The summer had been beyond boring, despite the odd sort of tension that permeated the Burrow. Fred and George had moved out, leaving the house quieter than it had been in seventeen years, not even Ron's attempts to convince their parents to let him join the Order of the Phoenix quite managed to fill the silence. Ginny's mum had taken to carrying the family clock around with her constantly, and her dad was almost never home between his new job at the Ministry and his duties with the Order had him gone most of the day. Of course, too, Bill had brought home the French wonder as his fiancee, which she could have done without. Ginny had visited with Luna a few times, but never for very long due to her mother's desire to have her youngest within arm's reach as much as possible after the events at the end of term.
"Have you owled Evanna?" Luna had asked her once.
"You know I haven't," Ginny replied.
"Bridget says she's worried about her," Luna continued. "It must be scary, living in that big house with everything going on."
"Evanna is a coward," Ginny said harshly. "And so is Bridget."
"You know their families-"
"They could leave if they wanted to," Ginny said. "Others have done it. But I don't want to talk about them anyway-want to go flying?"
Harry and Hermione had come for their customary summer visit, but still Ginny had heard nothing from Bridget or Evanna or Draco. Harry, too, had seemed on edge, pulling her aside and questioning her.
"Have you heard from Evanna?" he had whispered on the third floor landing of the Burrow.
"No, I haven't, and frankly I don't want to," she had replied.
"Why? What happened?"
"Do you not remember her hanging us out to dry at the end of term? We asked her for help and she refused, Harry!" Ginny hissed. "You of all people have to understand she is on the other side of this war!"
Harry had frowned, shoving his hands deep into his jeans pockets-jeans that finally fit now that he was away from those horrible muggle relatives. "You of all people know her better than to realize it's not that simple, Ginny."
But it was that simple to Ginny. Draco had all but told her that Evanna was willing to do whatever You-Know-Who asked of her, even if she had not taken the Dark Mark.
Yet, Ginny thought to herself snidely.
It was while Harry and Hermione were still there that there was a tapping at the window. The family paused as Mrs. Weasley went to answer it.
"It's-it's a falcon," Mrs. Weasley said.
"That's odd-Bill's not in Egypt anymore," Ron said, though it was so garbled by a mouth full of food that only a sister could possibly hope to understand it.
Ginny's eyes flew open and she was up and across the Burrow kitchen in an instant, just as her mum took the small package from the bird.
"Ginny, who do you have mailing you from Egypt?" her mother said suspiciously as she read the name on the parcel.
"No one," she said quickly. Ron elbowed Harry, while Hermione swatted at his hands.
"Then we should wait for your father to check it for curses-"
"It's fine, Mum!" Ginny exclaimed in a choked voice, snatching the parcel and tucking it into the pocket of her robes.
"Ginevra-"
"I just remembered-I need to practice some quidditch moves. Who knows who'll be quidditch captain?" she babbled, all but running out of the house. She went straight to the chicken coop-the one place her brothers would not go unless forced-and pulled the package out.
The address was written in fancy script that just screamed private tutor with emerald green ink. Ginny smiled to herself and shook her head before opening it. She gasped at the ornate necklace sitting on a bed of satin, red stones sparkling in the morning sun. She lifted it out of the box, the zing of magic tingling her skin. Oh, this was insanely expensive, she knew before even reading the note in the bottom of the box.
G-
There were several lines of crossed out words that Ginny could not quite make out. She could all but picture Draco, skin more burnt than Ginny's had been when they had visited Bill, frowning as he tried to figure out what to say to her.
This made me think of you. The witch selling it said there were strong warding spells around it. Please stay safe. It's probably best we forget each other. I don't know when I'll be able to come back.
He had again crossed out several possible closings before landing on: Ever yours, D.
Ginny hated herself for the small tear that slipped out of the corner of her eye. Leave it to Draco bloody Malfoy to break up with her via bleeding falcon, while also gifting her a necklace that probably cost as much as her father earned in a week at the Ministry.
"Ginny?"
Ginny wiped her face aggressively before looking up to see Hermione coming around the door of the chicken coop.
Hermione, ever observant, quickly took in the letter, lingering tears, and the pendant in Ginny's palm. Her brown eyes went wide.
"Who gave that to you?" she demanded, eyes flicking to the letter. "Ever yours, D?"
Ginny quickly crumpled the letter in her hand, shoving it into her pocket.
"There's no Gryffindor in your year with 'D' as their initial," Hermione said suspiciously.
"Well then maybe it's not from a Gryffindor in my year," Ginny snapped. "Some people branch out from their immediate classmates, you know!"
Hermione blinked and Ginny didn't take the time to apologize for her rudeness before marching out of the chicken coop, looking for her broom. She made sure that no one was watching as she slipped the amulet over her head and tucked it under her shirt, the metal nearly as warm as the Egyptian sun on her skin.
Evanna POV
The stone room echoed with yelling voices.
Evanna glanced around and picked out an old man that looked almost like Salazar, but was off somehow. He was yelling at a younger wizard, spittle flying.
