The truth that sets you free

Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew had materialized out of nowhere and along with Black, they were holding their wands at me. I cant deny that I was very surprised at first and my heart seemed to pick up speed at the new turn of events, but it soon stabilized and I looked at Black with resentment.

"Should I have pointed out that the meaning of private is 'Belonging to, or concerning, one individual person'?" At my voice his wand dug into the skin of my throat painfully, as mine had dug into his some time ago at the wedding.

Déjà vu.

"Don't play with me. Who are you? What is the meaning of that on your forearm?" He had never gotten like this, except for when I hurt that Hufflepuff during potions. They had such a look of disgust in their eyes, I truly considered if this would be my end, on the dusty floor of the restricted section. But i knew they wouldn't kill me. Black might, but Potter would never allow it. They we school boys, not killers.

"I was hoping you could tell me." I said calmly.

"For how long have you had it?" Potter was the epitome of stern as he looked at me. And sudenly I wasnt so sure about my schoolboys theory. They weren't looking at me the way they usually did. I could see the fear dwelling behind their resolution. Potter had never before looked at me with fear...

"For as long as I can remember." They didn't believe me, I saw it. I had to find my escape from this corner my stupid hopes had led me to. But there was none, unless I hurt one of them badly enough to distract the others. And if I did that, I may never know the meaning of the black mark on my skin. They seemed to know, and I would get it out of them.

"You look pretty shaken Black. I thought you didn't know what the Seal was!"

"That is no fucking seal Meadows, and you know it. Stop playing dumb with me." Black looked in my eyes and I looked back, both my arms rigid at my sides and my hands flat against the wall behind my back.

"What is then, pray enlighten me." My sarcasm looked misplaced since there were four men in front of me looking ready to end me in one way or another.

"Peter, go call Dumbledore, tell him it's an emergency." Lupin's voice was harsher then I had ever heard it and it sounded out of place with his always so gentle looks. But now there was no trace of that on him now.

"Why are you so afraid?" I whispered and as a flash ran through his eyes, Lupin glared at me, hatred giving him a monstrous look. It made me nervous.

"I don't fear you. I loathe you." His tone was severe and the still sparkling eyes backed the truth in his words, but I couldn't help but chuckle. The sound was terribly sinister in the dark.

"Get in line, Lupin!"

"That was a fantastic act though, Meadows. I almost fell for it."

Everything was getting confusing, but it didn't matter anymore. They were obviously under some impression that would not go away no matter what I said to them. So I decided to say nothing more. Taking a deep breath, I relaxed my muscles and then tensed them again.

Lupin was werewolf, I had no chance of forcing anything on him, he would be too physically strong for me, and Potter was a seeker, it would be difficult to catch him off guard. Black was taller then the former two, but he was the one I could handle, in this case.

The attack would have to be as fast as it could be.

I grabbed Black's wrist and twisted it, the smacking noise of his bones cracking echoing one second before his scream of pain. I pulled him to me forcibly, but I knew that I wouldnt move him much, so I sort of jumped and threw myself at his back, using him as a protective shield from his friends spells at the same time as I got the four inch blade out of my skirt's pocket and putting it right on his carotid artery. If I cut him there he would die in a matter of instants and by the way he and his friends froze, they seemed to know… or maybe they were just scared of a blade on their best friend's throat, put there by a girl they considered insane and dangerous .

Black's pulse was fast under my fingers, yet his breathing wasnt too choppy.

"Put your wands down." They didn't move so I dug the sharp blade into Black's skin and a drop of blood came out. I was careful not to cut him too deep thought, but he winced and made the cut a little deeper than I had meant it to be.

"I said - put the wands – down!" My voice was low and lethal, and they did as I told them to. Then they pushed them in my direction and I kicked them away from the grip of either of us.

"Now you need to listen very carefully. One false move and wonderboy here might get seriously hurt." I looked at them and considered running for it or not. After careful consideration, I realized there was no escape for me this time. This was my last card and I would play it carefully."What is the meaning of this thing on my arm?"

"Why do you insist on this? You should know better than anyone what it is; you are the one wearing it."

"Answer the question Potter!"

"What you have on your skin is the Dark Mark. The sign that you, Death Eater, belong to your master, the Dark Lord!" Lupin said, looking strait at me with a hate filled glare.

