Chapter 11
"I, Emmeline Marvolo Riddle, vow that Harry Potter may choose to go wherever he may wish to upon recovering his memories. I shall not force his decision one way or another, nor will my followers. So mote it be."
"So mote it be."
Ginny sighed in relief, glad that the vow went off without a hitch. She and Draco had entered the vanishing cabinet in the room of requirement, but not before Draco jinxed Ginny so she could not to speak of it. While the jinx wouldn't cause her much harm, it was physically impossible for her to speak if she tripped it.
The two were greeted by Draco's mother, the cabinet being in one of the Malfoy manor's various rooms. Though Ginny remained unaware of their location. Narcissa Malfoy didn't say much, just giving her son a quick embrace and some whispered words before leading them down a dark hallway to another room.
"My oh my, if it isn't little Ms. Weasley." When Ginny's brown eyes met Emily's red ones, she shuddered. It had been many years since she looked into this woman's face. It was difficult to remember the woman in front of her to be honest. Back when she was eleven, the dark lord towered over her. Now at the age of fifteen, the woman had barely three inches of height on her.
The group got down to business quickly, Bellatrix Black entering the chamber only moments later. Once the vow had been made, Ginny had been eager to leave, but was not too surprised when Emily asked everyone to leave the two of them alone until further notice. She had assumed something like this would happen.
"So, Ms. Weasley, do tell me how my Harry is doing."
Ginny grimaced, not liking the implied ownership in what the woman said to her. "I wouldn't know. After all, I've never met your Harry. But I would be happy to tell you how MY Harry is doing."
She watched the raven haired witch's face turn to a sneer. "Don't get smart with me, whore. I'm only allowing your dalliances with him to continue because we both know when he gets his memories back, he'll choose me." Emily pasted the smile back on her face, reinforcing her composure.
Ginny allowed herself a small smile, Emily could do nothing to her. That would ruin her plans. Harry would never come to her if she botched this. Ginny decided to bait the dark lord. "You seem so certain of that. How long has it been since he was with you? Months, wasn't it? Maybe he's found someone better. Maybe... he's taken a liking to, oh I don't know, red heads." While saying this Ginny twirled a lock of her hair on her fingers, still smirking at Emily.
"I know better than that, little girl. After all, I once offered to dye my hair red for him. He didn't seem too keen on the idea."
"Probably thought you'd use blood or something."
"As a matter of fact, yes. Yours." Emily's tone dropped at the last word. It was no longer light or playful. It was downright menacing.
"Hmm, even then you saw me as competition, huh?" Ginny refused to back down. "Afraid he'd be more interested in the girl his own age than a woman old enough to be his great grandmother?"
"I fear nothing."
"You fear everything."
Emily's tenuous control on her emotions snapped, and she swung her wand while shouting, "Crucio." Ginny had only a moment of time to leap to the side to avoid it.
"Always been a quick one, haven't you, whore. Quick to lie, quicker to hide. Quick on a broomstick and quicker in a fight. Quick to jump on my lover as soon as I'm even remotely out of the picture."
"Hah, please, don't flatter yourself. Harry practically showered me with attention. Probably tired of being ignored by you."
"Shut your mouth, you harlot." Emily had fired several spells at her, and the small red head could only scramble away, not having time to reach for her own wand midst the flashes of light. Unfortunately for her, one of the jinxes connected with the side of her head, and a white hot pain seared its way across her lips. Emily knew the girl wouldn't scream, or rather, she couldn't scream. Her mouth was being sewn up with what would feel like a red hot needle. She could only whimper.
Emily sauntered her way over to the smaller girl. She was energized by the tussle. She had bested the girl with ease, it hadn't even been a stru-.
With a bang Emily found herself dangling by her ankle from the air. She was shocked that a fifth year could perform magic silently. She then looked towards the young girl to see a horrific sight. Had Emily Riddle been made of weaker stuff, she may have vomited. The youngest Weasley was using her own wand to stab through her fused lips, using some kind of silent cutting spell. Blood was flowing freely down her lips to her neck.
Normally, in any other circumstance, Emily would have continued to beat her opponent into submission. This wasn't going to be possible today. Emily couldn't damage the girl too badly, or Harry may call everything off. She had to keep her cool. In the span of seconds she disarmed Ginny, returned her own body to the floor and caught the wand flying towards her.
"Impressive display. Where did you learn those spells, Weasley? That's not standard grade five Hogwarts fare."
"Like almost everything else, Emily, I learned it from you."
