"Depravation makes mediocrity. Mediocrity triggers fear. Fear causes greatness. Greatness inspires envy. Envy engineers spite. Spite spawns lies."
•
AFTER THE DEATH EATERS left, the silence that had set over the Burrow was deafening. Draco sat with Fred and George, the only two people he believed who could understand that sheer panic he was in. It had been thirty-seven minutes, and all Draco could think about was the bright red stunning spell that had stuck Skylar as she was held by the notorious Yaxley, as she stood there, taken by shock, and probably defenseless, before diffusing into a wisp of smoke, Disapparating away from the Burrow, probably to the Malfoy Manor. As he sat between the twins, eyes wide, rocking on his hips, he thought of the multiple horrible things that could've happened to them by them.
"You have been marked," Nott Sr had said in a cold, emotionless voice, after the Death Eaters were done questioning them about Harry Potter. Draco had taken another swig of the horrible tasting Polyjuice Potion to ensure he remained a ginger. Self-preservation. "If we detect any signs of support-or help, association and homage- to either Harry Potter or The Order, immediate action will be taken. The punishment for defying Lord Voldemort shall be no less than Death."
They had checked every inch of the Burrow, every room, every cupboard, every corner. Harry Potter was nowhere to be found. Draco had stayed mum and quiet as they checked around, his wand-both of them- hidden under a strong disillusionment charm in his robes. He hadn't said anything until they left.
That is when Draco Malfoy lost all his cool, all his calm, all his logic and crumbled to the floor, in a fit of shouting and sobbing, at the spot where Skylar Firegold had been thirty-seven minutes prior.
"You don't understand," he had cried to Sirius who was pacing in the sitting room.
"We do," Remus Lupin had said in an uncharacteristically harsh tone, running his hands through his hair. "We will find her-"
"You don't," Draco shouted, anger and fear fighting each other in his stomach. "Only I know-out of all of us, only me-what actually happens in the Malfoy Manor. What actually happens to people who defy Voldemort!"
"Draco-" Fred had gripped his shoulders, steadying him. Draco's magic seemed to be pouring out of his eyes, his fingertips.
"Don't!" Draco flinched away from Fred. "He Crucioed me, Fred," he said, loudly, venomously. "Thrice a day, every day, for being late to do what he asked me to do."
"Shouting won't get us anywhere!" George had snapped- Draco stared at him in shock, unable to fathom how a Weasley could match his temper. Only then he had noticed how the twin's eyes were pooling with tears, just like his, how they seemed to be holding themselves together just barely, just like him.
"He will kill her," Draco whispered before a sob left him, and he slouched on the ground. As panic and bole rose within him, he felt helpless. He thought maybe this is what Skylar had felt when he had returned from Christmas Break. He hated feeling helpless.
"He won't kill her, Draco," Sirius had said quietly. "He needs her."
"Tom fucking Riddle needs no one," Draco said. "He will ask her once. He will ask her twice. And then he will kill her."
"Stop saying that!" Fred had shouted, shaking Draco, unsung tears rolling down his cheeks.
"That's the truth, Weasley!" Draco stood up, and looked at the crowd around him. "I lived with Voldemort, I know what happens."
He thought he could down a whole bottle of Calming Draught and still feel chaotic. Still feel unable to breathe. He thought how he could just find Harry Potter and hand him to the Dark Lord without a blink of the eye if it meant Skylar would be safe. He thought how he could just barge into the Manor and exchange himself for her.
He noticed how Sirius continued pacing, how the twins had slouched with him on the ground with wordless sobs, how Ginny had joined Mrs Weasley in the kitchen making tea-for whatever fucking reason, Draco didn't know-how Charlie and Bill had left to check the perimeters with Mr Weasley, how Remus, Tonks, Fleur and Moody had gone to out temporary shields around the house. He stared at the keyhole soundlessly, his wand clutched in his had, as he felt himself turn back to Draco Malfoy from Ben Weasley.
He had just asked her to marry him. He had meant every word of it, and she might even have said yes despite her hesitation. He had built a daydream for the two of them, and she was taken away from him, from the place he considered safest, and she hadn't even seen his real face for one last time.
He took the tea Mrs Weasley handed him with shaking hands, muttering a quick thanks. He sipped, revelling in the burn that the scalding hot tea left on his tongue, his throat, his chest. He grimaced at how sweet it was. Then he chuckled, having caught himself worrying about tea when Skylar was probably being tortured to insanity. The Order looked at him, alarmed. He stood up, and felt the world move under his feet. He fell sideways, and Fred Weasley caught him. Mrs Weasley looked at his paralyzing face with guilt and said, "I put some sleeping draught there. You should sleep."
