A/N: And heeeeeere it is… the chapter you've all been waiting for… ha. Whether you've been waiting for it or not, here it is. I worked hard on this one, so enjoy!
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Chapter Ten: In which Armando and Indira talk
- An hour later that same day -
~~~
I can't believe I'm doing this, Dippet thought as he lifted his fist to knock on the door to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. He'd thought about this day many times before, but never imagined it would actually come. And now here he was, just seconds away from telling Indira Nay the last thing she wanted to hear: that her secrets weren't as secret as she thought they were.
He knocked. A few seconds passed, and then he heard her voice. "Enter."
He expected to see her at her desk. Instead, she was standing near a cupboard in one corner of the room. Her wand was in one hand, and the other hand was fidgeting with the end of her braid. "Hello, Headmaster," she said when she saw that it was him. "May I inquire as to why you have elected to disgrace yourself with my presence?"
"We need to talk," Dippet said as he walked over to join her by the cupboard.
She pointed her wand at the cupboard. "Nothing personal, but I'm a little preoccupied at the moment."
"A boggart?" he guessed.
The cupboard shook.
"Yes," she confirmed.
"No problem," Dippet said, reaching for his wand.
"Excuse me, but I believe I am the Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor at this school," Indira snapped. "Now, if you would be so kind as to leave me alone so I can take care of-"
"But Indira," he said, "surely you, as the Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, know that it is much easier to deal with a boggart when there is more than one person. It gets confused and doesn't know which shape to assume."
"I am perfectly capable of eliminating this boggart by myself, sir."
"I know you are," Dippet said. "But you're not perfectly capable of risking letting me see whatever it is you're most afraid of, are you?"
Indira glared at him. "What's it to you?"
"I just want to help you."
"Thank you for the offer, but I don't think you can help me."
"So why don't you open the cupboard and find out?"
"Why don't you just leave me alone?" she asked, putting her wand away.
"Because you've been alone for too long," he said. "And you're not alone. Not anymore." He noticed that a section of her hair had worked itself loose from the braid. "Hold still," he told her, and reached out to brush it aside.
She winced involuntarily, as if he were about to strike her. "It's all right," he said. "Just let me-"
"I'll get it," she said, and brushed absentmindedly at her hair.
The strands didn't go anywhere. "Indira, just let me-"
"No!" she insisted, and stepped back. "I can take care of it."
He always knew it was bad, but now it seemed worse than he ever thought. "Hold still," he said, much more firmly than before. "I'm not going to hurt you. Just hold still."
She wanted to trust him, but she had too much experience with those words to make trusting him an easy task. She closed her eyes and braced herself, as if expecting him to strike her. It took all of her self-control to keep from moving when his fingers brushed her skin as he tucked the hair behind her ear. A few seconds went by, and she dared to open her eyes. "See?" he said. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"You don't understand," she said, avoiding eye contact with him.
"You're right, I don't understand," he replied. "I'm not going to pretend that I do. What I can do, though, is let you know that you can't go on living in fear like this. You have to let go of the past."
"What do you mean?" she asked, unable to believe her ears. He couldn't possibly...
"I know."
"What do you know?"
"I know why you can't sleep at night. I know why you've cut yourself off from anyone you ever loved, and why you always push people away," Dippet said. "I know why you flinch every time someone touches you. I know who you are." He sighed, glanced at the floor, and then looked up at her. "You weren't named after your mother."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your middle name," he said. "You weren't named after your mother. Your mother's name was Celeste and your middle name is Jolenta."
She glared at him and shook her head. "I think you've got me confused with someone else."
"Do I?" He took a step toward her. "Madeline?"
He knew Indira wouldn't respond well to that. Her eyes grew wide with shock, her mouth dropped open, and she took a step back. He didn't even blink when she slapped him across the face. "Never," she hissed, "say that name again!" She then covered her eyes with her hand and turned away, struggling to force all the painful memories that name produced out of her mind. She was unsuccessful; being able to fight back neither the images nor the tears.
His face stung from where she had struck him, but that was the least of his concerns. He reached out to place his hand on her shoulder, but she spun around and backed away from him as if he was carrying a horrible disease. "How dare you?" she said. "How dare you assume you know anything about my past? You have no idea what happened to me!"
