I'm back! I don't have COVID! I haven't died! Your lovely messages are truly the only fuel I have right now keeping the creative juices pumping. As always, an author note follows below but I wanted to say a very special thank you to all of my reviewers, followers, and readers. In addition to the giant wall of plot mapping, I am prone to save my favorite reviews when I have caught an especially nasty case of writer's block.
I will post a warning here that this chapter may be disturbing to some readers. Discretion and shield charms may apply.
It's only been a few days, she thought as her fingers plucked at the pilling of her sweater. It was normal, she reminded herself, for Walburga to take time to reply to her letters. Perhaps she had run out of her stationary and had needed to pop by Diagon Alley for a new packet. The thought consoled Charlotte for a moment as Bibsy pressed a cup of tea into her hands.
'Mistress? Should Bibsy go to Grimmauld Place?'
'No,' Charlotte commanded quietly, 'Don't leave the house'.
Nodding, Bibsy set the silver trimmed tea pot at the table beside her with a plate of shortbread. Charlotte absently smiled at the gesture.
'Do we have any more for when Regulus comes home? They're his favorite.'
'Bibsy will make some more, Mistress,' Bibsy answered cheerfully, her long fingers adjusting the blanket across Charlotte's lap, 'Is there anything else Bibsy can do for Mistress?'
'No, I'll just wait here a bit longer, in case he comes home. I don't want to be asleep when he gets here.'
Bibsy nodded, her violently green eyes crinkling. Charlotte recalled when the tiny elf, wearing a discarded curtain toga, had been presented to her. Bibsy had been an exceptional house elf. Charlotte had rarely seen her in the first few months of her marriage. It was the mark of a good house elf, Walburga had proclaimed, that they remain unseen and unheard.
But Regulus was gone often, and Charlotte had found herself seeking the company of Bibsy. Often, at night, she would knock on Bibsy's cabinet and they would cook together as Charlotte would sometimes do with Kreacher at Grimmauld Place. Bibsy had taught Charlotte to make shortbread, ginger biscuits, and Yorkshire pudding, as Walburga had never believed in teaching Charlotte to make anything other than tea.
Now, they enjoyed one another's company. It was their nightly routine to sit near the fire as Bibsy attended to her mending of Regulus's robes and Charlotte indulged in her books.
'Bibsy'll make a fresh pot, Mistress. Oolong, again?'
'Thank you.'
Three days ago, Severus had sat in the chair across from where she now perched, speaking ominous words.
They've caught him, Charlotte.
The words had hardly settled in the air before she had launched herself to write Orion. Orion, she thought, would know what to do. He could use his Ministry connections, and Regulus would be home by supper. She told Severus so, as she searched her desk for a quill.
I don't mean the Order. The Dark Lord caught him. He's betrayed us.
An incredulous laugh had escaped her mouth. Perhaps at times recently, Regulus had indulged too heavily in firewhiskey while out with the other men. He could often come home, slurring about Malfoy's schemes and Snape's plotting. Charlotte had summed it to be nothing more than an illusion created in the bottom of a bottle.
Too quickly, Charlotte reached for her cup of tea.
It tipped from the saucer, and for a moment, time seemed to slow as it fell from the table.
The blanket slipped from her lap as she tried to catch it in its tumble, oolong splashing onto her high-pile rug. A soft curse left her mouth as she watched brown liquid seep into the fibers.
She looked to the corridor, and her mouth opened to call for Bibsy.
Heat and glass exploded above her head.
Charlotte fell to the carpet, her throat suddenly mute as fireballs rained through the study window.
They landed in soft, hot piles upon the stained rug. Starting no larger than a quaffle, they rolled across the fibers leaving scorched, black trails.
Outside, Charlotte heard screaming laughter.
'Come out, blood traitor!'
Her throat tightened as her eyes darted between the rolling quaffles of flames and the shattered study window.
'Mistress?'
The balls grew as they rolled, something moving beneath their surface as they burned her mahogany floors, blistering the wax Bibsy had so carefully polished into them. Charlotte's chin trembled as she watched them land against the curtains, corridor doorway.
For a moment, the laughter outside seemed to silence. Charlotte reached for the spilled teacup with violently shaking hands. Snape's words echoed in her head.
It is no longer safe for you here, Charlotte.
By the time her fingers had touched the hand painted porcelain, an inferno unleashed.
Charlotte had never seen a muggle bomb explosion. Her parents had died by one in Ireland. She had never tried to imagine it. It was supposed to be messy and instantaneous.
Fiendfyre was not like a muggle bomb.
It was perhaps hell's reincarnation in magic.