Emily approached the disarmed girl, grabbing her roughly by the chin and pulling her close. "Such a waste of pure blood." She began mending the teen's torn lips.
"Like you even really care about blood status. You once told me nothing mattered but power, that's all you ever cared about. Power is control."
"At least you learned the lesson better than Harry did. He shirks away from anything resembling real power. He could be so much more if he had more grit."
"He has that in spades. You would know it if you really loved him."
Emily released her hold on the girl, having held her in place long after she had finished healing her. "Perhaps I misspoke. He does have grit. Resolve and courage are two things that boy will never lack. But he lets himself be bound by his heart, where as you and I, the two of us will stop at nothing for what we desire, isn't that right, Weasley?"
"I have my limits."
"Yes, but how easy was it for me to push you past them?"
Emily made her way to one of the chairs in the room, and motioned for the younger girl to sit as well.
"I wish to know some things. Things that only you are aware of. In return I will allow you to ask me questions. You may go first." Emily desired to know more about her first horcrux.
"Do you have some way around the vow you made? I want to know if you plan on cheating your way through it."
"Asking me flat out, is really just inviting me to lie, you understand."
"Well, then, I'll be lying when you ask your own questions."
"That will be useless. I am quite skilled in the-"
"Legilimency, I know. You taught me Occlumency. Wanted to be certain I could keep Dumbledore out of my head should he start suspecting me. So, no, your skills won't be of any benefit."
"Hah, my diary was thorough, I see. Well then, fine, lets be one hundred percent truthful." With a flick of her wand she summoned a sneakoscope to them. "I'm sure you know what this is, detects any deception, including lies. As long as it remains silent, we know we are in the clear. To prove it works, tell any sort of lie right now."
"I don't love Harry Potter." The little red whistle like object started spinning and making noise.
"You're trying my patience."
"Someone has to."
"Whatever. In regards to your question, however, the answer is no. The vow will most certainly rend my soul from my body should I break it. It will be unavoidable." Both of them turned their heads to the detector and both were relieved when it remained silent. Ginny, because she thought it meant that Emily would indeed die, and Emily because, she had no plans on remaining in that state for long.
"How were you able to fight my diary's control after it had been established? Once the link between my diary and you had been made, you should have become nothing more than a puppet."
"I can't know for sure, but I would wager it was jealousy."
"Come again?"
"I was jealous. You never really got a firm hold onto me because of my jealousy towards you. You were an older girl. You were kind to me, pretty, and very skilled. And you were almost fanatical in your desire to know everything about Harry Potter, who even when I was at the age of eleven, I was in love with. Jealousy was only natural. I never could give you my full trust because of that."
Emily just wanted to laugh. This story was downright stupid and she could only wait for the sneakoscope to react. However, it remained silent.
"Why Harry?"
Emily had assumed the young girl would ask questions along a different vein. Questions that would lead to answers she could feed to the Order. But instead, she remained vigilant and focused on only Harry.
"He and I share a connection, or shall I say, I share a connection with him that I do not hold with anyone else. It is intense and inspires powerful emotions between us. The connection is magical and was forged when I tried to kill him as a child. What did my diary do to you precisely when it took you down to the chamber to kill you."
"I was controlled to write a suicide mes-"
"Don't care about that part. Skip to the point where you were located in the main chamber."
"Bossy, much?" Emily just stared. "After we arrived in the chamber, you forced me to lie onto the ground, holding the diary to my chest."
"Touching bare skin, or over your robes."
"Over my robes."
"That's practically useless information. Tells me nothing."
"What do you expect from me? I was eleven at the time."
"So I didn't have you draw runes over your body or anything of that sort?"
"No. And just how many questions do you get to ask me before I get my turn."
"We are only on the one, I'm just clarifying it. Feel free to ask away."
"How did you make Harry fall in love with you?"
Emily couldn't help but grin, "Why ask such a simple question? He was meant to. He was always meant to." It was a testament to Emily's over grown ego, her overwhelming warped views on her life, that the sneakoscope once again made no sound. That, to Emily, her response held nothing but the pure truth.
"Do you think there are any remnants of my diary still inside you?"
"Every day."
"Explain further."
The young red head finally looked uncomfortable. Emily wasn't certain if it was her previous answer that achieve the girls state or the new question.
"You made me do terrible things, Emily. Horrible things that a child would never think of doing. Each time I ever think of doing something awful like that, I wonder, if maybe Harry didn't save me fast enough. That maybe I have just enough of you left inside me to tempt me into hurting people again."
