In which Ramona loses her Christmas spirit
-December 1995-
"Why are you staring at me like that, Gina?" Ramona said over their pitiful breakfast of burnt toast and a rubbery egg. "It's really starting to creep me out."
"You're happier," her sister said softly, not giving much explanation.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Ramona said. "Of course I'm happy, I'm not stuck at school with Umbitch or our bigoted parents for three weeks."
Regina shook her head, sending her curls splaying. "No, you look happier than I've seen you in years, Mona, you haven't smiled like that since you were a kid, after winning arguments against Aunt Florence or when we'd sneak down to the sweet shop down the road...it's just been a while."
Ramona looked up at her, not quite sure what to think about that. She just thought it was odd, especially as this was proving itself to be one of the most emotionally stressful years of her life. Dealing with Cedric's death, Cho's trauma, the return of Voldemort, the ever-growing distance between her and her friend group, Dolores Fascist Umbridge, it was too much. And yet, now that she thought about it, she felt lighter and thinking about everything wrong with her life didn't immediately give her a migraine. What this all really meant though, she didn't know.
Regina cleared their plates and left them to clean themselves in the sink while she fixed her deep purple robes and pulled back her curls, leaving her scar on full display. "Hey, you'll have t be extra quiet today, some not very nice people are coming over in a bit and I would prefer they not know about you."
"I'll be quiet as a mouse," she threw herself down on the couch/her bed and picked up a book, "I'll read all day."
"Okay, just no audible reactions this time, I had to write you off as my overexcitable cat last time."
"Fine, I won't," she watched her sister unlatch the trapdoor and lower herself down through it into the shop below, "be safe!"
Ramona locked the trapdoor as she heard the soft noise of Regina pinning up a tapestry to hide the upstairs entrance. This had become daily routine over the Christmas break and she'd learned not to think oddly of it anymore, it was for both of their protection and to maintain Regina's cover. Despite the dull, lonely hours of treading lightly, trying to find something to do in the little apartment, it was turning out to be one of her better Christmases. Sure, she felt a bit like a stowaway but she was with Regina, and that was all she could've hoped for.
She read from seven until noon, only stopping when an owl stopped by with a letter for Regina. This happened often but she wasn't allowed to go near these letters, "sensitive information, not for the eyes of little kids" Regina called them. Ramona suspected these were from other people in this rebellion she'd mentioned as every night, she'd spend hours writing replies to these letters, making sure her little sister was far from eyeshot.
At one, she usually started to make herself some lunch, as silently as she could manage but that day, it seemed as though something was happening in the shop below. She jumped as she heard a sickening crack and loud but muffled voices. Slowly, she lowered the kettle she was about to boil for her tea and crept towards the trapdoor, pressing her ear close to the floor, trying to hear past the thundering heartbeat in her chest. As she did so, the whole flat shook violently, sending bookshelves crashing down, shattering several plates left out on the dining table and jolted Ramona back so suddenly that she whacked her head off the floor and let out a scream of pain.
The noise from below was silenced as quickly as one would snuff out a candle until loud, heavy footsteps clomped their way closer to Ramona's hiding spot. Eyes wide, she scrambled to her feet and began a beeline to the fireplace, hopping over the smashed glass coffee table. Regina had sat her down her first day there to discuss in depth how to escape from the flat if she had to. Ramona had laughed at this at the time, having thought her sister had lost her reckless nature and was actually maturing somewhat but as the lock on the trapdoor rattled as someone from underneath tried to ram it up with sheer strength, she felt like a fool.
With shaking hands she snatched up her unfinished Charms homework and ripped off a chunk of parchment at the bottom. The trapdoor gave another jolt and rattle, the sound of arguing drifting up to her. She scribbled three words on the torn parchment before throwing open the curtained window where thankfully, the owl from before still rested and thrust it towards him. It looked at her curiously as she desperately wracked her brain for the address her sister said every night as she sent off her letters.
"Grim...fuck...Grimmer-no...Twelve, Grimace-I don't know!" She shouted, voice cracking as she heard a blood-curdling scream from below. "Wherever you bring all the other letters!"
This seemed to be enough instruction for the owl as in one movement it took to the skies. As Ramona darted next for the smashed pot of floo powder by their fireplace, upset by all the banging and shaking, she heard the dreaded sound of the lock sliding open from across the room and a shriek of pain. She watched in horror as someone pushed the trapdoor up and looked around for her nearest weapon. Moving towards her entering intruder, Ramona grabbed their measly Christmas tree, a naked looking thing, barely taller than her and decorated with a few trinkets, pine needles sticking painfully into her palms and brought it down, star first, through the open door. Hoping that this would buy her enough time, she dug around fragmented pieces of the broken ceramic pot, trying to scrounge up enough powder for one trip, cutting up her hands even further.
With the sound of a loud curse, she watched as their Christmas tree shot back up through the door, now smoking. Not far behind it, a figure emerged, a man she'd never seen before, his face smeared with blood that still seemed to be streaming from his crooked nose. At the sight of her, he bared his bloody teeth in a mangled sort of grin and she felt as if she'd been plunged into an ice-cold lake. Another person popped up by his side, a very tall woman with sharp angular features and slicked back hair which made her look like some kind of bird of prey.
