Previously...
Arianwen stopped suddenly in the courtyard of the castle and felt a strong grip enclose around her wrist, forcing her to spin around.
Standing before her was herself, only with those horrifying blue eyes she'd seen before; the same version of herself that plagued her dreams every time she was alone in Wales.
"Who the hell are you?" She screamed but the girl only smiled disturbingly and pulled her towards the entrance to the Great Keep.
"You can't get in there, no one can! Just leave me be, for Merlin's sake!"
The girl's eyes flashed dangerously and Arianwen staggered backwards, fear overcoming her. The blue-eyed Arianwen pulled a long chain from her beneath her robe to reveal an old brass key, she pushed it into the keyhole of the door and turned it. With a distinctive collection of clicks, the door unlocked and the blue-eyed girl spoke for the first time.
"Come Lady Arianwen, it is time for you to release me."
Arianwen followed numbly, her feet carrying her up the steep spiral staircase until she reached a heavily bolted iron cast door. She stared at it, expecting it to open for her but nothing happened.
"Hello?" She called.
The iron cover behind the barred window slid open abruptly and a pair of piercing blue eyes stared through it. However for the first time they looked scared, horrified, in fact and Arianwen knew that something awful must have happened in that tower.
And as suddenly as the prisoner's disposition had changed, Arianwen started to feel terror like she'd never experienced in her life. She screamed and leapt back, stumbling on the top step and falling helplessly down the staircase-
Her body jerked her awake and she sat up in bed, covered in sweat and panting.
"The Dark Lord," Snape said, his voiced laced with pique, "has turned his attention to Wales, he has not forgotten how they refused to support him last time and if they do so again…he will take it by force."
It felt like Draco's heart was in his mouth, Arianwen would be in real danger if she refused his master. He didn't want to give away his fear to Snape though; he was the Dark Lord's right hand man and could easily be testing him. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because if Arianwen is appointed Warden of South Wales, our master will expect you to get her to join our ranks and if she refuses, as I think she may, she will face a fate worse than death." Snape's eyes bored into his own, he felt random thoughts and memories flash to the forefront of his mind, as if Snape were rifling through them, looking for something. He focused his energy into expelling Snape from his head as his Aunt Bella had taught him but it was too late.
"You love her, don't you?"
Draco hoisted his injured leg off the sofa and stood, he curled his fist around the collar of Snape's cloak and shook him, his eyes harsher than Snape had ever seen them. "You know nothing!" He spat vehemently.
"Draco!" Narcissa called from the other end of the room. "What on earth are you doing?"
He released Snape's robes with a shove and attempted to stalk out of the room but to his annoyance, Snape managed to grab his arm just in time. Draco turned back and locked eyes with his old professor; he must have caught him in some state of sudden vulnerability for he could read regret behind the eyes of a fractured soul. Finally, Draco understood the message Snape was trying to send him.
"End it."
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Indebted
31st August 1997.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound of the shovel plunging into the damp earth was all that could be heard, so still was the night. The sky was unblemished, allowing the cold glow of the moon and the stars to illuminate her surroundings: a gated field littered with carved stones in different shapes and sizes, arranged into neat lines – the graveyard.
Arianwen watched herself dig up her father's grave, transfixed in place and unable to intervene. It was the same dream she had every night, only this time it felt different, it felt colder somehow, even the hairs on her arms were standing on end.
CRACK.
The startling sound of the shovel colliding with the heavy wooden casket shocked Arianwen back to her senses, she leapt forward and charged toward the edge of the grave to see her other self scrabbling at the dirt with her bare hands, trying to find a way to open the box.
"NO!" she screamed. She threw herself into the hole and landed awkwardly on her leg but wasted no time and sunk her fingers into her other self's hair, trying desperately to pull her backward.
Nothing happened. Her fingers slid through her hair as fast as sand falls between fingers. She was helpless.
The other Arianwen halted her movements suddenly: she'd found the seal. With unbelievable ease, she freed the lid of the casket from its body to reveal a pile of fine robes encasing what was left of her father. She couldn't even bring herself to scream as she watched herself remove something from around her father's neck and turn to face her. Only, she looked different, those wretched blue eyes looking back at her from within her skull. With a sudden movement, the pretender launched herself at Arianwen, pushing down on her shoulders so that her back was pressed against her father's corpse. She tried to struggle but it was no use, the other woman was too powerful.
