Ainsley felt exhausted. His whole body protested his upright-ness, but still, he leaned against the makeshift wall of the hideout. There was no escape; no going back. This was his reality. They were going to send Harry the last letter; the letter that sealed his and his friend's fate.
Again, there were arguments about how best to send the death note. Yelling amongst the death eaters was so commonplace now, that Ainsley barely registered it.
Whatever happened next, there would not be a positive outcome for Ainsley. If the death eaters plan worked, Harry, Hermione, and Ron would be dead. Which would mean that Lestrange would be in power, and Ainsley would be stuck in this purgatory forever. If Harry overtook them or was not all-powerful, then Ainsley would be spending the rest of his life in Azkaban. That was if he was lucky; the third option would be that Ainsley would end up dead. For some cruel reason, that felt like the best option of them all.
The yelling of the death eaters got louder, to the point that Ainsley could no longer ignore it. Spells flew across his eyes; a fight had broken out. They were shouting at one another, Crabbe duelling Lestrange and Rookwood. No one else was involved, likely not wanting to take sides.
Crabbe shouted that he should be the one to kill Potter- that he deserved it and that he was the best wizard among them. He was met with guffaws and snickers, the other death eaters not agreeing with his sentiment. Still, he fought on, trying to prove his point. Just as the fighting seemed to decelerate, Crabbe managed to land the killing curse on Lestrange. Then, all hell broke loose.
"Get the captives," yelled Crabbe, causing the fighting to move towards the cellar.
Ainsley was pushed to the cellar with the others, not participating in the duel, but instead using spells to protect himself. The chaos was overwhelming. Each death eater was vicious- desperate for blood.
It was clear that some of the death eaters had taken sides, Crabbe and Goyle were fighting Rookwood and Rowle. The other death eaters were duelling whoever would fight them, taking joy in the pandemonium.
With a thud, Crabbe fell to the floor, killed by Rookwood. Before this, the killing curse had only been used by Crabbe, others wanting to cause pain but not death. Now, the atmosphere had changed. Goyle was momentarily distracted by the death of his comrade and was struck down by Rowle. The killing curse began to fly out of wands indiscriminately, the sight overwhelming.
A spell brushed passed Ainsley's ear, causing him to swerve right into another. The spell hit him dead centre in his chest, and he fell to the floor.
Rookwood shouted, trying to get the attention of the fighters to no avail. Now the older Selwyn had moved from the killing curse to a slashing curse, trying to cause the most damage possible. The curse hit the already weak captive, distracting the death eaters who were left.
"Stop this at once," Rookwood shouted, using the momentary distraction to his advantage. "Get ahold of yourselves."
The fighting stopped and the death eaters turned to Rookwood, anxious to hear what he would say next.
He turned to Ainsley's form and rennervated him, which shocked the elder Selwyn, who believed his son to be dead.
Ainsley awoke on the cold floor of the cellar, his chest throbbing as he pushed himself into a sitting position. The memories of what had happened flooded back to him. He looked over to his right and saw the bleeding figure of Hermione Granger, limp in Ron Weasley's arms. Ron's face was pressed against hers, whispering and sobbing unintelligible statements.
Ainsley tried to meet the eyes of Ron, to see if he was alright and to somehow signal to him that Ainsley was trying to help. He absentmindedly touched his face and felt the death eater mask attached to it. The door of the cellar was magicked to put the mask on any death eater who entered. He would be of no comfort to Ron.
The death eaters were huddled together, presumably creating a new plan, but Ainsley didn't care about them. He went to stand up, to see if Hermione was alive.
"She's too weak if she's even alive. I say we leave the mudblood and continue with Weasley. If we send the photo now, Potter won't need to know."
Ainsley stopped in his tracks, listening to the death eaters discussion.
"I'll send the photograph, you grab Weasley," Rookwood gestured to Rowle and McNair, "and we'll go to our next location without the girl."
"No," shouted Ainsley, before he was aware of what he was doing.
The death eaters turned to him with surprised looks, having forgotten he was there.
"What do you mean, no?", said his father, pushing his wand into Ainsley's chest.
"I mean, er", Ainsley paused, trying to come up with a reason that would convince the death eaters. "It would be better to bring her- the mudblood- along, wouldn't it?" He hoped that his use of that word would help him to win favour with the group. "If she is dead," he hoped that she wasn't, "it would be worse for Potter, and we'd have one less mouth to feed while we wait."
"She's dead weight," said Rowle matter-of-factly. "Do you know how far we have to trek to get out of the anti-apparation zone? Now that Lestrange is dead, we can't just magic it away."
"I'll carry her!", said Ainsley desperately, needing to do whatever he could to save her.
"Fine," said his father. "Ainsley will carry her," he spoke to the other death eaters with a smirk on his face.
"Right, we don't have time for this," said Rookwood. "Let's head out now."
Rookwood took place of the leader, and the others began to follow his demands. McNair and Rowle grabbed a screaming Ron off of Hermione, quickly silencing him with petficius totalus.
Ainsley walked to Hermione and leaned over her. Her chest was moving with breath, but only just. He quickly grabbed his handmade healing potion out of his pocket and haphazardly poured it over her wound. His father yelled at him to move and he picked up Hermione's slack form.
