This is a Lie

Warnings: Violence, blood, gore, mental abuse, domestic abuse, traumatic deaths, suspicious sexual activity.

A tragedy in three parts: How do you kill a soul?

Disclaimer: I originally wrote this story a few years ago, then lost it with all of my other things on my computer. I cant decide which version I like more, but either way, here you are. If anything, this version is much more fucked up and more raw in emotion than the other, mostly because I have recently had the same feelings as Dolly.

Nothing belongs to me, Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-, and all I own is some books and a computer. You won't get much if you try and sue my ass.

Once upon a time, Dolly Umbridge had been normal.

She had been sweet, a little shy, gullible, wide around the waist and equally wide-eyed. Magic had been her escape, her dream, her entire world. It glowed like the twinkling stars she would see sometimes at night. It was hard to see the twinkling in London, the thick smog covering the sky and covering it up like a blanket, but at Hogwarts she could see everything.

She could see the deepest galaxies and nebulas, the solar systems, the constellations and the explosions of stars becoming black holes. She could hold them in the palm of her hand.

But more than anything, she had stars in her eyes.

He gave her the stars in her eyes.

He promised her the stars.

Only him.

Only Tom.

"I heard that Professor Slughorn caught him coming out of the Prefect's bathroom with Druella Black. They were wearing their robes but Michael Nott said he found Druella's panties still in the bathroom."

"Oh, look at Dolly! You really are a Hufflepuff! Look at that face; no need to be such a prude."

Dolly rolled her eyes at the antics of Lyla Lestrange, opting against making a comment. Instead, she looked down at her cooling breakfast, seeing her pancakes soaking up the maple syrup into a congealed mass on her plate. If she were honest with herself, the hot feeling in her cheeks wasn't from the story—she knew what happened in the Prefects bathroom at two in the morning. It wasn't embarrassment.

No. It was closer to anger.

"You really shouldn't gossip about Tom," Dolly said, feeling her voice leave her mouth before she could stop herself. She wasn't the kind for gossip, and certainly not about… not about him. "You know he doesn't like it."

Some of the other Slytherins agreed, shaking their heads up and down nervously, as though he would pop out of the walls and chastise them for their conversation topic. Dolly knew something was going on with Tom—it wouldn't take a genius to know that the others treated him with so much more respect now that he had admitted to his heritage—but there was something more. At first, there had been looks of reverence, of worship.

Now though, it was more fear.

Dolly knew about the late-night meetings, about the girls, but she also knew that Tom had been meeting with the boys in Slytherin as well.

She didn't think that Druella's meeting had anything to do with those meetings, though.

"You're only saying that because he threw you to the side when he found someone better."

Dolly stared at her breakfast again, wishing it away. She just wanted to go back to her dorm and cry a bit. But, instead she looked up as the doors open, spotting Druella and Tom entering the Great Hall, a little pop in Druella's step. She had her dark hair up, little ringlets of curls cascading down her back, her dark hooded eyes glancing from Tom to the others at the table.

Druella was perfect. She had her Pureblooded aristocratic face, pointed chin, soft cheeks and thin body. Her breasts were full, skin soft and blemish-free, and she stood regal above the others.

And, more than anything…Dolly could see the little mark at her throat, pink and soft.

Tom didn't even seem a bit ashamed, instead sitting down and getting himself his breakfast, not bothering to look at the others. Druella tried to sit down next to him, but Tom waved her off with the back of his hand. The girl didn't seem to care, instead opting to sit down next to Dolly.

"Move over, you useless lump," Druella said snidely, looking Dolly over as though she were a bug. "You don't need to take up the entire bench."

Dolly crossed her arms and looked at Tom, then back to Druella. "Go sit somewhere else, Druella. I am not moving."

Lyla snorted into her hand. It was a well-known fact that Druella and Dolly did not get along, even on the best days. "Dolly, just move for her. It's too early to listen to you two bicker."

Dolly gave up when she noticed Tom looking at her, a small frown on his lips. She knew that look, but instead of saying anything she stood, pushing her plate a little ways away. "Fine, then, Black. Anything else you want to take?"

Druella only smiled. "Oh, nothing more than I already have."

Dolly could feel her eyes filling with tears, and she wished them away. They wouldn't disappear, but maybe she would be able to hold herself together until she could get away from the Slytherin table in a dignified manner.

