Hi, fellow Fanfiction-ers! We're one step closer to the meeting with Edward! I want to thank Maiannaise, Stephanied473, and ColossalSpaz for their fantastic reviews! I'm so glad you guys like my stories enough to actually let me know! OK, so this chapter is a little horrible in terms of Rissie's treatment, but she gets out pretty quickly, thank goodness! I wonder if anyone can guess who saves her - please try and guess, I want to see how obvious it was! I think it's obvious, but I don't know how obvious it is to others. Please read, enjoy, and review! Thank you!
-Owlix
Chapter Nine: Questions and Answers
General POV:
Far away from the comfort and familiarity of the Burrow, a girl shivered in fear and pain as she rocked back and forth in the dark, dank cellar of Malfoy Manor. Her once brilliant green and gold dress was now reduced to bloodied, dirt-covered rags after nearly two weeks of torture. All but one piece of jewellery had been removed – a single emerald and diamond earring that hung in her left ear which allowed the mostly-deaf girl to hear the questions sent her way by the Death Eaters and, occasionally, the Dark Lord. Her lush red and golden locks were lank and filthy, covered in sweat as well as dirt and blood. Her bruised and swollen hazel-green eyes were bright with fever and the madness of paranoid fear. Her lips were chapped and split in some places, and they were mouthing two words: "drip" and "drop".
You see, she was painstakingly watching a puddle nearby as drops of water from the ceiling fell into it. With each ripple, she would either say "drip" or "drop", alternating between the two. She wasn't quite mad yet, but the prisoners around her knew that she wouldn't last much longer. She'd actually lasted much longer than they'd originally thought, but they all knew her time was coming to a close. If Harry Potter didn't come within the next few days, he would come to find his sister's lifeless body bloodied and mangled by some of the most horrific tortures the normal Death Eaters could think of. Thankfully, Bellatrix Lestrange hadn't gotten her claws into the girl yet; that would kill the poor thing for sure!
The poor girl was so withdrawn into her own world of "drip-drop" that she didn't realize someone was watching her. He'd stayed behind when the others had left her behind an hour ago, hidden in the darkest corner he could find. His dark eyes, normally cold and calculating, were full of pain and guilt as he stared at the mostly-mad girl on the floor.
He took in her appearance and remembered how she had looked when he'd first met her, the night of the Third Triwizard Tournament Task. She'd looked so much like her mother, staring in wonder at everything around her, that his very bones had ached with the sense of loss that lanced through him. When he'd first introduced himself to her, she'd seemed to have instantly recognized him, no doubt from her brother's letters. She'd been quite polite but almost frigidly cool, a quiet bite hidden just on the edge of her smile. She would have made an excellent Slytherin, he'd thought with a small jolt of pride. Wouldn't that have been shocking?
Now, however, all he could see was a broken doll, smashed and torn and thrown around until there was almost nothing left in her. He knew she wouldn't last much longer, but he also knew that he couldn't get her out of there alone.
With a quiet, decisive snap, he summoned the house-elf that had once answered to his mother's family. As the last remaining member of that house, the elf now belonged to him and had for the past twenty years, since his mother's death.
"Bobbin lives to serve, Master," the middle-aged elf rumbled.
"Retrieve some pain potions for me," the man demanded. "The strongest ones in my stores. Immediately!"
Bobbin bowed and Disapparated. A moment later, he was back with four potions clutched in his slightly wrinkled hands.
"Keep an eye out for the others, Bobbin," the man ordered as he took the potions from the elf. "If someone comes, take us both out of here!"
"Very good, Master," Bobbin said, taking his post in the shadow right next to the door to the cellar.
The man quickly and quietly crouched beside the girl, knowing he would have to be very careful. Thinking quickly, he threw a hood over his head to hide his face, hoping she wouldn't recognize his voice.
"Iris," he called gently. Surprisingly, the girl didn't respond. The man racked his brain for another name to call her and then remembered the nickname her brother gave her.
"Rissie."
The sounds of "drip" and "drop" were silenced as the girl turned her head at an achingly slow pace to look up at the man.
"Y-You ..." she gasped through her scream-ravaged throat. "You've come ... t-to set me ... f-free. I'm ... g-going ... h-home ...?"
"Not just yet, Rissie," the man said quietly. "I need to take away your pain first."
