Dawn came in the form of faint amber light sleeping through stones, and a piece of bread and glass of water laid in front of her door. Calla raised her head, blinking, trying to see through the dark wile she remembered where she was. There was a blissful moment in which she forgot; and then, sharply and brutally, she remembered, and a high scream tore from her throat. It was smothered quickly, as a crippling thirst overtook her and she scrambled for water, drinking as fast as she could and then doubling over as hunger split her stomach.
She had to claw her way over to the plate of food. There was another note beside it.
I fear your friend is most unwell, and there appears no one here to assist him. I, however, would appreciate your assistance. You do not have long, Calla Potter. This could all be so much easier. It doesn't only have to be dear Sirius. I'm sure your brother will prove easy enough to track down.
Enjoy breakfast.
Panic seized her. Harry. She couldn't let him get to Harry. "Hogwarts is protected," said one side of her and then the other, spitting: "you idiot, Hogwarts has never been protected."
He'd find a way to her anyway. He'd work his way into her mind and yes, it would be easier if she just let him in.
She tore off a small square of bread, lips quivering, and ate it while the note burned itself out, staring at the locked wooden door. Someone had to realise they were missing soon. Sirius only had to hold out until then; but she couldn't ask that of him.
Calla remembered the graveyard. Pain burst through her scar but she forced herself to concentrate her memories, digging sharp nails painfully into the palm of her hand to root herself in the reality of her memory. How he'd pushed his way into her mind, how she had forced him out and resisted him. This time he would expect resistance even if it wasn't what he wanted. He would expect blockades and traps.
But Dumbledore had told her, this was still her mind. It was risky. But Voldemort's mind held secrets, too. There were things he needed to protect from her. He was not the only one with power here, even if it felt like it, and even if it felt like Calla had no power at all. She had to remind herself that she did, that she had defied him before and she could do it again because she had to.
She ate another piece of bread and stared at the wall. Her stomach turned painfully.
Voldemort needed her, she realised. Whether intententional or not, he had made her powerful by that fact. He needed her to co-operate, but she could negotiate, too. Whatever he wanted, he needed Sirius too. Perhaps they were separate needs but the fact remained. If she could bargain for Sirius' life or escape, that would have potential for him to alert the Order in some way, though it was admittedly unlikely that they would ever let him go. More possible was that she could bargain for him to have better conditions. No more torture. And she'd have to trust him — trust him to find a way to save them both. She didn't like that idea much. She was familiar with the saying that if she needed something done right, she had to do it herself. But she was only just familiar with the steps up from the doors of her cellar. She could forge a weapon from smashed glass and porcelain, but brute force and adrenaline would not make an escape for her. She needed time first.
And Voldemort needed her more than he needed Sirius, she was sure of that. Her mind was strong because it had to be. Maybe the test was too far, but it wasn't like she had many other options. She could mislead him, distract him, she could conceal what he needed from him just enough to keep him placated, if only she knew what he was after. He expected her to be weak. He expected her to give in. She would have an easier time fooling him than fighting him. She didn't know why people always seemed to think she wasn't as much a threat as she was; was it her size, her age, her gender? It didn't matter.
For what felt like hours she waited for any other signs of life outside of the little cell in which she was kept. Her throat hurt too much for her to try to scream and it was useless anyway. There was a hollowness in her chest as she hid herself away in the corner.
Narcissa Malfoy came down the steps some time later, her face pale and creased, to take Calla to the bathroom. She went silently, blindfolded listening to the sounds of the manor around her and searching for any sign of a wand. Surely Mrs Malfoy had one somewhere, for no one would expect a witch to handle a prisoner without a wand, but she was concealing it well and Calla doubted she would be able to reach it. She had to bide her time, until she had a clearer idea.
