"Kill him, Danica."

Every torso in the room tightened, refusing to breathe, lungs beginning to burn with the lack of oxygen. Yet no one dared to move. Tension rolled off their bodies and into the air, suffocating them all as they waited in deadly anticipation. It was not wise to keep the Dark Lord waiting. And disobeying him was a death sentence.

"My Lord?" she asked, her gray eyes wide in shock, fingers grasping her wand almost too tightly.

"You heard me, girl. Kill him."

"But I-" Bellatrix quickly rose from her seat within the long row of people at the meeting table, creaking beneath the sudden change in weight. All eyes, filled with menace and blood lust, watched as she went to her daughter, taking her by the shoulders. Danica looked up into the twin irises of her own, fear reflecting in the abyss of gray sunken into her mother's face.

"She will do it, my Lord. She's just a bit," at that moment Bella pinched her daughter so roughly that Danica gasped as she felt fingernail pierce skin, "shy."

Oh, how she knew this day would come. Betrayal wasn't enough. Harassing the lower ranks of the Death Eaters was meek child's play. Strutting around at Voldermort's side day in and day out was no longer making the cut. He wanted more. The Dark Lord wanted to see the extent, the limit of how cruel and vicious Danica could be. His prized possession who willingly leaked the secrets of the despised Order of the Phoenix was arousing suspicion from the other followers. They believed she was a child, still young and innocent at heart despite the contrastingly beautiful scowl she displayed on her face. All talk and no play. That needed to change immediately for Voldermort had no time to waste in wondering where loyalties lie. If she was willing to kill for him, she would never return to the side that fought against him. And in true honesty, she knew he was sick of everyone demeaning her behind her back for her lack of experience in malice.

"Is this really necessary?" interrupted Snape, his coal eyes staring into Danica's stricken expression, mocking almost as he saw fear flit across her face. She gritted her teeth. "Surely we can find another way to punish, torture this filth, whichever suits you best."

Voldermort let his gaze lazily wander to the heap of flesh upon the floor, adrenaline seeping through his pores as his wheezing was muffled by a gag. "No, Severus. If she wants to earn her place as a leader within the Death Eaters in the near future she needs to play the part, meet the requirements. My dear, if you will? We don't have all day to waste." Danica stared at Voldermort for as long as she could; looking away once the smoldering in his eyes began to burn the inside of her skull. He would not waver the expectations. "Or would you rather I leave him to your subordinates so he may be tortured until he gasps his last painful breath?"

"No!" she suddenly blurted out, internally cringing at the harshness of her words.

The screams, the blood curling wails that travelled through the walls, haunting, when they handled captives left her tossing and turning in her bed for days, unable to close her eyes without seeing herself twitching in hell's agony within pools of green. She would be doing him a mercy of killing him. He would die; pass into the afterlife quickly and painlessly.

"I'll do it."

"Marvelous!" The Dark Lord exclaimed, clapping his hands once which caused the room to disperse and form again.

The tables had been moved, pushed against a wall. It's guests merely moments before pressed themselves tight against the edges of the small square they had formed around Danica and the dungeon's previous inhabitant in the middle. From behind the figure, small and trying to mask her trembling, Voldermort sat back in his sleek leather chair, Nagini coiling herself around the back of it. He touched his fingertips together, a gruesome smile spreading across his snake-like face, waiting for the show to begin.

Bellatrix grabbed a tuft of the prisoner's hair, hauling him to his knees, ripping the gag from his mouth. He drew in a ragged breath, immediately begging for mercy. Her mother stepped aside, winking at her daughter who couldn't look away from the half starved face before her.

"Please," he wheezed, "I have a family."

"Liar!" Rodolphus Lestrange shouted, Voldermort holding up his skinny hand to silence him.

"No, I really do. Please, spare me. You're just a child. Why would you kill someone innocent of any crime?" His voice cracked as Danica stared into his watery brown eyes. His face was swollen, purple and bruised from a beating no doubt. His cheek was stained red from a gash that was spilling over the edge of serious infection. Is this what the rest of her future would look like? Killing innocent people who may or not have families of their own, lives that they cherished?

She suddenly felt her stomach lurch as she subconsciously answered yes. Her gaze glanced to the underside of her forearm tattooed with the Dark Mark, permanently drenched into her skin.

"Time is wasting, my dear," Voldermort quietly hissed.

"Please," the man pleaded again, the word 'Werewolf Mutt' carved into his skin as he raised his bound wrists in asking for release. Danica had to hold back bile.

This wasn't a test. This was an example, a presentation of what would become of her if she crossed Voldermort. No one knew of her condition. Not even her parents who took pride in their pure blood, uncontaminated witch of a daughter.

