I was roused slowly from my sleep, the lack of solid ground beneath me becoming apparently clear as I flexed my fingers, grasping for a sheet, a mattress, the stones of the floor. Instead, I grasped at the air and nothing else. Nothing of substance supported my neck or back as I opened my eyes, staring up into the darkness at what I assumed was a ceiling. The room was filled with a buzz, a collective whisper of indistinguishable voices. I was floating.
"Wake up!" The voice that shrieked at me was cruel, a sound that managed to be worse than nails on a chalkboard. It pierced my eardrums, causing me to flinch.
"She is awake" a cold, calm voice announced. A soft thud of feet on solid floor and the whooshing of long robes approached.
I had already deduced that I was likely being levitated, but beyond my fingertips, I was unable to move a muscle. I fought for a moment, begging my arms to relax from my sides, but it was of no use. I was also under the influence of a full-body bind. I was suddenly brought to a vertical angle, finally able to catch a glimpse of my dark surroundings. It was what I could only describe as a boardroom, furnished with a long table which was lined with chairs, many of which were occupied by masked individuals. Death eaters. Deep red velvet was draped over the windows, the only light in the room coming from a chandelier with five large candles.
"Ms. Connors" the cold voice hissed as he approached. I assumed that it was a he, but I had never seen a man who looked so inhuman before. His face was long and gaunt, void of any hair, and dotted with red cat-like eyes. His mouth was a thin line, pulling up at the corners in disgust. "You are Ms.Connors, correct?"
"Maybe" I whispered and he drove his wand into the soft flesh of my side. "Yes" I gave in all too quickly. I glanced around the room once more, taking into inventory the bodies present. Eight individuals sat at the table. The figure of a women stood in the corner, her wand raised at me. A nest of red hair was piled on top of her head, a shade of red which in comparison to the Weasleys, and Kelly, had to be unnatural. A messy coat of lipstick was smeared across her lips, a shade that nearly matched her hair. She must have been the one restraining me, smiling widely as I fought against the binds.
"Do you know how I am?" he asked.
A victim of a transfiguration spell gone wrong? No, not time to be joking Acelynne, you know who this man is.
I gave him a weak nod. The corners of his mouth twisted up into what must have been something akin to a smile, the sharps of his teeth barred. "Do you know why you are here?" I nodded again.
"Please don't kill me" I had finally found my voice, but it was weak. The room suddenly boomed with mocking laughter, the men leaning backwards in their seats. I took this time to search out other faces in the crowd. The long white hair gave him away quickly. Lucious Malfoy, too, was here.
"Of course we are going to kill you!" the red-headed woman cackled. "You AND your filthy blood-traitor of a father."
"We don't take too kindly to traitors" a short, round man with buckteeth commented from the corner, his beady eyes gleaming with delight.
"Not quite yet" Voldemort turned his back to me, waving a long, bony hand above his head. "Remove this thing from my sight." With those final words, he collapsed into a chair, facing the window.
I was unceremoniously dropped to the ground, still bound, as the manic woman continued to cackle with delight. From behind, I was grabbed from under my arms and yanked to my feet. They stayed hidden behind me, dragging me out of the room and down a dark corridor. I was eventually led to a cell and tossed sideways onto a mattress on the floor. Thats when I saw his face.
His typically scruffy hair was slicked backwards, making his ice-blue eyes even clearer in the dark. But it was certainly him. "Antoine?" I whispered, but he hardly acknowledge my words. He slammed the cell door closed between us, the click of the lock echoing off of the walls.
"Don't pretend that you're surprised" his voice lacked the thick french accent I had grown so used to.
"... I.... But...All this time?" He rolled his eyes and fingered his wand in his belt loop absently.
"All this time" he laughed, leaning back again the wall opposite the door. "You know, Acelynne. You're far too trusting." I sat there in disbelief, utterly lost for words. "I mean, I figured that after those two sad excuses for a Slytherin got themselves booted out, that you wouldn't dare come near one of the likes of us again."
"Were they were a part of this too?"
"Not initially. But what do you expect happens to a couple of Hogwarts drop outs, hmm? They're here now, if you want to say hi." A shiver ran down my spine as I absently touched the faded scar across my forehead.
"But what was more amazing than your naivety, was the threshold for which your friends, and that stupid ginger, had for tolerating your bullshit! How hard could it be, I thought, to drive a wedge between a teenage girl and her friends?"
"What are you talking about?"
He laughed again, this time without humour. "My dear, it was as simple as a bit of potion in a water bottle. That's all it took for you to momentarily blow up every relationship you had, after seeing George and my dear friend, Marie. Now SHE was simple minded. Put up no effort whatsoever to my Imperious spell."
He stroked his scruff thoughtfully as he paced around the room. "But even after all of the chaos you seem to cause around you, that Weasley scum still preferred you, over her. No offence, Ace, but its not exactly the same choice I would have made."