I froze. My brain was blocked, refusing to process the words I had just heard from his lips. I was so stunned that I actually loosen my grip on Black. He didn't wait a second and grabbed my wrist, twisting it to an impossible angle, repayign me in kind for what i did to his wrist. The sting and the faint crack barely registered. Something hit me in the chest… or did my chest hit something … I was not sure. My jaw clammed so hard on my upper teeth that I saw starts for a moent. I wasn't even sure why I wasn't breathing but the exercise seemed too hard to master.

I found that my cheek had somehow found the cool surface of the stone wall… or was it the floor? Something very heavy had trapped my legs and my arms and something was on my back, holding me down… someone's knee probably… I couldn't move but I wouldn't have even if Black wouldn't have been trapping me. The voices were like from another dimension. Nothing could make it through my brain, everything just kept skimming it as if my freaquency trasmiter had broken. Everything slipped except the words that were ringing in my ears…

Dark Mark… Dark Lord… Death Eater…

Dark Mark… Dark Lord… Death Eater…

Me! Me! ME! All along, that was me!

Then my brain started doing some more work and another question was forming in my head…

How? How had this happened? I had never met the Dark Lord, never been aproached to meet him even thougth i knew plenty of his Death Eaters. And in that fuzzy moment, it made sense that they never once showed off their mark in my eyes. I would have regognised it had i asked. Had i been a little smarter. A bit more aware...

Ah, but it was all too easy. The mark, the curse, the curfew, me not being able to leave my home, it was all connected. All that training, the dark asts practice, the punishments, the subdued refferences to a greater destiny, to servitude. My mother telling me I was meant for greater things, that my destiny had been written for me before i was even born. It was all one spiter-thread that connected everything that had taken place in my life within these sixteen years and that I had not been eble to put toghether. I couldnt really comprehend it now either. Couldn't wrap my head around it. I just sort of listed all these events in my head, regognised the connection and called myself the stupidest human form that ever lived. Realization of the scheme was enought to knock the breath out of me... and in that moment, something in me broke, i felt i, and it had nothing to do with the fact that Black had just broken my wrist. It was a different kindof pain that overshadowed any physical hurts i might be enduring at the moment.

I couldn't breathe. My lungs were closed and I couldn't draw air into them. Then I started to pant and convulse, the dust going into my mouth, making it even harder to draw oxigen. I was going to throw up any moment now… and I did, choking on it. The grip on me suddenly loosened and I was with my face up again, but could see nothing but a blur of colors and a silvery shine somewhere. I was shaking and my chest hurt, my throat and nostrils burned. The horrid stench around me was making me want to throw up again. I did, but this time someone held be, so I wouldn't choke on it once more.

There were strange noises coming from around me, rustling and heavy steps. Then I felt the need to expulse all I had been holding in me for so long. All the throwing up on the floor wasn't enough to clean me. I felt dirtier than I ever had. This was when I realized that the strange noise was me, crying wildly. It was my sobs I was hearing, but I didn't know how this kind of agony sounded. I had never let it out before, convinced that it would cripple me if I did. I hadnt known how to cry, believing that there was no reason to anyway. But in that moment, so out of my own mind, i held nothing back. I felt completely useless, broken, stupid. I felt that everything that could possibly be wrong in a human being were wrong with me and there was no way to make it better. I had no more pride left to hide my sobs... not to mention that doing so would require energy i didnt have.

Voices were calling my name. They sounded too far away, and honestly, I didn't care. I felt that animal need to hurt myself again, I needed pain to escape this thing that was tearing me apart. The scream was feral and it scrapped the inside walls of my throat. I screamed again and again and again… it wasn't enough… I screamed and cried myself into darkness.

-

The next day I woke surrounded by white walls and light and warmth. So strange falling in the dark and waking up in the light… It all came back, but I had no strength to be angry. It seemed like my resolve, malice, pride, stubbornness… my everything had leaked out of me, on that cold floor in the restricted section. But apparently, I had held back tears for so long that they seemed to need no cause to come out now. They didn't need my permission anymore. So I cried, I cried and felt emptier…

-

The white vase of flowers smashed on the floor, followed by some other things that could be broken. I was in my paper-dress, looking at the distorted image of the woman that brought me in this world only so that i could be marked upon birth to serve, upon my will or otherwise, to the man that was to rule the world. She held nothing for me in her eyes as she told me how I had been predicted to become a ball of power, and how she had given me to him, to win his good graces…

She told me how It had been said. Told me that I would be born with a sister from a different mother and that our twin destiny would be to turn into the most loyal and obedient servants of a man that would arise to keep the honor of the purebloods alive. But it had also been said than one of us would stray if not rightly taught how and why to uphold the rules of her world, thus becoming a mortal enemy to everything she was born into.