"Then you can continue to be a little tart." There were several gasps from the table as the Slytherin girls put their hands over their mouths and some of the boys snickered. "In… in fact, you can be a little slag right here. I've lost my appetite just by looking at you."

Dolly was short, but she was never small. She knew she wasn't pretty, not like Druella. She knew that her breasts were big, but saggy. She knew her voice was high, and her mousy brown hair was nothing to brag about. She wasn't particularly powerful, but she was smart. She knew her body, covered in thick stretch marks, fleshy and full and ugly. She had muggle blood running inside her, blood that made the other girls look down at her. Worse than being ugly, she was tainted.

And no matter what Tom promised, he wouldn't ever keep them.

Dolly ran front the Great Hall and into the courtyard, down the front steps. She felt her feet going to her secret place—no, their secret place. But he wouldn't come. Not after having spent the night with another girl.

This wasn't the first time Tom did it. It wouldn't be the last. But every time it was like a punch to the stomach.

She was sure she would be hearing about it later, her actions probably would cause some gossip at the other tables, but it would be over eventually.

Dolly ran until she was out of breath, but she arrived to the corner of the Forbidden Forest. Only a few steps inside was her sanctuary. The animals had never bothered her here; they left her and this space empty. They left her with her peace and thoughts, free from the prying eyes of her peers.

This was their place.

But Tom wouldn't follow her here, because he was too busy with Black and whatever he was getting up to in the dark corners of the Hogwarts castle.

Dolly laid down against the dead tree, feeling the moss tickle her neck, the ground was warmed by the rising sun, and she could see the sprouts coming up from the ground. It was April, and this was her last year at Hogwarts.

She could still remember her first day on the Hogwarts Express, the feeling of terror and fear running through her belly. She had been surprised when she got her letter; her father expected she was a squib, since her older brother had taken after their muggle mother. Her mother had run off only a few years later to America with her brother, and said with no uncertain terms was she to try and find them.

Her magic was the reason her mother left.

But here, in the sanctuary of the Hogwarts forest, surrounded by the magic and intoxicating beauty of it, she was safe. She wasn't powerful, but she cherished magic in a way that most witches couldn't. She had almost been born without it. The luck of the draw.

And on that train, she had sat with a boy with dark eyes and a somber expression. It had taken hours for him to warm up to her, little smiles and comments. He had been haughty, but Dolly thought it was a front. He was so scared, nervous that the others would ostracize him. And when the Sorting Hat put Tom Riddle into Slytherin, she had followed him blindly, because she knew how they would treat him. Even if her place was supposed to be in Hufflepuff (and boy did everyone else in her House know she was certainly no snake) she would have followed Tom to the ends of the earth.

"My little Lady of Sorrows, you need to stop doing this."

Dolly took a deep breath in, letting it out in a quiver. "You need to stop making promises you can't keep."

Dolly didn't want to look up, but she could hear his boots crunching the twigs scattered across the ground. "You know I have no choice, the Blacks are incredibly powerful, and she can get me things that I need. Her family has some very important relics that I need, my Doll."

"You don't get to call me your doll and sleep with that harlot!" Dolly retorted quickly, finally looking up to see Tom's deep, endless blue eyes. It was like looking into two black holes, so deep and endless, a void she fell into with no question. She knew if she looked into them for too long her resolve would break. "You promised me, after the last time…"

"I told you, it is just a flirtation. I give them just enough to get their interest. That is all it is, my Doll. You know that." She felt him kneel and reach down to touch her cheek. "Your jealous is a green eyed monster, and it's beginning to cause problems."

Dolly looked down at her hands. She grabbed at the robes, feeling the rough material and the small hole she had worried into the hem. She was poor, she couldn't give him the things Druella Black and her family could.

"You know, they thought I fed you a love potion," Dolly whispered, scratching harder. "That the only way you could think me of being worth your time was that I gave you something."

"Well, you and I both know that isn't true." Tom ran his finger over Dolly's lips, parting them slightly. "They don't know you like I do. They don't know anything about either of us."

Dolly wanted to believe him, she tried. She wanted to believe that his hands on her were real, that when he kissed her, it was real, that his soft whispered stories of love were not fabrications of her childish dreams.

He was her stars.

She felt his hands on her robe, pulling on it, and even though he was going to be rough—he was always rough when she complained about the other girls, it was worth it to feel him inside her. She could breathe in his scent, feel her body around him, and even though she would bleed from the cuts later in the day she would let him do as he wished, because this was her Tom.