The girl took a deep breath, "Is there a remnant of you inside Harry?"
Emily's eyes instantly widened in surprise and before she could think her actions through, she fired off a blasting curse at the girl's head. No one could know that information. She had to be silenced. However, once again the girls natural reflexes allowed here to shift her head in the split second of Emily's casting. A hole was still blown through the chair though. Emily's thoughts quickly caught up with her actions and she calmed herself as Ginny raised her wand to defend herself. Emily quickly held her hand in a universal peace gesture and the girl remained silent, but still armed.
"My apologies. That information is only know to three people, myself, Harry, and Dumbledore. Knowing that particular detail puts his life in danger, so I may have overreacted there."
"Why does that put him in danger?"
Emily pondered her options here. It would probably be the simplest route to end their questionnaire here. But in doing so, she would not truly impress how vitally important the information she had be kept silent. And potentially lose out on a powerful ally. For as of this moment, she knew the opinion Harry cared most about was this girl's. She had enough information on her horcrux, or rather, she was certain the young girl had nothing left to give her, so she decided to impart the truth.
"It means that, so long as Harry lives, I can not truly die."
"But earlier you said that you would die if the vow was broken. You were telling the truth."
"I didn't say I'd die, girl. I said my soul would be ripped from my body. I would not be able to return to it either. I would have to go through a long and arduous process to get another one." Emily intentionally downplayed how easy a decision it would be for her to sacrifice her current body to get him back. Unfortunately, she was seen through.
"So our vow is useless. We can't send Harry to you."
"You can, and you will."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because you love him."
Ginny's mouth dropped open. "How do you reach the conclusion that I'm going to let the man I love return to another woman's arms?"
"Because, you twit, only I can keep him safe. Dumbledore plans on eventually killing him, don't you see? While he lives I can't die, and Dumbledore has an entire organization built upon my eventual defeat. Why do you think that he wants the boy back so badly? He wants to be able to do the deed at any time, when he is most ready."
"Dumbledore would never do that. You're barking mad."
"Hah, listen to yourself. Can't you see how many times he has already tried? How many times has young Harry Potter brushed by the hands of death at Hogwarts? Under the very nose of that doddering old fool? Far more times than any other student that has ever walked the halls. You think those were all mere coincidences? Or does your headmaster have an obvious agenda that you just don't want to face."
Ginny kept quiet. Emily waited, wanting to allow the girl to process all the information and come to the conclusion that Emily wanted her to see.
"I could never believe that Albus Dumbledore would do that. Nothing you could ever say would make me believe that. But you are right. If he has to die for you to die, then he he isn't safe." Ginny rose from her seat, only to turn to look out of a nearby window. "But that's the crux of everything, isn't it. You're going to plague the country for as long as you live. Which is controlled by how long he lives. This is really a choice of what's more important, Harry Potter or getting rid of you."
The young red head's voice had lowered greatly in volume, almost as though she were thinking aloud. Ginny looked back at Emily, seemingly having made up her mind and said, "Dumbledore has already proven that he can't be there when Harry needs him the most. And if what I've heard from eavesdropping on Order meetings is true, you'll do anything, even the most terrible of things, to keep him alive. Dumbledore would never massacre over a hundred people to keep him safe."
"He wouldn't do it himself, at the very least." Emily couldn't help but bite back.
"So, the connection the two of you share... this is it?"
"Yes. I'm more than certain I don't need to tell you how imperative it is that you keep this knowledge to yourself?"
"You don't."
"Good, convince him to come to me and I will keep the man you love alive. It won't be your happy ending, rather it will be mine, but at least he will survive." Emily started moving in for the finish, but Ginny knew her far too well.
"Not happening."
"What?" Emily was almost exhausted by the girl's stubbornness.
"I know how you operate, remember. You think you can bully me into handing him over to you, but it's still going to be his choice. I'll do my best to keep him by my side."
"Fine," Emily stated with a huff. "One last thing, however. Has Harry been spending any time at length with Dumbledore this year?"
"Not that I've seen, no. Why?"
"Our connection has been, peculiar, its hard for me to sense him some days. Communicating with him through it is nigh impossible, as well. There are potions that can dull empathic links, some even sever them. I'm curious if that's what Dumbledore has been doing."
"I wouldn't know. I doubt it though."
"Fine then. Regardless, be prepared to put your best cards on the table little girl, because when he has his memories back, we shall see who he loves most."
Harry and Ron followed Emily through the halls of Malfoy Manor.
