A/N: Tsume Yumi is amazing and gave me permission to use her Ain't Never Had A Fiend Like Me Prompt, which has been used to create several wonderful fics that I thoroughly enjoy reading again and again. Mine goes in a completely different direction than any of the others, so I would appreciate it if you would refrain from comparing them all in your reviews (Unless it is to comment on how kick-ass they are, of course. Positivity is key, my lovelies!)
This is a Fem!Harry fic, with a Fem!Harry/Gai pairing, as well as a goodly dose of darkness, angst and feels (Because I love making you all cry; I get such lovely responses ;P).
Each Chapter will be named after a Song so feel free to look them up and enjoy!
I seriously hope you enjoy this!
/\/\/\/\
Silent Wishes
Prologue:
Hope of Morning
/\/\/\/\
When the Hope of Morning
Starts to Fade in Me
I don't dare let Darkness
Have it's way with Me
And the Hope of Morning
Make's me Worth the Fight
I Will Not Be
Giving In Tonight
~"Hope of Morning" By Icon for Hire
/\/\/\/\
Nine days, twenty-two hours, forty-seven minutes, twenty-nine seconds and counting, Hydrangea Rose Potter had been held captive. Strapped to a cement block/table, her Magic bound, her body immobile. She knew, she knew, that there was a spy amongst her enemies who could get her out. She knew, just as she knew that the Ministry was holding them back, telling them to wait, as the fat, prejudiced bastards debated on how to best turn this to their advantage. They wouldn't want the ICW to find out that they'd sent their "Weapon" to illegally investigate the Russian Dark Lord, Lord Panas*. With all the hullabaloo the British threw over anyone investigating during Voldemort, they didn't want anyone to realize that they were as hypocritical as all that.
She was even under a strong Identity Protection glamour, the same kind used by the Unspeakables, meaning that, even though she didn't outwardly change in appearance, anyone who saw her who wasn't in-the-know, would never connect her to The-Woman-Who-Conquered. The self-named 'Warriors of Death', the Voiny Smerti**, knew they had someone important. They just couldn't figure out who yet. They'd been torturing her, every two days, with every third day being a Resting Day, which was what she was on now. Her body was always healed, so that the next session would hurt all the more.
It was a good system, she ironically knew. Killing someone with kindness. Depending on how long she lasted before "Rescue", she would grow to hate and even fear these days of rest, because that single kindness would become her only reprieve and, once her enemies realized her psychological issues from the Dursley's, they'd use that and, as stubborn as she could be, she knew that Stockholm Syndrome was a relatively likely outcome after a point.
Nine days, twenty-two hours, fifty-seven minutes, thirty seconds. At ten days and five minutes, exactly, the forty-eight hour torture session would begin anew. One hour, seven minutes and twelve seconds of respite left. She hated it.
At the twenty-third hour mark, the door slipped open, and the Spy slipped in.
"Sorry, Potter," the man hissed, blue eyes cold with apathy as he pulled out a potions knife. "The higher-ups can't afford you blabbing. And, while these commie bastards can scramble a brain, they're no deft hands at invading one. So, I've got my orders to keep ya alive but silent." He hopped onto her table, patting the potions blade against her gagged mouth, and idly she wondered if he knew about the Runes that could detect magic, the ones that would alert Lord Panas and lock the room down, but her mind was fatigued from the constant pain-rest-pain of the last few days, and she couldn't quite muster the urge to care beyond her bitterness and exhaustion. "They wanted me ta cut out your pretty tongue, but tongueless mouths still speak. So, instead," he dragged the knife down her chin, tracing the magically treated blade against the fragile skin of her neck. "Looks like I'll have to go straight to the source, aye?" Without another word, he dug the blade in slowly, oh-so-slowly, as he began to remove her vocal cords.
The pain, while sharp and cruel, lasted only one minute and forty-two seconds, which was faster than most of the tortures the Russians had put her through. Then the Spy was applying the healing salve to her neck, the smell of it, like mint tea and old socks, marking it as one of the cheaper, more common Russian remedies, meaning that it would heal, but scar horribly. Something she'd grown accustomed to smelling over the last nine days, twenty-three hours, four minutes, and fifteen seconds, especially since every third day that same paste was applied to her body after she was sprayed down with cold water and fed the minimum amount to keep her alive and relatively settled. She had no doubt that, when all was said and done, she'd never be able to stand the smell. It already made her twitch.
