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Chapter Six: A Revelation
"You're telling me," Sophie began, an incredulous expression on her face, "that you want me to take my most painful memory, place it into that little birdbath over there, and let you inside it to see what happened?"
"We," the professor stated, his unblinking eyes never leaving Sophie's face.
"We, Professor?" she asked, her eyebrow raised in question. "'We' what?"
"We are going to go inside your memory and see what happened." He said it calmly, as if he was simply asking her to tie a shoe or choose between chicken or fish. Steepling his fingers, the professor leaned back in his chair while he waited for Sophie's response. The girl's facial expression changed from one of incredulity to a blank one. Shaking her head, the girl responded.
"No." The word was spoken with force. Sophie's fists were clenched in her hand, her knuckles turning white.
"Sophie, I need to be able to see what happened that day to be able to help you. You can't tell me, so this is the only way I can think to get it out of you." The man rose from his chair and walked around his desk, then knelt beside her chair and placed his hand on top of hers. "I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think it was necessary." Sophie looked at his hand as it sat on top of hers, certain that the gesture was meant to be reassuring, but she didn't feel it.
"Professor, do you understand what you're asking me to do? I...I just don't think I can."
"Sophie, please. It will be better once you face it." He looked up at her with pleading eyes. The girl looked from the man's hand to his face, then to the floor, processing his words, trying to figure out why what he was asking would help her. Finally the girl took a deep breath and nodded slowly.
"Alright," she said reluctantly. "I'll do it."
As instructed, the girl placed the tip of her wand on her temple, and withdrew the memory, then placed the silvery-white thread into the stone basin that sat on her professor's desk. Lupin then took Sophie by the arm, and leaned toward the Pensieve; soon they were totally immersed.
Sophie's family sat at the wooden table in the kitchen of their home in London. Her father, a distinguished looking gentleman of forty-six with a head of salt-and-pepper gray hair and twinkling blue eyes, much like Sophie's, smiled broadly as he passed a much happier and less gaunt looking Sophie a basket of dinner rolls from where he sat at the head of the small table. Sophie thanked her father, took a roll, then passed the bread basket to her forty year old mother who sat across from her. Her mother, a beautiful woman with her long blonde tresses secured in a bun at the nape of her neck smiled appreciatively as she took the basket from Sophie. From the window, there came a soft tapping sound and the family turned to see an owl hovering outside the glass, a note tied to it's leg. Sophie's father stood, walked to the window and opened it, took the note from the owl, then sent it on it's way, a coin in its beak. Mr. Featherblade sat back down at the table, all signs of his previous smile clearing from his face as he read the note. When he finished, he handed the note to Sophie's mother, then rushed out of the room.
"What's it say?" Sophie asked, anxious to know what unnerved her father so easily. Her mother shook her head, then rose from the table, leaving the note face down on her empty-except-for-a-roll plate. Mrs. Featherblade then told Sophie to get up, and to do as she said, no matter what. Sophie was about to protest for want of an answer, but she didn't have time- several loud popping noises, eight to be exact, came from the front lawn. Just as Mr. Featherblade ran back into the kitchen, the family heard the front door slam open. Mrs. Featherblade pushed Sophie into the pantry, then uttered the words, "Petrificus totalus," slammed the door shut, and locked it. She quickly took the roll off of Sophie's plate, then threw the plate and silverware into the cupboard, obviously trying to conceal the fact that there were more than two Featherblades in the house at the moment.
As five hooded figures burst through the back door and another four came in through the door that connected the kitchen to the foyer, Sophie's father stepped in front of her mother, wand at the ready, daring the intruders to come closer. One stepped forward and raised his wand at Mr. Featherblade, shouting the killing curse. Sophie's father deflected it, but was not fast enough to deflect the disarming spell that flew at him from the opposite direction.
"We're not going to kill him yet!" The man who sent the disarming spell hissed at the shorter, rounder figure who attempted the killing curse.