He should, he thought as he fell completely, hoisted up by the twins to the sofa. He would lose his mind if he stayed alive. As darkness took over him, so did the feeling of helplessness, and he never wanted to wake up again.
-
"Family safe, Skylar taken by Death Eaters, do not reply, we are being watched."
The Patronus dissolved into nothingness. Ron let out a noise between a whimper and a groan and dropped onto the sofa: Hermione joined him, gripping his arm. "They're all right, they're all right!" she whispered, and Ron half laughed and hugged her. "Harry," he said over Hermione's shoulder, "I -"
"Skylar taken," said Harry, sickened by the pain in his head. "The Death Eaters took her."
Silence befell them. All the joy Ron had just felt, knowing his family was safe, dissolved as he realized Harry's family wasn't. The pain in his scar was reaching a peak, burning as it had done in the garden of the Burrow.
Faintly he heard Hermione say, "I don't want to be on my own. Could we use the sleeping bags I've brought and camp in here tonight?"
He heard Ron disagree. "We have to find a way to get back Skylar," he said. "They took her!"
"Skylar clearly mentioned we cannot get deviated from the plan," Hermione said, a choke in her voice. "She said to hunt down the Horcruxes no matter what!"
"Skylar's sixteen," Ron snapped. "We cannot listen to her words like they're Merlin's testaments, her life is in danger 'Mione."
Harry could not fight the pain much longer: He had to succumb. "Bathroom," he muttered, and he left the room as fast as he could without running. He barely made it: Bolting the door behind him with trembling hands, he grasped his pounding head and fell to the floor, then in an explosion of agony, he felt the rage that did not belong to him possess his soul, saw a long room lit only by firelight, and the great blond Death Eater on the floor, screaming and writhing, and a slighter figure standing over him, wand outstretched, while Harry spoke in a high, cold, merciless voice. "More, Rowle, or shall we end it and feed you to Nagini? Lord Voldemort is not sure that he will forgive this time. . . . You called me back for this, to tell me that Harry Potter has escaped again? Bella, give Rowle another taste of our displeasure. . . Do it, or feel my wrath yourself!"
A log fell in the fire: Flames reared, their light darting across a manical, pointed white face -with a sense of emerging from deep water, Harry drew heaving breaths and opened his eyes. He was spread-eagled on the cold black marble floor, his nose inches from one of the silver serpent tails that supported the large bathtub. He sat up. Bellatrix Lestrange's manic eyes haunted him as he stood up, staggered, and felt another sharp pain on his scar. Maybe it's her, Harry thought, before closing his eyes, allowing him to see what Voldemort saw.
Excitement, that's what Harry felt. That's what he knew he felt, as he looked down at a figure of a girl-Skylar-still in her rosy silver dress, albeit a little dirty, her hair askew, her eyes closed. Her arms were shackled on either side of her with iron bolts-non-magical-as Harry, no, Voldemort stared down at her unconscious form.
"Good work, Yaxley," he said in a distant, cold voice. "You weren't bested by her this time."
"Yes, m-my Lord," Yaxley, a blonde Death Eater, said from the dark corners.
"Good," Voldemort said, more to himself than to Yaxley. "You brought me my seer."
Somewhere above a loud voice rang, chilling Harry's bones as he gasped, opening his eyes, and fell into the bathtub, unable to control his fear and shock. The pain had subsided. Rather, the pain in his scar had shifted to his chest as panic overtook him. He breathed loud and hard, trying to calm himself, trying to erase that knowledge of Skylar in the basement, shackled and unconscious.
He had her.
--
I was in the dark, pitch black room again. Except, there was no wispy curtain before me. I tried standing up, but I couldn't move. With a slight shiver I realized my arms were shackled to the floor. I stared at the shackles. "Is this your plan now?" I sneered into the darkness. "To tie me up and I don't know, attempt to scare me?"
No one replied. I noticed I was still in the same dress I wore at the wedding. I noticed I didn't have my wand, like in my dreams when I didn't have my wand. And then I noticed, that the room wasn't pitch black either. My eyes were hazy from the long sleep I felt like I was in, but they still focused in the darkness. It wasn't completely dark. The surroundings became clearer and I realized, it wasn't a dream.
And then I realized rock bottom was a basement- underground cellar. And I remembered the events of the previous night. A shiver ran down my back as I recalled the events that had happened before. Bill and Fleur's wedding. Draco proposing to me. Death Eaters. And now I'm here. If I'm right, I'm in the Malfoy Manor, their cellar.
