" he asked, standing still, looking totally captured by her eyes.
Zada wasn't good at relationships but she was good at seduction. She turned on her best smiled, and she saw him melting in front of her. The pick up line, though was old and cliche. That really was a killable offense. No one should really be able to use those old lines anymore, Zada thought.

"And imagine me," she gushed in false flattery, "finding someone as handsome as you in this natty old bookstore. Forgive me for being forward, but..." She leaned forward and placed one slow, seductive kiss onto his lips silently, as she pressed her wand into his chest and fired, nonverbally, the Avada Kedavra into his heart. He fell like a stone at her feet. She turned and stepped over him and walked back to the child and her quarry.

"Always look out for backup if you're going to do something like that," Zada told her quietly. She folded her arms, leaned back against the bookshelf and lazily crossed one elegant heel over the other. "So what exactly shall we do with him, then, my young prodigy?" The girl had enough potential to impress Zada, and nobody impressed Zada anymore. That, in itself, said a great deal about the student in front of her.

If Athena's father were to find out then the man before her would be unrecognisable when her father was finished with him - providing there was anything left. She wasn’t quite finished with this man yet though. She could let her father have the rest if he wanted but she didn’t want to be hauling a corpse around Diagon Alley. So perhaps it was better just to leave him when she was finished. She was fairly sure the manager would enjoy the little gift; the cleaner perhaps...not so much. But who was she to deny them the right to do their jobs? They were paid for their labour weren’t they? Athena hoped to Merlin it wasn’t much looking around. The dust was already settling on her shoes.

Lifting her wand once more, Athena stepped forth. Her foot came down on the man’s exposed hand and she let her weight dip onto that side. She watched with thinly veiled glee as the man’s face contorted with agony and she flicked her wand, applying more pressured to the Cruciatus that he was already enduring. That particular spell was Athena’s specialty. Apolline would be quick to mention that about her among other things. But that was one thing to always point out. The Cruciatus Curse was like her signature spell. It hit all the right points and with gentle, leisurely flicks, she could inflict more and more pain. Just as Athena moved to give him another bout, a green glow was extended to the alcove she’d taken him into.

Whirling around, Athena’s wand found a woman, blonde, stepping over the dead body of a man that had otherwise gone unnoticed by Athena. If she’d have noticed him then he would have been in the same position he was now; and it was doubtful he would be in the same state. No one snuck up on her. The dead man’s little friend was learning that quite well. The woman’s voice broke Athena’s concentration ever so slightly but she did not turn and her eyes certainly did not leave the man. She did, however, release the pressure she was putting on his hand. He seemed to appreciate it; until she reinforced the Cruciatus.

“Not necessarily,” Athena spoke, her eyes hardening as she watched the man squirm. She wasn’t entirely sure what to do with him, though. “It’s a tossup between castration and oblivation or just straight up death.” Athena knelt down and pushed the tip of her wand against his head. “I think I know which one you’d prefer, darling.” She hissed at him.

Zada's ears perked up as she heard a rather rowdy bunch of men coming through the store. She looked from behind the bookcase and recognized some of them. Death Eater wannabes mostly. But that was potential trouble. And here she was with a child who was taking her sweet time disposing of an offensive.

"Make it quick, my darling," Zada said in a hushed tone to the young student. "Or you're liable to finish your schooling in Azkaban." She flicked her own wand at the dead man--her second kill of the morning--and disapparated him deep into the forbidden forest. A slight smirk of amusement crossed her face as she envisioned some unsuspecting students getting the fright of the day when they discovered him.

The voices grew closer. Theses men were just looking for some reason to impress Thaor Elldir in order to get their admission passes to Malfoy Manor. She really did not want to allow that to happen on her account or the student.

"You have about two seconds," Zada told her firmly. If the student did not finish business, Zada would.

The prospect of castration sat as well with the man as Athena thought it would. She smirked, reapplying pressure to his hand, and cast a look over at the blonde whose eyes were drawn to a group of men that Athena vaguely recognised. They were some of the men that wanted access to Malfoy Manor and they’d gone through her father the first time to try and get that. She didn’t know what they were doing there now but she wasn’t going to wait to find out. The woman had a point. She wouldn’t have long. So, Athena decided to use her time wisely. She gave the man a smirk and watched as he struggled in silence as her wand pressed firmly against his temple. Her lips parted, clawing back over her teeth, and they moved gently, as if the curse wasn’t about to fall from them.

“Avada...Kedavra!”

There was a flash of green light and Athena stepped back. She kicked the limp, lifeless figure and flicked her wand, releasing the bonds.

"How much time now?" She asked the blonde, ready to slip into the shadows of the bookshop if necessary. "Show me how to get rid of the body," She demanded suddenly, her eyes turning warily back to the dead man.

"None," Zada replied, "Lessons later, Darling." She flicked her wand and disapparted the body into the forest, hopefully, if her aim was true, somewhere close to the first one. She had hoped the second might land near enough to the first to look like a duel gone totally amiss. She walked boldly up to the child and pasted on a smile. "Now, smile with Auntie Zada," she coached her, "and just walk out as if it was your favorite holiday. Lets see if we can look not guilty, shall we?"

She motioned for the girl to follow her through the archaic bookstore, and didn't even give a second look to the crowd gathered around the woman at the cashwrap who had no lips. She walked out into the morning sunshine, hoping the young girl had been intelligent enough to follow her before someone accused them of something.

The girl had promise, and Zada liked that. She did know, however, that if she were to come to her true power, she'd need some coaching. Some mentoring. Zada had mentored others to a given point, and then they had left to try to conquer the world on their own. This one, however, was different. She took a sip from her cup, found her tea had gone cold in the goings on in the bookstore and flicked her cup into nothingness with a couple of fingers from her opposite hand. Little Miss Goody-Goody might just have to buy another for her bistro. It was no loss.

Athena would have been a rotten liar if she had said she wasn’t miffed about not being able to transport the body. Still, she’d killed him and that would certainly impress her father when she wrote to him. She’d heard his complaint to her mother about her being ‘too soft’. This would soon prove otherwise. He was a fool to think even for a second that she was as obsessed with marriage and money as some Pureblood girls were. Sure that was always in the back of her mind but it had to be. Her mother was trying to force suitors down her throat all the time and no matter how many times she’d turned one down, soon after five more would crop up. Athena wasn’t particularly interested in any of them honestly and she doubted she ever would be.

Pulling herself from her thoughts, Athena looked at the woman. Following suit, Athena threw a smile onto her face and turned on her expensive heels before walking after the woman. She seemed to know what she was doing and Athena wasn’t going to question it. She would be leaving soon, though. After this little escapade, returning into the welcoming arms of Hogwarts seemed like an opportunity too good to pass up.