This work is complete at 31 chapters and ~127,000 words. I'll be submitting a chapter a day through March until it's all up.


Chapter 30: September Eve

The days, hours, and even minutes ticked by far too quickly for Dagmar's liking toward the end of August. Summer began to feel like the dregs of a Sunday. The last Tuesday, the last Wednesday. . .leading toward Monday, when they would ride the train north.

It broke Dagmar's concentration completely toward the studying she'd intended to do. There was no way around it—it was a lost cause this summer. Dagmar was much more preoccupied with what she wouldn't be able to have while at Hogwarts. The only thing capable of easing her panic was falling in with Draco over and over again.

Dagmar hated how as soon as all the endorphins wore off, the dread set right back in.

"There has to be a way," she told Draco on the last Friday as they laid together afterward. "We can't seriously have to go an entire school year acting like this summer didn't happen."

"We'll figure it out," Draco reassured her. "It's a big castle with a lot of nooks and crannies. There's always the Room of Requirement."

As reassuring it was to know there was somewhere at Hogwarts that would alter itself to whatever suited their need, Dagmar and Draco could still be seen coming and going. There would still be a door, even if it was locked. In that sense, it was no better a choice than a broom closet for where they could meet up.

Dagmar held herself against Draco, closing her eyes so that she could better hear his heartbeat where her ear pressed against his chest. They wouldn't be able to sleep together in the innocent sense, for sure. Shared dorms would make it impossible in their own beds, and even if they used the Room of Requirement for that it would have to only be occasional. Otherwise, their dorm-mates would start wondering where they went at night.

Talking about it at this point hurt more than it invigorated with the hanging question mark beginning next week. Draco was just as keen as Dagmar to express themselves physically more than in any other way, which contributed to Dagmar's anxiety as that too could hardly cut it anymore. Nothing was.

She at least found some peace when she focused solely on the moment at hand. Her naked body pressed against Draco's under the blankets, his lips were soft against hers, and she could feel tiny bumps rising up where she lightly ran her nails over his arm.

Dagmar rested their foreheads together. "Hey."

"Mm."

"I love you."

Draco's newly pink cheeks were visible even in the dimly-lit room. Although he smiled, Dagmar's heart rate picked up with new anxiety. She'd felt calm saying it because she knew it to be true, but she hoped to hear it back.

"I love you too." He rubbed their noses together. "Honestly probably have for a while."

"Never thought to tell me?" Dagmar teased.

"Well, I think I've put enough pressure on you through all this, just being ready for everything sooner," Draco replied. "It was the last major thing I figured you should be the first one to make a move on."

"Fair enough." Dagmar slipped her fingers through Draco's. "I feel a little silly when I look back at some of the things I was hung up on. The amount of days during our first trip in Bergen where I dickered on when and how to kiss you was ridiculous."

"It was worth the wait. And I don't mean that just in the cliché way that it was a nice kiss, I mean in your ownership of our relationship. I've always known exactly where I stood with you, good or bad, so it makes me feel good when everything's right between us."

"I think because you put the physical pacing on me it gave you some room to grow emotionally," Dagmar said. "It's sort of a cultural thing that men aren't really like that. Sex is the man's playground and the woman's just along for the ride, but for emotional stuff it's the other way around."

"It's some sort of balance, I guess," Draco shrugged, "but this is nicer. No room for resentment."

"I agree."

"Plus, it's really hot to be with someone that isn't afraid to tell you exactly what she wants."

"I don't feel shy or embarrassed about it at all." Dagmar pushed the blanket a bit further down her waist. She was starting to feel warm despite the cooler evening. "I don't think I could when you react so positively."

"Mhm." Smiling idly, Draco set his hand on one of her breasts. They shared a chuckle when Dagmar held it there.

"And then there are times like this when you're the easiest man to please," she said.

The two of them could spend Saturday in similar spirits, but the next day dawned with a serious edge of dejection. Since they would head to Kings Cross come morning, it was the Sunday to end all Sundays. Dagmar hadn't realized how much she was sighing while packing her things at her manor until Draco imitated her each time more dramatically than the last.

She laughed. "Stop."

Draco laid across her bed with his fingers folded behind his head. He cracked a grin, his chest rising before quickly falling with his biggest sigh yet.

Dagmar hit him with one of her green and silver ties on the way to her trunk. "I have every right to be depressed today and I refuse to believe you feel any better than me about tomorrow."

"No, but I'm at least having fun annoying you."

"Might as well get it all out of your system now, I guess."