When she stood after, feeling the cuts from the twigs on her legs, her insides sore and liquid dripping from between her knees, Tom kissed her gently, cupping her cheeks with both hands like she was a reverent object. He kissed her throat, pulling on it with his teeth. She wasn't like the other girls, she was special. She would always be his.

She was his secret.

She was his stars.

Dolly knew she shouldn't have trusted him. Again and again, he lied to her. That was all he had been doing lately.

They had talked of graduation, of their plans after, and what they would do together. Dolly knew that Tom wanted to stay at the school, to spend his time as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. She knew it would be difficult because her plans to become a healer, but these things could work out. She would work under Madame Florus in the Hospital Wing and gain her internship there, and they could stay together.

"What do you mean, you aren't going to stay?" It was so hard to keep her anger in, to not explode in white hot heat and anger. "You said that Dippet thought it was a good idea! You said he already gave you the job—I turned down an opening at The Healer's Institute of Britain!" Dolly could barely breathe. She gave this to him, she gave him everything. She would give herself up for him, but this… He had told her to say no. He had told her their lives were more important than the Institute. He promised he would marry her, that she was his stars.

"Things change, Dolores."

"Don't call me that!"

"When you are acting like a child I will treat you like one. Dolores, you need to stop behaving like this. I want this no more than you do."

She knew it was true—he did look distraught, but at the same time, this wasn't just about him any longer. He had involved her life, involved her future. And she loved him and would have happily given it for him, but this was still a sting to her cheek. This was a slap to her face, because what else could he promise her now?

"Tom, there have been whispers and they are beginning to frighten me. Talk about you running some kind of group, that you plan on using the Blacks and other Pureblood families… That you had something to do with that mess in Fifth Year. The dead Ravenclaw, the Gryffindor who now works on the grounds with Ogg… Tom, that ring you wear. It feels wrong, it feels strange. And the diary I bought you… when I spilled ink on it the other day it absorbed it like a cloth."

Tom spun on his foot, making the classroom fall into sharp focus. She had been staring so intently at his hair that the sudden movement gave her vertigo. "You touched my diary." He said this with the accusation she had never heard. If she admitted it to herself (and she wouldn't, she couldn't) his eyes sparkled red for just the briefest of moments. "How dare you."

Dolly closed her eyes, waiting for magic to hit her. She knew he was temperamental when she angered him, and he was so quick to anger now. This was nothing like when they had been children, and he would have a short outburst of magic that stung her cheek. This was raw power that would bite into her skin, and she knew she didn't deserve it…

But in the back of her mind, if she hadn't touched his diary, he wouldn't be so angry.

"Please don't, Tom. You know I love you," she quivered between her lips, feeling the magic roaring around her. She could feel it whip against her hair, and all she could do was close her eyes tighter. "Please don't, Tom. You don't understand."

"Your love means nothing if there is no trust."

Dolly could have said the same thing to him, but she knew that would only anger him.

She wouldn't be the cause of his pain.

Morganna Parkinson was almost as bad as Black.

While Druella made it common knowledge to anyone with two eyes that she was shagging Tom wherever and however often she liked, Morganna was a little more sane and kept a nice, respectable distance between her knickers and Tom. The Black family curse hadn't touched her mind despite her mother's Black blood, so it was clear and sharp, like a cool river. Because of this, Morganna had always been quick to pick up on the little things, like now.

"You've gotten fatter." It wasn't a question, or even a statement.

It was an accusation.

Dolly had to stop herself from wrapping her arm around her middle, from making it so bloody obvious. She wouldn't be as obvious as Druella, she wouldn't. This wasn't for schoolgirl gossip and chatter.

They had finished their end of year exams, and Dolly knew when she had been dealing with her potion exam (A perfectly brewed Draught of the Living Death that glittered with such innocence it made Dolly almost want to take a sip, just so she could feel the quick bliss) that there was something not right. Morganna spent the entire time staring a hole through her back, watching with her hawkish, bright black eyes for something…

"So? Come to mock me for it a little more?" Dolly had too many things going on in her head, her little world. She couldn't spend the time looking at Morganna.

She was a classic beauty, very much like Druella. Both from strong, Pureblood families with inheritances and social class, and straight noses and royal bodies. She had a grace that seemed to exude from her very pores. Her long brown hair didn't curl like her cousin, but it was smooth and straight down her back. It was almost the same shade as Dolly's, but with a depth and brilliance that she would never have.