My mind was spinning. Perhaps from the physical trauma, but also I'm sure partially from this convoluted story that Antoine was spinning. "Wait. So it wasn't my fault that I said all of those nasty things?"
"Well... it wasn't anything you hadn't thought before. My potion just helped with the delivery." He seemed amused with himself. "But like I said, I didn't anticipate that they'd take you back so quickly. I was supposed to come to your aid, convince you that you had nobody left to care for you there, and we were to run away together... But clearly that didn't work out, now did it?"
He sighed and leaned in, pressing his face against the steel bars of the cell. "Oh well. Tt doesn't matter now, does it? We still managed to get you here. And soon, your father will too." So he wasn't here yet. There was still time to save him.
"And eventually, we'll get them all. Each and every single one of your silly little friends. I think I'm going to take particular enjoyment in torturing that blood-traitor of a Weasley. The entire lot of them actually. They disgrace the name of magic."
I shifted in my seat, beginning to regain control of my limbs again. And that was when I felt it, the familiar sharp point of the end of my wand, poking at the arch of my foot. They hadn't of thought to search my boots for my wand, perhaps thinking it lost in the shuffle when they had snatched me? But no... I still had my wand.
"Expelliarmus!" I didn't think it was possible to draw my wand so quickly, the first spell I could think of falling from my lips.
Antoines wand went flying the the opposite direction of his body, and he crashed to the floor. It felt like only a moment later that the door at the end of the corridor was kicked open, the red-headed woman barreling in, shrieking like a banshee. Without permission, my wand too flew from my hand.
"You insolent little bitch" the woman whispered and took a step towards me.
And that's when I felt it. The deep, searing pain of what I could only imagine to be the Cruciatus Curse. It felt as though I had been ablaze, all the while being ripped apart from the inside. I imagined all of my bones snapping in unison as I writhed on the floor, unable to do anything else but scream.
"Go ahead and cry!" she said. "Nobody can hear you." It was all too easy to let the tears fall from my eyes.
The pain seemed to go on forever, my throat quickly growing hoarse from my volume. When my throat was so raw that I could no longer utter a noise, she stopped, seemingly bored, she picked up my wand and left. She left me alone in the dark, not a single source of light to be found.
In desperation, and possibly insanity, I tried to reach George's mind with my own.
George, don't come looking for me. I'm sorry. I love you.
This was all in vain, of course, seeing as I was no in the slightest bit psychic. But the thought of speaking to him, if only in my head, gave me some sort of comfort.
The effects of the curse had left me feeling as if I had fallen off of my broom from the highest of heights. Barely able to lift my head,, I managed to drag myself into the corner, the farthest I could get away from the cell door. I don't know how long it took me to drag myself those three feet but it seemed like a million years. It hurt to blink. To breathe.
I tried to imagine myself, in Georges arms in the orchard, warm and safe. This was the thing I clung to as I tried to keep myself from entirely losing whatever pieces of my mind I was able to retain.
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"Sectumsempra!" Alexi yelled at me with a flick of her wand. Alexi was the red-headed woman, I heard learned through eavesdropping on conversations of nearby death eaters. It seemed that her single job was to provide me with an immeasurable amount of pain.
After experiencing the pain of the Cruciatus curse, I welcomed this form of torture. Deep gashes formed across my torso, warm blood running down my legs and onto the floor. I fought against my shackles, rubbing the skin of my wrists raw. I would take a thousand cuts, if it meant I'd hear those Unforgivable words again.
But I did, routinely. No matter how many times she cursed me, it felt as though my head was being split open by a blunt, heavy object. It never did, but that's what it felt like as my bones, yet again, caught on fire.
How many days I had been here? I had begun to lose count. I had taken to guessing how many days had past, attempting to leave scratches in the stone wall to mark them, but without a window, I couldn't be sure.
My wounds remained open and the blood drained from me, and my head began to grow lighter. I grew so light that I feared I would float away. Eventually the lull of sleep would pull me under. Somedays, I wished that I had never woken up.
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It wasn't any place special. Just a normal muggle park in a normal muggle suburb with a swing set, a slide and a wide open field. It wasn't a place I had been before, or a place that I'd ever even seen, but just a place. It was peaceful. Calm. It was someplace that I wanted to be.
"Acelynne?" his voice said from behind me. "What's wrong?"
Immediately I ran into his chest and let out a sign of relief. "Tell me what's wrong, love."
"They are going to kill me, George!" I sobbed and he rubbed my back gently.
"What are you talking about, dear? Nobody can hurt you, not when you're here with me" he picked me up and held me tight. "I promise, it was all just a bad dream."
Had it really just been a dream? He dipped his head down to kiss me and I closed my eyes, unable to block out the bright green light hurdling in from behind him.
I attempted to throw him out of the way and take the curse instead, but I was a second too late. His eyes were empty as he toppled to the grass, frozen in time. It was all my fault.
Alexi was standing across the field. She brought her wand up again, and sent that same green light towards me. I didn't step out of the way. I welcomed the light as it engulfed me, instead...