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Chapter 7
The day had come for Jem to be revealed. The guests filed in after an extensive security check. Only one of Moody's spies had made it in. The rest had been killed. Moody sat cursing in the kitchen about the incompetence of the younger generation for hours.
The spy who made it through security was Darius. He was at the bottom of his auror class, so he was very surprised that he had made it in. He was easily the most incompetent on the team. The only reason Moody had chosen him to go was to create a distraction.
As he walked into the entrance hall he saw many doors. Each door had a title describing what lay inside the rooms behind them. They all said "Fusion #... Description..." There were fifteen of these doors. He went through them all marveling at the technology that the Dark Lord had managed to create.
Darius made plans to show these things to the Order and use them against the people who had created them. In his musing he failed to notice that someone was watching him.
He had a fabulous lunch, and he was so caught up in the moment that he didn't notice he was feeling a little tipsy. There was beautiful music, swirling lights, pretty women, glittering candles… he couldn't think straight and eventually forgot all about the mission.
He danced with many woman until one black, curly haired dancer grabbed him and commanded that he dance with her.
She was so beautiful that he didn't notice them dancing into a corner, and then out the door, and down some stairs.
"My bedroom is down here," she murmured. He didn't realize that only a high-up Death Eater would have a room in the palace. They passed what looked like many jail cells, still he didn't have a worry, looking forward to what was to come.
She opened a door, and instead of seeing a bed, like he had hoped, he saw a bloodstained empty room.
Darius was shoved to the floor and broke from his haze. He looked up and realized that the beautiful woman he had danced with was the notorious Bellatrix Lestrange.
"I'll be back later to play. I don't want to miss the fun of the party," she sneered. With that he collapsed in sobs, wailing as the door was locked shut.
Somewhere, far from the room that the spy was crying in, a girl stood in a black dress, awaiting her cue to join the ceremony.
Jem had woke up that morning with butterflies in her stomach. It had only been a few days since her monthly explosion, so her emotions weren't supposed to be so strong. She had gotten up and done her normal training until noon, when Narcissa came to fetch her.
With the genetic changes that she had had, her face was beautiful, her hair, stunning. And her eyes. Her eyes were extraordinary. They had already been a bright green, but now they almost glowed.
Narcissa had always loved using beauty products, so she was very excited to have Jem as her canvas for the day.
She worked long and hard at making Jem look older and more mature. She needed to be taken seriously, and most death eaters wouldn't appreciate taking orders from someone who looked like a child, even a beautiful one.
Fashion was Bellatrix's forte. She had Jem try on countless black, silver, and green dresses.
Finally they settled on a dark green dress with off the shoulder straps. Along the back instead of buttons or a zipper, there was a silver snake. Her shoulders glimmered with a sparkle dust, as did her elaborate braided up-do.
Her shoes were a pair of silver and green open toed heels.
However, there were things about her outfit that people could not see.
There was a slit for her arm to reach in and pull out the gun that was nestled in a holster. She had knives strapped to each leg and her heels doubled as poison darts.
Basically, if anyone tried anything tonight, she would have them dead in less than a second.
Now Jem sat here waiting… and waiting… and waiting for Lucius to get done with his speech so her father could introduce her.
She sat on her throne, which was to be raised to its spot, signifying that the only person above her was her father. Her throne was slightly back and off-center, and a tad less decorated than her father's.
"Now, the only person that I can say I am proud of will soon be sitting at my side." The sound of her father's booming voice brought Jem to rapt attention. Her chair began to levitate and rise as a tile in the floor slid back.
She heard applause before it went abruptly silent. The crowd had been expecting someone older and someone who was clearly not a girl.
"The Gem of Darkness, or the Dark Gem shall take her rightful place tonight!" His words echoed through the hall.
As the crowd put the pieces together, one brave soul shouted, "Is she your daughter, sir?"
He was struck dead by green light.
"Yes, she is my daughter. However, that was incredibly disrespectful. Do not address me or my daughter that way," he commanded. He added, "treat her as you would treat me."
Many of the room had begun to wonder: when did the Dark Lord have time to have a child, and who did he do it with? The Dark Lord was many things but he was not attractive. Just thinking about it sent shivers down the spine of many followers.
"You will follow her orders, or suffer the consequences," he said. "Now many of you are thinking that she doesn't have the guts, the courage, or the strength to kill or torture because she is young or a girl."
A clanking noise made its way into the room. Darius, shackled in chains, stumbled into the room.
When he got up to the thrones he looked up and almost passed out. The Dark Lord, who had read his mind a second before, cast a silencing spell on him.
All that the audience heard come out of Darius's mouth was, "James, Lily, Alexa."
"Would you like the pleasure of torturing and killing this muggle-loving spy?" he asked in a mocking tone.
"Yes," Jem, Lucius, and Bellatrix responded at the same time.
The Dark Lord sent the latter a look that could kill. "I was asking my daughter," he growled. The two cowered and scampered to the back of the crowd.
"Yes father, I am ready," Jem answered confidently, her chin in the air. A hush went over the crowd as they picked up a coldness that should not exist in any child's voice.
She lifted her wand and said the word that had caused her so much pain, so calmly that it might have been a lullaby sung to a child before bed.
"Crucio." Screams filled the air. It was minutes later before she stopped, leaving the body of the spy twitching on the floor.
"You may kill him now," her father commanded.
"Avada Kedavra," the girl intoned without hesitation.
The crowd saw a brilliant flash of green light, and in their shock, they failed to notice a small, blonde-haired boy running away as fast as his legs could carry him.
Many hours later, after Jem had demonstrated the uses of all of the fusions, she headed back to her room. She was about to collapse on her bed from exhaustion when she noticed a figure sitting at her window.
"Draco, what are you doing?" she asked.
"How could you...how could you kill him...so easily?" he asked in a shaking voice.
"I had to. You know what my father would have done if I hadn't," she replied.
"Yeah, I do, but-"
"But what? My father is never wrong, Draco! He is going to save us, save wizards, save the world!" she burst out.
"But do you ever wonder, if we had been born on the other side, would we think the same way?" Draco asked. "Our parents are the ones telling us that this is right, and they've been taught this by their parents, and their parents, and so on." He paused. "How do we know that we are fighting for the right thing, and not just some twisted idea our great-grandparents had?"
"We don't really, but if you agree with what my father says, you're probably fighting for what's right." Jem knew what she said didn't make much sense, but it was all she had.
She couldn't stand the thought of Draco being on the other side, and would say anything to make him stay. There was no way that she would ever be disloyal to her father, so Jem didn't think about what Draco had said much.
When Draco goes to Hogwarts next week, he'll see how idiotic the light side is and stop questioning his loyalties, she assured herself.
She was right, as in the years to come, Draco never said anything like that again.
Jem started going on missions, and the light side slowly started losing ground in the war. It seemed that everything in Jem's life was simple, predictable, easy. Black and white, even.
Does that feel Ominous to anybody else? Review please.