"But the Dark Lord said-"
" The Dark Lord said," the man mimicked with a sneering tone in his voice, his face obstructed by a skull-like mask that matched the ones the others wore, "to kill them, but he didn't say we couldn't have fun first." Then, the man turned to Sophie's parents, his wand raised, his hood slipping from where it covered his head revealing long almost-white hair tied back by a black satin ribbon. "Where is your daughter?" he asked, his voice a smooth as silk.
"She's not here!" Sophie's mother cried from the floor where she cradled her husband's body as he was beginning to come to.
"I don't believe you. CRUCIO!" The curse was fast and cruel without warning. Sophie's mother writhed on the floor next to her husband, as he pleaded with the Death Eaters to stop. The hooded figures let out vindictive laughter as almost-inhuman screeches of pain filled the small house. Finally, after what seemed like ages, the man lifted his wand and broke the curse. Sophie's mother's limp, unconscious body lay on the floor, still as death. "Wake her up," the man commanded one of his comrades. The man lifted Mrs. Featherblade from the floor after kicking her father in the ribs twice, then slapped the woman across the face until she opened her eyes.
"Please...please don't hurt my...my wife." Sophie's father was able to choke out between gasps for breath and wet coughs.
"Tell me where your daughter is." The man asked, his voice void of emotion.
"N-N-Never!" her father screamed with all his might. Another of the Death Eaters kicked Mr. Featherblade in the stomach as the blonde man beckoned for a hooded figure at the back to come forward. The being, clearly not a man, floated forward, then stopped behind he who had called it.
"If you don't tell me where she is, your wife is going to get very well acquainted with this Dementor."
"Don't tell him, George!" Mrs. Featherblade commanded weakly. Without further speaking, the blonde man motioned forward with two fingers and the Dementor descended upon Mrs. Featherblade, encircling her mouth with the gaping hole in it's head, and all life-like color began to drain from her body as Mr. Featherblade screamed her name.
Once the Dementor had done it's job, leaving the shell of Sophie's mother slumped against the cabinet door that hid the sink pipes, the blonde man motioned for the Dementor to be taken away, and with it left four of the men. The ring leader raised his wand, but before he could cast a spell, the short, round Death Eater tugged at his sleeve.
"Not now, Pettigrew. While I kill him, you search the house for the girl. The rest of you can leave." At his cue, two large, goonish looking figures left the house, and the short, rotund one left the room, muttering something under his breath. The blonde man paced the room as George Featherblade held his wife's empty form in his arms.
"Avada Kedavra!" The man administered the killing curse without warning, then called out for his partner in crime. The other man returned to the kitchen, declaring that the girl was nowhere in the house. Reluctantly, the blonde man left, his short colleague following behind. The sound of their Apparating 'pops' resonated through kitchen.
Within moments, more 'pops' were heard, and a team of red-robed Aurors arrived, searching the house for signs of life. One summoned a stretcher, then levitated Mr. Featherblade's lifeless corpse onto it, covered him with a sheet, and navigated it out the door. Another summoned a second stretcher and followed the same procedure with Mrs. Featherblade, but left her uncovered because she was still breathing.
An old, weathered-looking Auror had the sense to do what the Death Eaters had not, and blasted the lock off of the panty door, revealing Sophie, frozen in a position of protest, her face lined with tear trails, eyes red and blinking. The man who Sophie recognized as her once-professor, Alastor Moody promptly un-petrified her. The girl collapsed into his arms, sobbing.
"There, there, Love," the man said in a gruff voice as he placed his hands gingerly on her shoulders. "Did you see anything?"
"I-I saw it all through the s-slats in the pantry door," Sophie let out through muffled sobs.
When Sophie and Professor Lupin surfaced from the Pensieve, Sophie was wrapped in his arms, sobbing as she beat her fist weakly against his chest, weakly repeating the word 'why.'
"Sophie-I-I had no idea...I'm so sorry." The man gingerly placed his hand on her head and began to smooth her hair in what he hoped was a soothing manner. "I am so sorry."