Hermione stood still, looking around the room. She tried to be as quiet as possible, so if someone began walking toward the door, she would hear them. The room was darker, quieter than she had remembered. She walked slowly towards the blue and silver glow of the memories Bellatrix extracted from her victim. She was cautious, and nervous, but she needed to know. She needed to see.
Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She slowly opened her eyes and her gaze dropped to the bottom of the stacks. Walton, Warnock, Warrick, Welling… no Weasley? Hermione thought. She then began looking again from the top and at every single vile, stopping to double check Rea Wesley and Ronald Maesley. He's not here... she thought. Although she was happy Ron didn't die by the torturous hand of Bellatrix Lestrange, she was also a little disappointed not to be able to see him again, even if it was through a memory.
Just as she began to walk out, her eyes again fell upon "Malfoy-Volfe, Lucretia, February 14, 1977." The vile now only contained two strands of Nikki's mother's memories. Hermione looked at the basin, sitting plainly in sight and began to touch the liquid inside. She opened the vile and smelled it. She knew memories didn't have a scent, but she smelled it anyhow and before she could catch herself, she was pouring the remaining contents of the vile in the basin.
The memories began swirling, going around in circles, faster and faster, quickly becoming transparent. Hermione touched the liquid again and felt the same mysterious force pull her into the bedroom of the head boy she had previously visited. There, on a stool, was the beautiful Lucretia. Hermione watched her trying to be still, trying not move an eyelash. She then heard someone behind her:
"I want her to look as though she's the happiest she's ever been" said the familiar voice of Darius Malfoy.
"Malfoy! It's a wizard portrait so she'll look the way she truly feels inside, at the time the portrait is being admired" said a second voice she didn't recognize.
Hermione turned and saw a Hufflepuff boy, the same age as Darius, painting a picture of Lucretia. He was stubby and looked much like Ernie, the Hufflepuff in her year she took Herbology with. The boy continued painting, but was complaining the whole time.
"Malfoy, this would be so much easier if she wasn't a Muggle." The Hufflepuff said.
"MacMillan, if it were easy, I wouldn't have needed you and, as I recall, I'm not paying you to talk, I'm paying you to paint." Darius Malfoy snapped at the boy.
MacMillan? That's Ernie's last name. This must be his father or some uncle, Hermione thought as she backed up to watch the rest of the events unfold.
Darius walked to Lucretia and lifted her chin with his knuckle and looked in her eyes. "If you are a good girl and smile for MacMillan here, I'll reward you. What would you want?"
Lucretia smiled on one side of her mouth. "A ring…"
"Done!" Darius said with a smile "We'll go find one on the next Hogsmeade weekend."
"No," Lucretia said pulling her chin away from his knuckle, "I want something of yours, something to remember you by."
Darius stepped back and looked at the girl no longer smiling. "What do you mean, to remember me by?"
Lucretia seemed to look at Darius as if she was almost challenging him. Hermione could feel the tension building between the two lovers.
"Darius-" Lucretia started, but was quickly interrupted.
"How many times must I tell you," Darius said with anger and a hint of embarrassment in his voice "You will address me as Master!" He yelled at her, raising his wand and aiming it toward her.
The MacMillan boy was watching the two as intently as Hermione was. Malfoy was standing over Lucretia about to hex or worse, curse her. Lucretia was looking at him not breaking eye contact. Hermione thought the muggle had a lot of guts to stand up to an armed wizard as she was.
"Darius, I'm leaving" she told him calmly.
Darius Malfoy seemed shocked. "Leaving?" he asked as his wand arm dropped to his side. "How? I mean why?" he said confused.
Lucretia broke eye contact, looked down and smiled. She then said in a voice as quiet as a whisper "Darius, as much as I've enjoyed being here, with you, I am not of your world. I am not one of your kind."
Malfoy was smart, he was head boy. He knew she was uncomfortable in his world. He had to know. After a long silence, he then said "There is a little muggle town south of Hogsmeade. I can see if I can send you there, you could find a job. And I'll have my house elf change some of my wizard money into muggle money so you can live comfortably. I could visit-" but the rest of his sentence was muted as Lucretia placed her her finger on his mouth. She shook her head, and he knew. He knew he was never to see her again. He looked down, his blonde hair covering his face and then said "I love you."
"I know. I'm sorry," she told him "You graduate school in a few weeks, I will stay until then. I will miss you."
"Malfoy? Do you want me to finish the painting?" MacMillan asked. "Do you need some time alone with your girlfriend?"
