a/n: why hello again
Written for the Ilvermorny New Beginnings Event.
Prompt: Write about a Death Eater's experience in society after the War, and how they turn into a new leaf.
Word count: 739
She couldn't sleep.
She just couldn't.
As soon as she closed her eyes, all she could see were the dying screams of all the people she had killed. All she could see was their still, lifeless bodies lying there, and her leaving them there, those unblinking eyes staring up at a dark, dark sky. All she could see was the green beams of light she'd cast, all she could see was her, laughing, evil.
She couldn't get past what she had done, she couldn't, she couldn't, she couldn't.
She told herself that she had been brainwashed, that it wasn't her fault, that her mind had been poisoned by Voldemort's evil magic.
But she knew that was a lie.
Because she remembered, she remembered every kill, and how utterly glad she had felt when the Dark Lord gave her his approval. How glad she had felt to see the 'worthless Mudbloods' put in their rightful place, how satisfying every scream sounded to her ears.
It was all terrifying to her, how she had once been so evil, all the things she had done in the name of Lord Voldemort.
But the thing that scared her the most was somehow, someway, she still felt the same.
She remembered how she had suddenly broken at the hearing, the hard shell she had built up ever since the bullying when she was just a young Slytherin at Hogwarts, the hard exterior she had put up to shield against the words and the punches and the spells.
She remembered how she had sworn she would never forgive. She remembered how she knew she would never be able to forgot the evil smile as they stood above her, licking their lips. She remembered how she had cried that night, how she had run to the showers and tried to wash herself clean, tried to wash away the feeling of phantom hands roaming her body, but she had failed.
She had failed.
She had always failed.
And so she got her wand and she said a spell and that night she almost bled out in the bathroom of the 6th Year Slytherin girl's dormitory, but then Narcissa was there, tending to her wounds, and begging her not to go.
Almost.
Almost there, but never truly complete. Almost, almost, almost.
She was tired of almost.
And then she remembered when the Dark Mark was branded onto her arm, and she did not flinch, she did not feel the tiniest pain as the mark was seared into her skin, and she smiled. She truly smiled for the first time in so many long years.
And then at the hearing, she broke, and the tears she had held in for so, so long came tumbling out in a tsunami of salty water, and she was a blubbering mess and the snot and the tears were everywhere and she hated herself for it but she couldn't deny that it felt so good to finally cry.
After the hearing she felt remorse. She knew what it was like to suffer, to be bullied and teased and hexed and cursed. And yet she had still inflicted so many deaths. But then again, she had been merciful. She had given them a quick death instead of the pain and suffering she herself had been put through.
But sometime in those desolate days where all she could do was cry and remember and try not to whisper that same spell that she had whispered so many long years ago, when Narcissa had saved her from the brink of death, a light shone through the darkness of her mind.
A light, a new hope. She wasn't dead, she could begin a new life. She was not alone anymore. She was not who she once was. She was neither the weak girl of her Hogwarts years, nor the brutal, arrogant high ranking Death Eater who killed for fun.
No.
She was her, just another person in the world, a person who could be whatever she wanted to be whenever she wanted.
She was free.
Free from the confines of her past, free from the watchful gazes of the boys who had pinned her down in that empty corridor so long ago, free from the orders of Lord Voldemort.
And so now she remembers, but those memories do not make her weep. They make her stronger, they give her the strength to go on.
Free at last.