"Don't bother."
The wand was extended towards her, but she ignored it, her eyes fixed on the man staring defiantly at the bastard that was her father, unable to speak, and unable to move.
"You will do it," he commanded the girl.
"My answer has not changed since the day you offered. I will not."
"Why?" he demanded.
Because you made a mistake. Because you chose to make me suffer the fate in thought that I would cast the same fate on others to get revenge.
"Does it matter?" she drawled.
"No. You will do it anyway."
"I have never before," she told him. "Why should I today? Or any day?"
"Because you know what will happen if you don't."
"I do. Who is he? What is he to you?"
"Remus Lupin. He is a friend of James and Lily Potter. We want him on our side. He is a member of the Order of the Phoenix. He is a werewolf."
He knew he had struck a nerve. Sam hated werewolves ever since her delightful meeting with Fenrir Greyback. She shifted, still staring at the man in front of her.
His gaze penetrated hers, as if he knew that his fate lay not in the man he strove to fight against, but the girl that was as old as his nephew. He had brown eyes, and his brown hair was prematurely graying. There was dried blood on his patched robes.
She held out her hand for the first time ever to receive the wand to torture another human being. She had never done so before. That had been his mistake. He had tortured her in an attempt to make her want to torture others but it didn't work. She did not feel pleasure hearing other people's screams. She did not feel pleasure watching people break and die.
But evidently, he thought he had her, and so did Lupin, for a different emotion flared in his eyes-not defiance, not fear, not even hatred. Was it…pity?
And he kept looking at her. There was something she saw in him that she never saw from anyone else-that she had never thought to act. How could she? Why had she been so stupid all these years?
Her brain calculated everything. She was an accomplished Occlumens, she knew. She was an accomplished everything. Pain tended to be a high motivator. She was grateful for that skill now as she thought hard.
"Any day now," the cold voice said. She heard the amusement, and the triumph in his voice. That skill, she had achieved without instruction. She could usually read people quite well. That was one of the reasons she could never torture a human being.
The prisoner-Lupin-was ready. He would not break easily, even if he did break at all. The wand could not be called her wand. It had not chosen her, merely been given to her, that is, stolen from another person that had been murdered, she assumed.
But Lupin would fight. She checked him over. He appeared uninjured, despite the dried blood on his robes. Now was the time. She would have to try, and pray it would work.
Everything her father had taught her, would set her free. An experienced duelist, her wand swapped from being pointed at the prisoner to her father. She could not bring herself to kill him-it was not as easy as anyone said, and she had seen too much death and was revolted by it, despite her father's best attempts to make her find pleasure in it.
"Stupefy," she said calmly. Her father, Voldemort, crumpled to the floor without a sound.
The prisoner was surprised, and confused. "I really am sorry," she said. "Stupefy."
She made the prisoner levitate with her wand. She opened the doors and stepped through. She closed the door quickly.
"My lady, where is your father?"
"He is not to be disturbed, you understand Dolohov? I am to dispose of the prisoner. Step aside." Her tone was bossy.
"Yes, my Lady."
She faced no other troubles as she stepped out of the place. There was no way to disapparate just yet. It would be a long walk before she could disapparate her and the prisoner somewhere.
With a jolt, she realized she had never been out of headquarters. She had no place to apparate except other headquarters.
The prisoner would know where to go….hopefully.