Maryrose's Mind
Maryrose Jenkins hung from Rudolphus Lestrange's arms, kicking as she thought a little girl of four might do. She cried and wailed and beat at Rudolphus's arms with her fists, demanding to be put down with more nerve than she truly felt. "Putmedown! Putmedown! Putmedown!!" she shrieked, though she knew perfectly well that Rudolphus Lestrange would do no such thing. She failing, kicking her feet out to press against the wall and attempt to throw Rudolphus off his balance on the stairs, and he roared in aggrevation as Walburga Black looked on, an expression of shock on her face. In all the time that Lucy Minchum had been in her care, this was the most the child had said or done yet.
Rudolphus slammed through the door labeled R.A.B., and sure enough everything had been blasted quite a lot about the room. Feathers, just as James had imagined, were strewn about, fluttering neatly through the air still, even as Rudolphus shoved his way in. The gobstones tablet was shattered, the stones themselves rolling about across the floor (this was what had made Kreacher go into the kitchen and punish himself - the destruction of his precious Master Regulus's gobstones set). Wallpaper hung torn and ragged and the lanterns flickered, as though only barely holding onto their flame. Voldemort stood in the center of the mess, back to, wearing long robes that billowed with a cold, cold draft of air that came up through the vents in the floor. He was holding a tiny glass quidditch player in his hand - a trinket Regulus had gotten at the World Cup when they'd gone for Sirius's birthday - and the poor little figure was trying desperately to climb out of the fist Voldemort had made around him.
"I've found her, sir, she was hidin' in the library," grunted Rudolphus and he threw Maryrose to the floor violently so that she hit the wood flooring on her hands and knees and scraped her palm on a knot in the panels. She looked up and her eyes met Voldemort's and she shied back, whimpering. She wasn't even pretending at that, she really was afraid. She crawled back toward Walburga and Rudolphus but with a flick of his wand, the Dark Lord flipped her over onto her back with a loud thump and he stared down at her.
Voldemort mused quietly, his voice humming lowly and he looked toward the door and he smirked and whispered, "I see you are afraid."
She whimpered as a response.
She didn't know what she would do, only that she had time to think to figure it out. Voldemort was there to take Lucy Minchum away... he'd had Kreacher pack a bag to bring, so Voldemort did not plan on murdering her - at least not right away. All she had to do was act convincingly enough to fool him into believing her to be Lucy Minchum and she could figure out the rest when she got to wherever the destination was. She could find a way to send a message to Hogwarts, to James, for him to come and help her there. She could find a way to escape. She could do a hundred different things. But right now she had to be a terrified four year old girl, that was all she had for a plan.
She hoped that James had been smart and run for it, that he'd taken Lucy Minchum out of the house and run as fast and as hard as he could. She hoped he'd bring that medallion back to Regulus Black and that Regulus Black would know that he was brave as any Gryffindor, and that he would understand why she'd done what she'd done. She hoped he wouldn't take offense. She hoped he wouldn't hate James for it. It'd been her idea, her plan, her move. James had looked just as horrified as he ever could've when she'd leaped out from behind that curtain. She hoped, too, that, if something did happen to her, neither boy would blame himself.
Maryrose lay there, at the foot of the Dark Lord looming over her, and she thought about the wellbeing of other people.
Because that's what people like Maryrose do.
They give and give until there's nothing left.
The Dark Lord made a face.
He was so pale, as though barely any blood ran through his veins, Maryrose noticed, and she wondered if perhaps he was just so evil that he'd ceased to truly live at all. Perhaps he was so much evil embodied that he'd become a walking corpse, like the inferius in the bottom of the lake in the cave by her house. She shivered and closed her eyes.
"What do you know of that cave?" he hissed.
Maryrose opened her eyes.
The Dark Lord's eyes were searing into her, narrowed and flashing with anger and suspicion. "What do you know of that cave?"
"Nothing!" she squeaked.
"LIES!" he shouted and he grabbed her up by the jumper, swinging her from the floor so that he was hoisting her up and she let out a terrific shriek of shock and pain as her limbs flew about helplessly, floppy as a rag doll and he held her up, glaring up at her. His forehead puckered and he seemed to be concentrating quite hard and that's when Maryrose felt it.
PIctures running through her mind.
Flashes of thoughts. Of memories. Of places and people and things. Of her life, of her heart. There was James Potter and the stag in the woods and the glow of the castle windows. There was Regulus, though only in a flash, with sunflowers and hippogriffs and there were plants, long tangles of vines from the Herbology greenhouses and the stars, her telescope, her textbooks, her sister and Xenophilius kissing before a bonfire, the flicker of the flames reflecting off the wide ocean and the breaking of white foam against stone. James Potter and their footprints leading off into the dark and the roar of thundering waves, far more violent than the ones lapping the shore, but these were crashing against the rock face far off down the beach from her home, smashing against the outcropping and gullies of rocks that created the cove that went down into the cave at the foot of the cliff.
I dare you! Double dog dare you! the echo of Pandora, when they were little... Two girls in pretty dresses, balancing in patent leather shoes and lacey white socks, standing on algae covered rocks, so far from where their parents thought they were. Pandora's voice sing-songed the dare and Maryrose, the tomboy of the two, climbing down over stones and rocks and into darkness...
