Paths and Choices

"A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies." (Oscar Wilde)

Eleanor found herself thrown to her hands and knees on cold, unyielding stone. She had barely time to brace herself and clutch at the mirror box to keep her treasure from falling and shattering. A heavy thud and a pained grunt beside her told her that Lucius had had an equally hard landing.

She shivered and looked up into the dim light that surrounded her. She seemed to be in a high, vaulted room that was illuminated by a few wall torches and a wide fire place. A sick smell of decay hung in the air and it seemed very cold, despite the flames.

A thin, keening laugh behind her had her awkwardly move around and she tried to lift herself up. A tall figure, hooded and shrouded in black robes stood before her. The laughter stopped as if cut by a knife.

"Stay down," commanded a sharp, unpleasant voice. "Accio wands!"

She felt her magical weapon come lose from her back pocket, but did not resist. They hadn't come to fight, they had come to divert and buy time.

The man slowly approached and as he was a mere step away from her he threw back the hood. She craned her neck to look up into a skeletal, pale face with slitted red eyes that reflected the torch light from their glittering depths. Razor-thin lips drew back to reveal fang-like teeth.

"Ah, the new Mrs. Malfoy," said Lord Voldemort. "You are to be congratulated old friend. You have brought her to me as if you were still my faithful servant, and she has brought me a priceless gift. Why, she must really love you."

"You have me," said Lucius to her side. "And you have the mirror. Let her take Draco and let them go."

The man before them sniggered briefly in mock amusement, then drew himself up and threateningly advanced on the elder Malfoy.

"You dare to come before me and order me? Me? Your master?" he screeched.

"Crucio!"

Eleanor watched in horror as her husband slowly doubled over until his forehead touched the stone floor. She saw that he fought hard not to give Voldemort the satisfaction to hear him cry out, but the dark wizard repeated the curse, jabbing his wand at his victim and finally Lucius' resistance broke and he screamed in agony.

The red-haired witch felt every hair on her body stand up, but she advanced on her knees until she could touch Voldemort's feet. She laid her right hand on his shoes and lowered her head in supplication.

"Please, please master, do not hurt him, I beg you," she pleaded. Anything to make him stop.

Against her wildest hopes the Dark Lord lifted his wand and focused his attention back on her. He laughed again. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lucius collapse on his side with a groan.

"Reduced to begging so soon, my dear?" taunted Voldemort. "Why, I had expected more of a Sartorius. I haven't even started yet."

He turned away from them and clapped.

"To me!" he commanded, and with a soft rustle she saw four masked Death Eaters advance on them.

"Nott, bring me Draco and the Dementors!"

One of the masked and robed figures bowed deeply and left the room. The others circled around them to cut off their escape should they be foolish enough to try and flee.

"You know, Lucius," said Voldemort conversationally. "I have thought much about my revenge over the last two days. And I am faced with quite a dilemma.

First of course I thought it might be amusing to put you under the imperius curse, to see you squirm, watch you try and fight me when I commanded you to kill your son, slowly and painfully. To have you listen to him begging you to spare him, then later to release him to a merciful death. And you could do neither, as you would be unable to resist me.

Then of course I remembered something my old foe Dumbledore told me in early summer this year, that there are worse things than death. At first I would not believe him, but he is a shrewd old wizard. And now I think I might avail myself of the two Dementors who have come to me as their master.

Yes, a Dementor's Kiss for young Draco would be perfect. To see the look on your face when you stare into his empty eyes and he will not even recognize or know you any more. I think I should like that."

With an animal howl of rage Lucius tried to get his quivering body under control for long enough to lunge at his former master, but the Dark Lord easily stepped out of his way and laughed again. Eleanor began to feel heartily sick of the sound. Where were the Order members?

"Ah, and here we are. Very good, Nott, tie him up there, in this chair. Is he secure? Good. Remove the gag."

Eleanor watched the Death Eater place the limp form of the younger Malfoy in a high-backed chair and tie him down with a few charms. She suspected the spells were all that kept him upright. Draco looked half-dead with exhaustion, pain, and whatever his Dementor guards had done to him. Now he tried to lift his head.

"Father!" he groaned. "No! … Father, you shouldn't have come. He told me he'll kill you."

His head sank down again with a dry sob.

The blond wizard managed to sit back on his heels and wiped blood from his mouth.

"Draco," he said hoarsely. "It will be all right. I promise you. Hold on!"

"How touching," sneered Voldemort. "A little family reunion."

He turned his attention back on Eleanor.

"Well, let's get to the matter at hand. Give me the mirror!"

Now it was Eleanor's turn to laugh.

"You as good as told me you are going to kill my husband and my stepson, no matter what. Why in the name of Hecate would I give you their ransom now? If I open this box, then only to take this mirror and use it for myself and fight you to the death."

"Why?" The Dark Lord advanced on her. "Why indeed?"

His voice sounded low and very menacing now.

"How about this…"

He made an odd gesture with his hands and the cold in the room increased until she was shivering with it.

"You refuse me the mirror and I will have one of the Dementors go to work on Lucius. You can watch his soul being devoured very, very slowly. It's actually quite a pretty sight. Oh, and of course we cannot have a patronus spell from a Defense teacher to protect him, can we?"

His wand pointed at her now.

"Devoro potestatem!" he incanted.

She had already lost her wand to him, and now she felt a strange deadening sensation permeate her, not much different to the one she had sensed in Lucius' cell in Azkaban during the summer.

And then she became aware of the presence of the Dementors. She wanted to curl up into a ball as memories rose unbidden in her mind: the death of her father that had left her mother so heartbroken she had followed him mere weeks after, seeing Lucius in prison a few months ago, then covered in his own blood in the hospital.

