(A / N: Ha HA! Shenanigans on you! I said this would be up next weekend, but here it is a whole week early! - evil grin - And you people complain that I never update. Why, the last chapter went up only a couple of weeks ago in… oh… uh… March, was it? - Blushes - Crap. Oh well, for whatever it's worth, here it is. I just finished early, so I figured, why wait? It wasn't supposed to go up until Thursday or Friday night, but once I got involved in it I just could not – stop – writing. Yeah, it's nice and long and meaty, too! For anyone who has been waiting anxiously (and feel free to tell me if I'm just flattering myself) you can actually thank "MargaritaVille" for this update. I had hit a really dry spell creatively, but working on that little ficlet really got the creative juices flowing again! Oh, and this is also for Noelle, in the hopes that all of this copious Malfoy-angst will help get her mind off her own angst for a little while. Hope you're feeling better, girl! Anyway – here's the chap; enjoy! I'm just gonna hit the rum and hope some reviews roll in!!)
OOOOO
OOOOO
Ronnelle came back to consciousness abruptly, bolting into a sitting position with a sound on her lips that was somewhere between a gasp and a scream.
No moment of bewilderment, of disorientation; she knew exactly what had happened; she remembered it all.
"Seth," she breathed. Where was her brother? For that matter, where was she? Were they still in their house, or had they been taken somewhere? Were they separated, or still together? It was too dark to tell right at the moment; she'd have to give her eyes a little time to adjust.
Too dark… too dark to tell… her mind was racing. It had been the wee hours of the morning when she and Seth had undertaken their fatally foolish rescue mission for the benefit of
- That stupid filthy ferret! If I ever see it again I'll KILL it!! -
Seth's beloved pet, so if it was still dark out… and it most assuredly was still dark out… then either very little time had passed, or else a whole lot.
Her stomach did a sick little flip at the thought that she might have lost a whole day, or even more. Did her mother know they were missing yet? Did her father?
And for that matter, where was her father? Why hadn't he been at home? Why had it only been Luke and that horrible, evil old woman? Then something she'd heard the woman say to Luke came crashing back to the front of her mind; something about 'weakening Draco' – weakening him and then making him really suffer.
Oh God, where was he? And was he all right?
Suddenly she wanted her father more than she'd ever wanted anything in her life.
She wanted to know that he was all right, and more than all right; she wanted to know that he was aware, somehow, of what was going on, and that he was righteously pissed off about it, and that he was on his way to get her right now.
She wanted his arms around her, comforting her the way he used to do when she was a little girl, and had fallen off her toy hover-broom and skinned her knees. She wanted him to call her 'Princess' and to tell her that it was okay; it was under control, and at fifteen years of age she wasn't expected to have all the answers, even if she was a Ravenclaw; that she had done her very best trying to keep her brother safe, and that that was what mattered.
Even if she had failed miserably.
Tears, hot and prickly, leapt to her eyes, but she fought them back savagely. Tears were a luxury, an indulgence that she could not afford right now. She had to be strong now, for Seth. She had to figure out a way to get them out of here. Wherever here was.
She had to.
"Seth?" she whispered into the darkness. "Seth?"
She thought she just might – might – have a way to get him out of this mess… maybe even the both of them, but at the very least, Seth.
It hadn't occurred to her earlier, when she'd been fumbling frantically with the floo jar, because her mind had been so firmly stuck in panic-mode. Now, though – now she actually thought there might be a chance… if it really even worked, that was – it weren't as though she'd ever tested it before –
And if she could get to Seth.
"Seth?!" she hissed again, in mounting desperation. "Seth, answer me!" her voice wavered; cracked. "Please!"
Reaching out and feeling blindly with her hands, she found the wall and, using it for leverage, got to her feet. Her head was pounding, and standing up caused a wave of vertigo to sweep over her; after-effects of the spell she'd been hit with, she supposed. It certainly wasn't as though she'd ever been Stupefied before, so she had no way of judging based on experience. She had read about it, of course… but reading about a spell, any spell, much less a malicious one like that, could in no way prepare a person for experiencing it first-hand.
And this was turning out to be one hell of an experience; one that she could only pray was nearly at an end.
