A/N:
Thank you Olivia0707, lunarmidnightwolf and staystongharleyquinn for your reviews! I am really glad that you like the story so far :)
Please let me know what you all think about this next chapter xx
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter world; all rights go to J.K Rowling. I do however own my original character Nova Malfoy and her background.
Fear had long abandoned her as she looked into the ratty face of Peter Pettigrew. It abandoned her like everything else; her magic refused to defend her and her father was nowhere to be seen as she was tortured and his master attempted to control her. Even the great Albus Dumbledore was absent. Nova Malfoy had been thrown into reality and she was learning a harsh lesson: she was alone and if she couldn't protect herself, she was going to die.
"You don't have to do this." She tried to reason as she trembled in anticipation. She watched as the reddened rope burns sunk deeper into her wrists with every pull of her restraints; she couldn't give up. Slowly, she lifted her head only to gulp as her nose grazed the wand that was mere centimetres from her face. "You can let me go." Her grey eyes caught Wormtail's, whose face faltered slightly causing his clawed hands to loosen around his wand. "I lost control of my magic again…I overpowered you." She prompted, nodding slighting with a charmed smile.
"He'll…he'll know. He'll kill me, I have to!" The small man spluttered, thrown by the girl's charm. She reminded him ever so slightly of his master and it unsettled him causing him to tighten his grip once more. Nova watched the tormented look on the man's face as he fought with his decision; his hands shook incredibly and his wand flew erratically, worsening her dizziness.
"I'll alter your memories, he'll never know. I promise." A slight smirk tried to force its way through the pleading look on her face but it was easily forced away; if there was one thing that she had learned from her brother it was the art of hiding emotion, the art of deception and so she pushed the cunningness and the calculations back behind the walls that hid her fear and the excruciating pain. "You know what murdering a defenceless girl would do to your soul…is it worth it when I can make it all go away?"
Wormtail shifted on his feet as the witch's eyes bored into him until the pressure was too much. His wand dropped as he ran to her and untied her restraints, muttering incoherently to himself. As Nova rose to her full height, slightly dizzy from the blood loss and fatigue, the man almost bowed as he held out his wand to her. She gladly took it as she felt the power that she had over him before turning to head out the door. Wormtail whimpered behind her as she reached the threshold of the door causing her to close her eyes and exhale before turning to face him, concentrating as hard as she possibly could, she performed a memory altering charm - that she had read about in a book that she had stolen from Professor Flitwick – sealing their secret to her mind alone.
The corridor was pitch black as she whispered Lumos. Her hands trembled as she forced her feet forward, grasping the wall to steady herself and blinking furiously in an attempt to banish her blurred vision. She froze as she heard footsteps approaching and the murmur of whispered plans, her mind raced as her feet remained planted with her lack of energy and her heart hammered her chest cavity with every approaching footfall. As her knees buckled under the weight of her body, two arms wrapped themselves around her.
"Nova!" A familiar female voice rung out as they held her steady. "It's okay, I'm here." The voice that she now recognised as Tonks, cooed softly. "Remus! Sirius! I have her!"
The youngest Malfoy was tearing at the seams as she broke down in her cousin's arms. She cried her heart out as the adrenaline washed away and the pain flooded in – drowning her. Nova had never known fear until she was bound to that chair, never known panic until she was face to face with the darkest wizard of all time. She felt weak as she allowed herself to cry, felt frustrated as her words failed her. Her tears signified her experience, her fear but mostly the simple knowledge that she truly wasn't alone. Her friends and family had been looking for her and they had eventually found her.
Nova would never forget the look on Sirius' face as he examined the scars, it cut her like a knife and tugged on her heartstrings. It was no secret that he blamed himself for her suffering, if he hadn't been so adamant about seeing her then she would have remained with Harry and this would have never happened. Nova was sure that she had seen a tear glide gracefully down his cheek from the eyes that mirrored her own but no amount of reassurance would heal him.