She told me how the elders of our family had been intrigued by this and were also cautious of the second possibility… so they had taken precautions, believing themselves more powerful than destiny. Having the arrogance of believing that they could control it all.

So I and this sister I was not revealed the identity of, were branded with the smear of an ancient evil. The mark of Slytherin himself darkened my skin, the mark that the Dark Lord had revived to represent himself with. I didn't need a prophecy to realize who it was that would turn against her destiny though. I was already angry enought to tear teh entrie world apart. Even if I id it to spite my mother, if onyl just for that, I would never fall servant to anyone. I would do it just so that i could destroy what she wanted to uphold, just so that i could see her world going into pieces and laught in her face when it happened.

The black ink on my skin was more than just the Dark Mark of a dangerous wizard. It was there to control me, to make me obey and to keep me tied to the world I was born into. To take my allegiance forcefully through denying me every other source I could devote myself to, consequently leaving me all alone. That mark was that little voice that whispered to me to wait and let life take its toll by itself.

Wait, wait and it will be all right, just be what they want you to be and it will be fine…

And by being alone, I wouldn't be much of a threat… and I would be very helpful… for whatever it was that He would want me to be…

My fingers didn't delay to wind around her neck. She could do nothing to stop me. As I watched her unfeeling face, I realized the only thing I, the real me, the one confined by that spell, had been chasing for all this time - it was her. I had been after that person I was now holding by the throat. Or my idea of her, of how she should have been, of who she could have been to me. The only thing I had truly wanted was impossible to have. It was not my freedom I hunted for, since I didn't know the extent of which it had been lost. No, it was a reason to be held captive. A reason in which to believe and devote, but I had never been given one. That was what my mind had been reaching out to, begging to have. She never gave me a reason.

Instead I was given orders and view of what others thought of the world around me. Empty words I refused to process - to much pride had had its uses after all. I wanted to understand, I asked why and how and never took anything for granted. The lack of rational answers left me unsatisfied and angry with them for trying to make me do things. This anger had been the greatest gift bestowed on me. It had enabled me to think for myself, unfazed by what all that others told me. That had been how I came to notice the lack of logic in this world I was born. The lack of rational thinking when my mother and all around her talked ill of my dead father. It was anger at them for making me want to refuse him that made me refuse them instead.

That had been the moment when anger had been born I realization had given me a new motivation to fight and made my anger my ally, so I wasn't alone at all. I'd been angry at my father too, for leaving me. I still was. In any way imaginable, i had loved both my parents and had lost them both. One to death, the other... had been simply lost. I still didnt know how, when or to what. Maybe she was something i was never mean to have. I had been chasing her, her world, her views, loving and hating her at the same time, needing to be loved by the one person that refused ardently to do so. But no-one can have what is not there to be given. It was the one thing that, in my infancy, could have made a difference. Had she showed me a place to belong I would have done anything for anyone she wanted. I would have been the Death Eater that i was prediced to be, if Id thougt i had a reason behind it. But she had no love to give me; I had been chasing a ghost.

That is why that mark had had such power over me. Because I had let myself be ruled by my hope that one day I would have what I wanted: a reason that made sense. I had believed that there was something to stay for, and that thought, even thought unconsciously, had held me captive in a life I hated.

But not anymore. It is right what they say… Truth shall set you free… In that moment, as all realisation dawned, along with all its consequences, I felt that I was the owner of this body i inhabited for the very firs time. There was no falso hope, no delusion any more to keep me going. I was out of the maze, stopped seeing the world throught her eyes and opened mine for the first time. It was more painful that I thought, but also... the moment she walked out of the door of the nursery with the understanding that should we cross paths again one of us would get seriously hurt ( I still didnt have the heart to threated her with her heath, it was too soon) I felt myself free for the very first time. I knew that I was, because I was suddenly not tryig in any way to look for freadom.

It is a curious thing, is it not? The only moment that you search for freedom is when you lack it. But when you have it, what comes next becomes very comfusing. You have to figure out what you want to do with it, and it hard. But this wasn't my case.

I knew exacly what i wanted.

I wanted revenge...