Please, please, please, let me find Seth. Let the charm work. Let it work on both of us. Let us get out of here. I want my parents. I want Matt. I want… I want to feel safe again.
A sob crept up on her then, catching her unawares and wrenching itself out of her before she could do a thing to stop it. And once that first one blazed the trail, more followed, and more, until they were piling out of her so fast and furious that the wall was the only thing holding her up, and she could scarcely breathe.
This was all her fault. She was the older one. She was the level-headed Ravenclaw. She was supposed to balance out her headstrong Gryffindor brother. She had known all along that this had been a bad idea, she'd had misgivings from the start, but she hadn't put her foot down; she should have and she hadn't and so this was all – her own – bloody – stupid – fault.
And she couldn't even try her idea for putting things right if she couldn't find Seth.
So she leaned against the wall in the dark and sobbed like a child.
OOOOO
Ronnelle had just about sobbed herself into complete exhaustion before Seth, having only just regained consciousness himself, groggily called her name. He had to call her a couple of times, actually, before his voice, raspy and slurred from unconsciousness, managed to break through the barrier of her tears.
"Ronnelle. Ronnelle? Ronnelle!"
Ronnelle, who had felt her way, in the dark, far enough along the wall to find a corner of the room, and then wedged herself tightly into it and slid back down to the floor, finally registered her brother's voice through her own sobs and looked up sharply, choking on a fresh spate of tears.
"Seh – heth?" she managed unsteadily, her mind already insisting that she was getting her hopes up for nothing; that she was only hearing what she fervently wanted to hear.
But no; it wasn't mere wishful thinking. A second later he spoke again out of the darkness. His voice was marginally stronger now. "Ronnelle, where are you? Are you okay?"
"Oh God, Seth!" she half-whispered, half-shrieked. She launched herself toward the sound of his voice. "Say something else so I can find you!"
It had dawned on her, belatedly, that the complete and utter blackness of their surroundings had to be magically induced. If it were ordinary darkness, there was just no way her eyes would not have adjusted, to some degree at least, by now.
Yet her eyes had not adjusted; not at all. She still couldn't see her own hand held an inch away from the tip of her nose. So the darkness was false; which meant that it could actually be any time of day or night. Any time at all.
Which was a terribly unsettling thought.
It was just such a profound sense of helplessness, knowing nothing, nothing at all, of either their whereabouts or even whether it was light or dark outside.
But never mind. They hadn't been separated. That was the important thing, the only thing that mattered. And darkness or no darkness, once she connected with Seth she could put her escape plan (let it work let it work oh God PLEASE let it work and I'll never ask for anything ever again I swear, God, I swear) into action.
" 'Nell, I'm over here." On her hands and knees, she followed the sound of his voice as he added, sounding close to tears himself now, "where are we?"
"I don't know, but I'm coming to you, hold on."
A moment later her groping hands found him and she folded him into her arms in a tight, almost frantic hug.
She held him that way for a space of several heartbeats as tears, silent now, continued to slip down her cheeks. Finally Seth reached up and pressed the palm of one hand to her flushed, sticky, fever-hot face.
"Don't, 'Nell," he whispered. "Please don't. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry – "
His voice galvanized her into action. "It's all right," she murmured, with a lot more conviction than she actually felt, "everything's all right. I don't know where we are, but we're getting out of here, now." She groped for his hand in the dark. "Seth, hold up your hand, okay?"
He did so and a second later she was grasping it and dropping something small and hard into his palm, folding his fingers around it. "It's a ring," she whispered, by way of explanation. She had just pulled it from her own finger. "Put it on, right now, whatever finger it fits the most snugly, all right? For God's sake, don't drop it – it's so dark in here!"
"It's on, 'Nell," he whispered back a moment later. "Why? Is it supposed to be doing something?"
"God, I hope so," was her fervent reply. "Matt only just gave it to me, because I'd been having… bad dreams. He said there's a charm on it that I could activate if I was ever in danger, and the ring will act like a portkey and take me to wherever he is. If I hold onto you, it should take us both, so just – "
"Hey, wait a minute," Seth interrupted, his voice suddenly rife with suspicion. He was hot-headed, but he was not dumb, and something about this just didn't add up right. "If all we have to do is hold onto each other and it'll take us both, then why put it on me in the first place? Why can't I just hold onto you?"