"Another rat," the bloody man said, approaching her with heavy thuds, slowly raising his wand, "I wonder if you'll scream like the one downstairs did."
Ramona had never really understood the idea of the fight or flight response before, it made sense but she'd never truly gotten the instinct that drove it until she found herself on her feet, desperately trying to wrestle with a fully grown armed man, a weird energy pushing her on as she sunk her teeth into his hand as hard as she could, tasting the sharp tang of blood. He yelped in pain and pushed her back roughly, holding his hand tight to his chest.
In the few seconds she'd bought herself she looked between the smashed floo powder on the floor and her wand left over on the counter there, only a few feet away and then, at the man who was again raising his wand at her, mouth opening to form words. Ramona lunged for her wand, mind racing, wondering the best way to not get killed. She thought back to all those evenings with the D.A., recalling every single spell Potter had done with them and wondering if she could actually pull through when she needed to most.
As she reached out for her wand, mind set with a plan, a leather boot sent it scattering to the left, rolling under the couch, along with any hope of her fighting them off.
"Crucio!"
Ramona had seen the Cruciatus Curse performed several times before, how the victim would writhe and scream in unimaginable agony, as if they were burning from the inside-out. Her uncle once tried to teach her how to do it, walking her through all the steps as he demonstrated on a Gnome she'd taken in from the garden as she so often did as a child, ignoring her screams for him to stop. Professor Not-Moody had led her to believe it was like being tortured with white-hot knives. Nothing, however, could have prepared her for how it actually felt.
It was a pain she didn't believe could be described with mere words, when children fall, they feel pain wherever they fell, the pain is isolated to a specific area but the Cruciatus Curse targeted everywhere, at full volume so that there isn't even space to think or feel anything but the pain, she was stripped of anything else. She couldn't see, hear, or taste anything, only feel. Surely, this was what hell felt like.
And then, just like that, it was gone. Her sight, though blurry, held the picture of Regina's cracked ceiling, laughter sounded as if from another room though she still knew it was as her expense, the metallic tang of blood settled in the back of her mouth again, and the pain felt more like an echo, like a nightmare. She tried to move, to crawl away, maybe to try and reach her wand, but something seized her by the hair, nails digging into her scalp, hoisting her up a bit.
"Pretty little thing," the man hissed in her ear, hot breath on her cheek. "It'd be a shame to see you end up like your sister, all scarred and bloody."
Ramona thrashed though her limbs felt as if they were made of jelly, maybe if she kept this man talking long enough, help would arrive before her body was cold. "What did you do to her?"
A wicked smile flashed across his face, teeth still stained with blood, whose, Ramona didn't think she wanted to know. "Do you wanna find out, little bird?"
The woman suddenly moved forwards, a scowl pulling at her face. "That's enough, she'd only a kid."
"A kid who tried to kill us!" His wand flew up under her jaw, the tip poking hard into her skin. "Better to get rid of troublesome little brats when you can before they become a problem."
"Let's just wipe her memory, take the stuff and leave before any Aurors show up," she insisted.
"Oh, but Natalia...that's much less fun," his grip on her hair tightened. "Crucio!"
The pain came back, feeling even worse than before, as if something inside her was trying to burst out and rip her open. This time however, it did not last long as she was shoved forwards onto her stomach, head just missing the corner of the coffee table. She breathed hard and fast, trying to think as the sound of arguing grew louder, making her head throb painfully.
It seemed as if they'd momentarily forgotten about her, facing away from her, over by the window. She glanced around, wondering if she could make it downstairs without them noticing...no, the trapdoor was right beside them, she'd need to distract them or something. Her wand, where was it? She'd almost had it before he'd kicked it under the-yes, her wand lay under Regina's old couch with crumpled-up Transfiguration notes and a Chocolate Frog card of Newt Scamander.
In a rush of adrenaline and sudden determination, Ramona crawled across the room as was humanly possible, just about reaching their patchy couch, and stuck her hand underneath, fingers searching desperately for her wand. In the milliseconds that felt more like hours, she finally felt the reassuring sense of her wand in her hand and pointed it straight at the window opposite the two arguing attackers.
"Bombarda!"
With a sickening crash, thousands of tiny glass shards propelled themselves forwards in a deadly rain, catching the pair by surprise, long enough for Ramona to aim at them instead this time, Potter's teaching voice echoing around in her head. She wondered if it would be harder when she was not gunning for the sweet, round-faced Longbottom, when the stakes were infinitely higher, but she hadn't much time to dwell on that.
"Stupefy!"
A jet of dark crimson light sprung from the tip of her wand and hit the woman in the centre of her back, sending her limp body crashing down onto the man, his face even bloodier with scrapes from the glass. And then, with the speed of a Snitch, Ramona took off for the door to the shop and practically threw herself down the ladder. Behind her she could hear the roaring anger of the man and the sound of glass crunching underfoot. The second her feet were firmly on the floor, she kicked the ladder to the side, hoping that she'd bought herself some extra time.