The young witch felt numb as Tonks cleaned the blood off of her and handed her a change of clothes. She felt nauseous as Remus fed her chocolate and soup. She felt exhausted as Sirius hugged her and she retold her story.
"Nova, your aunt is in Azkaban." Lupin spoke softly. "It couldn't have been her, there have been no reports of a break out…"
"Are you calling me a liar?"
"No, no, not at all. We just…" The man stuttered under her hardened stare, "We just need to know that you are sure of what you saw. That you are sure that the Bellatrix you saw was the real one."
"Are you sure the Bellatrix in Azkaban is the real one?" The girl retorted. She was growing angrier with every question – she knew what she had seen, what she had endured at the hands of her mother's sister regardless of what the Ministry of Magic told them.
"The Ministry…"
"I DON'T CARE." The witch snapped. The walls of 12 Grimmauld Place rattled with her fury, forcing the portraits off of their hooks causing them to slip to the floor with a shatter of glass as her magic teetered on the edge of destruction. Tonks and Lupin jumped, their eyes widening in fear as they caught a glimpse of the Malfoy family secret; the look on their faces hadn't gone unnoticed by the traumatised girl who faltered slightly as she forced her heartrate to slow. "I know what I saw. I know what happened." She whispered almost inaudibly, pulling down the collar of her shirt in emphasis. "Take me back to Hogwarts."
The flames of the common room fire flickered in her now ice cold eyes; never before had she looked so much like her brother, so much like her father. Her jaw sat tightly tensed as her collarbone throbbed with a pain that would forever remind her of her treachery. As the warmth of the fire failed to melt her hardened, unblinking stare, Nova tormented herself with darkening thoughts.
Nova had always been kind-hearted and compassionate, much to her parents' dismay. They could never understand how such a young girl could grow up with their pureblood views yet still defend the house elves or the squibs that worked on their land. That girl seemed like a fairy tale, a myth long buried in the pages of history. Darkness grew inside of her, suffocating the light and the more she thought about it, the darker her world seemed to be.
A footstep on the stairs caught her attention but stubbornly, she continued to hold the flames within her gaze and as the person shifted their weight between their feet before awkwardly sitting down beside her, she knew it was Harry. Silence covered them like a blanket as the fire began to fade and the first sliver of orange on the horizon told them that it was nearing sunrise until Nova finally sighed.
"No one believes me." She whispered, bringing her knees up to her chest in a desperate attempt to protect herself from vulnerability.
Harry studied her carefully before smiling softly, "You get used to it..."
"I don't know how, Harry but it was Bellatrix…I know it was." Nova finally spoke once more.
"I believe you."
As he uttered those words, a flicker of the light that normally cradled her grey eyes shone through the walls she had built before it was tackled back into its prison. He watched as she fought an internal battle, as her lip quivered and the grip on her knees tightened, trying to hold herself together. Silence engulfed the pair once more as the cooling coals on the fire spat out flecks of orange.
"How do you feel when you are in Voldemort's head?"
A frown creased the Potter boy's brow as he comprehended her question. No one had ever asked him that before: "Angry…unbelievably angry. Why?" Tears collected at the seams of her eyes as her body trembled. It was only then that Harry realised how broken she was; the bruises and grazes that littered her usually perfect complexion and the dark circles from the lack of sleep – she looked exhausted. Out of pride, she refused to look at him.
"I saw his life, his memories and I didn't hate him." Nova bit her lip as she stared down at her hands, prompting the wizard to move from the comfort of the sofa and kneel in front of her. The seemingly fearless girl that he had grown fond of, jumped as his hand grazed hers.
"That doesn't make you a bad person, Nova." He spoke gently as her tormented, tear stained eyes finally reached his. "Whatever happened, you can talk to me." The girl's mask continued to slip with every word that the boy uttered. "You are not alone. I know you think you are but you're not, you have me."
Nova flinched as Harry ran a cool finger over the bandages that donned her wrists. Her gaze followed him and his brow twisted beneath his unkempt hair and circular glasses as his eyes caught a glimpse of the silvery white letters through her dark curled hair.