The cave was darker than night. Glowing pale and eerie from what little light it got. The walls rough, hewn by time and water, and far, far above was the overhanging cliff. There were terrible stories told about that cliff, horrible stories. Ghost stories that all the children in the area fully believed, their parents having told them repeatedly. The older kids - the ones 'round Pandora's age - they didn't believe it. "They only tell you that to keep you from going 'round the cave, see," one little boy in the town had told them one morning, "Full of pirate's treasure, it is. Been down there meself and seen it. Loads of gold and rubies as big as yer head!" Maryrose slid over the rocks - exactly the way she'd taken James in the summer, at her birthday. She slid her palm over the wall and let it guide her along and she'd looked into the black water and seen faces... Hundreds of faces, just floating and staring back up at her. She'd run screaming from the cave, crying, desperately crawling her way back out... But she'd stumbled and it was in this way that she'd found the Secret Room... she'd pushed against the rock in desperation to get away from the face and the rock had opened and she'd fallen though to find a deep lake, even deepr than the one in the mouth of the cavern, a lake that stretched away beneath the ground as far as her eyes could see through the dark... and Merlin knew how many knots deep...
And there was a flash - a new face - a new thing to see - a boy, a teenage boy with wild hair and thick black glasses... a little girl upon his back... the Minchum girl... on the back of the Potter boy... on the stairs of this very house...
Voldemort dropped her to the floor and she hit her knees on the wood.
"There is a boy downstairs, Walburga, and he steals our bounty," Voldemort snarled suddenly.
Walburga looked up, "What?"
"THE POTTER BOY IS HERE!" The Dark Lord whipped his wand at Rudolphus, "GO, YOU IDIOT. STOP HIM." As Rudolphus leaped to his feet, Voldemort looked at Maryrose with narrowed eyes.
Rudolphus leaped to his feet, rushing to the stairwell, having not even a clue what he was doing until he got out ot the landing and saw - there was James Potter, with - with a second Minchum girl upon his back. The Potter Boy looked up. Rudolphus let out a shout - a war cry, and he ran down the stairs, drawing his wand.
"Bloody hell," James choked and he turned so that Lucy was behind him and clutched her with one arm while drawing his wand with the other, aiming for Rudolphus as Rudolphus aimed for him... "Stupefy!" he shouted, and the spell missed, as he had to duck to the side to avoid a jet of light from Rudolphus's wand. Kreacher had disapparated the moment the door at the top of the stairs opened and James could only hope that he was fulfilling the mission he'd given him to do. He backed down the hall quickly, trying to uphold a shield charm as he made his way along to the door. "Lucy," he said between reiterations of the charm, "Lucy, you gotta help save us... Do you think you can do that?"
She was still crying into his shoulder.
"You gotta crawl down and run ahead and open the door. Can you open the door?"
Lucy nodded against his shoulder.
"Protego," James waved his wand. "Okay, good job," he lowered himself down and her legs fell from his waist as she slid to the floor, letting go of his neck. His glasses slipped and he shoved them back up his nose as she ran down the hall to the door and he turned back to Rudolphus. He continued backing along, closer and closer to the door, and he could hear Lucy fighting with the knob behind her. "Try the locks," he encouraged her. "Spin the lock."
Lucy said, "There's not a lock!" in a sad wail of a tone.
James was nearly back-to-back with her now and Rudolphus was at the other end of the hall. There was no where to go, nothing to do. The only thing along the hall was a large troll-leg umbrella stand. "Protego Maxima!" he yelled and he waved is wand at the troll-leg stand as the force of the spell blew down the hallway and sent the leg flying behind it so that it slammed into Rudolphus and knocked him down to the ground, buying James a moment's time. He whirled about and clawed at the door. "Alohamora!" he tried, but the knob would still not turn.
"Stupefy!" Rudolphus was back to his feet.
James ducked and turned and threw the first spell he could think of:
"Anaticula!"
"Avada Kedavra!" Rudolphus attempted.
Out of habit, James ducked, but there was no green jet of light to avoid. Lucy's laugh made him look up and there was a duck standing on the floor before a very confused looking Rudolphus Lestrange. "Avada Kedavra!" he tried again and as James watched another duck came spurting from Rudolphus's wand, landing on the floor with a loud honking quack. James laughed, too.
"Brilliant! You know, Mr. Lestrange, that spell really quacks me up," he announced boldly, and his eyes sparkled.
Rudolphus was absolutely pissed. "Crucio! CRUCIO! AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Now there were five ducks milling about, quacking, bobbing their heads and waddling about.
James turned to the door and looked it over, couldn't figure out what to do, and he said, "Alright. Desperate times." He backed up, knocking into some of the ducks, which were multiplying as fast as Rudolphus could utter spells, his voice roaring with anger, and James held out his hand to the laughing Lucy, "C'mere. Watch out. Reducto!" he waved the wand and the front door exploded. "Let's go." He pulled Lucy by her hand down the last few steps of the hall and out onto the doorstep, down the stairs and into the street, followed by a burst of flying ducks as Rudolphus desperately cast every spell he knew in a very long spiel of shrieking anger. "Run, run, run," James encouraged Lucy, "Hurry!"