Dippet took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. He could see his last chance to reach out to her slipping away. "You're wrong," he said. "I do know what happened. I was the one who processed your admissions information and insisted that you be given a full scholarship. Your brilliance aside, I knew you needed protection, and Hogwarts was the only place that could give it to you."
She did not respond.
He continued. "There are people that care about you, Indira, and want to help you, but they can't do that if you don't let them in."
"How much do you know?" Her voice had lost its anger and was now soft and weak.
"Everything."
"So, is that why you always acted like you cared about me so much? Is that why you were always so patient with me? Because you knew what I'd been through?"
"For a while, yes," he answered. "Then, about six weeks ago, I decided to look deeper and see if there was anything beneath all the anger and pain. When I did, I discovered one of the strongest, most incredible people I've ever known."
"I'm not Madeline Rahmini anymore, Professor Dippet," Indira said.
She sighed, walked over to the front row, and sat down on a table. Dippet followed her. "How did you find out?" she asked, and began rubbing her eyes with her hand.
"Michael Nay," he answered. "You know there was a Fidelius Charm hiding you from Grindelwald while you were at Hogwarts, right?"
She nodded. "Yes, he told me after… after Catherine was murdered." She dropped her hand and looked at him. "You were the Secret-Keeper, weren't you?"
He replied in the affirmative.
"But why me? I wasn't the one that needed protection." Tears left their wet trails on her cheeks, and she didn't bother to wipe them away. "Catherine was the one he killed."
"Because he was trying to find you," Dippet said. "She knew he would kill her if she told him how to get to you or not, so…" There was no need for him to continue.
"I wish… I wish he had just killed me."
"How can you say that?" he asked, sitting down next to her on the table. The thought of losing this woman he'd come to care about against his will was almost unbearable.
Indira turned her head and looked at him. "You don't know what he did to me, do you?"
"Not… details," he admitted. "I knew he held you prisoner for-"
"A year," she interrupted. "He had me for a year before I escaped, that disgusting… Do you know what it's like to hate someone so much that it… that it just consumes you?"
"No," he said quietly.
She looked at the floor and closed her eyes. "I was only seven years old," she said in soft, trembling voice. "Only seven years old when he…"
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Dippet said, "but if you do, I'll listen."
She covered her face, nodded, and whispered a choked, "Thank you." A few seconds passed, and her hands went down to her lap; her eyes, however, remained closed. "My father had been hearing rumors about Erich Rainier for years, and had always been suspicious of him. We were getting ready to go into hiding when he exposed Rainier, but he found us first…"
~~~
"Anton, what-"
"There's no time, Celeste!" Anton Rahmini cried. "He's here, now! You have to go! Take the children and go!"
"You can't take him alone, Anton!" his wife replied. She plunged her hand inside her robes and pulled out her wand. "He's too powerful!"
"I can hold him off long enough for you and the children to escape," he insisted. "Please, Celeste… go!"
The girl with the vivid green eyes wide with fright hiding around the corner looked at her older sister. "Lana, what can we do?"
Lana was even more frightened than her; too scared to even speak.
"Lana, we have to do something!"
Celeste heard the girl's voice
and dashed over to them, fear etched into her beautiful face. "Lana, Madeline, you have to go," she told
her two youngest daughters.
"But why?" Madeline asked. "Why do we have to go?"
"An evil man is coming," Celeste answered. "He's already killed the guards, and he's going to kill you too unless you run away as fast as you can!"
"Why?" inquired Madeline. "Why does someone want to kill us?"
"Just go!" Celeste cried. "Please, Madeline! No more questions! Run!"
"What's going on?" came the voice of sixteen-year-old Bala, the oldest child.
"Bala!" Celeste exclaimed. She grabbed Madeline's hand and pressed it into Bala's. "Get the others and run! You've got to get out!"
Bala, who was old enough to understand what was going on, gasped and covered her mouth. "Grindelwald?"
Celeste nodded. Tears were streaming down her face. "I love you," she said, quickly embracing her daughters. "Now go!" She gave them a gentle push for emphasis, then raced back to join Anton.
"No!" Madeline said as Bala began towing her away. "We have to help!"
"We can't help, Madeline!" Bala said, picking her little sister up. "Lana, come on!"