She kept herself silent even as they went onto an upper floor, where she could hear the ticking of a grandfather clock. Whispers came through walls, perhaps from portraits of old wizards and witches, ancestors of the owners of this home. She could not be certain it was Malfoy Manor, but if she had to place a bet, it would have gone there. She could feel magic working up her spin, a cold chill. Calla only had her blindfold removed when she was pushed inside a tiny and dusty bathroom - a small cupboard barely larger than the one under the stairs in Privet Drive, and judging by the nest of rags on the floor, a haunt of a house elf - had been cleared of everything but the necessities. She checked for any razors or sharp objects in the cupboards, but there were none, and the window was tightly shut and locked. If she could only get someone's wand...
But, she realised, as she stared into the mirror at a dusty, dirty girl with hollow eyes and cheeks - when had she started to look like that, she wondered, eyes flicking away and refusing to focus - all she had was herself. If she only had some idea where Sirius was, she could get a message to him, but she could hardly ask Mrs Malfoy. It would ruin any potential plan before it had even begun.
When Narcissa led her back again, through cold corridors that seemed to simply reek of magic, she could hear voices.
She felt her knees buckle. Mrs Malfoy dragged her upright again, sneering. "Keep yourself straight," she snapped, and Calla, in some state of faint delirium, let out a shrill laugh.
"Yes," she whispered, "yes, of course."
Mrs Malfoy sent her a confused sort of glare and dragged her back to her little cell, half-throwing her down the stairs. The blindfold fell away at last, but there was little to see here anyway. "Someone will see you soon," she said in a clipped voice, then locked the door and disappeared back into the shadows.
Calla drew her knees to her chest and tried to hold herself for warmth that did not come to her. Her hair fell over her arms and seemed to scratch; every part of her felt on high alert, her nerves upset and waiting for attack. She picked at her fingernails, felt the dull pain pulling at her. One broke off, creating a sharp edge, and she pressed it against her arm. The pain was warm as she huddled in on herself and watched the door, waiting, as it subsided and she grew used to it. She couldn't count how long she'd been there. Perhaps she should have been counting.
She could hear Sirius again. He was screaming. He was somewhere above her, she knew that. She wanted to scream, too, but no sound came out. She wanted to hurl herself at the door and run and burn the place down, but she couldn't. She couldn't do anything.
"Please," she murmured, "stop. Stop. Stop it!" Her voice rang and echoed but only to her own ears. No one else seemed to care.
The screaming went on and Calla scratched at her arm over and over, each jump in sound causing her to slice her fingernails across her skin. It broke the skin in some places, making blood well up like tiny red stars. It was fascinating, she thought headily, how fragile her body was.
At some point, Sirius stopped screaming. Calla sank back against the stones, her eyes burning. "Please," she murmured again, "please, please."
The door to her cell opened. She lifted her head heavily, meeting narrow red eyes, and swallowed.
"I do apologise for the noise," Voldemort said silkily, and a shiver went down her spine. He looked at her almost mockingly. "I trust you read my note?" The tone of his voice made her want to curl in on herself. He spoke like he had already won, and he smiled to see her huddled there, shivering, face streaked with tears. He expected her to give in. He expected a broken, scared little girl. And she was that girl. She knew she was that girl and she pushed that thought to the front of her mind, let her terror define her for a while, at least to him. His eyes glinted.
"Are you ready to work with me? I promise it will be so, so much easier. You heard your dear Sirius."
"I know." Her voice stuttered. She had nothing with which to fight except her mind. And it wasn't truly a weapon, but it could be a shield. Shields could do some bloody damage if need be. "I - I know. I just..." She hiccoughed and let out a sob. "I want it to stop."
"And it can." The note of triumph in his voice made her feel ill. The sound of screaming rang again in her ears, phantom-like yet still sharp. "Submit to me, Calla Potter. Stop your fight... It will be so much easier that way."
She forced the terror to the front of her mind, so that it was all he could see and all that he wanted to see. Letting him into her head would buy Sirius some time and save him the torture. If she could do as she had been taught and keep him in the right place, keep him away from all the secrets she held, then she could still keep the Order safe. And if she could figure out what he was looking for, what information he wanted to get out of her, she could be of use to the Order as soon as she could get the message out. If she could get it out. She might well die first.
