The Rescue

I jerked upright, shaking. Weak sunlight streamed in through the grimy windows; it was dawn, meaning I had been asleep for at least three hours. A rarity. Beside my long matted hair there were a few hunks of stale bread and an old plastic cup containing precious water. I grabbed the bread with grubby fingers, quickly shovelling the dry food into my mouth and feeling it settle in my empty stomach. My parched tongue then called for the water, so I guzzled it quickly, but the meagre amout hardly quenched my thirst.

A dark figure then came into view, and I quickly hauled myself onto my bare scratched feet, knowing exactly who the figure was; I couldn't show weakness in front of her. Her black, wild hair, exactly the same as my own, hung over her heavily lidded eyes, and her creul lips stretched into a crazed grin.

"Lyra, my darling, how did you sleep? You look so tired; perhaps I need to wake you up further?"

Before I could formulate a response, her wand slashed down and I felt a long gash appear on my right arm, blood seeping down and welling in my palm. Then the pain registered and I gasped involintarlily; I had learned by now a scream is the best way of ensuring more pain would be inflicted on me.

"You awake yet darling?" Bellatrix sneered. "I can always—"

A loud crash was suddenly heard downstairs and Bellatrix froze mid-sentence.

"Rodolphus?" She called. But I knew it was not him; my father was many things but certainly not clumsy enough to cause such an almighty crash. For the first time in my life, Bellatrix looked truly shocked, but she recovered herself quickly.

"Oh hello, it's those aurors isn't it? You here to play little aurors?" Bellatix sang. "Lyra know how do play, don't you darling? Look: crucio!"

I stumbled backwords, tears forming in my eyes. No matter what torture my mother subjected me to, the cruciatus curse was always the worse. I bit back a scream though; over the years I had become better at hiding my pain.

"That not painful enough, darling?"

My eyes widened; normally she wanted me not to scream. Before I could begin to reply, her wand slashed in a series of extreemely complicated manovours that I had never seen before, with a wicked smile gracing her lips.

"That should be better, darling"

This time, I did scream. My entire body felt like it was on fire; an unstoppable pain radiated in every direction as thousands of deep cuts opened up all over my body, drenching my dirty rags in blood.

But before my head hit the floor and the blackness consume me, I was sure I heard a distant shout of 'stupify' in a voice that did definatley not belong to either of my parents.