"My great-grandson," a voice in her ear admitted. She turned to see Slytherin himself. "Somehow, my line only grew angrier the more time that passed after my daughter's slaughter."
"No! We should not hide from them! We ought to rule them-stamp out their base desires to destroy us!" the old Slytherin yelled.
"What you call for is inhumane!"
"What I call for will protect our children and children's children from the filth that wants to see us wiped out!"
"He's mad," she murmured.
"Yes," her ancestor said simply. "And he has only a little power left and a family memory of hatred."
"What are you saying?"
Salazar turned steely eyes on her, and for a moment, it was as though she was looking at her father. "The world will never be as it ought with that kind of hatred. Your father is lost. Do not try to save him."
"He's my father," Evanna said.
"And he has gone farther down the dark path than any of my descendants."
"But-"
"There is nothing that can be done; his soul is too broken. You must stop his plans."
Evanna woke with a start, her skin clammy and damp with sweat. She rolled over in her large bed and grabbed her wand, casting a quick tempus charm. It was just a few minutes before midnight, when her birth mother was supposed to escort her to the small group of untested Death Eater recruits her father had allowed her for this mission. He had not exactly been happy to send anyone with her, but he was even less happy when Evanna suggested she could go on this mission by herself.
"Good, you're awake," Bellatrix said from the door, not even bothering to knock before she opened it.
"I would comment on the invasion of privacy, but I've the feeling it would not be much good," Evanna said dryly.
Bellatrix's smirk was nothing short of wicked. She tossed a bundle of leather at Evanna. It was an iridescent black, hard scales almost sharp enough to cut. Evanna ran her fingers along a symbol etched into the scales-two serpents, so entwined it was impossible to tell where one ended and the next began. She recognized the symbol from the bracelet her mother-Narcissa-had given her as a first year, struggling to contain those odd powers that she had no idea existed.
"The wuivre," she said. "For protection."
"It's Hebridean Black dragonskin. It should help you blend into the dark and protect you in battle," Bellatrix said. "The bloodlines you carry in your veins are too important to risk, Evanna. So if things go wrong, you forget the others and you get out."
Evanna blinked. It was quite possibly the most maternal thing her birth mother had ever said to her. She studied the older woman, but her steel grey eyes revealed nothing. When Evanna tried to see behind her mother's eyes, she was met with thorns that pricked at the forefront of her mind. If her father was cold, jagged ice, then her mother was a raging inferno, but just as impossible to read.
"Things won't go wrong. I've trained for this," Evanna said.
Bellatrix gave a sharp bark of laughter. "Lucius may have been more of a bastard than even my husband, but no one can train for Azkaban."
Evanna filed that little tidbit away for further examination. She had known her birth mother had been married, but had yet to hear her speak of Rodolphus Lestrange.
"We need loyal men," Evanna said simply.
"We need a loyal heir."
Evanna chose not to reply and instead stepped behind the changing screen to don the leather armor.
There was a double entendre behind the statement, Evanna knew. There was of course the matter at hand: her safe return from the mission to Azkaban. But there was another: just how loyal was Evanna to the cause. For a brief moment, she though of the little fish and chips cart in London.
"Your father is lost."
"Be sure you go to your father as soon as you return," Bellatrix said. "He has something he wishes to teach you."
Evanna still did not speak, instead catching her appearance in the mirror. The armor was skin tight-tighter than anything she had ever worn in her life. Though it did not show any skin, the still-forming curves of her body were clearly shown. She knew that cloaks and robes could be deadly in battle, but she felt almost naked without one. She was not sure whether Bellatrix had sensed her embarrassment or not as the older witch pointed her wand at Evanna's hair and it tied itself back in a tight plait.
"It's time," her mother said. Evanna nodded and let Bellatrix lead her to where the recruits waited outside the Manor with their broomsticks. Evanna did not comment as she recognized several students who had been in the years above her, from all four Houses. At least three had graduated no earlier than this June.
"This is your Dark Lady," Bellatrix announced. "You take orders from her as you do the Dark Lord. And should she fall and any one of you make it back alive, your life will not be long."
The recruits bowed immediately, nearly as low as she saw her father's followers do for him. It was a heady feeling, this kind of power, one that could consume her entire self if she was not careful.
"Where is your broomstick, my lady? Do you need mine?" one of the recruits asked, holding out his own. Evanna's lips curled in a smirk.
"I don't need a broomstick," was all she said before tugging on that anchor that chained her to the earth with magic and launching herself into the air, colorful smoke all around her. The recruits were watching her from the ground, open-mouthed.
"We won't ever make it to Azkaban before daybreak if you all don't get moving," she called.
One by one, they all rose in the air, only Bellatrix remaining on the ground. The wind whipping her hair around her face, Evanna lead the recruits assigned to her through the skies.
The temperature dropped before the prison came into sight.
Evanna found herself wishing she had worn a cloak over the fighting leathers as the prison looked tall over the raging northern seas. They were far north enough that the world stayed in a perpetual twilight this time of year.