A flaming chimaera leapt from her curtains, unleashing a roar akin to nails scraping chalkboards. Charlotte's hands dropped her teacup to press her palms against her ears as she felt hot air wash over her like a violent, crashing wave.
As the chimaera began its stampede towards her corridor stairs, a blazing dragon blew a billow of embers across the study's ceiling.
'MISTRESS!'
Somewhere, Bibsy had begun screaming.
Smoke filled the study, curling towards the flaming ceiling in violent, red hot clouds. The very air seemed to be ignited as it scorched her nostrils, throat, and set her lungs afire.
Her mouth let nothing but violent, rasping coughs escape. Her chest heaved with the effort to suck some semblance of air, but each breath brought raging, blistering heat.
Charlotte fell to her hands and listened to her house elf now shrieking down the corridor. She pulled her wand from her pocket and sucked in a breath.
'Aguamenti!'
The word tumbled from her mouth in a hot rasp.
Water sputtered from her wand tip, coating the floor around her in a puddle.
However, the water did not impede the blazing beasts as they morphed and crashed into one another – dragons, chimaeras, and serpents. They began as licking flames from her crushed velvet curtains and descended upon mahogany floors as smoldering monstrosities. They turned their flaming heads to sweep the blistering air and stampeded the corridor, crashing into the walls and sending them ablaze.
Charlotte could no longer hear Bibsy. The roar of the beasts filled her ears and the hot air pressed against every orifice and pore of her body. Her hands and knees moved across the scalding floorboards, feeling her silk nightdress catch and tear beneath her.
'BIBSY!'
She felt by memory as she gasped for air, her wand uselessly clutched between her fingers. Her palms memorized the floor and every fold of rugs as her eyes watered and streamed from the smoke.
Everywhere around her, glowing ash fell.
It caught in her hair and seared her flesh.
'BIBSY!'
Her voice sounded inhumane to her ears, a hacking concoction of distorted screams and gasps.
The house was filled with Bibsy's shrill screams.
Bibsy could not hear her.
Her palms blistered as she crawled to the kitchen, her eyes burning with the effort to squint through their streaming tears. The chimaera appeared in the doorway, its lion jaws wide. Its mouth dripped cherry-red coals.
Charlotte blinked and the doorway exploded as the chimaera crashed into its frame.
A scream broke through her throat, tearing through in an animalistic shriek as burning floorboards landed across her legs, setting her nightgown ablaze.
She rolled against the hot floor; her limbs violently shook as her legs pressed against the floor to snuff her smoldering night dress. Charlotte pulled herself across the floor by her arms, her muscles screaming as they shook and trembled in terror and effort.
It felt like an eternity crawling against the floor as her house was engulfed at her back. Hot waves of air as things exploded and collapsed washing over her like tsunami waves of heat. When her fingers touched the brass plate of her door, she whimpered as the metal singed her fingertips. Her thighs ached as she arched herself to grab the doorknob, screaming as it branded her palm.
The air outside was frigid in comparison as she collapsed on the wet snowmelt of her brick stairs. She tumbled down them gracelessly, her knees and hands smearing crimson trails. Her throat screamed as she gulped down icy lungful's of air.
Inside, Bibsy was still screaming.
For a moment, Charlotte wondered why she had not left. She could apparate. It was simple enough for her to go to Grimmauld Place and await Charlotte.
She froze.
'Don't leave the house', she had ordered her.
Bibsy had never disobeyed an order from her mistress.
A whimper of a wail left her mouth as she turned to look at the flames engulfing her study, melting the carefully acquired paintings Walburga had furnished the gold-leaf wallpapered walls with. The marble fireplace was obscured now by the wingspan of a flaming dragon as it opened its mouth and screamed.
She did not have a moment to grieve her house elf, or to question her ability to find her. Before she could allow the thoughts to enter her mind, two sets of hands seized her elbows, and she was dragged forward.
Unadulterated sobs left her mouth as her bloodied knees dragged across the brick sidewalks, catching on every uneven corner.
Around her, the street was blackened. It was not by darkness or failed streetlights.
Every surface was filled with a black robe and silver mask, softly chanting into the night.
'Traitor'
'Traitor'
'Traitor'
Unrelenting hands pulled her to her feet and turned her around. A palm and five fingers gripped the back of her singed hair to violently turn her head towards the fiendfyre inferno that just a half hour before, had been her home.
Flames licked the brick exterior as the stained-glass windows exploded, showering the sidewalk in emerald sands. Inside, Bibsy still screamed – animalistic noises now. The noises of a dying creature.
Charlotte's stomach heaved. The unrelenting hand did not allow her to turn her eyes from the hellfire to vomit. What remained of Charlotte Black's dignity – and her tea – spilled down the front of her bloodied, soot-streaked night dress as laughter chorused through the filled street.