"Go to the Tower," a commanding voice, most unlike her own, ordered. "I'll be waiting."
Arianwen blinked, she was gone. She was gone, but Arianwen was not. She suddenly felt very aware of her surroundings, her knees wet, her back aching, her fingers bloody. She slapped a hand to her mouth to muffle the guttural scream it produced. She tasted earth.
It wasn't a dream. She really had gone to the graveyard in nothing but her night clothes, she'd really dug up the earth, she was really lying in her father's casket.
"No no no no," she panted, "no it wasn't-I didn't want to-Daddy, I'm sorry!" Wailing, she scratched at the walls of the grave in a desperate bid to escape. With some unknown strength, she managed to claw her way out, forcing loose stones to wedge underneath her nails.
"Wand!" she cried desperately, crawling over the grass and patting the ground as she went, sure that she would find it hidden there somewhere if she searched hard enough. As she was searching, something swung out from inside her nightgown, dangling in front of her from a chain around her neck: a large brass key. She clutched it in her hand, bringing it closer to her face so she could examine it more clearly. Sure enough, it bore the exact some markings as the one she had seen around her father's neck when he died.
It was time to find out who or what was so desperate to break out of that tower.
"Wand!" she barked commandingly, and a moment later she felt the wood handle fly into her outstretched hand. Standing at a considerable distance, she moved the earth back into the grave and turned on her heal, apparating out of the graveyard with a loud crack.
Back at Pembroke Castle, Arianwen ascended the steep winding steps to the heavy wooden door at the top. She pushed the key into the lock carefully and twisted, hearing it grind against the rusted gears inside until it clicked open. Slowly, she turned the door handle and let the door creak open. It was dark inside, her eyes couldn't make out anything apart from the light that was peeping through the tiny window on the opposite wall. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside.
Suddenly, everything around her burst into life. The door slammed shut behind her and a fire roared awake in its place, illuminating the entire room but this sudden visibility only confused Arianwen more; there was no one there.
Or at least that's what she thought until she felt a smooth finger glide against the back of her exposed neck. "Good evening, Duchess."
Just like it had been in the graveyard, her body was paralyzed, feet routed to the floor. The woman moved into view, standing in front of Arianwen and examining her with those unnaturally bright blue eyes. It was the first time that Arianwen had seen the body that matched the eyes though. The woman was slightly taller than Arianwen and her frame was slender with skin as white and translucent as ice, hair as dark as the night. Arianwen couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was but just as soon as she had the woman laughed maliciously.
"Yes," she agreed, "people do tend to notice my beauty, just as they do yours." She grabbed Arianwen's chin and yanked it nearer to her own, "it will be your downfall, girl," she warned, "just as it was mine."
"Who are you?" Arianwen croaked, finally finding her voice.
"I," the woman began, releasing Arianwen's chin from her grasp and moving toward the window, "am the Lady of the Lake, or Nimue, as you may know me."
Arianwen's mouth fell open. She'd always thought that the stories of the Lady of the Lake were just legend, fairy tales designed to keep children in line. And yet, standing before her was a legend made flesh, taller than Arianwen with long, dark hair that fell in matted locks down her back.
"What," Arianwen said, swallowing past the tight dryness in her throat, "what do you want from me? Why did you bring me here?"
Nimue smiled at her, all teeth. "I want to be free of this cell that Merlin," she spat the name, "trapped me in. And I need your help, young one."
"Me?" Arianwen stared at her. "What do you need me for?"
"I needed the key," Nimue said, and Arianwen's blood boiled.
"You," she said, her hands clenching into fists. "You made me dig up my father's grave. You left me with his corpse."
"Watch your tone, girl," Nimue hissed, her eyes flashing. "It's your family that worked the blood magic that bound me here, so it's your—"
"If you think," Arianwen shouted, "that I am going to do anything to help you get out of here after everything that you have put me through, after everything my family has done to keep you locked in here, you psycho bitch—"
Arianwen stopped, suddenly and without her control, her tongue suddenly heavy and leaden in her mouth, and she stared at Nimue as the other woman's expression went dark and flat.
