Light in the Darkness

Chapter 49

"Adelaide Burke, you have failed me terribly. You give me no other choice." Voldemort announced.

She felt her stomach drop as she sat at the end of the long table in the Malfoy Manor. Suddenly large ropes appeared, tying her down tightly to her chair. She was shaking in fear as the long line of Death Eaters glared at her. Her parents stared at her with a look of pure disgust. Her brothers sat blankly gazing at the Dark Lord.

"P-Please...Give me another chance. I'll do anything. I won't fail you ever again, I promise." she pleaded, beginning to cry.

"Silence! You disgusting excuse for a witch." The Dark Lord boomed, causing everyone to tense up.

She looked over to Draco who sat next to his father and mother, looking just as terrified as she felt. He quickly diverted his eye contact from her.

"Draco, please." she cried, causing him to look up nervously. His eyes filled with sadness, she could see his breathing beginning to shorten

"Nagini, Dinner is served." he whispered, smiling cruelly as the monstrous snake made its way down the table.

Adelaide struggled against her restraints, she screamed for Draco or her brothers to save her, but they stayed put. Draco looked nervously at the snake, Philip looked at her like a piece of garbage, and Perseus smirked.

The snake slithered murderously towards her and the last thing she saw was its sharp fangs launching at her and she jerked awake finding Draco over top of her, shaking her. "Addie, wake up..it's just a dream. It's ok, you're safe."

She felt the tears covering her face and she was shaking violently. She slowed her breathing and wiped away her tears quickly.

This was the fourth nightmare she had this week. She had been working at the Ministry for over two months now and was no closer to completing her task as she was when she first started.

One unspeakable was somehow able to resist Lucius' imperius curse resulting in him being permanently comatose. They were simply at a loss of what to do and Adelaide couldn't move in on Harry Potter because he was under a constant watch from someone in the Order.

She began to have these awful recurring nightmares about a month ago of Voldemort killing her because she didn't complete her task. It got so bad that Draco had to sleep on the couch in her room, so he could wake her up from her dream and make sure she was ok.

"Was it the same dream?" he asked softly.

Adelaide bit her lip and nodded, a few more tears leaking from her eyes.

He held her close to him, softly stroking her hair. "It's just a dream. I would never let that happen to you, ok?" he whispered.

"Even if I have to drag Potter from the depths of the dumb Order myself, you'll complete the task and nothing bad will happen to you. I promise."

She felt terrible that he had to literally stay in the same room as her and put up with her crying from her dreams all the time, but she was eternally grateful. She quickly fell asleep next to the warmth of Draco's arms and thankfully didn't have the same dream. There was no way she would've been able to go back to sleep if she were on her own and she needed to sleep in order to work efficiently in the Ministry.

—-

She had gained the trust of the Unspeakables, especially Marietta without the use of her necklace. They sensed that she would make a good unspeakable if she truly wanted the job, she had a strong connection with the death department. Most people were nervous around the ominous gateway, but Adelaide felt comfortable around it and took time to understand it. She found it was a matter of respecting the power it had rather than being afraid of it.