She sobbed and it was only half a lie. The tears fell easily over grimy cheeks. "Okay," she choked out, clutching her knees. "Please. Stop. Just... I'll give you what you want. Anything you need to see just — just p-promise you won't hurt Sirius anymore. Please. I'll do... Anything. I don't want another person I — I love — to get hurt."
Her face contorted in terror and tears and Voldemort's in wicked glee. He fell so it for easily, so desperate to believe he was correct. "Ah, love," he crooned, "Albus Dumbledore's so-called weapon. And yet I know the truth. Love is a weakness, Calla Potter... But no matter. I shall put an end to the torture of Sirius Black. And in return, I shall have your mind." He bared his teeth. "Your memories will be more than sufficient, I am sure."
She remembered what Snape had taught her about how to shield parts of her mind without showing it. She remembered what Dumbledore had taught her about expanding her mind and reaching to the different parts. She remembered what she'd taught herself about staying sane.
She dug her nails sharply into the palm of her hand as she felt the world go dimmer around the edges and a probing pain at her scar. She focused on those dual pains and let them wash over her.
There was darkness, because there was always darkness. Her mind was like a dark maze, a labyrinth but with many pockets. It was all about finding the right ones.
She could feel angry red eyes upon her. She could feel the movement as she was - or rather, her consciousness was - made to slip between layers of the mind, into the more recent past. She could feel him moving towards the Order and so she pushed him to the side, to memories of the Dementors and her terror, because she knew he fed on that just as they did. She felt herself screaming, and a memory resurfaced of the day in the chamber of secrets, of the dead eyes of Tom Riddle and the blinding panic when she faced the basilisk. It hurt to remember, she realised, but she didn't know who it hurt more.
White-hot fury coursed through her mind, and then something jolted. It was Voldemort, but that was strange; he was subtle and smooth, he did not jolt. But the memory… He wanted to stay as far away from that memory as he could. She almost let herself think it interesting, but she had to sink into the darkness instead and let it curl over her.
Now, she saw the image of the phoenix and she guided her mind into a dark and silent corridor of dreary wallpaper. I wish I could hear something, her memory whispered to herself. Anything.
She had thought he might move away, but he didn't. No, there was an insistence that she felt not on the Order but on the place. He was searching for Grimmauld Place in her mind, she realised, as he combed through memories of Muggle streets and family, which Calla thought of as a maze itself, twisting and turning in many directions. Memories flashed by - of Privet Drive to Magnolia Crescent to Wisteria Walk, the centre of town, traipsing through London, Diagon Alley.
Her mind was turned to a memory of Sirius the first time she had met him as himself, screaming himself hoarse with fury in the Shrieking Shack. She was shivering on the bed, staring and too frozen by fear to do anything. Weak, echoed her mind - she didn't know if it was herself or Voldemort who put that there. You're just a scared, pathetic little girl.
And she couldn't ignore that and she couldn't run from this. Her memory shifted into last Summer, her and Harry and Remus and Sirius all laughing in the kitchen, but it was discarded quickly. She tried to lean back, to keep her mind blank, but the words weak, pathetic, kept echoing in her head and pulling her back.
Now she was alone in Grimmauld Place. Her skin crawled as she stared at herself in the mirror, pale and shrouded in darkness, and shaking. Her scar burned, and pain rang through her head, white-hot and sharp. She could hear herself screaming somewhere outside of her consciousness, and she tried to shift the image, make it unfurl differently. Her eyes burned red in the mirror. She forced herself forwards, lunging into the silver reflection, and came up in the Forbidden Forest on a dark night.
Voldemort lingered in the trees, she could see him. Low voices rippled in the air around them, and when Calla looked down she could see a trickle of silver blood running over the leaves.
Oh.
Rustling through the shadows, Calla could see a figure in a long dark cloak. It made her scar prickle again, as she felt herself slipping into darkness. Not this way, she wanted to tell her mind, but she was forced closer to the scene, where a silver unicorn lay dead on the ground. Not this, not this.
It was clear Voldemort wanted her to see this. He was lurking in the shadows, as though trying to draw from her fear. She saw the figure slip over the floor and felt pain burn her scar, and then she awakened to the dark cell in which she was being kept.