But he did. And this, her killing a man taken from humanity by the vicious teeth of an 'abomination of the earth' was a lesson she must learn.

Do not cross the Dark Lord. Because if she did, she would suffer a fate far worse than death.

"Do it!" her mother's sharp voice commanded.

Without a second thought, before anymore wisps of mental morality sunk into her brain, she raised her wand. Shutting her eyes, Danica tried not to think of those blue eyes and that scarred face that could have been kneeling before her as she muttered the Unforgivable words, making the world spin violently around her until she was sure she was going to be sick.

"Avada Kedavra."

In a flash of green that ignited even from behind her eyelids, she heard blood, flesh and bones thud to the floor, motionless…lifeless.

No one could ever guess she killed someone, took the life from their eyes for the trace of under aged wizards was broken at the stroke of midnight merely seconds before she committed her first murder.

So as Voldermort brushed his hand over her arm, speaking to her softly words of praise concerning her cold apathetic ways, Danica ran after thanking him, bursting through the doors and into the night air where she wailed silently at the condemning of her soul.

Time was ticking away, wasting into seconds, minutes and days that could never be retrieved. Uncertainty and a future lost within the mist of the unknown is what awaited. Their world was lethargically crumbling, decaying under the stench of the Dark Magic. However they did obtain the knowledge that trouble was stirring, spilling over slowly, soon to engulf them all. So they tried, long and hard, to make the last days of normality the best. Time was racing against them. And for the moment, Harry and the last remaining good in the wizarding world were winning. For now.

Harry stood in the sea of marshy grass outside the Burrow. His shoes and the bottoms of his pant legs were soaked, making him shiver even in the summer night air out in the countryside, the temperature cooler here than in the city. But he smiled upon the house just a short distance away. It stood at several stories high, radiating warmth that could only be interpreted as home, looking slanted and mis-matched beneath the light of a full moon. The candle flame in what Harry knew as Ron's bedroom flickered. He smiled.

"Home, sweet home."

That night Harry happily reunited with the Weasley family and Hermione. All the children, save Fred and George who had been expelled their last year at Hogwarts, were eager yet silently worried for the upcoming school year. As the Golden Trio sat up in Ron's room, talking amongst themselves, they chewed over light subjects. They laughed at Ron's jokes and wondered in slight awe at how the time, their adventures year by year, had flown by so fast. They say in their skin, silently filling their minds with how quickly they had aged.

And in each other's eyes you could tell they were thinking the same thing. If they had never become friends, their stories would've turned out quite different. Harry knew he most likely would've been dead by now. Ron and Hermione would be living simple lives. Harry wished that sometimes. He wished he had never involved them so deeply in his life, putting them and their families in danger. But he was grateful that he was never alone. That was something he could never complain about.

"Harry?" Hermione asked, drawing his attention from the window. He smiled apologetically, turning his gaze back to his companions.

"Sorry, got distracted." He smiled.

"'S alright, mate," Ron said, leaning back against the foot of his bed in his cozy room. "How do you think this Slughorn bloke will be? Just as mad as Snape?"

"Finding a match for Snape is nearly impossible." They laughed.

Before even realizing he was crossing over a line Hermione and himself had secretly drawn alongside Harry who pretended not to notice, Ron said in a heavy voice, "It's a full moon tonight." He gazed out into the sky from his tiny window.

"I wonder how Remus is doing," Harry recovered quickly, trying to distract them and thoughts of the real subject at hand.

"Last I heard the Order sent Tonks over to Lupin's to see if he was alive or dead. The guy hadn't reported for several missions and nobody had heard a word. When she got there, he was beyond ill." Hermione sucked in a breath of air, this new of her former professor bothering her since she had always favored him in his kindness and strength with the dealing of her betrayal. "He thought-" Ron hesitated, glancing at Harry, turning over whether or not to say the next part in his mind, "he thought Tonks was Danica. Called the girl by her name and everything."

"Is he alright?" Hermione questioned, trying her best to steer the attention away from Danica. She didn't want Fred to overhear them talking about her either.

"I suppose so. Tonks has been over there constantly. Haven't heard much since."

An awkward silence passed. This was the first time they had discussed Lupin and Danica within the same conversation. Also the first time Danica had been spoken of.

The ship had sailed through uncharted waters smoothly. And to Ron and Hermione that meant a great deal. Harry was healing. That's all that mattered. Because never again did they want to see their best friend as destroyed, as disturbed as he was during the time of the Betrayal and Sirius' death. He had been lost.

But in secret, Harry promised he would never return to that state of mind. He would take whatever measures necessary to make sure he made an effort to return to normal. He didn't want his best friends, not ever, to see what become of him that fateful night in the Ministry.

Even if it meant forgetting all about Danica.