They ventured through the forest with Rookwood at the head. Ainsley was soon behind him; McNair and Rowle falling behind in their struggle to carry Ron. Ainsley should be struggling as well, and he was, but he barely noticed his aching arms. His adrenaline was spiking, anticipating what was next. According to the plan, it would not be long before Harry met them in their new location. There were less of them now, and Ainsley was not convinced that they could take Harry and whatever he had up his sleeve.
After about an hour of hiking, Rookwood paused and touched the air. Apparently satisfied with whatever he felt, he nodded.
"Just a bit further," he said, looking back at the others.
McNair and Rowle had caught up with them, deciding to float Ron instead of carrying him. Ainsley went to follow Rookwood, but his father stopped him, the others pushing past them.
"Times up," his father said with a sickly sweet smile.
"What do you mean?", Ainsley asked.
"We agreed you could carry her, and you carried her. Now it's time to leave your little girlfriend."
"But," Ainsley started in shock, "she's still alive, we could still use her."
"No need," he said, leaning over her form. "If you're sure she's alive- well you can take care of that, can't you boy? I'll make sure Weasley has a good view."
With that, his father turned to follow the others. Ainsley was still flummoxed by the development. He shouldn't have been surprised, should he? His father had agreed far too quickly. He didn't have time to dwell on that, he needed to figure out what he was going to do, now.
He was still in the anti-apparation zone, and if he tried to run, they would surely kill the both of them without a blink of the eye. He gently placed her on the ground, the weight of his predicament mixed with the weight of her lifeless body becoming too much.
He couldn't kill her. He knew that at least. If he didn't kill her, and she survived and made it out, she would likely go back to England. If Harry died, Ainsley would be killed by the other death eaters for faking her death.
He would have to find a way for her not to be found out if she survived. She would have to have no recollection of who she was.
He knew what he had to do. He had been working on a spell that built on the obliviate spell. It was one of his plans if he ever escaped; the ability for him to forget his past and start over. Though he was still trying to figure out how to manipulate it so that he could keep the memories he wanted. But, that wasn't important now.
He blocked the view of the death eaters, who were now stopping, ready for a show. Quickly, he performed his memory charm on her. There was no way for him to know if it worked, but he had to keep going.
He turned, making sure that the death eaters and Ron could see him and Hermione. Slowly he pulled his wand back, and looking at a poor caterpillar near Hermione's ear, he yelled, "avada kedavra."
He heard pops as all of the death eaters except his father apparated with Ron to the new location.
He bent over her form, one last time, and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. There was one last problem. If someone of Hermione's description was found, especially near the forest where they had kept her, the death eaters would figure out that he had not killed her. So he discreetly altered her hair colour, something he had been planning to do for himself when he finally escaped. She was going to get the new start, the freedom, that he had wanted for himself for so long.
His father called him, and he ran over, vaguely aware that he could apparate away. But, he was worried about what his father would do to Hermione if he did so. His father grabbed his arm, and just before they apparated away, he nonverbally cast the rennervate spell on Hermione.
The duo landed in the magically hidden home of Rabastan Lestrange. Much like the Selwyn estate, it spanned acres and was surrounded by forest. They were in the stables, part of it partitioned off, in which Ron was contained.
After a dinner of stew and stale bread, the death eaters found their places to sleep on some of the furniture that had been brought in from the mansion. Ainsley was last in the hierarchy and therefore spent another night sleeping on a cold and unforgiving concrete floor.
The next morning, Ainsley could sense something was off. He was a heavy sleeper, often needing two enchanted alarm clocks to wake him, so it did not surprise him that the others were already awake. Rookwood sat in an ornately decorated armchair, fiddling with his wand absentmindedly. His father stood in the doorframe, looking at something on the floor.
Ainsley got up to get a better view of the sight. There he saw the bodies of Rowle and McNair. Rookwood explained that they had killed each other in a duel over who owed whom after a game of cards. His father had been taking watch and came in when he heard a commotion, not seeing how exactly the death eaters met their fates.
There was no reason not to believe Rookwood's story, though there was also no reason to believe him, either. Ainsley stared at his dad, trying to see if he believed Rookwood.
In a flash, the older Selwyn drew his wand, and Rookwood had Ainsley by the collar.
"If you make any sudden movements, he dies," said Rookwood with his wand pressed into Ainsley's neck.
Ainsley's father took a moment to consider Rookwood's proposition.
"Do you think I care?" he said, spitting in disgust.
Rookwood tightened his grip on Ainsley's collar, apparently unprepared for Selwyn's reaction.
"He is your son, no?," Rookwood asked, a little less firmly than before.
"No!," shouted the elder Selwyn. "Look at him, so weak and cowardly, how could he be mine? He has been nothing but a thorn in my side. A muggle-lover, just like his dear old mum. If I hadn't foolishly done an unbreakable vow with that whore, I would have been rid of him years ago. He's nothing better than a loathsome mudblood. It would be a relief if you were to kill him, Augustus."
"Do it," the elder Selwyn taunted.
The last thing that Ainsley Selwyn saw was the cruel glare of his father's eyes, realising too late that he was never going to have the freedom he so craved.