Slowly I become aware, it's quite dark, but I can make out the simple room from the light filtering through the wooden-shuttered windows. A cool breeze makes me shiver momentarily. My head and chest ache painfully as I slowly sit up. I can hear soft breathing off to the side and glance over. She's lying on top of the light blanket, curled up in an almost fetal position with her mask off.
I've no idea how we got back here, I assume she carried me back here seeing as her wand would be difficult to find in the dark. Quite impressive considering her petite stature. Carefully I sit up and fold the sheets from my side back over her. I trace the thing white scar high on her cheek just bellow her eye. Although I am careful she stirs and wakes, fixing me with a penetrating stare. I stare back.
"You really don't recognize me do you?"
"Did I know you before you applied for the job?" I ask carefully.
"We met during your escape, before you faced him, in the throne room," Unwanted memories crash through my head.
I'm in a haze of red boiling anger and seething hate. I can feel my pulse just standing still, and energy hums violently through my body. My wand is nowhere in sight, but I am free, the shattered remains of my cell, along with the broken corpse of Bellatrix lays behind me.
I pick up a hefty spear off the wall and head up the stone spiral staircase. When I reach the top I pin a deatheater to the wall with the spear and kick the other one behind his knees as he turns, forcing him to the ground. I kick his wand away, pull the spear from the gut of the first death eater and slam the butt of the spear into the kneeling man's head.
What proceeds is nothing short of a massacre. My mind fast forwards to the point that Sarah mentioned, I rip the heavy oaken doors from their hinges and enter the throne room. Voldemort is sitting on his simple throne, watching me with his red snake eyes. Before him stands 3 death eaters, a burly man with a large two handed sword, a smaller man with 2 small and cruelly curved swords, and a third petite woman with only a long wicked knife.
"Ah some entertainment before the final duel, I do hope you wont get too tired Harry," cackles Voldemort.
The three of them charge, the burly man in the lead. I duck and swing my spear behind my back as he passes, tripping him and sending him flying behind me; whipping the spear around my body just in time to meet the second man. He's too close, so I unleash a flury of jabs at him to make him back off. The woman is dancing and dodging around me, waiting for an opening, she takes it while I'm occupied with the other man and slices me shallowly down my shoulder and upper back. I hiss is pain, reverse my grip on the spear and swing it around the top of my head in a huge arc, forcing her back.
The other man is there in an instant, going for the kill. I surprise him and charge forward till I am too close for him to slash at me. I knock the wind out of him with a well aimed punch and then wrest one of his swords from him and impale him.
The burly man with his huge sword is up again and charging me, I hear the whisper of fast but quiet footsteps behind me and duck just as she gets to my back again. One palm flat at the hilt of the dagger, the other hand firmly around it's grip she propels the dagger forward with all of the considerable strength she has and it plunges full into the chest my other attacker. She falls back in confusion and shock as her comrade falls back with a stunned look on his face. I stand from my crouch, pulling the knife from the big man as he falls and backhand the woman to the ground.
I'm kneeling on her arms and she's helpless. My pulse pounds in my head and I can barely see. She's staring at me with blue-grey eyes and I slowly begin to slice just bellow her eye, she whimpers in pain but she's totally pinned. Voldemort is laughing a quiet laugh of total lunacy and it snaps me out of my blood craze. I fling the knife at him, and charge. The rest, as they say, is history.
I trace the scar under her eye again with my thumb, "I'm sorry, I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of in the war, and this was one of the worst, why are you working for me now,"
She looks confused, "Isn't it obvious? I came to kill you… but I can't… I…"
I wish someone trying to kill me was a surprising thing to happen to me, but I'm not in the least shocked, only surprised she hadn't tried to go through with it; I demand to know why she hasn't.
It comes out in a burst and her shields crack, she's sobbing all over me, what is it with me and making people cry? "I've grown to love you, I couldn't kill you, and I have to protect you! Don't you see? You released me from servitude from that monster!"
I'm surprised to realize I actually care about her too, even though I hardly know her. I smile and kiss the top of her head and she calms noticeably.
"I'm not sure I know the meaning of the word entirely, but I love you too, that's the best I can do at the moment," I smile and hope I've said the right thing, she hugs me tightly and for the first time in many months I feel content.