The Alliance

March 1968

<Veronica POV>

"TRINGTRINGTRING"

The alarm woke me up. I fumbled around to stop the damn loud ringing. Once I had my hands on the bloody alarm clock I stopped the alarm and threw the annoying piece away. I head was in pain and the ringing only increased my irritation. I felt Aaryn nearby me on the floor and opened my eyes.

'That's not my home ceiling. Right, Sam had brought me here last night after the fight.', I thought as I got up and moved towards the bathroom. 'There is no one in this house except Sam and Me. Does he live alone?? There is no way. How could a kid live alone in a house. He will need money to buy things, to go to school, not to mention the gossip that will go around will make a person mad. Maybe his family is away on a vacation?? No that is not correct either. Which family leaves their 10 year old son alone in a house while they go on a vacation. There is some other reason I am missing here. Anyway, I should get my things from him and then go back home as soon as possible. I had called yesterday night to my grandparents that I am staying at my friends house but they will get suspicious if I am not there soon.', thinking that I came out of the bathroom having completed my morning routine.

As I and Aaryn walked downstairs to find Sam, I sensed the bond that I now shared with Aaryn. I could feel that he was positively happy and chipper this morning and was looking forward to a hearty meal. After all that exercise and fighting and the ritual that we went through last night I am not surprised. I myself am famished. I could also sense that he was tracking Sam since his smell was coming from downstairs, thus I let him lead me.

It was quite early in the morning, there was still an hour or two till breakfast but I wanted to get all the stuff sorted out and leave for home right after breakfast or grab a breakfast during the way. We came to a well furnished lounge where we found Sam standing in the middle of the room with a glass of what looked like juice in his hand. He was looking at the painting in front of him. I moved to stand with him and found myself staring at a painting of an ugly woman. But I did not know if he had any connection to the woman in the painting so I did not say anything.

Sam did not show any sign that he had taken notice of me standing beside him but I knew that he was aware. He then said," She is breathtakingly unattractive, but she is worth over twenty million pounds.", he said and I was shocked for a second. Then I could only say in exasperation," That is considered a masterpiece??".

Sam turned around and started to move towards the sofa while saying," Last night I got up for a scoop of some mango ice-cream and she caught my eye. I just stood here in the dark squinting at her in the dark. Poor thing, ruined my appetite. Even after I went back to bed, all I could hear was the hideous music that she must be playing. Could not sleep a wink.".

I could only look at the painting thinking about the amount of money it cost and had to ask," Why did you or your family buy it??".

He looked at me and said," Oh my God no, she's not mine. She belonged to some stockbroker who used to live here.". "I thought you lived here?", I replied, now thinking of all that blood that had been washed yesterday. If we were living in someone who could afford a 20 million pound painting, he could make out lives that much harder. I did not want to make more enemies than necessary, atleast until I got my revenge.

Sam smirked," Well, the house belongs to me now, or atleast one of my aliases. The stockbroker had it in his mind to try to hit on my mother. The guy was always creeping around her. He even had the gall to to come to my school one day to try to get information on my mother, like what she likes and dislikes. So I used some of my legilimency powers and then sent an anonymous letter to the police about all the shady things he was doing. As he came to know about the investigation, he ran away from the country. Meanwhile, I took some time and money and had the house and all of its contents registered in my name. Since I could easily get in I was also able to get all the papers for the various things here and then forging papers was all it took really.".

I must have had a stupid look on my face after hearing his story since he laughed at my reaction. 'This guy is actually took the entire house without paying a penny for it. And what a house. It has a painting worth 20 million pounds for god's sake. He has that much money and more sitting in his trunk. Should I be impressed at him or ashamed at me that the only things I have to my name are the things we stole yesterday. Even that I could only get because he was there. I was basically only an add-on to him. I am not sure how good my so called potion would be at this time against those werewolves.'.

Deciding to get the loot divided as soon as possible I said," Can we divide our loot now. I need to take everything and go back home.".

He looked at me for a second and then brought out the trunk from his pocket. 'Does he carry that around in his pocket all the time?? How paranoid is this guy??'.

I looked on in amazement as Sam put the trunk on the floor, expanded it and then opened the lock. I was surprised to find that there were stairs to go in the trunk. I had not noticed it last night. It looks like one of the expensive extended trunks that were mentioned in my books. Sam then gestured for me to enter and said," Please get inside my trunk". This time I smirked at him and said," OK, nobody has ever said that to me. Go on I will follow you into your trunk.", and I followed him in.

As I came down the staircase, I found myself looking at a packed bedroom with four doors. "Do you actually live here??", I asked.

"No, but it does make a good emergency camping house doesn't it?? I normally use it just for storage but I have been stocking it regularly for when I need to go to school. There is enough food to last 3 months, with salt and spices to go along with a lot of wine and beer and other drinks. Thanks to the charms that the original owner had put on it, there is no fear of all that food going bad. Anyway, we are not here for that. We are here for the mess you see in front of you. Let's segregate and divide it. Here, you had lost your pouch last night in the car. I got it back for you.", he replied and I snatched the pouch from his hands.

'I was wondering where it was.'. As we got to dividing the loot, we found that there was about 30 million pounds in cash, about 20 kilos of gold in the form of bars, biscuits and jewelry, a lot of diamonds, a whole host of different types of weapons and ammunition and about 10 million pounds in British Bonds. I whistled at the amount after we finished counting it. Now to divide it.