Hermione could see Darius starting to smile under the thick mop of blonde hair, but tears were pouring down to his lips and dripping off to the floor. He suddenly raised his head, his eyes were red with anger and tears, pointed his wand at MacMillan saying "Obliviate!"
The force of the spell threw MacMillan against the back wall of the head boy's private dorm. Darius turned to Lucretia and said "I understand, you will leave when I do. Let's not talk about this any longer. We'll act as if nothing has changed."
Lucretia looked at Darius and said "Do not do that to me. I want to remember this year. This experience. I want to remember you."
The two looked at each other and finally, Darius nodded.
"Malfoy? What am I doing here? Who's she?" MacMillan said as he got up from the floor."
"MacMillan, I don't know what spell you are using to paint her portrait, but you should be more careful. Now, please, finish painting the portrait," Darius ordered.
MacMillan looked at Malfoy and then to Lucretia and back to Malfoy again. He then approached the painting and recognizing his own work, picked up his wand and continued his masterpiece.
The people began to blur in Hermione's eyes and the background began to spin, like the Cotton Candy machine at the muggle fair she used to love going to. Slowly the memory changed before her eyes. She was in a very cold room, with meat hanging from hooks in the ceiling. She saw a now more mature Lucretia standing, frozen, in the middle of the room. She'd been paralyzed. By her side, lying down unconscious and face up, a very large muggle man wearing a white bloody apron.
Hermione looked around and saw a dark figure skulking around.
"Why are you doing this? What do you keep taking from my mind? What has Gaetano done to you? What did you do to him? Did you kill him? Why won't you answer me!" Lucretia was screaming.
At that point Hermione realized the man lying on the floor was not unconscious. He was dead. Killed by the viciousness of a witch or wizard.
"That wizard hating muggle deserved to die! As do you, filth" said the figure.
As soon as Hermione realized the figure was a young Bellatrix Lestrange, the Death Eater pointed her wand at Lucretia who writhed and screamed in pain. Hermione didn't need to hear the words to know it was the Cruciatus curse.
"Why don't you just kill me…" Lucretia cried, muffled by her tears.
Hermione realized she had removed her wand from her sleeve and had it pointed towards Bellatrix. She didn't feel herself doing it. It was just an automatic reaction.
Bellatrix looked beautiful and young, like the picture Hermione saw by Kreature's bed back at number 12 Grimmauld Place, however she had a darkness about her. Her eyes were filled with pure evil. She paused, watching and relishing in the pain she was causing the poor muggle woman.
"Did he love you?" she asked calmly. Lucretia continued crying "Gaetano Volfe was my husband. Of course he loved me."
"Not him, you stupid whore!" She yelled at her and pointed her wand to her head. Lucretia screamed and cried again while Bellatrix laughed maniacally. "Not him, although, I am curious, did you love him as you did your other husband?"
"I don't know what you are talking about…" she sobbed almost inaudibly.
"Darius! You filthy muggle! The wizard you married!" again the wand was pointed at Lucretia, and she, in turn, suffered immense pain.
"I never married him…" Lucretia kept sobbing.
"I may have underestimated Darius' Obliviate charm." Bellatrix smiled to herself and then continued "I assure you. You are, what you refer to in the muggle world as, a bigamist."
Lucretia said nothing but continued crying in her frozen state.
"Come now, it didn't cross your mind that a wizard, top of his class, would know how to make you do something against your will and erase your memory?" Bellatrix asked coyly.
Lucretia's tears spilled continuously from her eyes. Hermione knew Lucretia was now crying because of the words Bellatrix was speaking and not by her silent curse.
"You still did not answer my question. Did he love you?" Bellatrix asked as if she was taking to a child.
"Please… I didn't… I couldn't love him." Lucretia sobbed.
Bellatrix this time said the curse out loud. "Crucio!" she screamed! "I asked if HE loved YOU?"
"YES!" Lucretia cried out through her pain "He loved me, he still does."
For the first time Bellatrix looked defeated. Her wand arm fell to her side as she looked into space.
Lucretia continued crying, but now she was angry. "And he will always love me. Our child will be a constant reminder of-" But before she could finish her sentence, Bellatrix raised her wand hand and said "Avada Kedavra." As the spell hit the muggle, Hermione felt herself floating out of the basin.
She was back in the death eater's room. She had just witnessed Nikki's mother's death. Her legs gave in, as they could no longer keep her up. She took a deep breath and fought tears from manifesting themselves. This was the first time she saw death. It was so close, so real, so final.
"I see someone's having fun" said a curt voice.
Hermione turned toward the entrance of the bedroom, and, leaning against the door frame, with one eyebrow raised and an arrogant smirk, was Theodore Nott.