Voldemort's smile was cold.
He stood up and brushed his pale, spindly hands together. Calla's stomach gave a lurch and she doubled over, trying not to be sick. Her head rang with memories and the pain of them being intruded upon. It was her scar that burned most of all, causing her to wince and cringe and writhe.
"Very well done," Voldemort said. Cold crawled over her skin like maggots. Calla tried not to retch as she clung to her knees. "Yes, I believe you have been of the utmost assistance… For today." She shuddered, hot tears slipping over her cheeks. She felt like he could see every part of who she was, his gaze creeping over her and sneaking into her mind. "I will keep to my offer, Miss Potter. Your friend will be quite safe." His smile chilled her to the bone and Calla let out a sharp sob of shame. She knew Sirius would hate what she had done but she had kept him at bay, as best she could… Given him a semblance of information, a vague idea of a puzzle but without the most important pieces. She had given him nothing more specific than his own imagination. She hoped, anyway. "I'm sure he will be most proud of you. You are not foolish, Calla Potter." The door swung open. Her legs were shaking too much for her to stand even if she thought he would let her reach the door. "Until we meet again," the Dark Lord whispered and then he slipped away, melting into the shadows.
Calla crumpled and cried.
When her tears were dry and her throat was hoarse, she leaned back against the wall, stretched her legs out before her, and allowed herself to think, and to pray that there was none of Voldemort still lingering about her mind.
It made sense that he wanted to look into the Order. She had anticipated that and diverted him to her less favourable memories, of being left out of the loop. It would be enough to satiate him for a time, and time was all she could truly hope for now.
It was strange that he had looked towards Sirius specifically. He had combed through her memories of him even as she tried to steer him away from the more recent. She couldn't help but get the feeling that there was something more specific that he was searching for, and it didn't relate only to the Order at large - else he would have looked towards Dumbledore, surely - but to Sirius. Something about him. She shivered as she looked upwards, where many floors away she imagined Sirius was sitting on his own.
But why… Why had he guided her to the memory of the night in the Forbidden Forest when she had seen Quirrel? That was his own memory, too, merely from another side. What did he have to unlock there? What was he missing that she had from that night?
She didn't know. She was desperate to find out.
She tried closing her eyes but didn't trust herself to sleep. Instead, she merely lay there in the stifling silence, turning over the too-fresh memories in her head. They hung like shadows against the contours of her mind. The memory of the Dementors pressed in cold against her chest and the one of Tom Riddle, that boy who had been a monster at barely two years older than she was now, that made her shiver. But it had made Voldemort shiver, too. There had been something about it that he didn't like, something he had needed to get away from. So why had he gone looking for it in the first place?
Then she remembered the graveyard. It still struck ice in her chest. She had seen, in Voldemort's head, shades of his former selves hanging like phantoms in the shadows of the trees. They had been like memories too.
Her head pained. That meant something, she thought dimly. These things always meant something, even if she had no idea what. She had to make sure Voldemort didn't realise she was thinking of anything, contemplating his decisions. She could only keep him away so long, after all. She hoped it was long enough. But so long as she did, so long as he thought her weak, she could be stronger, until she had a plan.
Until she had a way out.
For three days, Calla's life followed the same routine. Every day, Voldemort visited and worked his way into her mind, and every day she fell further into the pit of darkness, where she had no idea where or who she was, and could barely wrest control over her mind. She was given three meagre meals a day - though more substantial then before - and three breaks to go to the bathroom and wash, guarded by Narcissa all the time. Every day, they took a different route, presumably so she didn't get to know the way too familiar. Never did she get any sign of Sirius, and that somehow scared her even more than anything else. People always said no news was good news, but she couldn't shake the terror that Sirius had been killed. It wasn't as though she trusted Voldemort's word; she had done all that she could do.
She thought perhaps she ought to have faith in Sirius and in the Order, to believe that things would turn out for the better, but she was old enough to know now that that was all nonsense. Nothing ever turned out for the better.