"Don't." Nova whispered, panicked as he slowly reached a hand forward and gingerly swept away the curls. His heart leapt into his throat as she snatched his hand away and his eyes lingered on the word carved across her collarbone. Her grip on his hand tightened as he processed the scar and the young witch closed her eyes tightly, terrified of looking at the markings again.
As a tear glided down her cheek Harry softly swept it away with the pad of his thumb, lingering there for a moment before sliding his hand to the back of her neck and guiding her forehead to rest upon his shoulder. As if it were what she was waiting for, Nova threw her arms around him as she finally allowed herself to cry. Anger washed over him as he imagined what they had done to her; they were going to pay for it. Sorrow flushed through him as she pulled him closer to her, holding on to him as if he were her lifeline. Disappointment waded through him as he thought of the others' disbelief but the butterflies swept it all away as he felt her warm breath on his neck.
"I'm here. I'll always be here." He whispered as he cradled her.
The sun was shining through the window when Nova pulled back ever so slightly to look at him. Her grey eyes met his green ones and their noses nearly met as they remained merely inches apart and her peppermint breath tickled his lips as she finally whispered. "I'm going to kill her, Harry."
Dumbledore's office no longer appeared to possess the initial charm that had left the young Malfoy awestricken on her first day. Everything seemed darker, from the golden candelabras to the red tint of Fawkes' feathers. Everything was dark.
As Nova sat in the burgundy chair with the golden trim, her gaze was visibly vacant. Entering the Dark Lord's mind had left a mark – a scar not unlike the one that would forever grace her collar. The young witch could feel the darkness dancing in the corners of her mind, taunting her with its alluring song, like a siren to a sailor, yet she wasn't afraid.
Dumbledore studied the girl over the rims of his half-moon glasses, he knew that her mind had wandered the plains of another world and yet he made no attempt to bring her home.
"I pity him." Nova finally spoke as she removed her dreamy gaze from the window. The headmaster watched as she gulped and tensed her jaw briefly before continuing. "I saw his life flash before my eyes and I pitied him…He isn't all that different from me – we're similar...too similar – I know how he feels…how he thinks. I can do what he can; invade peoples' minds." The dream-like mask suddenly fell as the young witch snapped back to reality and turned her head to look at the aged wizard in front of her.
"Nova, how did you escape? Remus said that you were already on your way out when they reached you."
"Peter Pettigrew." She almost smiled before a frown crossed her features. "He bowed down to me…I'm going to turn into Him, aren't I?"
The headmaster couldn't quite decipher her tormented expression as he reassured her that the darkness she felt was a mere side effect of deep legilimency. Nova didn't believe him. She felt like a completely different person, a person that she feared.
"I believe you'll need this." Dumbledore smiled as he handed Nova her wand. Her hesitance to touch it hadn't gone unnoticed by the old man. "Sometimes in our lives we are faced with scenarios that require us to see ourselves in a whole new light. It is true that you possess much of the same power as Voldemort and it is also true that somehow you managed to overpower him but Nova, you are wrong to think that you and Tom Riddle are one in the same." He spoke as the girl continually gazed at her wand, internally arguing against the force that drew her towards it. "Take it."
After another moment of hesitance, she clasped her wand gently, "Promise me something?" She asked, waiting for the man to send her a brief nod before continuing, "If I…if I go dark, if I end up like him…promise me that you will find a way to bring me back."
The headmaster's resolve faltered at the words that tumbled out of the young witch's mouth. She was much too mature for her age and possessed worries that shouldn't even exist in her wildest of nightmares but the look on her face worried him. Dumbledore knew that whatever was spinning around her head in that moment terrified her but he also saw the undeniable similarities; the perceived loneliness, the irresistible charm, the power of her magic. Albus Dumbledore decided that perhaps Nova would be his redemption, a chance to do what he should have done for Tom.
And so he promised.