Dagmar regretted saying that as soon as the last word left her mouth. Sure enough, the glint in Draco's eye faded, followed quickly by his grin. She hadn't realized how much he carried the mood of the room until both of them stewed in silence laced with dread.

A knock came at her bedroom door before it was pushed open from where it sat slightly ajar. Dagmar poked her head out of her closet as her parents' voices followed.

"We came to say goodbye," her mum said. "Last time, ah?"

Dagmar returned her hug tightly. Although she would miss them, she was partially relieved that she'd made it through the summer without being dragged into their business anymore than she already had been. "Last time."

"You're sure you don't want us to come see you off tomorrow?" her mum asked.

"Nei, it's okay. Draco and I are just going to apparate," Dagmar replied. It was only a half-truth. After the summer they'd had, she was paranoid that certain students with an in at the Ministry might be more aware of who her parents were than she was comfortable with. "I don't want to cry on the station. Shows weakness, you know?"

Her mum laughed weakly near Dagmar's ear. A shift from joviality to seriousness made Dagmar frown, and she stiffened as her mum's arms tightened again.

"You made us proud," she whispered in Norwegian. "Farewell."

Dagmar pulled away from her, but she didn't have the chance to ask for elaboration. Her father had finished clapping an upright Draco on the back and was moving over to do the same to Dagmar during a similarly tight hug.

"Take care of yourself," he told her, not bothering to lower his voice or switch languages. "Study hard and be good."

Dagmar managed a smile. "I will."

The two of them left. Dagmar's brow fell back into a furrow and she scratched idly at her collar bone while studying the bedroom door.

Draco resumed his supine position. "All right?"

"Ja. . ." she replied. "Did they say anything to you?"

"Yeah." Draco shrugged. "Same as you. Behave, crack a book at least once."

Dagmar snorted. "Are you going to?"

"Of course."

That he looked indignant at the question drew Dagmar over. She sat down in the small gap between his hips and the bed's edge.

"I'm just teasing," she told him. "I know you will."

Draco grunted, lips pursed. His gaze darted downward when Dagmar laid a hand on his abdomen.

"I'm sorry about earlier," she said. "I didn't mean to kill your good mood."

"I'm trying really hard not to think about what tomorrow might bring," Draco replied. "I only wanted to cheer you up."

"I know."

Dagmar squeezed his hip before standing. Intent for the closet, she didn't have time to comprehend the flurry of noise behind her before arms closed around her waist and her balance was offset. A cry of surprise ended with a grunt as her back found the bed. Her knees splayed over Draco's thighs and the blatant expression of satisfaction on his face made her scoff.

"You could've warned me," she said.

"No fun."

His smirk graduated to an amused grin as Dagmar tried fruitlessly to suppress a laugh. She pulled her legs over Draco's so that she could lay flush with him. One of them wound up back in the dip of his waist as she tried to get as close as possible. Draco's fingertips ghosting up the back of her thigh trailed warmth along with them.

She broke their kiss with difficulty. "Let me finish up and then we can head back to your place. I'm just about done."

"Okay."

They hadn't gotten too carried away, but going through these motions enough times the past few weeks created promises of what was to come. Draco's gaze hooded as Dagmar briefly straddled him while rolling over his hips. She couldn't help but stop long enough for another kiss, which was sufficient time for Draco's hands to travel up her thighs and over her backside to a familiar place in her waist. The temptation to remain there was high, but Dagmar would have to get up either way in order to fully shut her bedroom door. She thought about it, but then steeled herself toward the closet for her last few items.

Dagmar hadn't even set her school trunk down in Draco's room before he started. Hands roamed up the front of her shirt while a mouth worked her neck.

Draco was still bent toward the idea Dagmar had unintentionally suggested earlier. She was still a little clumsy at joining their bodies together while straddling him, but it was worth it once they crossed that hurdle. Dagmar could hardly stand the look on Draco's face as he watched her get comfortable and then find a rhythm. It didn't take long for her leg muscles to protest, but Dagmar could usually put it off if she used the headboard as leverage. She would rather put her hands to use elsewhere if she could, running them over Draco's chest or following his over hers.

There was a certain way Draco could thrust upward that angled him into Dagmar's g-spot, but this wasn't a position that she managed to cum yet from that alone. She still needed help, and while Draco's thumb between her legs could do the trick, it was worth doing it herself for how much it turned Draco on.

Draco pushed himself up into a sitting position so that he could mouth her breasts. Dagmar tilted his chin upward when she got close. She still couldn't quite get a grip on how much noise she made, so she opted to let it be muffled against Draco's lips rather than be embarrassed about it.

