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23 December 1977

Emilie Delacroix was wedged uncomfortably at the dinner table between Lucius Malfoy and Regulus Black, trying to ignore the fact that Narcissa Black's hand had been planted firmly on Lucius's crotch for the past several minutes. He had been keeping his composure rather well, she thought, though it hadn't escaped her notice that he had been chewing on the same mouthful of roasted pork far longer than necessary.

Regulus, on her left, was making wild hand gestures as he tried to communicate across the table to his cousin Bellatrix around a mouthful of potatoes, one of his elbows dangerously close to upsetting Emilie's goblet with each gesticulation. Bellatrix was obviously making an attempt to listen to him, but kept diverting her attention to shoot Rodolphus Lestrange dark looks. Emilie suspected something was going on between them under the table, but Bella didn't seem to be reciprocating Rodolphus's affections. His brother was muttering something confidentially to Rosier and Avery, who were nodding fervently in response to whatever it was he was saying. Kurt Lovell was sitting beside Avery, moodily picking at his pork roast.

Emilie's parents were seated at the end of the table, her father laughing uproariously at something a Russian man Emilie didn't recognize had said, her mother silently pushing the food around on her plate. The seat at the very head of the table was empty - it had been reserved for the Dark Lord himself, but he had already left for the evening - something about urgent business in the north. He had given a vague apology and Disapparated before Madame Delacroix had even instructed the House Elves to uncork the first bottle of wine.

Abruptly, Lucius excused himself from the table and stood, exiting the dining room. Nobody seemed to notice or care that Narcissa almost immediately did likewise.

Emilie took advantage of their vacated seats and inched her chair away from Regulus's, thankful for the extra room, scooting her goblet out of range of his flailing elbow. She dropped her gaze from the other diners down to her hands, folded carefully in her lap. She tugged back the sleeve of her robe and glanced down at the slender lines now etched on her forearm, lightly tracing the fingers of her right hand along the contours of what was unmistakably the body of a snake. The lines of the Dark Mark had already faded from their initial stark black to a bloody red. She felt someone's eyes on her and looked up to see Rosier smirking at her across the table.

"Guess I was wrong about you, Delacroix," he said, pausing a moment to hiccup. "Looks like you're one of us, after all. But what will dear Geoffrey think?"

Emilie grabbed her goblet and choked down a mouthful of fairy wine, determined to ignore him.

"Maybe he'll bash your face in with a club. He's fond of doing that to people like us, you know," Rosier went on, lifting his own goblet from the table with one hand and swirling its contents around, tapping the side of his now crooked nose with a finger of his opposite hand. "Or maybe he'll just break your collarbone or crack a few ribs like he did to Avery and Regulus. No big deal, right? What are a few broken bones?"

At the end of the table, Walburga Black shrieked with laughter, clapping the Russian man on the shoulder and wiping a tear of mirth from one eye. Emilie tried to imagine herself somewhere else.

"Hey, bitch." Rosier slammed his goblet down on the table, wine slopping out of it and down the side. Regulus's tirade to his cousin died down, and even Rodolphus Lestrange turned his attention away from Bellatrix to glance warily sideways. Rosier stood abruptly, the legs of his chair scraping against the hardwood floor, catching the attention of the other diners, even Walburga's laugh dying on her lips. "I'm talking to you, Delacroix."

Emilie flipped some of her dark hair over one shoulder and continued looking intently at Regulus. "What were you saying, Reg? Please, go on - something about goblins, you said?"

Regulus's eyes slid uncertainly from Rosier to Emilie and back again. "Err - yeah, Mum was saying she thought-"

He stopped short as Rosier whipped out his wand and pointed it toward Emilie as he swayed slightly on the spot. Down the table, Madame Delacroix tutted despairingly, her pleasant holiday dinner falling into shambles before her eyes, while her husband chortled, murmuring something about boys will be boys. Rosier's father stood, raising a hand in a placating gesture. "Evan..." he said, a warning plain in his voice.

Emilie looked at the tip of the wand in front of her, then at its owner, painfully aware that all eyes were now on them. Evan was scowling down at her, his eyes slightly glassy and unfocused as he continued to sway. He grabbed the edge of the table with one hand to steady himself as he hiccuped again. He raised his wand high above his head, and began to bring it down, his lips beginning to form a spell, but Emilie was faster.

She whipped her wand out from beneath her robes and cried, "Serpensortia!" A snake flew from the end of her wand and into Rosier's face, knocking him back from the table. He stumbled and fell to the floor as cries of alarm and protest sounded from the other diners.

