IX.
Lily awoke on a hard stone floor. How did I get on the floor? she wondered to herself. She didn't remember falling off of her bed, and she was sure no room in her house had a solid stone floor…
She looked up and saw bars in place of a door, and moldy bread for breakfast instead of eggs. She sighed. She knew where she was—in the Malfoy's dungeon. She looked across the hall, and sure enough—there was James, still with blood all over his face and a black eye. She looked in the cell next to him, and Poppy was there, fast asleep.
She crawled over to the food plate, noticing her growling stomach, and attempted to eat the bread. She gagged and spat it back out.
"You'll have to eat it," came Arthur Weasley's voice, "that's all they give us here."
Lily groaned. "I'll probably starve to death then," she said.
"If you're hungry enough, you'll eat anything,"
"If you say so," Lily said as her stomach growled again. Plugging her nose, she put a small piece of bread in her mouth and swallowed it quickly. She gagged, but she was able to keep it down. She proceeded until all of the bread was gone, and then poured the water down her throat. It didn't help her hunger much, but at least there was something in her stomach.
"James!" Lily yelled across the hallway. He awoke with a start, his hand in his pocket.
"Damn," he muttered, remembering where he was and that he was wandless. "Lily, what?"
"Just thought you should wake up," Lily said cheerfully. "Eat your breakfast now that you're awake, it's better if you plug your nose."
Shooting Lily an angry glare, James crawled to the food plate and attempted to swallow the food, but gagged and spat it out like Lily did.
"I told you to plug your nose," Lily reprimanded, "that's the only way it'll go down."
So James plugged his nose and quickly ate the bread and drank the water, pulling a face as the bits of dirt in the water went down his throat. "Is that all we get?" he asked, sounding put out.
"Yes, we get that as often as they decide to give it to us, usually every other day," Arthur explained sadly, "It's not much, but it's enough to survive on."
"But…but…" James sputtered.
Lily laughed, "Arthur, he eats five times that much as a midnight snack down in the kitchens, and at least twenty times that much for lunch alone!"
Arthur laughed. "You should meet up with my wife once we break out, then. She cooks like mad; I'm sure even you, after spending a while in here, wouldn't be able to eat it all!"
"I'll take a bet on that," James shot back.
"Wait a moment, Arthur, did you say 'break out'?" Lily said, slightly alarmed.
"Yeah, it won't get you to school by the time term starts, but it'll get us out," Arthur said cheerfully, "I haven't gotten it completely worked out yet, but it'll get us all out eventually."
Lily was filled with hope. "How long will we have to wait to ditch this place?"
"Probably two to three weeks. It'll probably take a while to get it set up. Now, for reasons unknown to me, Malfoy put windows in some of his dungeon cells. Windows that are too small for a person to fit in, but big enough for an arm, and ones without glass. So, I have some parchment I nicked a while back, and some charcoal I found in here. Lily's cell and mine have windows, and they open up onto a relatively busy Muggle street. So, all we need to do is get a message asking for help out of the window, to an owl, and then to the Ministry!"
Poppy, who had woken up halfway through this explanation, said, slightly muddled, "What are you on about, Arthur?"
"A way to get us out of this place," Arthur said excitedly.
"Sh!" Lily said suddenly. The four of them fell silent, and they heard footsteps coming down the hall. The four of them flung themselves onto the floor and arranged their faces into bored looks.
Lucius Malfoy and Severus Snape were coming down the hall again. "What were you four talking about?" Malfoy asked them suspiciously.
"About how bad the food is at this place," Arthur lied.
"Oh, really? What do they give you down here?"
"Moldy bread and muddy water," James spat reproachfully.
"Shame, shame," Malfoy said, "we were just off to the kitchen to get some lunch, weren't we, Severus?"
"Yes, pity these Gryffindors can't join us," they laughed and continued down the hall. Soon they heard a door slam.
"A way to get out?" Poppy asked excitedly. "But the Ministry thinks that the Malfoys are good! They don't even know that these dungeons exist!"
"Exactly. So we'll explain in our letter where we are, and ask them to send Aurors and the like to save us."
"I suppose that makes sense," Lily said doubtfully, "but what if they don't believe us?"
"Well, we'll just have to send a letter to Dumbledore then, won't we?" James said immediately.
"Why don't we just send the letter to Dumbledore in the first place?" Lily said logically.
More footsteps sounded from down the hall. Lily looked out from the bars of her cell and saw Damien Malfoy walking towards them. "Just passing through," he sneered, "I don't have time for you lot today. And today's December twenty-seventh, I highly doubt that you'll get to Hogwarts on time, seeing as term starts in six days."
"We're fully aware of that, Malfoy, now go away." Arthur said in an impatient voice.
"You're in no position to tell me what to do, Weasley," Malfoy told him, but then left.
"We've got six days until school, and it'll take two to three weeks to get out of here?" Lily asked Arthur, slightly hysterical, "we've got our N.E.W.T.s this year, we can't miss too much school!"
"I understand that. The latest you'll be to school is a week or two, as long as our plan works…"
Albus Dumbledore sighed. It had been a long first half of break, and it certainly did not start on a happy note. Voldemort attacking Reading…four students lived there, and two of them were declared missing. Frank Longbottom and Alice Monroewere safely here, at Hogwarts, but James Potter and Lily Evans were nowhere to be found. He had heard from one of the surviving Aurors that he saw two Death Eaters grab Lily and James, knock them unconscious, and Disapparate. He had no clue whatsoever where to start looking for them…Voldemort's lair would be choice number one, but where was it?