She cried out anyway in surprise when Draco flipped her down onto her back. That she gasped to be filled up again seemed to encourage Draco as he pressed her into the bed. So too did Dagmar wrapping her legs around him, her fingernails scratching lightly at his shoulders. As soon as his ear was close enough to catch her whispers, she started talking.

Not that she would ever tell Draco, but most of the Norwegian she spoke in bed was meaningless. The sounds of it—given that Draco couldn't understand the majority of it anyway—were what affected him. He liked the more guttural sounds for their apparent filthiness, although Dagmar had felt gooseflesh spread across his back once before thanks to a well-placed trill.

For the Norwegian that did have meaning, because Dagmar was essentially talking to herself in the room she was more comfortable taking liberties that she wasn't in English. She liked the idea that it would be some sort of reward for Draco learning the language. Dagmar was pretty sure Draco had already figured out the meaning for knulle meg.

He certainly obliged as he neared the end. Dagmar almost winced from how roughly his hips collided with hers, but knowing how much he enjoyed himself made it a good kind of hurt. He moaned against her shoulder, breaking rhythm to push himself as deep as he could go inside her with each beat of his orgasm. Dagmar stroked his hair and back. Even though she never wanted kids and religiously took her Natalise Potion every morning to prevent it, there was no denying just how hot it was when Draco lost himself to the most carnal demand of his body.

Dagmar foiled it with the gentlest touches she could muster while he panted, all strength gone. She trailed soft kisses up his cheek and temple, ending at his forehead.

He needed a minute to come back to himself. Eventually, his breathing evened out and Dagmar could no longer feel his heart beating through his back. Draco's face remained the epitome of peace. Endeared, Dagmar verged on staring. His eyelids fluttered open while she was looking, graduating her serene smile into a grin.

"I always wondered what exactly you were holding back," she said.

Draco's chuckle remained weak along with his muscles. "Too much?"

"Nei, I love it."

Dagmar was glad that she'd packed up all her things before they'd had sex. She could continue to lay around after she'd put herself back together while Draco had to drag himself through the motions of it. She was definitely glad to have made herself decent when a knock came at the bedroom door.

Draco headed over to open it while Dagmar continued mindlessly petting a sleeping Heimdall. The cat's eyes cracked open at the addition of a new voice.

"Are you nearly packed?" Lucius asked Draco.

"Getting there." Draco shrugged. "Making sure I don't forget anything."

Lucius nodded again, his focus volleying over to Dagmar. "Could I borrow you for a minute?"

"Oh—sure."

Lazy as Dagmar felt, she wasn't exactly doing anything important. She resituated Heimdall since he refused to budge on his own. Dagmar ran a hand down Draco's arm when she passed him by. "Be right back."

Lucius waited in the hallway between Draco's bedroom door and the foyer stairs. He led Dagmar down and took a left into the library. A few weeks had passed since they were last in here, and the entire fallout of Dagmar's run-in with French authority had slipped her mind. She couldn't think of anything else left to touch base upon with it.

Dagmar slowed as Lucius passed through the second library door, to the hallway beyond. He came to a stop outside his drawing room. Dagmar's heart sunk past her stomach at the way Lucius studied her. It was somewhere between his usual passive expression and. . .concern, maybe? Dagmar couldn't read him as well as she wished she could in this moment.

Lucius cleared his throat. "He wishes to see you."

Were it not that Dagmar's heart pounded uncomfortably against the inside of her ribcage, she might have suspected it had left her forever. "Why?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, I'm sure."

Dagmar took that to mean he had a pretty good idea, as did she. Was this really where her foolish use of an ancient, complicated spell had led her? And why? What interest was that to the Dark Lord?

Lucius approached Dagmar where she stood rooted to the spot next to one of the chairs she'd sat in at the beginning of summer. With an exhale, he rested his hands on her shoulders.

"Answer truthfully any questions that he asks," Lucius told her. "He'll know if you're lying. Keep your shoulders up and your gaze down. If he tells you to do anything, you're best to obey."

"I. . ."

Dagmar was at a loss for words. Barely three minutes ago she'd been relaxing on Draco's bed, eyeing his bum every time he bent over his trunk or in his closet. She'd thought after she said goodbye to her parents that she was in the clear for this sort of meeting. What could the Dark Lord want at nearly the last moment before Dagmar was out of his reach?

"I can't." Dagmar managed to find her voice. "I can't possibly go in there."