"My mother used to say," Nimue said, her eyes fixed on Arianwen's, "that nasty little girls with nothing good to say," and Arianwen can feel her tongue pressing at the back of her mouth, cutting off her air, the tendon pulled too tight, painful as her tongue was pushed backwards into her throat, "would always eat their words. Now," Nimue said, suddenly very close to Arianwen, close enough that she could see the bright, unnatural blue of Nimue's eyes, feel her breath move the still air, "you will be silent, and you hear your family's crimes against me."
Arianwen felt tears start in her eyes, the pressure in her head building from the lack of oxygen.
"I," Nimue said, "was promised in marriage to an Englishman to curry favour with Arthur, sold off for a better seat in court. But I did my duty; I married him, and I gave him three sons, whom I loved more than life. My sons inherited my skills with magic, particularly in the healing arts, but I never grew to love my husband. He was," Nimue's lip curls, "a terribly dull man. But then, I met someone like me; a man, mind you, but a man of such power. It was intoxicating. I fell in love.
"My husband, weak-minded and small-cocked, became jealous, as all men do, and he had us imprisoned here, in this place. I was his wife," Nimue snarled. "I am a noblewoman by the grace of my blood; he had no right." She took a deep breath, and seemed to calm herself. "Merlin — because it was Merlin, the man that I was weak enough to fall in love with — managed to escape. He promised he would come back for me. He lied." Nimue's voice was dark and ominous now, a seething fury under a surface of calm. "He claims that Arthur, Arthur the golden king, the promised saviour, convinced him not to. As though that child would have been able to convince Merlin of anything he didn't already want to do.
"I managed to get a message to my sons, to tell them where I was; and they, my wonderful, beautiful sons, they came for me. They were the only people who ever truly loved me, and they came when I called. Not that it mattered, in the end." Her eyes were bitter and sad where they met Arianwen's, now. "Their father caught them trying to get into this tower. He burned them, down there," she pointed towards an arrowslit window, a sliver of light barred with iron, "where I could watch my children die."
Nimue blinked slowly, as though her vision had been momentarily a thousand years ago, and suddenly Arianwen could breathe again. She swallowed air, choked, and coughed violently, desperately gasping for breath as Nimue watched her, impassive.
"I can smell the Gwydion blood in you, child," she said. "I need your blood and breath to open the portal to my home."
"Your," Arianwen tried, her voice rasping and hoarse, her throat still burning, "your home?"
"The Otherworld," Nimue said. "On the other side of the lake. The spells that your forefather placed on my prison binds me to this world, and I need your blood to open the barrier, and your breath to speak the enchantment that will let me pass from this Godforsaken place."
"I," said Arianwen, her mind racing, "you—" and then a flash of realisation. "You need me," she said. "You need me."
Nimue narrowed her eyes, the iris shining blue through her thick, dark lashes. "Are you attempting to threatenme, child?" she said, her voice both ominous and incredulous.
"Not threaten," Arianwen said, a plan formulating in her mind. "Bargain."
The moon shone silver on the lake, as still and flat in the cold night air as a sheet of glass. Arianwen's breath steamed on the air. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Nimue's did not.
"So," said Nimue. "You wish to learn from me."
"I need to learn from you," Arianwen said, carefully keeping the urgency out of her voice. "The Dark Lord will attack Wales again; he won't be satisfied until he has the whole of Britain, the whole of Europe under his thumb. The Death Eaters fight dirty, and I need to protect my people. I need to know how to beat them."
"'The Dark Lord'?" Nimue said, her voice full of mocking laughter. "What do I care for your petty human struggles, girl? I could take your mind and force you to speak the words, and slit your throat over the water."
"But you haven't," Arianwen said. "So, no offence, but I don't think you can. I think my great-great-whatever grandfather tied free will into the spell. You need me, Nimue. And I need you. This seems like a mutually beneficial relationship to me."
Nimue scoffed, her eyes on the reflection of the moon, hanging in the lake like she could just swim out there and touch it.