He looked up from his desk as Professors McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, and Slughorn walked in. "Do you have any idea where they might be, Albus?" Minerva asked cautiously.
"At some lair of Voldemort's, I'm sure…" Dumbledore muttered, "but the reason I called you all here was not to discuss where Mr. Potter and Miss Evans are. It is to discuss the survivors, and the Head Boy and Head Girl positions.
"The survivors of the attack, as of now, are Frank and Alice, Lily's sister, Petunia, Mr Longbottom's mother, who normally lives alone, and Miss Monroe's parents. Mrs Longbottom and Mr and Mrs Monroe are in St Mungo's at this moment. Frank and Alice are, as you know, here at Hogwarts. But Petunia…"
"You don't know where Lily's sister is?" Slughorn said sharply. "It's bad enough losing her parents, losing her sister would make it worse!"
"I know, Horace," Dumbledore said heavily, "that's why we need to find her."
Petunia Evans was terrified. Everyone around her was dead, only she had somehow survived. She began to run back to town, where maybe she could contact someone. She ran back to her house, which was, surprisingly, intact, and looked at the many telephone numbers pinned to the wall. After a few minutes of looking, she stopped and almost screamed at her stupidity. Lily's kind didn't use telephones…
She sat down at the table, thoroughly depressed. She didn't know where Lily was…as much as she hated her—and she did, with all of her being—facing life without any family was quite terrifying. Her mind flashed back to the twentieth, when she had last seen her sister…
Petunia heard frantic pounding on the front door. Her mother answered it—it was Lily, in shock. She had gone on about how Voldemort had planned to invade Reading and pleaded with them to run south of the town. Her parents had obliged, but Petunia had not trusted Lily's claims, and had slipped away from her parents to go back to Reading. Lily and three of her freak friends were going door to door, begging the residents to leave. Most of them did.
She watched, hidden in a bush, as the four met in the middle of town. Soon, however, thirty-odd men surrounded them. She listened to Potter and Lily yell at them, while their friends stayed silent. She cringed as Lily began to scream louder than she had ever heard; when she finally stopped, she still wouldn't tell Voldemort where everyone was. Unusually, Petunia was glowing with pride for her sister. She would never be able to keep a secret after being tortured…
Then, forty-some people in white robes appeared out of thin air and began attacking the others. She could barely make out Lily and her friends, but soon two black-robed men grabbed Lily and Potter and disappeared. Would they kill or torture her even more?
Still hidden from all of the wizards, Petunia began to run back to the hill where the townspeople were hidden. But then, instead of going there, she began running even farther. She wouldn't get killed, not by those idiots…
She had run at least a mile south of the villagers, and decided to hide behind an enormous oak tree. Ten minutes went by, then thirty. She cautiously looked around the tree and saw, off in the distance, flashes of green light and distant screams. Petunia sincerely hoped that her family and friends would be all right.
She remembered going back to the hill, only to find the whole village dead. She thought she might have heard a moan somewhere, but nothing and nobody moved. Suddenly, she heard footsteps behind her, felt something fall down on her head, and all went black.
Petunia supposed, sitting at her kitchen table, that one of the men must have stuck around, waiting for any survivors. That would also explain whey she missed the better part of a week…
She supposed that Lily and Potter had gotten the worst end of the deal-she personally would rather be dead than be a captive of Voldemort's…
She just hoped, for the first time since Lily had gone to school, that she was all right, because Petunia sure didn't feel like she was.
Arthur and Poppy had worked hard on the letter, and finally, with many crossings-outs and angry mutterings, they had a finished product. It had taken the two adults three days to get it the way they wanted it.
Professor Dumbledore,
Damien and Lucius Malfoy are Death Eaters. Their home is Voldemort's major hideout, and we think that Voldemort and other Death Eaters live there. There are at least four prisoners in Malfoy's dungeon. We know this for a fact because we are the prisoners—we are trapped in Malfoy Manor, captives of Lord Voldemort. Because two of us are still in school, it is imperative that we get out as soon as possible. Please, we would appreciate it if you could help us. Do not reply to this, because if Malfoy intercepted it, we would be in huge trouble. And, sorry about the messiness of it, we could only nick one piece of parchment.
Yours sincerely,
AW, PP, LE, and JP
P.S.-(JP) I'm starving down here! Come and give us some food! Oh, and save us too!
P.P.S-(LE) Oh, come on JP, you'll survive!
Poppy laughed. "I think you'll survive, James."
"You know, comic relief is always good," James argued.
"I think it's great, personally," Lily said, smiling. "Our friends will know we're alive, because they'll be at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore is so much more trusting than the Ministry."
"Now the hard part, getting it to an owl," James mused. "One of you two will have to be looking out of the window all the time."
"Yeah, that'll work…"
"Oh gosh, we'll miss two weeks of school!" Lily began to go into hysterics. "Think of all the classes I'll miss…and the lectures…and all the homework I'll have to catch up on…"
"Lily, calm down!" James said, slightly alarmed. "I'm pretty sure that the teachers won't make us do make-up work…think of where we are…we have a valid excuse for not being at Hogwarts! Even I'd rather be at school than this dump!"
Just so you can prank Snape," Lily sniffled.
"Well, that's part of it. But Hogwarts is my home, our home now."
