Author's Notes: Fair warning that, although short, this little thing is on the darker side. Mentions of past and present child abuse, violence, and murder. It's not in your face, but it's there, so proceed accordingly.
Prompt at the end.
Word count - 901
Made for This
She had waited for so long.
Delphini had always thought she was unworthy, that she was good for nothing, but she was good at this. She was good at hunting down people, at making them suffer, at taking revenge for the death of her parents, for her miserable childhood, for being kept apart from the world.
Euphemia Rowle did nothing but hurt her and starve her, trying to keep her powers under control, her magic at bay. In her household, only the damned bird was worthy of care and nice words. Delphini was barely worthy of regular meals and warm clothes. Her destiny had been engraved into her mind for a decade. She would have a sticky end.
She doesn't mind the stickiness on her skin, now. It is the blood of her enemies, and she is renovated by it, not killed. This is not her end, this is nothing but the beginning of a new age of terror.
She was born for this. She was raised for this.
The year she turned eleven was the happiest in her life, until now. That was the year Rod had come looking for her in Rowle House. He had been furious at the Rowle woman, screaming at her because of the way Delphini was being treated. He didn't have a wand that day, but he didn't need one. He had slapped Euphemia so hard that she had been left unconscious on the floor. Then he had gone upstairs to gather her things. She had waited for him at the bottom, thanking him on his way down. She didn't know him, but he had rendered the biggest threat in her life useless for the remaining evening, and that was enough to win her over.
He had raised her from then on. They had to live in hiding, for he couldn't risk exposing her to the world. He had fed her six meals a day until she looked like a healthy eleven-year-old girl, all the while teaching her about magic, about her parents, about how invaluable she was to them, to him. He would work for hours with her, explaining spells and how to cast them, correcting her stance, adjusting her grip on the wands he had stolen from Rowle House. Delphini had wished to take one of those wands all her life. Rod had given her the lot to choose from. Whichever performed better, he told her, was hers.
She had killed for the first time when she was fifteen. He had captured the Mudblood wizard for her, to teach her how to obtain information from those unwilling to give it. She had learned Legillimency from peeking into the old man's mind. She had learned to cast the Unforgivables on him too. She had practised all sorts of dark hexes and curses on his body. In the end, Rod had told her she had to part with her toy. She needed a new one, one that posed a challenge. So she parted with it happily, in a flash of green light.
Rod had taken her with him the next time he hunted for a Mudblood. She had to learn, he told her, and she gladly did. He liked her hunger for pain, for suffering. He told her she reminded him of her mother, because she too had been keen to learn the Dark Arts, she too had been devoid of scruples or mercy.
So she had learned. For nearly a decade, they had roamed Eastern Europe together. She never wanted for nothing, he made sure of it. He would steal anything, kill anyone, for her. It still made him furious that she was so petite. It was Rowle's fault, he used to say, for starving her to the point of counting bones through her skin.
She loved Rod and Rod loved her. Like father and daughter, but different, for she held the power. Whatever she said became his command. He wanted her to be powerful but also devoid of leniency, so he would say no to her every now and then. It was a game they played. She won when he changed his answer to yes.
She never lost. No matter what she had to do, she would persuade him to change his answer, with more or less pain involved, depending on how much fight he felt like putting up.
Rod was always there for her, waiting for her to return from her hunts, when he sends her alone to better hone her abilities.
Tonight, she is twenty-one and she celebrates by killing. She has been playing with Scorpius and Albus for hours now. It's only worthy, for they represent the two things she loathes the most. The people that fought and killed her parents, and the traitors that denied her existence, refused to keep her, and paid Rowle to raise her away from the world.
Tonight, she steps into the world, under the moonlight. These boys are her announcement. From here on, she will build an ever growing pile of dead bodies that no one will be able to trace. A constant stream of blood rushing out of veins and over her skin, bathing her, both quenching and renewing her thirst for more.
She will not stop until they are all dead. Potters, Weasleys, Malfoys, Lovegoods, Longbottoms… she will see the lot of them perish at her hands.
She was made for this.
Author's Notes: Prompts and Challenges
Assignment #9 Mythology Task 2 Lernaean Hydra - Write about someone/thing that was raised to be a killer.