I have to get rid of the shackles, I thought.i yanked at them, stupidly. They made a loud creaking noise but didn't budge. And then I heard a loud scream coming from above. I jumped- someone was being tortured. If I remembered correctly, it would've been Rowle, the Death Eater sent to tail Harry, Hermione and Ron. Who went with Rowle if Dolohov was dead? I shivered as the agonizing scream filled my ears again.
Something glowed around my hands, a wisp of golden smoke. I willed for it to get stronger. It's power, I realized, as a surge of something big, something strong filled my veins. I yanked at the shackles again. The broke slightly. More, I thought, as the golden smoke concentrated around my hands, and I yanked again. The shackles broke away from my wrist, and my hands became free.
I wasted no time in standing up and dusting myself. My wand was gone, I realized with fear. The only magic I had now was my strecromancy. My mind worked too fast for my liking- I raked my brain and calculated various ways to getting free. Then I saw a little disturbance in the light coming from the staircase. Someone was coming down, to the cellar. I quickly walked towards the entryway, right next to the door, to the blind spot where the coming-person wouldn't be able to spot me, making sure my shoes didn't make noise. Damn, high heels.
"She's not here," said a quiet voice that I distinctly remembered as Narcissa Malfoy's. A part of my wanted to jump out of the shadows and show myself to her, to the woman who was my mother's friend. I wanted to fall into her arms and beg her to let me out. Then, my rational voice told me, she's with the Death Eaters, I cannot trust anyone here.
Her figure came close to the door, and the metallic prison bars flew open with magic. The moment she slipped inside, I jumped from my blind spot, hurling myself on the older woman, who promptly fell over at the impact, a shocked gasp leaving her throat. My palm clutched around her outstretched hand, yanking the wand from her, and turned around to the lit doorway, my other hand twisting her arm at a painful angle behind her back, as she let out a pained groan.
"Stupefy!" I shouted at the person who was walking down the stairs behind her. An unsuspecting Amycus Carrow dropped to the floor, unconscious, shock still etched on his face. I turned around and dug my wand into Narcissa Malfoy's back, not loosening my grip on her twisted arm. "Why am I here?"
She wriggled under my weight, trying to push me off, but I didn't budge. I pushed my wand deeper, anger burning in my eyes. "Narcissa, why am I here!"
"The Dark Lord," she gasped from the pain. "He's upstairs!"
A little ball of fear took birth in my mind as I recalled the serpentine man, the one with no remorse or guilt. I shook my head, jumping off her, standing, holding her wand at her. "Is he going to kill me?" I asked bluntly. Narcissa looked at me as she staggered to her feet, her grey eyes reminding me painfully of Draco-he had asked me to marry him.
"He wishes to talk to you."
"Well I don't wish to talk to him," I said immediately and winced at the unhidden fear that laced my voice. I hated how scared I sounded. Narcissa rubbed her wrist and stared at me coldly.
"I'm not sure if he's going to care," she spat. "If you wish to or not."
I couldn't recognize the woman in front of me, the woman who had embraced me when Draco brought me over four years ago to this very Mansion, the woman who had given me gifts and letters, the woman who had cared for me like her own. I didn't find the Narcissa Malfoy who came to visit me in the hospital wing after the Triwizard Tournament, who had been at the audience cheering for me. I didn't recognize her.
"What happened to you?" I asked, my hand unwavering as the wand remained pointed at her chest. She stood taller.
"My son is dead," she stated, and I felt something break inside her. I couldn't feel it, and I didn't like the sheer amount of pain and heartbreak I felt. Is this what it feels like to lose a child? "Is he?" she added suddenly in a quieter voice, afraid of being overheard. Her eyes teared up ever so slightly as she asked me that. I squared myself.
"Yes."
What happened next stunned me so much that I probably would remember this moment forever. Instead of crying, or telling me I was lying, Narcissa Malfoy's face went blank of all emotions as her ha d lifted with the speed of light and she plucked the wand straight out of my hands and pointed it at me. I was once again wandless.
"It's your fault," she said, her fury perfectly balanced with the calm of her voice. I couldn't say anything. Draco was alive, but had I not known the spell, he would've bled out and died. "You killed my son."
"No-"
"Imperio."
My mind fogged over the second she said those words. I barely had time to put up a shield around me. The mint green smoke surrounded my face and seeped through my skin. My brain went blank. I stared at a dark spot as the sensation took over- and I hated it. Deep inside my body, where I was still alive, still awake, I hated losing control. She flicked her wand and I blankly trudged the stairs, my heels making loud clinking noises against the stone staircase.