"We go in and take our men, nothing more," Evanna called over the wind to the recruits. "The dementors are on our side, or will be soon enough. It is only the Ministry workers who will trouble us."
"And we're what? Just supposed to fight off trained Aurors?" one of the younger recruits-Nealson, she thought-called out.
"What exactly did you think becoming one of my father's Death Eaters would involve?" Evanna said, gritting her teeth. "Knitting tea cosies at home?"
Nealson fell silent.
Evanna did not bother to make sure that the recruits followed her as she landed on top of the darkened tower prison. She felt the recruits land behind her, but more than that, there was the cold, the all-consuming cold that seized her limbs and fogged her brain. She had known it would be bad; that year the dementors had guarded Hogwarts she had barely been able to go outside without feeling faint from her own worst memories and those of her fellow students.
Tu vas faire comme je dit, the wind seemed to whisper all around her. Tu vas faire comme je dit.
You're dead. I killed you, she told Lucius' voice sternly.
She turned to gesture for the men to follow her to the rooftop access her birth mother had told her about. Their pale faces shown in the odd twilight, their eyes blown wide open. She felt more than heard their thoughts; more than one was ready to jump on their brooms and speed away.
"I will reward and protect those who fight by my side, no matter what Bellatrix said," she told them in a low voice. "But if you run from the battle, there is little anyone can do to keep you from my father's wrath."
She met each recruit's eyes, still feeling the despair and iciness that Azkaban caused, but in a few of them, there was the smallest flickering flame of something else.
Loyalty.
But not to her father. To herself.
Evanna swallowed, feeling as though she was teetering on a tightrope, high above a sleeping dragon, who would surely awake and swallow her whole should she fall. She knew it was dangerous, to attract the loyalty of her father's would-be followers. Yet, something of the previous night's dream echoed in her.
"There is nothing that can be done; his soul is too broken. You must stop his plans."
"Keep close to me," she said, burying the dream down, down, down.
The first auror they encountered went down immediately with a spell Evanna fired silently. The next, however, was able to sound the alarm, calling more guards to him, wizard and dementor alike. The recruits spread out behind her, ready to fight.
"No, I'll handle this!" Evanna shouted. "Free our men!"
"But milady-"
"Now is not the time!" Evanna snarled as a dementor advanced on her. She whirled, sliding under the monstrous thing, cold seeping into her bones as she did so.
The boy's face was blank, eyes wide in surprise, and completely still-
She shoved the memory away, determined not to give in the way she had as a second year.
"I recognize you," an auror said, eyes wide with a shock of pink hair. "Lucius Malfoy's girl."
Evanna's breath hitched in her throat. She knew what her father would expect, for her to kill the auror. But she yet to fire a spell at Evanna.
"You are too young for this, cousin," the auror said, "I cannot believe You-Know-Who would recruit a little girl."
"He hasn't," Evanna said, bringing up a shield as another auror began to throw spells.
"No time to chat, Tonks," he shouted. "Arrest them all!"
A flash of red light and Evanna thought she would not have time, when Nealson shot a spell between them. A green spell. The second auror fell almost instantly. But when he tried to fire the same spell at Tonks, Evanna found herself stepping in front of the young auror.
"Get the prisoners and get out, Nealson!" she roared.
"Milady, she's recognized you!"
"GO!"
A lick of Evanna's grey smoke that usually carried her on the wind snapped at the older boy and he ran, helping the rest to free the Death Eaters. She felt more than saw the young auror rise to confront her and she quickly sent a freezing spell at her. Ice crackled it's way up Tonks' body as it froze her to the floor
"I-I kn-know yo-you do-don't wa-want t-to ki-kill m-me," the auror said, teeth clattering together.
"I should have done so already," Evanna said, mind whirling as she grasped for the power that she had once wielded against her brother. "I'm sorry about this."
Evanna forcibly ripped away all memory of her presence in the prison, forcing herself not to watch as the auror slumped to the ground in a dead faint. She ran toward the recruits, where they had begun to break open the cell doors of the Death Eaters. She recognized as one ran into the corridor.
"Mr. Nott!" she exclaimed.
Theo's father looked nothing like the aristocrat she had met the night of the ball her father had put on for her. There were deep circles under his eyes, his hair matted and his cheeks thinned even in only the few weeks since the end of term. Something roiled in Evanna's stomach; this was what the side of the light did to their enemies? And yet, her ancestor had claimed her father to have gone farther down the dark path than any in their lineage. What could be darker than using prisoners as meat offered to beings of pure darkness?
"Evanna," he rasped. "You came. The Dark Lord sent for us."
She smiled grimly. "Yes. Now, let's go."
A/N: Sorry for the long wait between chapters! This semester has been exhausting thus far, so I've probably only written about a sentence every 2-3 days. May not be the best chapter, but it's long! Expect to see some more Evarry soon, as well as Ev learning exactly what kind of Dark Magic her father has been up to... And may want her involved in as well.