"The Dark Lord will not stop with humanity," Arianwen said, softly. "He is obsessed with blood purity — human blood purity. Anything not human is below his concern. He will enslave anything he can see use for, and murder anything he cannot. He must not be allowed to win."
There was a long moment of silence between them that seemed to contain the entire world.
"Very well," Nimue said. "I will teach you — someof my arts. Enough old magic to give you an advantage, to make full use of your old blood, and nothing more. And then you will split your palm, and speak the enchantment, and release me."
"Yes," Arianwen breathed. "I will."
1st September 1997.
For what must have been the tenth time that evening, Arianwen's eyes moved to the entrance of the Slytherin common room as the door swung open and a few stragglers from the welcoming feast walked in, chattering happily.
"He's not coming back, you know," Blaise warned quietly from his seat beside the fire.
Arianwen moved her eyes over to him slowly, arranging her face so that she would look mildly confused. "Who do you mean?"
Blaise rolled his eyes and moved to take a seat next to her on the sofa. "That," he said, tracing a circle in the air around her face with his finger, "won't work on me, love. We've known each other for too long."
She sniffed moodily, folding her arms across her chest. "I'm glad he didn't come back."
Blaise raised his eyebrows at her disbelievingly. "Are you?"
Arianwen glared at him. "He burned down one of my villages, Blaise. The last person I need to is to see Draco fucking Malfoy."
"He didn't personally burn it down, Ri," he reasoned.
"Maybe not but he made sure I was kept occupied while his cowardly mates did it for him, which is just as bad as far as I'm concerned," she snapped.
"Ri, come on, you know he wouldn't—"
"Why are you defending him?" she hissed, glancing around at the other Slytherins who were watching the pair curiously.
"Because you love him, and I'm trying to let you know that he's not the monster you think he is."
"He is exactly the person that I think he is and if I ever get the chance I'll cut his throat myself for what he's done!"
Everyone was staring now. Arianwen stood up and tried to walk away but Blaise had grabbed her hand and pulled her back down beside him. "Alright alright, I'm sorry," he said in a low voice, "just sit with me for a while."
And so they did. They sat in silence, side-by-side, until the other students had grown bored of the scene and left for their dormitories. Then, as the last of the fire burnt out, they rose in unison and descended the steps to their respective dorms without so much as a glance to the other.
Thoughts plagued Blaise's mind that night, something was very different about Arianwen. He knew that Draco had broken her heart, that much was obvious, but there was something else about her…he just couldn't place it.
Two months later.
Draco trudged through the masses of wet leaves that had gathered across the winding streets of Hogsmeade. He swore loudly as he kicked a pile of them out of his way only to have his foot connect with something solid that was hidden underneath. Life at the Malfoy Manor was shit, there was no other other way that Draco could describe it and in all honesty shit was not strong enough. Draco didn't think that there was a word in an human language that could describe the misery his life had become. His house, his ancestral home, had turned into an asylum for the deranged and insane, and that wasn't even including Belatrix.
Glancing through the window of the Three Broomsticks pub, he noted how much more subdued the crowd was this year than he'd ever seen it during the Hogsmeade weekends of years past. As he pushed the door open he spotted his old group of friends with ease, probably because they looked the most cheerful of everyone in there, and approached them.
"Draco!" Pansy squealed, jumping from her chair to envelop him in a hug. The atmosphere in the pub seemed to still temporarily whilst many of the students and teachers turned to look at the Malfoy boy, a shared look of hatred apparent on their faces. He wondered vaguely if they still thought it was he who killed Dumbledore but then again even if they did know that it wasn't him, he was a known Death Eater.
"Draco." Blaise greeted with a smile, shaking his hand and offering him a chair, which he took gladly. "I'm surprised to see you here, thought you were too important for us school kids!" Blaise joked, the others sniggering with him.
"I'm here to see Snape, if I'm honest, but Pansy wrote me saying you'd all be here so I thought I may as well stop by."
Goyle, who'd recently been getting very close to Pansy, shot her a filthy look. "Oh don't look at me like that Greggie, I was only being friendly!" she whined.