"Noooo!" she cried and from a great distance heard a harsh command.

The pressure of despair lifted somewhat and she now saw an emaciated shape in tattered robes that seemed to float weightlessly on the air as if submerged in water. He stooped to kneel over Lucius' prone body. She watched her husband try to fight off imaginary attackers, heard him cry out as if trapped in a nightmare. She caught a few words.

"Father, please! … Don't do this! … No, I beg you, sir!"

Where in the name of Merlin was Dumbledore?

The Dementor crouched lower until his face almost made contact with Lucius'. Silvery light seemed to spin a thin connecting thread between their mouths and Eleanor knew only too well what this meant.

"Please, Lord, stop," she cried. "I'll give you the mirror if you spare him."

She ripped the lid from the box with trembling fingers and revealed the midnight black depths of Wermuth's creation.

"Ah," cried Voldemort, and she saw him stretch out his pale long fingers greedily. His concentration was fully absorbed by his prize.

At the same moment the air around them crackled with the energy bursts of dozens of apparitions.

The Dark Lord recoiled with a bellow of fury, and she slammed the container shut and dove away over to her husband. She could not perform a patronus spell without her wand, but she was desperate enough now to engage the Dementor with her bare hands. At least she felt her familiar powers return to her, now that the Dark Lord's attention was engaged elsewhere.

The icy cold and the despair that surrounded her seemed almost unbearable, and the foul half-rotted creature that feasted on Lucius resisted her with more physical strength than she had anticipated.

And then she saw it in her mind: she was sitting on the cold stones of this old hall holding the body of her husband in her arms, and the empty grey eyes that stared back at her from the depths of his nightmares held no spark of self awareness. He was lost to her and to himself. Lost forever.

She felt her last will to fight drain out of her, when suddenly from a great distance a powerful voice called to her.

"Expecto Patronum!"

Moments later the pure brilliance of white light enveloped her and as she looked up, squinting in its radiant power she saw a large white phoenix beat the air with outstretched wings. Flashes of illumination streamed from every one of its long, powerful pinions and formed a shield around her and her husband that had the two Dementors draw back in dismay and even the gaunt figure of Voldemort quail under its power.

Seconds later the charm dimmed and dissolved and a pitched battle of Order members, aurors, Death Eaters and Dementors erupted around her.

She heard the Dark Lord's voice, now barely human with fury shout: "Signa nigra!"

"Black signs," she murmured.

Surely this would call the other Death Eaters to him. And she was entirely defenseless. Her wand was still stuck somewhere in Voldemort's robes, as was Lucius'. She might just about manage the Sartorius feint she had taught herself earlier in the year and which did not require a wand.

Someone almost stumbled over her beating a hasty retreat, and a few seconds later a deflected curse hit the floor to her side and showered her with stone chips.

"Lucius," she shook the motionless form of her husband. "Come on, we need to get out of the line of fire."

He did not respond.

"Oh gods!"

She concentrated hard for some wandless magic.

"Lumos!" she cried softly. A faint blue ball of light materialized in her palm and showed her the pale expressionless face of the man on the floor before her.

"Lucius! Can you hear me?"

No reaction, and as far as she could tell in the panic and confusion that surrounded her no pulse or breath either.

"No," she whispered. "You can't leave me. Not now."

The light in her hand flickered and vanished. She felt the mirror box press against her leg and seconds later her mind was made up. She would take her grandfather's weapon and send as many of her enemies to follow her husband as she could.

Keeping hold of Lucius she spoke Karkaroff's old incantation and an invisibility spell, and found herself at the far side of the room elevated above the ground on a type of balcony that jutted outward into the main hall. For a moment she surveyed the battle below her to get her bearings. There was no time to grieve, not yet. She needed every ounce of her strength and determination for her fight.

She counted probably close to twenty or thirty aurors in green robes who had engaged the Death Eaters that had rushed to their master's aid. Off to the side were the two Weasleys fighting back to back against a group of five black robed attackers. Snape stood near the fire-place, supporting the swaying body of Draco with one arm and looking rather like a Death Eater himself in his long black coat as he hurled curses at his opponents. Lucius' son should be safe. But where was Dumbledore?

She looked down once more on her husband's lifeless form. Her hands did not shake any more as she pulled the lid from the box and once again looked into the depths of the mirror. Even in this dim hall the blackness seemed to possess a presence and a life of its own. Slowly she stretched out her fingers to run them over the surface of the glass when suddenly a hand laid itself on to her shoulder.

"I wish you would not," said a quiet voice above her.

"Visibilis," she cried and jumped up only to look into Dumbledore's grave eyes.

"And why not?" she hissed angrily. "What have I left?"

"You cannot hope to defeat him," said the old wizard. "Voldemort is another's destiny, not yours. All you can do is die trying. And is death really what you want? There are those who need you. Draco will need you, and if you look into your heart you know there is another, who cannot yet ask for your help."

She turned away, still cradling the box.

"I don't have much time!" Dumbledore's voice had grown urgent. He looked around the hall.

"You and Lucius have done more than enough. You have saved Draco. You have bought us the time we need. Promise me, please: stay here and out of sight! Do not use the mirror!"

With that he'd vanished without waiting for her answer, and as she tried to catch a glimpse of him she heard his last words like a whisper in her head.

"The effects of a Dementor's Kiss can be deceiving, Eleanor. Especially when it has not been completed."

She sank back to the floor of her hiding place.

"Lucius?" she called him cautiously.

A small spark of crazy hope began to burn at the back of her mind.

"Lucius?"