"You have to."

"Can't you—isn't there anything you could do?"

Lucius pressed his lips together, his own gaze falling away from her. Maybe he'd tried, or maybe he was just more impervious to her pleading than Draco was. He squeezed her shoulder, but it was far from comforting.

"Don't dawdle, now," he said.

Dagmar still couldn't uproot herself from where she stood, as if her feet had legitimately planted themselves. Mr. Malfoy encouraged her on with a hand between her shoulder blades, and Dagmar couldn't help but feel like a lamb on the way to slaughter. She wanted to believe that Mr. Malfoy wouldn't have allowed this meeting to happen if it would be dangerous. Did her parents even know about it?

Mr. Malfoy opened the drawing room door. Cool air passed through Dagmar not dissimilarly to a ghost at Hogwarts. For as bright as the rest of the manor was, the drawing room somehow managed not to share in that trait. The windows did nothing, as if the gardens outside were merely painted on the wall as illusions.

Dagmar jumped when Mr. Malfoy spoke beside her. "My Lord?"

A high voice replied from somewhere further in. "Leave us."

Mr. Malfoy squeezed Dagmar's shoulder again before his footsteps carried him to the door. He was gone then. Dagmar remembered what he'd said about keeping her gaze down, not that she wanted to look at the Dark Lord if she could absolutely help it. Her hearing seemed to sharpen, trying to find him in the room, for she could feel him the same way a gazelle might sense a lion.

A sliding sound cut the silence. Dagmar caught movement out the corner of her eye. As her vision adjusted to the new level of darkness, she saw a massive snake slithering across the floor against the wall opposite the windows.

"Is it true?" a hissed voice emerged from it. "Does she understand us?"

"Hush, Nagini," the Dark Lord replied using the same sounds before returning to English. "Come more into the light."

Although she didn't really know what light he spoke of, Dagmar took a couple shaky steps forward. A sound similar to Nagini's movement started moving toward her. The bottom of black robes edged in at the top of her vision. Dagmar tucked her chin to her chest to help avoid seeing him—to avoid knowing that he stood so close to her.

"Look me in the eyes."

The angle of Dagmar's neck made it hard to swallow. She held her hands together in front of her in hopes of hiding how much they trembled. She didn't want to look at him, not just out of fear but an emerging anger from somewhere near her stomach. The Dark Lord had robbed her of a normal life. He'd ensnared her parents, stealing them from her. Dagmar had no idea what end that would earn them, but she anticipated she'd be burying one or both earlier than she had to.

Could the Dark Lord see that? Dagmar thought about Mr. Malfoy's warning, that the Dark Lord would know if she lied to him. Did that mean he practiced Legilimency? Just in case, Dagmar did her best to hush all the emotions within her. She cleared her mind before she so much as dared flick her gaze upward.

His appearance nearly compromised that effort as a mix of disgust and horror threatened to offset Dagmar's emotional quietude. She'd heard stories through the devil's snare that the Dark Lord didn't look human anymore. His skin was paler than a skeleton and clung to his skull as if he was one. That he had two slits in place of a nose didn't help the illusion. Scarlet eyes looked back at Dagmar, and as soon as she met their gaze a prying sensation started at her mind. The edge of Dagmar's vision crowded black, but she managed to hold it.

A corner of the Dark Lord's lipless mouth lifted in amusement. "You've learned Occlumency, have you? Lower your guard, child. Let Lord Voldemort see."

Dagmar hesitated, but she didn't know what resistance she could honestly show. She stood barefoot in front of him, in shorts and a tee shirt, with her wand useless to her up in Draco's bedroom. She didn't doubt, even if Dagmar's parents were amongst his most loyal followers, that he would kill her on the spot for merely disobeying him. Then again, what would be the consequence if the Dark Lord knew she didn't believe in his cause, and that she resented him for shattering her childhood?

The ugly way his face started to fall toward a darker mood compelled Dagmar to do what she had to. She had to get back to Draco. She could never hurt him that way if she died at the Dark Lord's hands or, worse, just disappeared. Dagmar lowered her guard gradually, the prying feeling getting worse.

She focused so much on hiding her feelings about him that other things were left vulnerable. Marc's face appeared in her mind, or at least the last of it that Dagmar had seen before she used the Heafonfýr Curse on him. When Dagmar tried to group that into the things she hid, the Dark Lord already moved on. In her mind's eye, Dagmar stood briefly in the hallway of her recurring nightmares. The Dark Lord moved on again, this time to a bright flash of green. With utter panic, Dagmar clamped right down again on letting the Dark Lord see anything at all.