For three days, Calla had to watch as her memories were replayed in her mind. She swayed them as much as she could, diverting Voldemort from his path, but he was noticing. She knew that. Her time was running out.
She was gaining some idea of what he wanted. He fixated on Sirius, as well as the Order, but the focus on Sirius was surprising. Often, he would look into memories from Hogwarts and memories of her brother, which were always the worst. The pure hate that Voldemort held was unnatural in her mind, and she found in the time following that, if she thought to her brother, she too felt furious with him; with the way he barely spoke to her, the way he dismissed her, the way he had tricked her into going to the Hog's Head. She was angry with Dumbledore too, but she was angry at the world.
All she had to entertain herself was her mind, and that scared her more than anything. Dumbledore had said her mind was her own, but she couldn't help but feel that her mind had never been her own. Nothing she had was her own.
She couldn't tell the time by anything other than instinct and mealtimes. She got a slightly larger meal once a day, which was presumably dinner, and there was a significant time between then and her next meal, in which time she slept. Every night there came a nightmare.
This night, she was being chased by some unknown creature through a darkly shadowed forest. There was a low growling and she could feel her heart pounding in her chest, something thumping against her hip. Her leg was stained with deep red blood and she kept running, towards the faint light at the edge of the tree line. She just had to make it that far. Footsteps thumped behind her, coming closer, closer. Her scream was strangled.
The light, the light, she was running towards the light. It would be her salvation, her only safe place, if only she could reach it.
Hands clasped around her shoulders and she was shoved to the ground, pain rushing through her. A shadowed face lurched over her, a man with bright yellow eyes and lips that were stained with blood. She scrambled away, slipping as she did so, even as red light filled the air and pain racked her body.
She pushed the man away and crawled across the ground, dirt clinging to her hair. She reached the light, she reached up and stumbled to her feet. The moon illuminated the ground.
Cedric's body laid there, still and cold. His eyes were still open, his lips parted in unspoken words. Pain struck her chest and tore at her throat. She stumbled back, back into the shadows, and when she turned she saw her brother standing before her. His green eyes were glassy, his face pale and older. Green light burst through the shadows from behind her and Harry fell down.
Calla screamed as she woke.
She dug her fingernails into the dirt between the stones on the floor, panting. Pain ran jaggedly over her nails as they caught on the stones, and she had to bite her tongue to keep herself from screaming again and again, as the phantom face of Cedric hung within her mind's eye. "No," she whispered to herself, rocking slightly. "No, no, no, it's not real, it's not real." But it was real. It was real. "Cedric's dead," she whispered to herself, voice catching on it, "he's dead and it's your fault, it's all your fault, all of this - this is your fault." A sob broke from her throat.
She forced herself forwards onto her knees, which grazed against the uneven floor. Again, she tried not to throw up, but she was shaking and she felt weak, just so bloody weak. "You're pathetic," she spat at herself, "you're bloody pathetic." She was pathetic and scared and she had brought this on herself and she couldn't do it, she couldn't get through this. She was an idiot to think that she could. Voldemort was far more powerful and experienced than she was and soon enough, she knew, her mind would give out. She would give up.
"You're an idiot," she hissed at herself, tearing at her palm with her nails, the pain jolting her into reality. It made tears bloom in her eyes. She needed to be stronger. So much stronger. But she couldn't do that, not by any normal means. This was not a normal time. And she was not the only person at risk if her gamble fell through as it seemed to be doing.
She recalled the alchemic symbols she had learned from her book: body, soul, spirit. Her nails were jagged enough anyway and she might not have a wand or any other tools, but she had herself and herself had to be enough. She broke part of the nail on her right index finger, and held it over her forearm. A chill went over it, prickling the hairs to stand up on end.
Her stomach turned. But Voldemort would be here in the morning, and she was scared. She had to do this, but she couldn't do this. She needed power, she needed something, anything, to give her some semblance of an upper hand here. Even a hand.
But she couldn't do it. Last time it hadn't even worked. So she sank down again, shuffling back to curl up against the cold ground. She couldn't sleep.