"Are we gonna die, Harry?" Ron spoke quietly.
"Shut. Up. Ron."
Finally the three of them entered the sitting room Emily had mentioned earlier, and the two boys were honestly surprised to find that there were indeed biscuits and tea on a table in the room. The direness of the situation was clear to everyone, when not even Ron dared to make a move towards the food.
"To answer your previous question, Mr. Weasley, yes, you are going to die." The boy's eyebrows nearly rose to his hairline. "Eventually anyway. But today is not that day. Harry, please take a seat over here. I will go ahead and restore your memories."
"Umm, ok?" Harry did as she asked, nervously taking the seat she gestured towards.
"Close your eyes, love. When you open them next, everything will be back to the way it was." The tone of her voice sent chills throughout Harry's nervous system. He could tell his complexion had grown several shades whiter. He was briefly terrified, until the witch waved her wand and he succumbed to darkness.
Emily smiled to herself. A perfect bit of spell work. One wave and when he woke up everything would be intact. She turned on her heel to face Ron, "Well, thank you Ronald, for escorting him here. Let's get you back to the castle, then."
Ron backpedaled away from her. "That's not how this goes. Fix his memories, then he makes a choice, remember?"
"Of course I do, and when he wakes up, he'll make his choice. To stay with me. If, in the unlikely even that he chooses differently I will send him back to Hogwarts."
"Oy, how thick do you take me for? Wave your wand once and he collapsed, for all I know you didn't even touch his memories. Easy way to get out of the vow if you don't ever plan on putting him back to rights."
"Oh do shut up." She drew her wand, lazily twirling it through her fingers, the threat clear. "You will be going back to Hogwarts, do not think to struggle. I can assure you, it won't be painless."
Emily was annoyed to find the boy wasn't even glancing at her. Instead his eyes were darting about the room erratically. As though he were trying to take stock of everything. "Well, boy? Are we doing this my way or my other way?"
It was at this moment a memory struck her. When she had been mostly bedridden in France she had asked Harry to tell her about himself and his friends. Though she didn't really care to know about them she loved the way he would smile when thinking of them.
'Wouldn't want to get on Ron's bad side. Best chess player I've ever seen. Give him enough time to think and before you make a single move, he's gotten fifteen ahead of you."
She had only began to raise her wand when he moved. And she could only stare at him in confusion as he bolted out of the door they entered through.
"I am... so lost right now."
She hadn't even had a moment to figure out what happened when a wand tip entered the room and she heard him shout, "Solaris." In an instant a blinding white light seared her retina's and her vision was thorougly obscured. Her hearing was as acute as ever, as was her ability to sense magic, so when she heard his stunning spell and felt the direction it came from, she simply moved out of the way. The last spell she heard him say was the quieting charm that dispelled the sonorous charm. If used on an unaltered voice box, it would make the speech almost imperceptible.
Still, though she could no longer hear his spells, she could feel the jets of magic coming towards her, so she kept avoiding them. She could already make out blurs, soon she would be able to take charge of the situation. One of his spells flared magic at his location, baffling her, before another spell forced her to move left. It was at this point that something large and very heavy slammed into her back knocking her to the ground. She knew immediately that his first spell had been a summoning charm and his second had made sure she walked into the path of the object. Moments later she could feel Harry's presence moving away from her.
Blinking the last of the dark spots from her eyes, she stood to her feet, lifting the vanishing cabinet up as well. Apparently that had been his chosen weapon. Checking to see the cabinets condition, she noted that it was fine, just banged up. She would rectify that.
"Reducto."
With the cabinet now in cinders, Ronald Weasley's chances of getting Harry back to Hogwarts were borderline zero. The floos had wards to prevent unauthorized travel and he was far too young to know how to apparate. All she had to do now was chase him down.
It took her two minutes and four seconds to close the gap between them. She could have done it sooner, but was feeling gracious and didn't desire to start blasting any further holes in the Malfoy home. Ron was at a window near the edge of the property trying to open it. Judging from the burn marks surrounding the window, his first attempts had been rather volatile, but ineffective.
"End of the line, Mr. Weasley."
The young man in front of her had stopped what he was doing, only slightly tilting his head to look at her from the corner of his eye. All of a sudden an ugly look crossed his face. It was the combination of a sneer and a grimace. The look forced his eyes to looked squinted and angry and his mouth was almost in a position to issue a growl.
He whipped around with a speed that she had yet to see from him and his next spell floored her. She had underestimated his resolve.