His face appeared again in front of her. He narrowed his eyes, Dagmar figured in annoyance that she shut him out hardly any sooner than he'd wormed in, but the prying sensation eased off. Dagmar dropped her gaze again somewhere between their feet, suddenly sick. The final one was a memory she had worked to repress since March, opting to make the story she told everyone else the truth in her mind as well.

"Who did you use the Killing Curse on?" the Dark Lord asked.

Dagmar clenched her eyes shut. They burned with shame and she would be mortified if she showed that. Dagmar had struggled with the need to tell someone—anyone—since it had happened. She'd come close a couple times to telling Draco, but somehow she knew that he would never look at her the same way, especially now that they had Heimdall. It didn't matter why she had done it, the method was the same used to end countless lives in this war brought down upon the wizarding world.

"My cat," she whispered.

Her eyes blurred with tears she refused to shed. Dagmar hated most of all this new silence between herself and the Dark Lord, for while he said nothing, she had the abject sense of something she expected nobody to ever offer in the situation: understanding.

"You alleviated his suffering," the Dark Lord filled in the blanks.

Dagmar nodded jerkily. "He had lumps all over his body. He was going to die, but it was going too slowly. I thought. . ."

She'd done it out of compassion, but it was still one of the worst moments of Dagmar's life. Grim had thought they were only going for an evening walk into the Forbidden Forest. The expression of acceptance on his little face when Dagmar turned her wand on him hardly made her feel any better. She'd still had to handle the body herself afterward, transfiguring it into something easier to bury than a two-stone animal. The absolute shock of having done it quickly turned the night's events surreal. That made it easier to pretend it never happened, that Grim had just wandered off on his own.

"Who would make you feel ashamed of such a thing?" the Dark Lord asked, his high voice silky as he moved away from Dagmar. "Sometimes the best thing we can do for the creatures we have charge over is to give them relief."

Dagmar's gaze lifted, elevated by renewed anger brewing in her stomach. He would dare use how Grim died as a way to justify all the creatures he relieved, that he believed himself to reign over?

"That house I saw." The Dark Lord stopped walking. "Do you know where it is?"

"Nei."

He turned to face her again, Dagmar's gaze returning to the floor before he had a chance to catch her loathing glare.

"You're perhaps wondering why I wished to see you," he said. "You've created some extra legwork for me this summer—not that I hold it against you. There are very few Ministries I've had run-ins with that appreciate young talent when it's a variety they disapprove of. My own sources at the British Ministry confirmed that Paris informed their counterpart here of what happened in Nice. Do you know the head of the Auror department, Kingsley Shacklebolt?"

Dagmar shook her head. "I've heard his name, but I don't personally know him."

"I didn't think so," the Dark Lord replied. "So excessive, for someone that merely intended to defend herself. Why was that the spell you chose?"

"I don't know," Dagmar hedged.

"No?" The Dark Lord sounded amused. "Another promising young witch lost to societal conditioning that dark magic is inherently bad, it seems. I think you do know why you used it, but you won't admit it even to me, who would understand more than anyone else. That Muggle disrespected you, so you wanted to teach him a lesson."

Dagmar pressed her lips together.

"Is that so terrible?" the Dark Lord asked. "Parents teach lessons to their children. Teachers do the same with their students. It's too bad, really, that the French Ministry obliviated those Muggles before setting them loose again. They might have thought twice the next time they saw a young woman they wanted to follow down a dark street."

Dagmar's discomfort grew as the Dark Lord spoke. The things he said made sense logically, but she had to keep in mind the context that changed the meaning of some of it. The French Ministry came down hard on her, but perhaps that wouldn't have been the case if they weren't on such high alert because of the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters. Marc disrespected her, yes, but Dagmar still maintained that she could've used a lesser spell to neutralize him. She didn't have to go on the offence, and so brutally so.

"I'd like you to show me that curse," he said.

Dagmar looked up. "It's in a book that Mr. Malfoy owns."

"I'm aware." The Dark Lord waved a dismissive hand. "I want to see you use it."

"I. . ." The random aches in Dagmar's arm had lessened, but they had yet to fully abate. "It injured me."

"So use a wand."

"I didn't bring it."

The weight of the Dark Lord's glare put Dagmar's chin down again. Her nerves began to return. Could he force her? She would be far from the first person he used the Imperius Curse on.