And of course, he had cut straight to the very heart of the problem.
Because she didn't know that it would transport them both. She hoped it would; she prayed that it would with every fiber of her being. But she didn't know.
All she knew for sure was that, assuming the charm even worked, it would transport the wearer of the ring to wherever Matthew Potter was – in other words, to safety. Which was precisely why she'd just given the ring to Seth.
And Seth was dangerously close to figuring that out for himself – and if he did there would be a whole dramatic scene and Merlin, they didn't have time for that right now.
"Seth, damn it all, stop wasting time with idiotic questions," she hissed. It was a weak rejoinder and she knew it, but she had to break her brother's train of thought before he could see it through to its logical conclusion.
"Now I want you to just shut up and listen," she continued, making her voice deliberately harsh in order to give him something else to focus on besides the question of the ring. She could give a piss at this point if she hurt his bloody feelings, just as long as she managed to get him out safe. "All you have to do is tur – "
But she never got a chance to tell him how to activate the charm. Because at that moment the door of their prison opened, a woman's cold, cruel voice sneered "Lumos!" and light – light so harshly brilliant that it seemed to burn her eyes – flooded the room.
And then things got really… really… bad.
OOOOO
Narcissa wasted no time in getting down to business. It had been less than an hour since Luke had Stupefied the two youngsters – her grandchildren, and what a stomach-churning thought that was – and it was high time to get the show on the road. The past hour had been spent in attempting to discern the whereabouts of either of the children's parents, because a good old-fashioned torture session was always so much more rewarding when performed in front of a… really appreciative audience… but unfortunately neither her traitorous son nor the mudblood were readily accessible at the moment. Hermione was apparently still safely ensconced in the Potter household (damned annoying that was), and Draco was… Draco was not where Luke had left him. Which was concerning… but only slightly.
Wherever Draco was, he was too late to alter the course of events now.
She would just have to hope that he'd arrive in time to witness the grand finale – and, of course, in a weakened enough state (Luke had assured her this would, in fact, be the case) that he'd be able to do nothing but watch.
Just sit back, relax, and take it all in.
Whoever said that torture – or for that matter, murder – wasn't a spectator sport?
But in the interim, there was certainly nothing wrong with getting this little family reunion underway. And she believed that the first order of business would be to take a good, hard look at Draco's children – children who had the audacity to carry her own blood in their filthy, polluted veins.
Walking abominations, the both of them.
Her eyes were drawn first to the rumpled cascade of silver-white hair; that gorgeous, trademark Malfoy hair that no child of a mudblood had any business possessing. That would be the older one; the girl. The boy, she'd noticed back when Luke had Stupefied them, had the same common, dung-colored hair as his mother.
Her eyes narrowed as she took Ronnelle in; of the two of them, Narcissa concluded, she was actually the worse offender – because she gave the appearance of being an absolutely perfectly pedigreed, pureblooded Malfoy heiress.
And she had no right to look like that, no right at all. Impostor! Narcissa's frenzied mind screamed furiously. You dirty, wretched little impostor!
That hair, in particular, enraged Narcissa; in no small part because it was thicker, more lustrous, more beautiful than Narcissa's own. Narcissa's hair was the color of pale gold, whereas Ronnelle's was the color of platinum – and it's common knowledge that platinum is more precious than gold.
Narcissa may have had claim to the Malfoy name, but the hair stood as a stark reminder that this girl actually had the Malfoy genes – and she had no right to them either.
So Narcissa was seething with hatred and angry enough to spit nails as she stalked across the room, seized a handful of that incredible pale hair, and yanked Ronnelle onto her feet by it.
OOOOO
Ronnelle, for her part, was caught totally off-guard, having slammed her eyes shut and then thrown up her arms to further shield them from the onslaught of that horrible, cruel blast of light. She wasn't even aware of Narcissa crossing the room until that merciless claw of a hand fisted in her hair and dragged her, even as she voiced a hoarse cry of protest, onto her feet.