The attention of the other Slytherins was quickly drawn to Pansy and Goyle's argument, allowing Draco the opportunity to cast his eyes around the rest of the pub and into the street beyond. He squinted as something caught his eye in the distance and watched it grow nearer, unable to prevent the sudden rapid beating of his heart.
"What is she doing here?" He growled under his breath to Blaise, whom he knew had been watching him.
"I rather think she was hoping that you'd come back for seventh year."
Draco didn't say anything, instead keeping his eyes trained on Arianwen, who he could now see was being accompanied by someone, a man he guessed, by the shape of his outline. He wanted desperately to ask how she was but didn't know how to form the words without sounding like he cared, at least he knew now that she wasn't badly hurt in the battle.
"She seems…different this year," Blaise said slowly, apparently guessing what was on Draco's mind.
"Different how?" Draco asked as casually as he could manage, whilst still keeping his gaze upon Arianwen.
"It's hard to describe," Blaise started, "she doesn't really speak to anyone, or attempt to socialize at all. She disappears sometimes-"
"Disappears?" Draco interrupted, looking back at Blaise sharply. "Disappears where?"
Blaise fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Well obviously I don't know where she goes and she isn't keen on telling me either. All I know is that every Friday evening since term began she has disappeared off somewhere and then will return the next morning completely battered."
"Battered?" Draco asked, alarmed. "Someone's hurting her?"
"It seems that way," Blaise said darkly, "I saw blood dripping from the sleeve of her robes a few weeks back. Unfortunately she saw me watching her though, and she's been a lot more careful ever since."
Draco looked back out of the window and watched Arianwen sit down on a bench next to her companion, who he recognised to be Gwyn Bedwyr.
"Who do you think is doing it?" He asked shortly, watching Gwyn cup Arianwen's cheek with his hand and feeling his stomach tighten jealously.
"I dunno mate." Blaise admitted. "The Carrow's seem to have taken a disliking to her, give her detentions left right and centre but she's never complained about them to me."
Draco looked at Blaise, alarmed. They'd been bragging about their new techniques for the punishment of students at the last Death Eaters meeting, their favourite method being to hang students by their wrists from the ceiling and beat them with a variety of implements or cast a string of curses on them. His fingers curled into tight fists at the thought, when he got his hands on them he was going to-
But his thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Arianwen leaning closer to Gwyn and kissing him. He gaped as Gwyn wrapped her up in his arms and deepened the kiss, making it last for what felt like an eternity to Draco. Cringing at the scraping of the chair legs against the floor as he stood up, grumbled, "I'll see you all soon", and marched out of the pub, heading toward the castle and pointedly ignoring his friends' protests.
His eyes were firmly trained on the tips of the castle towers, which were just visible from the village, but it didn't stop him from hearing Arianwen's soft voice as she crooned over Gwyn. It made him so sick that he had half a mind to grab Gwyn and sink so many punches into him that Arianwen would never be able to pick him out of a crowd.
But he resisted, allowing himself instead to wallow in his thoughts. The worst part of what he had just seen was that Arianwen seemed to be just as intent on kissing Gwyn as he was to kiss her. How could she move on so soon?
If there was one thing he could take from it though, it was that he was sure as hell glad that he couldn't understand Welsh and didn't have to hear whatever sweet nothings she was uttering to Gwyn.
Arianwen walked slowly back to the dungeons after her short trip to Hogsmeade. She didn't know why but she couldn't bring herself to be around anyone for an extended period of time at the moment, not even Gwyn. It didn't help that she hadn't slept at all last night. She'd snuck out of the castle while the others were at dinner and apparated back to Wales so that she could continue her training in the Tower. Nimue was sure that Arianwen would be able to gauge the full extent of her powers if she put her in a life or death situation, the theory being that if Arianwen's mind was what was preventing her from accessing the ancient magic within her, then her body would have to take over.
Unfortunately for Arianwen, this meant being very nearly drowned repeatedly. The week before it meant almost being burned alive and the week before that she had been beaten with a spiked club. To an extent, Nimue's plan had worked for Arianwen's body now healed itself on its own, but it wasn't enough. There was something else that Nimue was looking for from her – Arianwen just wished she knew what it was.