The noise upstairs ceased completely as I made my way into the light. I tried desperately to fight off the curse, and I believe I was able to, to a certain extent, because I consciously acknowledged my surroundings.
Bellatrix Lestrange, in a her ruined, scarred beauty, stood over the blond man, Rowle, her wand pointed at him, as she stopped midway through her curse to turn and look at me. Her eyes flickered only slightly between me and Narcissa Malfoy behind me, before she let go of all emotions and turned to stone. Around the Malfoy's sitting room were four people-Fenrir Greyback, who's mouth practically watered at the sight of me, Macnair, who stood in a corner with a gleam in his eyes, Nott Sr who still looked like my friend Theo, just a little older and hundred percent less human and Lucius Malfoy who stood in the shadows of the room, trying to hide himself away. If I recalled correctly, he has no wand. I noticed through my hazy eyes that he had scars across his face, he looked tortured and dismayed and broken. I couldn't recognize him.
And then I noticed the fifth figure. Sitting in front of the fireplace in the dark, dimly lit room, he had practically become a black smokey silhouette. He stood up, his black robes falling around, his porcelain snake-like skin shining from the light, a wand clutched around his fingers. The Imperius curse was lifted off me as I felt the sinful feeling wash away. I blinked and straightened up. Voldemort looked at me, his inhuman slit-like eyes boring into my ones. He looked terrifying.
"Hello, Tom," I said quietly, firmly. His lips pressed into a hard line before twisting into a sneer.
"You shall not call me that," he said calmly, a sharp tinge of venom there. I noticed Lucius shift uncomfortably on his feet.
"That's quite alright, Mr Riddle," I stated bluntly, waiting for his reaction.
"You shall call me," he said through gritted teeth as he walked towards me. I noticed Bellatrix Lestrange bow at an alarming angle and scuttle away. "My Lord."
"There's no need to call me My Lord, Mr Riddle," I said before I thought. I was rolling around in my head laughing, while another version of me cowered in the dark corner with Lucius Malfoy with fear.
Voldemort's lips twitched suddenly, and I was ready for a horrible curse to come at my defenseless form from the wand in his hands. That would've been easier to comprehend than what he said.
"Hilarious," he stated, his lips contorting to what I could assume was a smirk- it was hard to saw owing to the fact he looked like an animal. "I quite like her, Bellatrix," she said turning to his most loyal soldier. My eyebrows shot to my hair and probably disappeared completely as I tried to make sense of the words. "Quite like Potter herself."
He was looking at me now, with all his holy noselessness. I was so disturbed I almost started wondering how he could breath through those slits-or did he breathe at all, when he spoke again-
"You must be wonderful why I brought you here-"
"Kidnapped," I said, interrupting him. The rational part of my mind was now throwing inanimated objects at the dumb part of me that was still laughing on the floor. "You kidnapped me."
"No, that would have been Yaxley," he said coolly. He was taller than me, I noticed. And he was very close. "I merely ordered him to bring you here. I didn't specifically say to bring you here by force."
"It's the same thing, Mr Riddle," I said throwing my arms up. Everything I did now seemed like walking on thin ice, putting my neck out to kill myself or something. But I was here, wasn't I? And there was hardly anything I could do at this point, no wand, enchantments around the house, too many Death Eaters.
"If you would let me finish," he said, sounding a little irritated. "I would like to tell you I merely requested your presence here to talk."
I blinked. Stupidly, I blinked as I tried to process what he had just said. I knew he wanted information out of me, but the way he said it sounded so much more human, I almost didn't believe it was Voldemort. But it was him, he had no nose. I had assumed he'd torture the information from me, or threaten someone I loved, or killed someone in front of me. But the way he said it, so . . . Persuasive. Yes. That's what he is. Persuasive.
"You seem to be having trouble understanding me-"
"No, shit." His eyes didn't waver from my ones at the slur I had just blurted out. His lips curled upwards anyway.
"Narcissa," he addressed the woman behind me. "Take young Ms Firegold to her chambers. She's had a long day," he said coldly. "We will talk tomorrow," he looked at me, his eyes turning to narrow slits alarming me thoroughly. "You will have a change of clothes and a warm bath ready. However, should you try to escape, I must warn you, all my followers have been ordered to kill you at any sight of flee. Now," he stepped back, straightening up, his hands held together in front, wand in them. "Good night, Ms Firegold."