Then she heard Seth shout out her name, his voice cracking with panicked fear, and quite suddenly everything changed. With a conscious act of will; a deliberately manufactured defiance of the horrific situation in which she now found herself, she forced her mind into a state of cold, stoic and completely detached calm. Nothing mattered anymore except protecting Seth. She could, and would, bear the brunt of whatever this woman – this walking incarnation of evil who looked so unsettlingly like Ronnelle herself – had in store for them. She would take it all; her share and Seth's. And there was no point in wasting time, energy, or focus in wondering whether that would even be possible to do.
It had to be possible. There was no alternative. Period.
She was not Draco's daughter for nothing. When her storm-grey eyes snapped open they were nearly as cold, and as angry, as Narcissa's; and flickering with their own strange, deep fire.
I don't know who you are. I don't know where you came from. I don't know why you look like me, and I don't know why you hate us. But you will not hurt my brother. Not while there's breath in my body.
You will not.
Eyes skimming briefly over her surroundings before narrowing and focusing on the older woman before her, Ronnelle was distantly surprised to find that their prison had been, all along, merely her parents' bedroom. So they were still at home. They hadn't been taken away. It seemed to her on a distant, unconnected level that this should be important information. And perhaps later it would be. But for the moment, she simply filed it away in the back of her mind. For the moment, nothing mattered except standing between this monster, and Seth.
Now that she'd regained her feet, Narcissa abruptly released her and stepped back a pace to take her in. Ronnelle staggered, clasping a hand automatically to her head, which was still screaming in pain; but even so, she stepped quite surely and deliberately to the side, placing herself more fully in between Narcissa and Seth, who had scrambled to his feet just behind her.
Breathing hard, her heart hammering in her ears, her mind now firmly closed to any emotion save an implacable determination to protect her younger brother, she faced down her grandmother glare for glare.
And Narcissa, in spite of herself, was very nearly impressed.
The girl was hurt, confused, and frightened – Narcissa knew she was; she had to be – and had obviously just been crying. Long and hard, from the look of her flushed, tear-damp face. Yet, for all that, she was now standing perfectly erect before her, intentionally using her body (a slim, well-formed body, Narcissa noticed, as she calmly and coldly assessed every physical detail of her granddaughter) to shield the younger child, and staring back at Narcissa with the cool poise of a Slytherin debutante… coupled with the simmering fury of an incensed Death Eater.
Merlin, she looked every inch a Malfoy in that moment… Narcissa even felt, incredibly, a brief pang of regret that the other half of this child's legacy was so wretchedly, damnably, incontrovertibly inferior.
But the circumstances were what they were. The girl, outward appearances aside, was an absolute blight on the Malfoy name and bloodline. And for that she had to suffer. And then, eventually, once Draco had arrived to bear witness, she had to die.
But, Narcissa decided, since she was obviously so hell-bent on protecting her brother, it would be rather more fun to allow her to watch him suffer a while first. And in any case, Luke had requested the privilege of being the one to torment the girl… for the most part, anyway. (Narcissa had a pretty good idea of what he had in mind, and found it distasteful, to say the least… but then, he was seventeen, and boys would be boys. The important thing was that the girl would suffer – and of that, Narcissa had little doubt.)
Still, if the brother were to be Narcissa's initial target, then the girl needed to be… incapacitated… in order to allow her access. She obviously was not about to simply step aside on her own. So Narcissa raised her wand, leveled it at the girl, who sucked in a sharp, anticipatory breath, pale eyes going wide – and murmured, almost gently,
"Crucio."
OOOOO
Draco gave a hoarse, cracked shout of pain and fell hard to his knees, both hands clasped to his head, fisted in his hair as the completely unexpected wall of pain smashed into him. For a few seconds the world actually pitched; tilted; and went grey around the edges, but he fought his way through it with a grim and savage determination. He was almost to the point where he could Apparate, he was sure of it – and he would not black out now, he would not.
It was a close thing, though, for a moment or two.
He'd been hurting already, after all, in the aftermath of his little… confrontation with Luke. That was why it was taking him so goddamn bloody long to stagger his way from Snape's house (and where in the bloody hell IS Severus?! I need him right now, I really need him!) to the nearest Apparition-accessible point. He had thought the wards only extended a quarter-mile from the house, but as it turned out he'd been mistaken. Severus Snape, who had lived through not just one but both ascendancies of Lord Voldemort, a first-hand witness to all of the murder and mayhem that had accompanied them, apparently took home security very seriously – even more seriously than Draco had been aware of.