"Avada Kedavra"
The weak green light hit her full frontal and gave her a migraine. She pinched the bridge of her nose and gave a soft whine of annoyance.
"Please, that was pathetic." Though she was in discomfort, she felt like she needed to address the fact that he had willing used a curse that would get him thrown into Azkaban for the rest of his life. "What possessed you to try that, anyway?"
"Only option I had left really. Unblockable, no countercurse, figured it was my best shot of getting out of here with Harry."
"Had you cast it sucessfully, it would have been. For a first attempt it was admirable. What did you use to fuel it?"
"How much I hate you."
Emily scoffed at him. "You hate me. For what? You and I have never really crossed paths before. What, do you hate me for stealing your best friend from you?"
"No, you stupid bint. I hate you for trying to kill my sister."
"Oh." She couldn't help but remain still, she had let that detail slip her mind.
"I sat in the halls of that Chamber for two hours. I couldn't hear nothing but that idiot blathering away. My best friend gone to face Slytherin's monster. My sister, possibly already dead. And when I learned that it was you, Voldemort, that had done it, I've never found it so easy to hate someone. So yeah, Harry may have hated me when he woke up, for killing you. But he would have understood it, and eventually we'd have worked through it."
Emily wanted to laugh at him, but couldn't. Because the twisting feeling in her gut reminded her that her situation in the past was almost a replica of the one Ron spoke of. Had she not murdered his family, and they somehow worked through it.
"Even though your first effort was commendable, it was never meant to succeed. Even my first attempt failed." She didn't bother to tell him it failed only because she missed. "It took Harry countless attempts to get that one down. I honestly doubt whether he could muster the gumption to use it like you just did."
"One thing I've learned from knowing Harry Potter for these years, is never doubt him. He always finds a way."
"Indeed he does, Ron. Now, time for you to get a first hand lesson on how unforgivables work."
Ron didn't even bother raising his wand. "So whats it gonna be then, Emily? Torture curse or the killing curse?"
"Neither, Imperio."
She watched as a glazed look over came his features. "Follow me." With another flick of her wand she took control of her lover's levitated body and lead the three of them to one of the several floo connected fireplaces in the home. She was, of course, not impeded from using them.
While she walked she couldn't help but vent. "What is it with your family, Mr. Weasley? First you sister and now you? Who will be next, I wonder. Molly will probably be knocking down my door ready to strangle me with Harry's Christmas jumper tomorrow morning. Authur coming at me with a rubber duck. If it weren't for the fact that your family is Harry's family, I'd have rid the world of you long ago. Starting with those insufferable twins. I still remember the snowballs hitting me over and over in Harry's first year. Nine hundred and fourty-six times. I counted each and every one."
She finally made it to a fireplace and issued her orders. "Take your useless red headed arse out of here and back to Hogwarts. Tell your friends Harry chose to stay."
The boy just stared at her. For a brief moment she thought something was wrong with him, but it became apparent when his face turned red that he was resisting. He couldn't break the hold of the curse, but he was trying.
"Bet you knew all along that I was going to cast the imperius curse, didn't you? Fifteen steps ahead Harry said you were. You know what its like, you felt it just two years ago, when Barty put you all through your paces. Bet you thought you could break it. But its not that easy. Even if you are expecting it. Now. Get. In. The. Fireplace." She pressed down hard on his will power and finally felt him give way to her directions. Plucking up a small amount of powder and with a monotone voice, he said "The Three Broomsticks", and was gone.
Emily gave the fireplace a scathing look then huffed and turned around. She would get Harry settled in her quarters and let him recover. Poor boy wouldn't wake up for at least twelve hours, possibly stretching out to an entire day. His head had a good deal of rearranging to do.
As the hours turn into a day and the days started increasing, Emily slowly but surely started to grow frantic. Harry remained in sleep and she had been advised by her best mediwitch to let him remain that way.
"If you force him to awaken and his brain is still recovering, you'll permanently damage him." Bellatrix told her plainly.
"It was a simple matter of reconstructing his memories, why is he still under?"
"It happens. Especially to muggles with long term or excessive exposure to memory charms. Through repeated charms and large memory loss, muggles go through what they call Alzheimer's disease. Its a condition that prevents muggle's brains from properly forming links to memories, causing past memories to be forgotten as the most recent ones are unhooked. Its an inherited illness that evolved through the ages and now shows up as they grow older even without exposure to magic."
"Your telling me that Harry has Alzheimer's?" Emily was about to blow a gasket.