Her mind traced each route she had taken through the manor, as she always did. It was strange, how memory was starting to become like a muscle, and how it could turn to the future. She felt, with her eyes close to the immediate world, that she could reach out and grasp the walls of her memory, fumble her way along and find her destination. They hadn't taken her by an exit routes, but she at least knew where they weren't.
She hadn't quite learned spatial displacement — the practice through seeing through the mind of another — and in honesty, she wasn't sure if she could. But she began to put together in her head a mental map of the manor. Everywhere they didn't want her to go presumably led to a possible escape route, private rooms, or gatherings of people or information. She imagined on the higher floors were bedrooms. Narcissa Malfoy presumably had hair pins somewhere, useful for picking locks; but Calla didn't know how she'd ever get to that.
Her wand was the most important weapon. It was said by some that a wizard could feel when their wand broke. It was a part of them too, an extension of their magic. She hadn't felt that, and Voldemort had expressed curiosity about the wand before, as well as about her brothers. She had to believe it was intact even if it was a trophy. Maybe Voldemort had other trophies too. Surely he would value the magic of a wand enough to preserve it.
After one meal - breakfast, toast with a very thin layer of bland jam - and a journey to a new bathroom to wash, Calla was left in the silence to wait. She didn't dare let herself think, just in case. Her mind had to be empty, and then she had to let it fill just enough to keep him satiated.
When Voldemort arrived, the first thing he did when he delved into her mind was to dredge up the nightmare, as though he had been looking for it. She was sure she had stopped breathing as she fought to keep him away, terrified of what he would do if he saw Harry like that, of the streak of triumph that rushed through him and therefore rushed through her. But she didn't have enough of herself to react.
"What a lovely image," Voldemort whispered, and her neck prickled. "Rather satisfying, isn't it? How still the body is in death…"
She tried not to cry; Harry's image was pressed further into her mind and her scar burned, burned until her vision turned blinding white instead of its usual darkness. "He's not - going - to die," she choked out, clenching her fists.
"No?" Voldemort's voice was taunting and cold. "But you saw it, Calla. And your power is, I have been told… Most accurate."
"It can change."
"Not this." She couldn't see Voldemort yet knew almost on instinct that he was smiling. "We all have our fates. You know this better than most."
"Fates change."
He laughed and didn't dignify it with a response. He merely pushed his way back to the edges of her mind, slipping into the darkness.
She tried to hold him off, but everywhere she saw Harry's pale face, lit by green, and it wouldn't leave her mind. It repeated over and over and over. Then that face melded into Sirius' and then into the face of a boy on an old tapestry, the boy with Sirius' cheekbones and eyes. Regulus Black.
Calla stopped fighting.
"... was killed trying to desert …"
"...my foolish younger brother…"
"My mother and father were so proud…"
Voldemort went further into the darkness and Calla let him; there was nothing left there and there was nothing left in her.
He retreated, and he was frowning. His eyes met her, red met green, and cold spilled over her. But he did not say anything. He merely considered her, and for some time, Calla didn't have any idea what he was doing, trying only to catch her breath and calm her skipping nerves. She had to stay calm, had to keep herself under control. Control her emotions, even though they felt like they, like everything else, were fighting entirely out of control.
Her scar prickled and she winced. Green flashed across her vision and she heard, distantly, her brother's voice shouting her name. Her ears pricked up and her eyes flew open. Her heart pounded, lit up by relief and desperation for her brother, for anyone. But there was no more echo of Harry except in her memory. Instead, she felt a light push at the edge of her mind, and shivered. Her thoughts were turned on her brother: why wasn't he coming for her, did he even know what had happened, why didn't he care, why didn't he understand that she needed this? Anger flared in her chest at the thought of him, holed up all cosy in Hogwarts with his friends while she was here, in this dark cellar and he didn't care, he never cared, and by God, she just wanted to strangle him sometimes.
She jolted at the thought and the violent image that burst into her mind. Her breathing came furiously and she stared at Voldemort. He seemed to trace her thoughts with his mind. He was - he was still there, she realised, turning and twisting her thoughts.