Sam actually surprised me when he said," OK, take half of everything here.". My surprise must have been evident from my face since asked," What??". Mentally berating myself, I employed my Occlumency to calm myself so that I do not make a fool out of myself and then said," I did not do much yesterday. You were the main driving force behind the fight. All I did was kill one heavily injured werewolf. You were the one who killed the other two, not to mention that you were the one who had sniped earlier and then used an RPG to blow most of them away. It is the only reason we did not have much of a fight afterwards. So why are you giving me half of it?? You could have asked for three-fourths of it and I would have agreed to the division.".

He looked at me for a moment before sighing and gestured at me to sit on the sofa by the fireside. He went through a door and came back with a bottle of juice and two glasses in his hand. 'That must be the kitchen then.', I thought, before accepting the glass and Sam poured orange juice for me and then for himself. He then sat opposite me and after taking a sip said," I am about to become eleven year old. This September 5th I will be eleven, after which I will go to Hogwarts, most probably. I am assuming you are also about the same age as me is that correct??". When I nodded he continued," We are going to get busy with our studies at Hogwarts soon and will not have time to look after all our enemies in the muggle world. Most of my enemies are outside Britain and I cannot travel outside for a significant amount of time atleast until I become seventeen. My Hogwarts studies will be completed by that time and I will be free to pursue my enemies without trouble. You also still have enemies don't you??".

I looked at him and focused on what I had learned last night after my liberal use of legilimency. I nodded at him and then said," Yes, my enemy is in America as of now and has a magical family backing him. I can't go after him for now and will most probably need to wait until after I am seventeen. Even then I think I will need a few years before I can actually kill him without any consequences since the family behind him will definitely try to protect him after what happened yesterday.".

Sam nodded at me and then said," And as both of us are going to go against a lot of people with a lot of power and we need to wait a long time before we can do so, I am proposing an alliance. An alliance between you and me. We can help each other in our time at Hogwarts and also after it when we will be going after our enemies. We are alone and we can help each other. What do you say??".

I was surprised that he wanted to work together. I asked," Why me?? Don't get me wrong, I agree to your idea of an alliance or a partnership between us, but why me. As I said, yesterday I have not done anything to warrant this sudden trust in my abilities. If anything I thought you will think of me as a burden.".

Sam looked at me and said," Don't sell yourself short. You were able to not only follow the guys from the cafe to the property, you were also prepared to fight. I looked through your pouch, there are an awful lot of liquids and solids of different types in them, labelled for different use. I believe that you just have not found the way to properly fight with what you have, otherwise you could have been as effective as me yesterday. Also, we are going to study in Hogwarts where we will learn a lot of magic and most importantly for you, potions. With magic you will be an excellent partner and given your talent in Potions, I have no doubt that you will easily surpass me. I have read a lot of books where a potion master can completely eradicate a small town just by having a proper arsenal of potions, so your talents have yet to be used properly. I do not have your talent in potions. I may be as good as the next wizard but I don't believe I have the talent to study potions in depth and make something new out of them. I can make the ones that will be taught and the ones in my books but to create the best potions and being able to research new potions is not my forte. It would help me if there is someone like you at that time.".

I mulled over what he said for a few moments. 'It is a fair deal. I would be able to focus on my specialties while learning what magic has to offer. Not to mention, he himself could teach me about fighting properly and I could teach him about potions if it comes to that. With us helping out and teaching each other it will be useful even during our time at Hogwarts.'. Looking at Sam I nodded and said," You are correct. There seems to be benefits for both of us. But be sure, if I get the chance to get my revenge even a second earlier I will not have you trying to hold me back from taking it. Even if we are in an alliance you do not hold any power over me, is that clear??".

Sam's eyes twinkled in amusement as he said," Crystal. Now that we are partners, I should probably inform you of two things. Both of these are also reasons for why I thought of an alliance between us. First, after last night's massacre both my enemies which is the organisation called Hollow Cores and your enemies which I believe is the D'Antonio main family will get together to find out who killed all of those guys from yesterday. They will in the end most probably reach some sort of deal or they may co-operate for some time to find out. So there is a chance that the next time we go out to fight we will be facing both of their forces at the same time.", he stopped here to give me time to process the information and I thought that it was reasonable. I nodded at him to go and he said," The second reason is about Hogwarts itself. I have read from both the books that I have and from the minds of those guys from yesterday and got a lot of information about the school itself. There is a reason most of the magical families do not want to make Britain their territory, and that is because of the pureblood families of Britain. Basically, pureblood families are those that have been around for a long time. It also has a lot of connotations about purebloods that I will go into details sometime later, but the bottom line is, these purebloods, not all of them but most of them, are blood supremacists. Their opinion is that all muggleborns are trash and should be thrown out of the magical communities as they are not worthy of magic and they put themselves on a pedestal portraying themselves as superior than all of the others. Their behavior is not only limited to Muggleborns however, as they use this behavior to justify their racist views against all of the other magical species as well. So we as Muggleborns are going to have a lot of problems from purebloods and they have a lot of gold and possesses a lot of hold on both the Ministry of Magic and the economy of the magical Britain. Thus it is better to have an alliance so that we can help each other.".

I nodded about the information that he told me, since I had also read about them in the books and then decided to ask him," So now that we are partners, what do you think we should do?? I would have just gone back to study my parents books but I want to know about your thoughts. I would like to learn about fighting both physically and with Guns as well. We have a lot of guns and ammo now and I would like to learn about them.".

Sam thought for some time and then replied," It would be good if you started atleast some physical fight training. I will also share with you my books. I have a lot of books on various magical topics that will be helpful to you. Let's also meet every week on Saturday so that I can train you on various fighting techniques and also we can study magic together. It will only help us in the long run.". With that we went out of the trunk and moved to have breakfast after which Sam gave me some books on Potions and Magical Plants to go back and read in my spare time. We exchanged telephone numbers of our homes and then parted ways. We would meet again on the next Saturday.