When he finally left, after seven minutes of caressing her now grotesquely scarred throat, he blew her a kiss and slipped away without another word. Slowly, her throat tight from more than just the numbing effects of the cream, Hydrangea refocused her eyes on the cement ceiling, uncaring as the tears rolled down the sides of her head, mingling in her matted, red hair. They wouldn't be the first tears she'd cry, nor the last.
She continued her silent counting, a trick she used to do whenever the Dursleys would lock her away for a long period of time, and listened to the silent pleading of her Magic beneath her skin.
They would come for her soon, and she had no doubt that her newly mute status would anger them.
Let them come.
/\/\/\/\
Lord Panas has been furious to find that her ability to speak had been so ruthlessly removed. Furious, but also coldly amused.
"You are no more than an object to your Masters, little flame," he crooned to her, for the first time interrupting her Resting Day. Hydrangea doesn't so much as glance at him, jewel-toned eyes focused on the ceiling and her continuous counting. One of his red-gloved hands strokes her horribly-scarred neck with mocking tenderness, making her muscles shiver unconsciously.
"A little Matryoshka, dressed to please. They open you up and pull out whichever one they want to use whenever they have a task for you, don't they, little flame?" He leaned forward, his thick beard grazing her ear as he whispered. "Nothing more than that, a little doll to use in their games, but where are they now, sweet little flame? Where are they while their precious little Matryoshka is held captive in the snows of my kingdom? Where. Are. They. Now." He leaned back, and once more stroked a mocking hand down her ruined neck, before leaving, the bight red of his battle-robes standing out like a cloak of blood, his sigil on his back, a duo of silver-and-gold fish circling. Fish were the Sacred Animal of the Slavic Goddess of Death, Moranal. Fish symbolized secrets. Secrets of death, fertility, and water. Them being in a circle, was yet another symbol of death, the constant cycle of death and rebirth.
It was, she would admit, a far better symbol than Tom's had been. Not as terrifying, but more alluring all the same.
Hydrangea focused on the ceiling.
She had more counting to do.
/\/\/\/\
Twenty-seven days, thirteen hours, forty-one minutes, thirteen seconds and counting. Another Resting Day, the ninth one since she was captured. Twenty-seven days in the cold, cement room, with only enemies to keep her company. They'd brought in one of the Mind Thrashers on the fourteenth day, and every day before a Resting Day, and Hydrangea didn't know what was worse, the screaming headache, the confused mishmash her memories were slowly trying to untangle from, or the fact that she lost over three hours trying to remember how to count every time. She'd re-configured her brain enough to get back on track while they were forcing the minimal amount of essentials down her throat to keep her alive, but it was an exhausting, painful experience, and she dreaded every time those white-and-gray clad bastards entered her Cell.
Lord Panas had taken to randomly visiting on her Resting Days, with no rhyme or reason. He hadn't been by the last one, but she had no doubt he'd be by the next Resting Day, drawing out the length of time to manipulate her damaged mind into associating him with kind touches and soft words, to associate her home country with betrayal and pain (Not that he needed to, she'd always seen it as such, anyways). She knew herself well-enough to know that, after a while, he'd be the only good thing she'd see, even knowing he was a Dark Lord and that it was on his orders she'd be hurt. She would start to associate him with kindness, like she used to think of her cupboard as a safe place, despite the fact she had always known that no one else slept in a cupboard. Just like she'd begun associating 'saving-people' with honor and praise and smiles and kindness. She knew herself, and that just made the inevitable Stockholm Syndrome more grim and bitter.
The door opened, and the Spy had returned, and with him, underneath an Invisibility Cloak that had nothing on her own Relic, was an Unspeakable.
"Whelp, Potter, the higher-ups have come to a decision," the Spy told her calmly, locking the door behind him, despite the fact that they had ten hours, sixteen minutes, and twenty-six seconds until the next Forty-Eight Period. The Spy pulled a moleskin pouch from beneath his Voiny Smerti uniform, the dark gray Russian Battle Robes making the silver-and-gold sigil fish gleam on his breast. He then stuck his arm into the pouch, and pulled out a golden tea-pot like Indian lamp, pale silver runes and symbols covering it entirely in tiny, tiny letters. The Unspeakable stepped forward and silently pulled out a black-bladed athame, gleaming with an unnatural inner-light.
