A Broken Inheritance

Chapter 84: Slow Compromises

She thinks this is it.

She thinks she's crossed the final threshold.

Survived the worst of it. Adapted. She thinks this new version of herself—the rational, stable, calculating girl who knows what she's done and lives with it—is enough.

She thinks she can endure this.

A life of slow compromises. Of sacrificing limbs and names and children she'll never meet in exchange for keeping a handful alive. She'll trade herself piece by piece if it means protecting Regulus. Him. Sirius. Anyone she's ever loved.

And she won't ask for help anymore. Not unless someone makes her.

She'll stay.

She'll stay with Tom. Stay in the role carved out for her like a curse. Because she thinks she can handle it.

And maybe she can.

But he knows how that story ends.

Not with a clean death. Not with some glorious sacrifice.

But with erasure.

It ends in silence.

It ends with a girl who vanishes, not all at once, but inch by inch—until there's nothing left but ritual and strategy and blood under her nails.

It ends with someone who no longer flinches because she no longer feels.

She'd make her trades quietly, strategically. Give an inch, take a breath, lose a finger, save a life. One calculated choice at a time.

She had let go of hope.

That was what terrified him most.

Not the ring she'd left on the desk. Not the names. Not even the calculated way she talked about death now, like it was a ledger to be balanced.

It was the fact that she believed she'd come to terms with all of it. That this version of herself—quiet, efficient, obedient in just the right ways—was a final form. A survival strategy turned permanent.

That this was what safety and control looked like.

His arms were still around her. Her cheek was warm against his chest. Her breathing had slowed, like she'd finally found stillness. Like she believed, on some level, that this was peace.

But it wasn't.

It was a slow burial.

And she didn't even realise she was the one holding the shovel.

His grip tightened around her.

Not protectively. Not possessively.

Desperately.

Because if he let her go—if he walked away from this room, this night—she wouldn't stop him. She wouldn't reach out. She wouldn't fight.

She would keep doing what she was doing now.

Choosing the fire over the house. Choosing the cage over the cost.

She would keep feeding herself to Tom in increments until there was nothing left but a name on a list and a whisper in someone else's memory.

She would become a ghost in her own body. A puppet with blood magic in her veins.

And one day, she wouldn't even remember how she got there.

His chest constricted. His hands curled into the fabric of her sleeves.

She didn't question it. Didn't ask why he was holding her tighter.

Of course she didn't. She was used to people clinging to her in the dark and letting go by morning.

And that—God—that nearly broke him.

Because she didn't expect to be rescued.

She didn't believe she was in a position that required any rescue at all.

She thought the most she could ask for was understanding. A quiet hand. A place to rest for the night before returning to the battlefield.

She had stopped planning for escape.

Stopped imagining it.

He thought of the ring. Of the garnet glint. Of Tom's hand on her elbow at the station. Of the way she hadn't flinched.

She had accepted it.

Not just the ring. Not just the title. The whole thing. The entire gilded cage.

She had accepted that she would never walk away. That the only thing she could do now was make the most noble sacrifices from inside the monster's mouth. That if she became small enough, careful enough, maybe she would die on her own terms.

She would rot from the inside out, and call it strategy.

She would vanish, and call it survival.

And James—still clutching her like she was about to slide through his fingers—knew, in that exact moment, that she would never leave on her own.

Even if she wanted to. Even if there was a part of her that still longed for the thing she gave up long ago: a life outside Tom Riddle's shadow.

She wouldn't do it.

Because she didn't believe there was anything left for her beyond this.

He would have to do it for her.

Not now. Not tonight. She wasn't ready. And he wouldn't be able to get her out, not without backup, not without consequences that would ripple far past this room, this year, this war.

But he knew, with terrifying certainty, that he could not let this stand.

He couldn't watch her calcify into a weapon for someone else's war.

Tom couldn't have her.

Not her mind. Not her magic.

Not this version of her that had been bled down to silence.

Dumbledore would need to intervene. The Order would need to move.

And James would need to be ready.

Because the girl in his arms?

She was already halfway gone.

She was rational. Sharp. Capable.

But she was not free.

And if they waited too long, she never would be again.

So he closed his eyes.

Held her tighter.

And began, silently, to plan.