"OK," Rissie said softly. The man was surprised she was so submissive, but shoved that aside as he forced her to drink an entire vial of the pain potion. It was slow going due to the slight nausea Rissie felt while drinking the potion, but the man managed to get it all down her throat, not a single drop wasted.
"Alright," he said finally. "I'm going to take you to the edge of the British Isles before giving you another potion. Can you hold on that long?"
"Yes," Rissie said quietly as she slumped into the man's embrace, exhausted almost to the point of unconsciousness.
The man tightened his grip on Rissie to keep her steady before calling to Bobbin.
"The westernmost end of Tearaght Island, Bobbin."
"Yes, Master."
Two cracks later, the man was kneeling on a crag near a lighthouse on the westernmost point in the British Isles. After dismissing Bobbin, he looked down to check on Rissie and found her shivering in pain. He forced her to drink one and a half more vials, knowing this was only the first leg of the journey. This was the difficult part – Apparating more than four thousand kilometres over the ocean with a dangerously injured girl in his arms. He would have asked Bobbin for more assistance, but Bobbin had never been outside Great Britain so he would have no idea where to go. Gathering his strength and focus, the man pictured an alleyway just off of Times Square that he'd Apparated from before.
With two more cracks, he was there and Rissie was still in pain but had gone into a coma to escape from it. The man swore blackly under his breath, trying to ignore the growing stirs of panic in his heart; he knew that if he didn't get her strength up, Rissie wouldn't survive the next Apparition. Thinking quickly, he took out a small vial of potion, one that was normally used as a general pick-me-up, and poured the contents down Rissie's throat, massaging her neck to make sure she swallowed.
He waited for about fifteen minutes to make sure the potion had taken effect, and when he could see some healthy colour in Rissie's cheeks, made her drink the other vial-and-a-half of pain potion. When he was almost certain he wouldn't be holding a corpse when he came to his next location, he Apparated ...
... And reappeared in front of a hospital in a small town called Forks, Washington.
Rissie's POV:
I couldn't quite say what woke me up at first, but the first thing I was consciously aware of was someone rolling me over and pulling the sheets off of me. The new sheets were warm and smelled fresh, like they had just come out of the dryer. I curled up a little and breathed in the scent of clean laundry, running the back of my fingers over the slightly scratchy sheets.
That seemed to alert whoever was changing my sheets that I was mostly conscious because the sheet-changing paused. A few moments later, I felt someone shake my shoulder. I opened my eyes and saw a woman with russet-coloured skin, true-black hair pulled back in a ponytail, and worried eyes that were the deepest black I'd ever seen. She was wearing dark blue scrubs; was she a nurse? Was I in hospital? How did I get here?
I saw her lips move as she spoke to someone, but I barely hear her! Fighting off a growing sense of panic, I reached up and felt around my ears. No hearing aids and no magical earrings! I was now almost completely deaf, and I didn't doubt the events of the past two weeks had contributed to my condition.
For some reason, the panic didn't seem to go away when I confirmed my deafness. In fact, it seemed to be getting worse. Yes, I couldn't hear, but I could tell I was in a hospital. I was safe! Why wouldn't my heart stop beating so fast? Why couldn't I breathe properly? What was happening?!
The woman's face became almost resolute as she stared at me. She began to walk away, but for some reason, I couldn't let her go. When I was alone, the Death Eaters came and hurt me! I couldn't be alone! I grabbed her hand and tried talking to her, but I couldn't get a sense of what I was saying. I tried grabbing my throat so I could feel myself talking and focused on making my lips and tongue move properly, but I couldn't seem to make much sense, even to myself. I needed her to stay – what was wrong with me?! Why couldn't I tell her?!
I saw the woman move her lips again as she talked to someone else in the room. I focused on her lips to try and see what she was saying. I saw what I think was "calm her down", but I didn't have a lot of practice reading lips. But I did know sign language! Maybe I could use that to talk to her!
Given a small dose of clarity by my realization, I reached out and shook her arm to get her attention. When she was looking at me, I made the sign for "Help me!", which was holding my right hand as a fist vertically on the palm of my left hand and bringing my hands toward me. When she looked confused, I did it again, this time mouthing out the words "Help me!"
I saw it in her eyes when she understood. She held up her pointer finger in an almost universal sign to ask for one moment before grabbing a pen and scribbling pad. After scribbling on it for a moment, she handed it to me.
'What's wrong?' she'd written.
I scribbled my answer as fast as I could and handed the pad back to her.