"See, you're too much of a risk, what with the Russians Mind Thrashers hanging about and ol' Panas looking for collars for you, like's the idea of you as a pet, he does," The Spy told her easily, blue eyes like uncaring ice as the Unspeakable began to swiftly carve runes into her body, neatly avoiding the many, many new scars that littered her twenty-four-year-old self from collarbone down, avoiding her hands only. The Runes each felt like dry ice, so cold that it burned like fire, and, had she not already been forcibly silenced, she would have cried out, the seals and runes on her "bed" making her unable to even cringe, tears leaking from her eyes as the Spy looked down at her,
"Can't have our little Savior trading sides, can we?" He asked mildly, watching her recently cleaned body was once more soaked with blood, each dutifully carved rune slowly turning pitch-black against her skin. "So, Minister Farroway pulled on the Unspeakables to come up with something that would keep you properly subservient to your rightful people. This is a remake of the original curse that trapped the Djinn, with an original Lamp purified by a Monk. Once our Unspeakable friend is finished, you will be trapped within the Lamp, only there is no possibility of being 'wished' free, Potter." The Runes were burning colder and colder, an icy fie in her muscles, trying to burn its way into her bones and beyond, her chest heaving in silent sobs as she screamed, unheard. Her magic, still bound and growing more restless every day, struggled to be free, causing a different kind of burn to try and counteract the Runes as it writhed and twisted like an electrocuted snake.
"You will be trapped, forever held by the Lamp, to be used whenever you are called upon, and, best of all, you won't be able to harm your Masters, only ever able to serve in their best interest, only able to protect them, even at the cost of your life," here, the cold Spy smirked. "Not that you'll die, oh no. You will simply be forced back into the Lamp, and then you will be able to serve your Master again. Imagine it, Potter," he crooned, tilting his head to the side, eyes locked on hers as the Unspeakable began to finish their carving. "Forever trapped, to be used by others for eternity." And, for the first time, there was something in his eyes besides apathy and coldness, a dark cruelty that reminded Hydrangea so much of Tom that her already tormented mind ached. And, to make things worse, her Magic was being changed by the Runes. Her Magic twisted and bucked and strained and, in her mind, she could see the gleaming gold shifting and changing, the shapeless egg-shaped core of it twisting into a mess, lumps and shapes forming and dissolving as the Magic of the Runes began to build, the End approaching.
"As soon as our Friend is done, we'll be gone, and you'll be trapped. Soon enough, you'll be back in the hands of the Ministry, Potter, safe and sound and properly submissive," the Spy crooned, his hand coming to rest firmly against her neck. Her Magic was forming, golden chains with vicious, jagged hooks at the end, coiling like frightened snakes as they rattled and hissed in her mind, and the Unspeakable pulled his gleaming athame away from her skin, her body coated in blood and black etchings.
"It is almost complete," the Unspeakable said, voice twisted by a spell so that one couldn't tell age, gender, or emotion from it. "One final component and it will be complete."
"Excellent," the Spy said, focusing his blue eyes on hers, and opening his mouth to continue. But, before he could speak, the Unspeakables athame flashed, and the Spy's throat was slit. Those blue eyes went wide with shock as his thick, hot blood sprayed out onto Hydrangea's body, the Unspeakable quickly grabbing him by the hair and holding him over her, coating her pinned body with his blood.
Three things happened as he dropped the corpse to the wayside like a piece of trash.
One: the Runes pulsed, and the Lamp glowed.
Two: The door burst open as Panas and his soldiers burst in, a sickle flying through the air and decapitating the Unspeakable, their blood adding the the thick pool that coated Hydrangea.
Three: Her Magic finally broke free, the thick, golden chains erupting from her body to slash at all, hooking around the Lamp that she was now tied to and yanking it close, just as Panas shot an unknown, violently purple spell at her.
Chains, Lamp, and Spell collided against her bloody body and, with an explosion that rocked everything within one hundred miles, the Woman-Who-Conquered disappeared, never to be seen in the Wizarding World ever again.
/\/\/\/\
In the middle of a clearing near what appeared to be a relatively unused Training Ground, a golden Lamp and a blood-soaked woman appeared in mid-air out of a violently purple vortex. As the two crashed into the ground, the woman seemed to dissolve into thick, red smoke, and spiraled away down the spout of the Lamp. The silver Runes on said Lamp flashed brightly twice, before dimming to a dark gray.
It would be several months before the Lamp was found by a young blond boy with bright blue eyes, who was trying to find a good place to plan a prank.
This would be the beginning of everything.
A/N: End. I rewrote this chapter literally six times. Enjoy!
* - Panas, Russian boys name meaning Immortal
** - I used Google Translate on my moms phone so I couldn't type in the actual Russian alphabet, just the Pronunciation in English. Sorry!