"No. He does not. Or rather, he shouldn't. But any more memory charms will impact his mental abilities permanently. This last charm was on for far too long and took away far too much. Months of information, and his head wasn't in the best shape in the first place, thanks to the previous charms. He is, thankfully, young, and will recover."
Emily sighed, and sat down in the bed next to the subject of their discussion. Bellatrix Lestrange was possibly the best healer alive right now. The only reason it was in question was due to her random bouts of lurid madness. Still, it was her knowledge of healing that made her so effective in torture. She knew how far she could push and what she could fix.
"Probably the largest mistake I have ever made was the decision to use memory charms on him." She closed her eyes as she said this. She let out a deep sigh, "How long will he be unconscious?"
"Week, maybe more." Bellatrix's answer came with an almost dismissive shrug.
"So he'll more than likely miss Christmas. Just wonderful. Our first Christmas was difficult enough, and he won't even be awake for the second."
"My Lord, please forgive my curiosity, but who is this boy to you?" Bellatrix's words came out in a rush and Emily could hear the anxiety in them. Now, she supposed, was the time to break the news in to her most faithful. And hopefully not have to murder the woman to prevent her from attacking Harry out of jealousy.
"He is my fiance. We are to be married when he turns seventeen." Of course, Harry hadn't agreed to this yet, but she had a few months to change his mind.
Emily watched as Bellatrix's eyes widened in shock. Though Emily knew the woman had to have expected this answer, or at least a similar one, she assumed Bellatrix had been in denial.
"Oh... I see."
She could see the wheels in the woman's head turning. Grinding out the way for her to show her displeasure at this union without offending her lord.
"But surely you must know the boy is a half-blood, my lord? To marry him, to have a family with him, you would be tainting your proud bloodline." She stopped there, as though afraid to go further.
"True, but he is from a proud heritage as well. Direct descendant of Godric Gryffindor. I think it only fitting that our bloodlines mix."
"But my lord, what about keeping your line pure? Surely you would want a child to carry on a pure line, yes?" Bellatrix's voice was growing frantic. "I would gladly offer my husband's services to you, my lord. That way you c-"
"Yes, I'm quite certain you would be overjoyed for me to take your husband's cock." Emily abandoned all sense of propriety now. "The following night would probably be the first time you would ever touch it. It would be the closest you would ever get to sleeping with me."
Bellatrix's face grew ashen and she quickly closed her mouth, blinking rapidly. It was a strange sight. To the casual observer, it would seem as though a teen aged woman had just made another woman in her forties cry.
"Bella." Emily started off softly, "I know of your feelings for me. I know what you desire from me, and you need to understand that I can never return those feelings."
"My Lord, please," The woman had prostrated herself and bowed her head to the floor. "I never expected... I swear I never expected you to. I'm more than happy to serve faithfully. My heart will be yours forever, yes, but I have never been unhappy in my service to you."
The outright confession, Emily found, was rather painful to hear. It hadn't been so long ago that she herself was in Bella's shoes. Loving someone who could never return the feelings. The only difference between the situations was that Emily had the power to change her own fate. So what if the man she loved could never love her back. She would force him to. And she had.
"I value your service and talents more than any other in our fold, Bella. You are the only one to know of my true objective in concerns to Harry Potter." Emily rose from the bed and knelt to the floor above Bella. With a single finger, she raised the other woman's head to meet her gaze. "While he is here, asleep, I want you to guard him with your life. Let no harm come to him. Serve me well, Bella."
"Of course, my Lord."
It was just after the dawn of the tenth day that a house elf popped into the study she was working in, informing her that Harry was showing signs of waking. She was inside their room in under a minute, unceremoniously shooing Bellatrix away.
She was staring intently at his face and saw his eyelids start to flutter about. She watched them open briefly then slam shut in a hard squint. It was her close attention to his face that allowed her to notice his dry, cracked lips. He was probably dying of thirst. She quickly conjured up a glass and pour water in it. Upon hearing him hiss in pain, she turned away from her spell to see his beautiful green eyes wide open. Though he was probably unable to see a single thing.
"Slow down, love. Drink this."
A/N: And we are back from whence we came. Not too much of a side adventure, though half of their year has gone up in smoke. If anyone is wondering if Harry is gonna pick Ginny, just stop. This is a Harry/FemVoldemort story. And we will go down with this ship... White Flag. Anyway, the travelling won't resume immediately. There is some over due drama that needs to be dealt with. Harry and Voldemort's relationship is dysfunctional at its core and Harry isn't frigging happy about it. See you later.