"Is that the best you've got?" Rosier demanded, reaching up to tear the serpent away from his face.

"Oppugno!"

The snake twisted in Rosier's hand and sank its teeth into his arm. He pulled it off, its fangs leaving twin gashes in his arm where they'd torn through his flesh. Once the snake was on the floor, a quick severing charm had the thing in two pieces as Rosier scrambled unsteadily back to his feet. Several of the adults had vacated their seats and were hurrying toward the duelists, but Emilie had already fled the room, the hem of her robes just disappearing around the corner. Rosier took off after her, shaking off the arms of the witches and wizards trying to hold him back, firing a few jinxes at his would-be pursuers. His feet fell heavily on the stairs and he stumbled into a side table as he rounded a corner, knocking a vase of carefully-arranged flowers to the ground, startling several portraits awake. He paid no mind to their cries of protest and alarm as he raised his wand again, blasting Emilie's closed bedroom door off its hinges with another spell.

The door had not even come to rest on the carpet when a jet of red light from inside the room hit him squarely in the chest, knocking him backward. He crashed into the opposite wall, knocking a large portrait to the floor. The people in the portrait clambered back to their feet and began shaking their fists at him, but he ignored them, kicking the painting away from him as he stood, slicing his wand through the air. Emilie deflected his curse, sending a nearby vase tumbling to the floor as she whipped her own wand above her head, sending another flash of red light at him. He dodged her spell, and another portrait crashed to the floor. The duelists carried their fight from one end of the upstairs corridor to the other, sending several more artifacts and portraits crashing to the floor. Footsteps pounded up the staircase as the others dashed upstairs to put a halt to the duel, having remedied their disabling jinxes.

"Crucio!"

The spell hit Rosier in the chest, knocking him to the floor, making him call out in pain. But no sooner had he gone down than he was pulling himself back to his feet, his wand shaking visibly in his hand.

"That scumsucker Mansfield's softened you up, hasn't he? Can't even bring yourself to really hurt me. You have to mean it. Crucio!"

The spell immediately had Emilie on the floor, writhing, trying to do anything to stop the incredible agony. She heard someone shout something from the staircase and seconds later, the pain stopped, leaving her breathing heavily and shaking on the floor. Her head spinning as her vision came back into focus, she saw Evan's father holding him by the front of his robes, berating him, other adults ushering the rest of the students back downstairs. Someone was walking toward her and knelt beside her.

She felt familiar hands roaming over her arm and back, brushing her hair out of her face, and heard her mother's voice speaking softly but sternly, the words incomprehensible. Madame Delacroix helped her daughter to her feet, but Emilie's knees buckled as soon as she was standing and she collapsed back to the floor, still shaking. She felt herself be magically lifted from the floor and pushed along the hallway to her bedroom, and finally lowered onto her bed.

Madame Delacroix's words became clearer as she busied herself with tending to her daughter. "...absolute disgrace... don't know what you were thinking... should be ashamed... no excuse..."

Emilie rolled onto her side away from her mother, burying her face into a pillow as she began to sob. After several long moments, her mother stood and left, muttering "Reparo" as she passed the doorway. The door sprang back to its hinges, and Emilie heard the lock turn. Once her mother's footsteps had retreated down the hallway and everything was silent, Emilie found herself wracked with sobs.

She didn't know how long she laid there. No one came to her door. The house was quiet. Once her sobbing had calmed down, she pushed herself shakily up onto her elbows and groped for the drawer in her bedside table, rummaging around in it until her hand closed around a piece of thick yellow parchment. She pulled it out and sat up on the bed, beginning to read the letter for the umpteenth time, but before she had finished reading the first line, her vision blurred as her eyes filled with tears again. She wiped them away and forced herself to focus on the letter's last words, trying to keep her hands from shaking - I'll be at the Leaky Cauldron around 8:30 on the 23rd if you'd like to meet up for a drink. - Geoff

She lowered the letter and glanced at the clock hanging on the wall. It was almost eight-twenty. She looked back at the letter, considering. It would be no trouble to Apparate to the Leaky Cauldron and meet him. Her eyes slid from the letter to her left forearm, the head of a snake just visible where the sleeve of her robes had fallen back from her wrist. She tugged the sleeve down. She couldn't face him. Not tonight.

She clutched the letter to her chest, curled up on her bed, and cried herself to sleep.