The shop looked as if it'd been hit by a storm, the glass display case at the front had been blasted to bits, the walls were littered with singe marks, several of the cursed books were flapping about in a frenzy and the large oak bookshelf Regina had so proudly shown off Ramona's first day there had been yanked out from the wall and now lay at an odd angle, as if something was jammed beneath it.
Ramona scanned the shop for any signs of her sister as fast as she could, unwilling to leave without her, she didn't want to think what would happen to Regina if she left her with two possible Death Eaters. Then, she spotted a familiar wild mane of dark curls splayed out on the floor from underneath the collapsed bookcase and her blood ran cold. All the noise seemed to be sucked from the world as her eyes lay there, fixed.
Regina Burke wasn't moving.
The silence broke as swiftly as it came in the form of a growl right in her ear as a hand wrenched her back roughly by the hair. Still, Ramona could not tear her eyes from her motionless sister, her only sister, her only real family. Was it Ramona who'd gotten her killed? Because she'd made too much noise? She'd blown her cover? She felt a pain even worse than the Cruciatus Curse, though she'd thought it impossible.
Ramona Burke had killed her own sister.
The tip of a wand pressed hard into her cheek. She was vaguely aware of the man hissing something into her ear, taunts and threats, no doubt, about how slowly he was going to torture and kill her, just for the fun of it, how long it would take for their bodies to be found, but she couldn't bring herself to care much anymore, not when Regina was gone. The sole thought that came to the front of her mind was the hope that they were caught before they could get away.
"Incarcerous!" a voice resounded from what felt like far off.
With the sudden cry, the hand entangled in her hair flew away, bringing a chunk of her dark curls with it. She turned to see the man collapsed several feet away, bound with thick ropes around his arms, torso and ankles, writhing violently. Ramona tumbled backwards, palm pressing to the raw spot on her scalp and pushed herself as far away from him as she could.
A woman knelt down before her, blocking the view of her attacker. A warm smile spread across her pale heart shaped face, her short spiky hair a shock of violet. "You must be Ramona, Gina never shuts up about you. Any clue where she is?"
She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. Instead, her eyes drifted to the fallen bookcase and her fallen sister. The woman seemed to understand this, despite the lack of description, and swept over to Regina. Ramona could now see another man bent over the one who'd attacked her, who now appeared heavily sedated, patting him down. He had a wild mane of straw-like grey hair that looked as if it had never seen a comb before and from underneath his patchy robes was a clawed wooden foot. The recognition hit her like a train.
"Professor Moody?"
He swivelled to face her with a low growl. "What?"
"Oh..." she blanched at the sight of his heavily scarred face, his fake eye pointing through the back of his head. "There's-there's another upstairs...a woman."
With a grunt of (maybe?) appreciation and a jerk of his head, another man emerged from the doorway, broad-shouldered and dark skinned who walked so quietly she wondered for a second if he was a vampire. He repositioned the ladder she'd kicked aside and disappeared upstairs.
Seeing Mad-Eye Moody again was like having her head dunked in a bucket of freezing water. Though she knew it had not really been him last year, fear crawled in the pit of her stomach. Though she'd never mentioned it aloud to anyone before, she still occasionally had nightmares about the time he'd Imperius'ed the class, however silly being forced to tap-dance was, thinking of his voice in her head, controlling her, gave her the shivers.
The woman, meanwhile, had managed to shift the bookcase off of Regina and had turned her onto her back where she was now checking for a pulse. "She's alive, Mad-Eye!"
Ramona jerked up. "Alive?"
They ignored her, even as she tried to push them aside.
"But she's not responding to my healing Charms, we have to get her to St Mungo's!"
"You and Kingsley take those two to the Ministry, I'll take Burke," Moody said.
"Should we tell them the truth? The Ministry?" The woman shot a furtive glance at Ramona, speaking in a lower tone now. "It could put the Order at risk if it gets out what they were looking for."
"Spare the details, they won't blab either-move girl!" he barked at Ramona who'd been trying to reach Regina.
The woman nodded. "Okay, if you see Arthur there, give him my love, I'd been hoping to visit him today."
"Will do," he said as she walked off, though Ramona couldn't picture him wishing anyone 'love' even if it was not his own. "Girl, hey!"
He snapped his fingers in front of her face. She just tore her gaze from Regina's pale face. "Sorry, what?"
"Your sister got an emergency portkey?"
"For..." her head felt foggy, "for St Mungo's...drawer under-under the register, broken sunglasses."
She heard him rustling about through the clutter of odd bits and bobs that Regina kept in the drawer under the register until he pulled out a pair of sunglasses with a missing lens and bent wire and set them down on the floor next to Ramona. He tapped the portkey twice with his wand, a gnarled looking thing, and it turned a greenish hue for a split second.
"Take her hand," he said, taking Regina's other hand in his own, "hold on to her tight, on the count of three, touch the portkey and I'd appreciate it if you don't get sick."
"O...okay," she took a deep breath and pushed back the thousands of questions and millions of worries on her mind. "I'm ready."
"One...two...three!"
And with a tug from behind her navel and a wave of nausea, the destroyed remains of Regina's store swirled and disappeared.