Lana didn't need to be told twice. Madeline struggled to break free of Bala's grip, but Bala was too strong. They raced down the hall and rounded a corner, heading for the back door. Bala cried out the names of their other siblings as they ran. "Jaden! Palak! Kyla! Jelani! We have to go! Now!"
An explosion rocked the house. Lana screamed. Bala screamed, too, but for a different reason – the back door had been magically sealed shut. "We're trapped!" she cried.
"Let – me – GO!" Madeline shouted, struggling harder than ever.
Another scream rang through the house, and then was silenced. Celeste's.
Bala could no longer hold on to Madeline, and had no choice but to let go. Madeline began sprinting back toward her parents, but she didn't get far before someone else grabbed her – Palak, her oldest brother. "No, Madeline!" he said. "We can't go back there!"
"We can't go this way, either!" Bala sobbed. "It's sealed!"
"Where are Jelani and the twins?" Palak asked.
"I don't know!" Bala said.
"WE HAVE TO FIGHT HIM!" Madeline screamed.
"We can't fight him, Madeline!" Palak said. "He's too powerful!"
"HE'LL KILL THEM!!"
"They're already dead," came the frightened voice of ten-year-old Jelani, who was standing behind Palak with a desperate, terrified look on his face.
"In here!" Palak said, opening the nearest door. It was the twins' bedroom. "Kyla, Jaden, wake up! We're under attack!"
"The window!" Bala exclaimed, and dashed toward the window. "No!" she said upon seeing that it, too, was sealed.
"Why is someone trying to kill us?" asked Lana.
No one answered her. Madeline's struggling soon became too much for Palak, and she broke free of him and ran toward the door. The idea that a seven-year-old couldn't possibly do any damage to the most powerful dark wizard in the world never occurred to her; she was too blinded by anger and fear to care.
"Madeline, NO!" Bala screamed, and raced after her. Palak, Lana, Jelani, and the twins, Jaden and Kyla, were close behind her.
Bala was screaming for a different reason when they got to the hall. Grindelwald was standing there, a wand in his left hand and a bloody dagger in his right. Palak reached out and grabbed Madeline before she could get far, but he wasn't holding on to her for long; shortly after he seized her, the words "Avada Kedavra" left Grindelwald's lips, and green light shot through him, killing him instantly.
Bala took Madeline again and started running, but less than two seconds went by before she was dead, too. Grindelwald was ready to kill Madeline next, but she did something he didn't expect – wriggled herself free of her dead sister's arms and came at him. He laughed. What did this child think she could do against him?
Madeline grabbed his left arm and tried to wrestle his wand out of his hand. Grindelwald pushed her to the floor and continued on down the hall. He would come back and deal with her later. She, however, did not want to wait – she got up and came after him again. "Leave us alone!" she cried, beating him with her fists.
Grindelwald struck her across the face, then raised his wand in preparation to kill her. Just before he was about to say the words, though, a better idea crossed his mind. His lips worked themselves into a sneer. "Petrificus totalus!"
~~~
"He forced me to watch as he slaughtered my family," Indira said. "I thought he would kill me after that, but… but he didn't. It was so much worse than death…" She couldn't go on.
Dippet could only imagine what it would be like, but even in his imagination, it was terrible beyond words. No one should have had to endure the horror she did, especially a child; tortured, raped, abused in every way possible for a year before finally escaping… He didn't know how she got away, but he got the impression that now was not the time to ask.
She glanced over at him. "Are you still here?"
"Where else would I go?" he asked.
"I don't know… anywhere."
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not leaving."
"Do you know what happens to anyone who cares about me?" she asked. "They die. Grindelwald finds them and he kills them."
He placed his hand on her back. She didn't move. "Then let him come."
Nearly a minute passed before either one of them moved. It was Dippet who broke the stillness; he stood up, kissed her on the forehead, and began walking toward the door.
"Wait," Indira said before he could get far. She stood, too, and walked over to him. "Please… don't leave."
"I will stay as long as you need me to."
A bittersweet smile flickered on her lips for a moment, the first in twenty years. "Then you might be here all night."
They embraced each other, and all the anger, pain, and heartache that had been accumulating in her soul for the last twenty years came pouring out. It was almost dawn before her tears ran dry.