Tom said they were alike, that though their blood was tainted, they were alike. They were the same.

Druella and Morganna would never be the same as her, they would never be half of a witch.

"You and I both know very well why your bloody potion was the best of the batch—Valerian Sprigs react best to women expecting."

Dolly shut her eyes tightly, wishing that Morganna would disappear into nothingness. If she couldn't see the girl, then it was the same in turn. No one could see her, no one could look at her like that and know. It couldn't be that easy to see it.

"How far along are you, now?"

"I don't have the faintest of what you are talking about." Dolly opened her eyes and sniffed the air. If she acted offended, maybe she could reverse the damage, what what was done undone. "I have been so overworked lately that I just keep eating. It makes me feel better."

Morganna snorted. "Come off it, you dumb tart. You may be able to try and fool others about that, but you and I both took mediwitch training together. You've gotten yourself into a sticky situation. What simpleton did you have to love potion into your bed?"

"I didn't give anyone a love potion, and I am not anything! Leave me alone, and keep your ridiculous assumptions to yourself!" Dolly could not compose herself, because if she were truly honest with herself, that was a Slytherin trait, and she was nothing but Hufflepuff.

Weak, stupid, pregnant Hufflepuff.

Tom had never hit her before.

He had apologized the next day in the way he always did when he had done something wrong—with half lacklustre and accusation. He wouldn't have hit her had she not made such a foolish mistake. And she knew he was right; she wanted to be a mediwitch and even the stupidest of teenagers in the middle of puberty could remember such a simple spell.

She shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place. This was her own fault, and she would need to take care of it.

She didn't heal the bruise on her cheek, because Tom was right. This was her fault, and she deserved it. The pain, biting into her cheek and sore against where it had hit her teeth, reminded her of her selfishness and outright stupidity. She loved him, he promised her the stars. And those stars didn't include a baby.

"You need to get rid of it, Dolores," he had told her. There was no options, no sweet nothings. This was cold, hard facts. This was reality, and reality did not mean having a baby out of wedlock. She couldn't do it, couldn't do this to him…

But it was part of him. It was the part of him that showed he loved her, because that was the only way a magical child could be created. It was never proven, but magical lore stated that no woman could hold a child in her womb if the two didn't want it to be there. Her father had never spoken of it with her and her mother had no idea anything about the points of two magical partners coming together to create life.

And she was damned well not going to ask Morganna or Madame Florus. She couldn't, she wouldn't.

Dolly knew how to do it, and as she wept and held her hand over her cheek, she floundered. What had she done to him? What had she done to her Tom?

Dolly would never become a mediwitch.

She knew the minute they found her in the Forbidden Forest, holding her hands between her thighs as the blood gushed forward like a river. She could feel the sweat on her cheeks, the wetness seeping down and pooling onto the ground, like an offering to a god she could not see. Tomorrow was graduation, but she would not be attending. No, her hands were stained red and she could feel the looks from the teachers… She would not forget it.

Madame Florus said that when she decided to use the curse against herself, she had made a simple mistake that was all too common. Dolly had ripped her womb wide, and the dark magic she allowed inside her made her as barren as a desert.

But Dolly knew that it wasn't true, because she had not been the one to cast the curse. She couldn't do it, in the end…. in the end, she had begged him to help her finish what they both had started. And he had said the words with such earnest feeling that of course he would leave her barren; this was a punishment for not being smart. He did not want children, not with her.

And then he had left her there, bleeding and open and wide for any person to look, and Dolly knew the look Madame Florus gave her, and the sad, shocked looks of Dippet and Dumbledore. Oh, and Slughorn; how she had embarrassed him, shamed the name of Slytherin.

She was lucky she wasn't dead.

But Dolly wanted death; it would have been a welcome relief.

They carried her to the infirmary and she looked for him waited for him to come to her side. Maybe it was childlike innocence, a naivety that only a child could have, but he promised her the stars.

He promised her.

And then he had left her, bleeding and broken like a doll, like a doll that could be thrown away without any care. He had ripped her open, had torn her and mutilated her, and she knew when he came back she would open her arms and accept him without question.

And so she waited.

Dolly did not appreciate children of any nature. They were foolish, selfish little beasts. They were useless and contrite, and she had no need for such absolute nonsense.