A door slammed closed suddenly in the corridor ahead; Arianwen drew herself tightly against the nearest wall, wand raised as the sound of footsteps drew nearer. Two seconds later, she saw the source of the footsteps and wished she'd run in the opposite direction on first instinct.
"I must say it is a surprise to see you here." Draco drawled, closing the gap between them in one easy stride.
Arianwen had half a mind to attack him then and there, but managed to keep her cool as she responded, "I could say the same thing for you, or is there some sort of shortage of villages for you to destroy?"
Draco's jaw tightened and his eyes flashed dangerously. "I had nothing to do with that," he growled.
Arianwen laughed coldly. "Oh yeah? I think that mark on your arm would say otherwise."
"Don't be cocky," he snarled, pushing her up against the wall and glaring into her eyes with such force that he expected her to recoil. But she didn't, she simply glared back with the same ferociousness. After neither of them backed down Draco released her, panting as though he'd just run a mile, Arianwen doing the same.
"Do you swear it?" she asked quietly, watching his face carefully.
"I do."
She nodded a few times and began to walk away but Draco couldn't restrain himself. "I see you had no trouble finding someone else to warm your bed!" He called after her.
Arianwen turned slowly, a strange, dangerous smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. "That was you that I saw in the village then." She stalked toward him like he was the first prey she'd seen in weeks.
"Did you enjoy the show?" she mocked, wetting her lips and pulling on his shirt so that they were almost touching his ear. He could feel her hot breath on his neck, sending shivers down his spine yet alighting every inch of his skin with desire in the same instant. And then, in the most painfully seductive whisper, "he knows exactly how to use his tongue."
In one quick movement, Draco had grasped the back of her head with his hand and spun her so that her back slammed against the wall, he sunk his lips onto hers without a moment's pause and lapped up their indulgence greedily. He felt her breasts heaving underneath him and her legs wrap themselves around his waist, grinding their pelvises together wantonly.
"You're mine." he growled into her ear.
Arianwen's movements halted underneath him and he felt her hands brush against his cheeks, gently pushing his head backward so that their eyes could meet again. "Say you love me," she whispered, her eyes widening slightly with that look of hopeful innocence that had made him fall in love with her in the first place.
He couldn't believe how after everything he'd done she still wanted him. It killed him to do it but slowly he uttered the one word that he knew would devastate her: "No."
All of a sudden, he saw her eyes blacken and he felt a creeping coldness dispersing through his bloodstream but then, just as quickly as it had come, the feeling was gone and her lips were against his once more. He groaned as she dragged her fingers over his scalp and she curled them around his hair and-
"Argh!" He cried out in surprise as she yanked his head back with one hand and pushed a blade against his throat with the other.
"Then I will never be yours, Death Eater," she spat, pushing the blade harder against his milky skin. Still with her legs wrapped around his waist, she drew herself up so that their eyes were level, green against grey. "Touch me again and you might find that my hand juuust slips-" she allowed the blade to swipe against his skin, smiling as a hiss of pain escaped his lips and a thin line of blood trickled down his neck, blemishing the crisp white collar of his shirt. She jumped down and released him in one go, pocketing her dagger carefully in the sheath strapped to her thigh.
"Goodbye Draco."
A/N: Arianwen and Draco are not having the best time of it are they :/ What are your thoughts on their situation? Do you think Arianwen should tell Gwyn about her run in with Draco?
Also, I know that it has been a while since I updated last so I fully expect you all to be a bit confused as to the timeline of events, so if you have any questions please feel free to put them in a review or DM me and I'll reply. I'm part way through chapter thirty now so will try and get that to you all ASAP (I'm hoping no more than a week) but I'm also working on a big research proposal which has been slowing me down :(
Thank you SO much to everyone who has reviewed and followed or favourited this story, it's so nice to get feedback, I really appreciate it!
And finally, sorry for the jumpiness of this chapter, there were too many events that I needed to write to be able to make it all flow nicely without writing double the amount and boring you all in the process. The next one maaaay include another meeting between Arianwen and Draco but I haven't finished writing it yet so if there's anything that you think should happen/they should speak about, let me know!