His muted footsteps approached. Dagmar braced herself, but her eyes widened instead in astonishment when the Dark Lord held his own out. She looked up again, unable to believe that he was serious.

Dagmar had one more protest: "Here, though? In Mr. Malfoy's manor?"

As predicted, the Dark Lord's eyes narrowed. It wasn't so much in anger, but thought. He stowed his wand back in his robes and extended the skeletal hand to Dagmar's shoulder. She tensed with his touch, unsure about the fresh smirk he wore.

"I suppose you're right," he said.

The sensation of being pulled through a tight tube robbed the breath from Dagmar's lungs. They came to a stop somewhere, but it didn't seem to satisfy the Dark Lord. A couple more, and they'd arrived in a graveyard. Dagmar's bare feet squelched against the wet ground, her hair already growing damp in the pouring rain. A cold wind picked up and went right through her.

"Perfect," the Dark Lord pulled up the hood of his robes. "If you're talented enough to focus a Heafonfýr Curse while wandless and without lightning present, I'm curious to see what you could do in optimal conditions. Ah—of course, I almost forgot. . ."

He extended his wand again. Dagmar didn't see what choice she had but to take it. She had no idea where she was, and she sincerely doubted the Dark Lord would take her back to Malfoy Manor until she'd done what he said.

Dagmar's hand closed around the base of the Dark Lord's wand. A warmth spread from it up her arm, similar to how it felt to hold her own. There was power and heft to this one from years of use. Dagmar wondered as she looked at it just how many people had met their ends to this piece of yew.

The Dark Lord gave her some space, navigating between headstones. His voice wavered in the air due to the wind. "Well?"

Despite being away from Malfoy Manor, in a freezing-cold storm, and holding the Dark Lord's personal wand in her hand, Dagmar couldn't find the motivation in her to do as he'd requested.

Then again. . .she and the Dark Lord were alone, in the middle of nowhere. He'd purposely disarmed herself, perhaps curious of her power but at the same time underestimating what she might choose to do instead of obey.

"Ah, of course," his voice carried over again. "There must be one more condition: you have to be in danger."

Red light originated where the Dark Lord stood. Dagmar ducked behind the nearest gravestone as a streak whistled past. The gravestone it hit shattered, showering the nearby ground with bits of cement. Dagmar bolted, or tried to anyway, to put more distance between the two of them. She slipped on the wet ground, which might have actually saved her from getting hit by the next spell he threw at her. Dagmar sidled down behind another one, listening as the spells hit everything around her, but not close enough to do more than scare her.

The last thing Dagmar expected to feel right now was annoyance. Ever since the Dark Lord had first opened his mouth earlier, all he'd done was try to manipulate her. Was that his grand strategy that had ensnared so many witches and wizards to serve under him? How did they not see right through it all? Now that Dagmar had been in a room with the Dark Lord, had a conversation with him, and held his wand in her hand, she couldn't see how an entire wizarding world had come to fear his very name. Who would he even be, without his flock?

This was the person that had clipped her childhood short. He'd compromised Dagmar's family life. He'd brought the Ministry down on their manor. He'd tried to use Dagmar's compassion for her cancer-riddled cat to his advantage. He thought he could scare her now into doing what he wanted.

Dagmar stepped out from behind the gravestone she crouched behind and started back toward Voldemort. That he looked so smug with himself contorted Dagmar's anger with a twist of amusement. Surely, he would get exactly what he asked for.

She lifted the wand upward. Although she couldn't see it yet, Dagmar could feel the energy coming, like when she spawned the first spark that would ramp up to the full force of the Heafonfýr Curse. The next streak of lightning bent in the sky, drawn to her like a conduit. It hit the end of the wand, and although the raw force of it collected in Dagmar's body, she didn't feel it like last time. It remained focused in the wand, which she lashed in Voldemort's direction like a whip. As quickly as it had all come, the strength of the curse fled from her. The loud crack muted her yelled incantation.

Voldemort conjured some sort of block, but it wasn't enough to completely deflect it. Dagmar was close enough to see his eyes widen underneath his hood as he lost his footing. He slid backwards in the mud.

All was still except for the rain blown in erratic directions. Dagmar revelled in a deep sense of satisfaction. After all the trouble Voldemort had caused her, he deserved no less than to be knocked around a bit.

He wasn't moving. She passed through the headstones to check him. Had she. . .? There was no possible way.

Dagmar had almost reached him when he sat back up, his face contorted in rage. He lashed at her again with red light. It hit her square in the chest. The cloudy sky was the last thing Dagmar saw before her vision went black.