He'd tried to Apparate at roughly the quarter-mile point, and then, again, with increasing desperation, at the half-mile point as well. Nothing had happened either time.
But he had to be getting close now, he had to be – the wards couldn't possibly extend for more than a full mile, could they?
Could they?
No. No bloody way. No no no no way.
Because if they did, he'd be screwed. And he couldn't afford to be screwed. Not with his family on the line.
So they just couldn't. It was that simple. They just bloody well couldn't.
He'd already lost so much time – so goddamn much time! – stumbling through these woods in the dark, in the first place. That was why he'd decided a moment ago, now frantic with worry about his children, his wife, to try reaching them with his mind.
He'd tried for Hermione first, and had gotten nothing. There really was something wrong, deeply and fundamentally wrong, with his magical abilities if he couldn't even manage to sense his own wife. He was so used to reaching out to check on Hermione with his mind – just a brief touch, a skim across the surface; nothing invasive, just a quick spark of connection to make sure she was all right – it had become second nature to him over the years of his marriage.
He should have been able to do it from half a world away. He should have had no trouble even if he were stuck in bloody Timbuktu! And yet tonight – tonight, when it really mattered, when it REALLY FUCKING MATTERED, God-fucking-damn it all – there was nothing. Nothing at all.
What did he do to my magic, what did he do, what the FUCK did he do!?
He had tried for Seth next, again without any results whatsoever.
And that was when, practically snarling from fear and frustration, he'd reached out for Ronnelle.
And he had gotten – he had been slammed with – this.
"Oh, my God," he gasped out sickly. On his hands and knees now, he was struggling against a physical urge to throw up. "Oh my God, Ronnelle… no… sweetheart, no… please, please no…"
They had his daughter. Luke and Narcissa. That was all this could mean. His beautiful, bright, spirited little Ravenclaw, who carried one-third of his heart with her at all times. They were torturing his DAUGHTER.
Ronnelle… no…
His firstborn… his perfect… precious… child… and for her pain to reach him so clearly, so powerfully, while he was in such a weakened magical state that he couldn't pick up on his other family members at all –
That meant that the sheer… quantity… of what she was feeling must be… must be…
Beyond comprehension.
No, please no, fuck no, RONNELLE, NO!
Leave her alone. You fucking bastards, leave my daughter alone.
All at once, almost as if his anguished plea had somehow been heard and responded to, the pain ceased. One instant it was there, and in the next instant there was just… nothing. Nothing at all. Panting, he listed sideways, fetching up against the trunk of a tree.
She'd passed out. She must have passed out.
They had tortured… his only daughter… into unconsciousness.
A horrible, sinister, cruel little corner of his mind woke up then, whispering in the back of his head that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't unconsciousness at all. Sure, Ronnelle passing out could have caused their connection to sever like that… but unconsciousness wasn't the only thing that could sever the bond that suddenly and completely. No, not the only thing by a long shot. Why, he could think of two little words just off the top of his head, two little words that might have severed their connection very neatly indeed. Not to mention, permanently –
"No." His voice was a bare, hoarse whisper. He wasn't going to go there.
He wasn't going to go there.
Because if he did, he would cease to be of any use to his family at all.
He would just… lie down… in the dirt… and wait. Wait for death to take him, too.
"No," he said again, his voice gaining strength and conviction as he spoke. "No, Ronnelle." He was getting to his feet now; the seething, spitting, roiling hatred and pure, white-hot rage that were coursing, suddenly, through his body giving him new strength; a second wind.
"No, sweetheart. You're okay. You're going to be okay." He'd used the tree for support while pulling himself to his feet, but he shoved away from it now and resumed his trek, still stumbling, but this time almost at a run. His face, had anyone been around to see it at that moment, was frightening. He was pale as wax, with the notable exception of two bright fever-spots of color burning high on his cheeks. His eyes were positively blazing with hatred, and the will – no, the need – to rip, and tear, and kill.
"I promise, Ronnelle. I promise you, sweetheart. You're going to be just fine. I'm coming. Daddy's coming. Hold on, princess.
Hold on."