'Heart going too fast. Breathing too fast. Won't stop!'
I saw her eyebrows rise as she read my answer, but to her credit, she stayed calm. She nodded at me and picked up a syringe. I pointed at the syringe and lifted my hands to push down slightly at the air, like I was trying to pet an imaginary animal. I mouthed out the words "calm down" as I did so to help her translate. She nodded and put the end of the needle against the tube linking the saline water to me, telling me that she was going to put the medicine in me that way. I nodded frantically and signed "please" over and over again, placing my hands palm to palm horizontally and sweeping my top hand up toward me. She seemed to get the message; she got that syringe empty faster than I'd anticipated.
I sighed and leaned back into the pillows, trying to take deep breaths as the medicine worked its magic. It didn't seem to happen as fast as I would like, but eventually I could breathe slowly enough to not pass out. Once that was taken care of, I could logically think about my situation without my body shutting down on me again. The woman used that time to finish making my bed; I could feel her pulling on the sheets beneath me as I stared up at the ceiling.
I looked over at her when I felt her pat my arm. She raised her right hand and drew a cross on her left arm with her index and middle finger. Trying to ignore the two fingers she had up, I drew the same sign with my thumb. Her head leaned to the side slightly and shook as she drew the sign again, as if insisting that her way of signing was right. I frowned and shook my head firmly before pantomiming writing on a pad and holding my hand out. She handed me the pad and allowed me to write on it.
'I'm British,' I wrote. 'We use our thumb to sign "hospital."'
She blinked when she read my answer, but before she could respond, someone came into the room. I couldn't help from gaping slightly at the man who had come in. He was almost two metres tall with a flawlessly alabaster complexion, perfectly coiffed blonde hair, and warm golden eyes. I actually looked at his back as he turned to talk to the woman, to see if he had wings hiding under that white coat. I couldn't see anything, but it was loose enough where it could hide wings if they were held tightly against his back.
I snapped back to reality when I saw the woman leave. Before I could start to panic again, the doctor turned to smile at me. I was frustrated when I felt my face burn a little; this guy was old enough to be my father!
"Hello, miss," he signed – in British Sign Language! "I'm Doctor Cullen. I'm the chief doctor here."
"Hello, Doctor," I signed back, giving him a smile. "I'm Iris. My friends call me 'Rissie.'"
"It's nice to meet you, Rissie," Dr. Cullen said with a smile. "I'm sure you have some questions for me."
"Yes," I signed emphatically. "For starters, where am I, and how did I get here?"
"What's the last thing you remember?" Dr. Cullen asked.
I frowned and gathered my tattered memories before communicating what I could.
"I was in a dark room made of stone – a cellar, I think. I hurt all over; still do, matter of fact. Someone came up to me. It was a man in a long dark cloak with the hood pulled up. He gave me something that made the pain stop a bit. There was wind and ... I could smell the ocean, but that's about it."
Dr. Cullen nodded before explaining. "That man was an old friend of mine from medical school. He was aware of your situation and decided to help you. He managed to Apparate the pair of you here, where I could heal you and keep you out of trouble. Yes, I know about Apparition and those who can do it," he added, noting my expression of amazement. "As to where you are, you're in Forks, Washington, in America. You're pretty much as far as you can get from England without losing English."
"Who saved me?" I asked.
To my surprise, and frustration, Dr. Cullen shook his head.
"He asked me to not tell you," he said apologetically. "He's part of the group that hurt you and wants to stay as anonymous as possible for now. When the time is right, he'll make himself known to you. In the meantime, he arranged for some personal effects of yours to be returned. I'll bring them up as soon as you're feeling closer to one hundred percent."
"Why not now?" I asked, not noticing my hands fumbling a little.
"Because you've just been rescued from one of the most brutal torture sessions I've ever seen. Your body is using up all of its energy to heal the damage that has been done to it. You won't be able to stay awake long enough to see everything he's sent to you. You need to be able to stay awake for more than an hour before I can feel comfortable with showing you what I have.
"And speaking of staying awake, you're about to fail at that," he quipped, smirking a little as he saw how tired I was. "I'll stay until you fall asleep. Rest, Rissie. You're safe here."
As I felt my body obeying his request, I couldn't help thinking I was only safe for now. If I was found, I would never see the light of day again. To avoid that and stay alive long enough to find Harry, I would need to leave as soon as possible, with or without the doctor's approval.