A cool smile flickered on his lips and his eyes glinted. Cold blew through the cell as the door swung open, and she was pushed down.
"Thank you again," Voldemort whispered in that gratingly cold voice, "for your service."
Calla didn't quite have the energy left to cry. She just curled up in a ball and rested her head on her knees and tried to forget. Her nails, still broken, dug into her skin. Every inch of her trembled, and she felt like with one too heavy breath she might simply shatter and fall apart. She had to be stronger. She didn't want this, didn't want any of this. She felt sick.
She scratched her nail across her skin, invoking one sharp pain before it faded. With the sharp corner of the nail, she formed lightly on her skin a cross connected to an upwards-pointed triangle. It seemed to glow on her arm and warmth went through her. Her chest felt somewhat lighter, and the whispers that had haunted her lessened somewhat. "Please," she whispered, running the pad of her thumb over the rune and feeling it tingle against her skin. "Please."
The pain and weight subsided. Calla focused on that, instead of the self-loathing in her heart and the discomfiting, intruding throughts which lingered in her head. She leaned back, closing her eyes, and saw the soul mark in her vision, lingering in red light. It seemed to bring her relief, and for the first time in ages, there was no pain upon the scar on her forehead at all. It let her sleep until the next meal came, and she had, for once, something of an appetite. She ate quickly, and then scurried back to the corner to think. Her mind felt clearer than usual as she held her arm.
There would be a way out, she told herself. She had to hope and to dream because otherwise this, her existence, her presence here, was all for nothing.
Later, in what Calla thought was two days later, there was something odd. Voldemort, as he came closer, appeared almost uncertain, almost nervous about what he might find in her head. Like he didn't want to probe too deeply.
The mind is a fragile thing, she had been told. Everyone has a limit.
When she struggled to her feet to stand before him, she saw those red eyes flickering. She said, "Where is Sirius?"
"Perfectly safe," Voldemort told her, "as per our agreement." He smiled coldly. "I could have him scream if you would like assurance."
A shiver went down her spine. Calla shook her head. Voldemort nodded. There was a tremble against her mind and she stared at the floor, letting the world fade to white.
Her vision melted into the Ravenclaw common room, in the little corner which held a grand statue of Rowena, cut in pale grey marble. A tiara crowned her head and even now it glinted. Her vision turned. Fire leapt through the common room and she was jolted out of the window.
The castle was in flames, completely engulfed. She couldn't scream. There was little point in avoiding it. But she avoided the questions that rose from the smoke: those could come later.
See, whispered a voice, all things burn in the end. Only I can live forever.
She didn't move to protest. Her heart was pounding but she retained herself, she saw the castle burning with her own eyes. That was her home, the first place she'd felt accepted. A place she'd had to turn her back on for fear. That was where her brother was. Her brother.
His face came into view and pain flashed across her head. There came a low hiss from Voldemort and the image melted away. He travelled down the pathway of memories, Remus and Sirius and Harry at the edges. She steered him away from Grimmauld Place and instead to Hogsmeade, which became the Honeydukes cellar and then Kreacher's odd little den, barren of life but filled to the brim with clutter and junk.
She tried to pull away. But Voldemort refused, he was looking for something. Her gaze - their gaze - fell upon a small framed picture of Sirius' brother, Regulus. Fury shot through her, blinding, and she was yanked out of the image.
Voldemort's eyes ignited in scarlet and he didn't wait for her to fall against the wall before he swept out of the room, leaving anger crackling in his wake.
There was something strange in that. She knew it; why was he so fixated on Regulus and Sirius? There was something almost desperate in the way he searched through her memories, underpinned by fire and fear.
Sirius had been brought here, too. What if it wasn't just because he had been with her, in the wrong place at the wrong time, used as a hostage? What if there was something more? Vengeance, perhaps. The thought made her shiver again, for she wondered what that vengeance might look like and realised she did not want to have to find out. She trembled and held her arm close to her chest, the soul mark burning at its proximity. It brought her some relief but not much. Her head rang and her scar stung.
Voldemort was angry.
Something shattered high above her.