'My dear, sweet, Charlotte,' a hiss crooned at her ear, 'What has happened?'
Her knees knocked together as she shook.
'Do you know what your husband has done, hm?'
The hands which held her to her feet dropped her, and she violently trembled on the cold asphalt, her arms reaching to cover her vomit stains and exposed thighs.
'BOW TO YOUR DARK LORD, TRAITOR!'
Shrieks echoed in the night sky and Charlotte hurried to follow their command, her stomach aching as it heaved to no avail. The gags pressed against her burned throat and scorched tongue.
'You're a widow now,' the Dark Lord chortled, 'How does it feel? Any different?'
Regulus was dead.
'I wonder if she'll cast away her traitor husband's name. Become a Fraser, again, perhaps?'
If Regulus was dead, Walburga knew.
She had the tapestry.
Walburga had watched that tapestry every day since Sirius ran away, waiting for his birthdate to be matched alongside his death date with a sneering eagerness. She would have seen her precious Regulus's banner change.
Walburga hadn't answered any of her owls.
You'll be branded as much a traitor as he's been.
Snape's words filled her ringing ears.
You will have to redeem yourself when the time comes.
Charlotte's nose dripped onto her thighs.
'I do hate to waste magical blood, Mrs. Black, but you know what must be done.'
A curved wand tip pressed against her forehead.
'A shame, really. A pity. Such promise.'
'I'll take his place,' Charlotte found the words leaving her mouth in a raspy whisper.
'Ah, begging,' The Dark Lord grinned, his white teeth pressed against his red mouth, 'What value could you bring to me, girl?'
Charlotte trembled as snow began to mix amidst the descending ash.
'She is capable of possession, my lord,' A smooth, familiar voice spoke through silence, 'I have seen it.'
The Dark Lord raised a single black eyebrow, 'Show me, Snape'.
Charlotte's eyes held no moment of shock or disbelief as Severus pulled his silver mask from his face and stepped forward. His gray eyes did not fall to the bloodied, soot-streaked heap she had created on London's streets. He looked into the Dark Lord's eyes without flinching and allowed his master entry.
Nothing but the cloudy breaths filling the street interrupted the dying wails of her house elf inside as her eyes looked up at the unblinking pair before her.
When their connection broke, the Dark Lord turned his eyes to her.
For several moments, he did not speak a word.
'Such promise indeed.'
A smile split his lips, 'Redemption, Charlotte, is upon you. You will take the traitor's place. Bring her up, Severus'.
Hands seized her elbows once more, dragging her to unsteady feet.
'The arm,' a pale hand demanded.
Snape outstretched her blistered and bloodied arm to his master.
His curved wand traced the pattern on her skin, soft whispers muted against the roar of crumbling beams and the final, gasping wails of a dying creature within the blaze.
Her arm burned with the Mark, and it dropped to her side.
'Now, you will be part of this family, Fraser,' the Dark Lord whispered at her ear, 'Forever.'
"CHARLOTTE!"
In the abyss, it was warm.
It was a warmth that her body had forgotten. It swelled from the marrow in her bones, enveloping her flesh like a loving embrace. The soft buzzing whispers filled her ears as though a hive had been built within her skull, lulling her towards the blackness.
Perhaps, she thought, she did not need a family.
She had, after all, been given several of them.
Her mother and father.
The Blacks.
Sirius.
Regulus.
The Dark Lord.
Severus.
The Order.
Each had crumbled beneath the touch of her fingertips. Her parents were dead, killed by radical muggles. The Blacks had disowned her. Sirius was in Azkaban. Regulus was dead. The Dark Lord was gone. Severus had betrayed her.
And the Order.
There was not a slice of ice large enough to press against the burn that swelled in her chest.
It was as though the chimaera from her corridor was breaching her ribcage, splitting each bone from her sternum like snapping the strings of a violin. It was there once more, its mouth dripping cherry red coals as it prepared to kill Bibsy. Now it was being born within her bones.
The Order had lied to her.
Dumbledore, Moody, Dearborn, they had all used her.
Snape's house charms would have allowed her entry without a moment hesitation. She had been able to slip beyond the gate with ease. His magic had pressed against her skin as though recalling her every contour before relaxing with familiarity.
But she did not live at the dilapidated house in Spinner's End.
None of her belongings remained within its walls.
She had not felt comfortable violating whatever arrangement she had made with Snape. Instead, she had seated herself on his stoop and prepared to gather herself. In a few hours, she reminded herself, Molly expected her at the Burrow.
There would be strawberry cake and false smiles. Arthur would belt out a version of 'She's a Jolly Good Fellow' as he had threatened at the Leaky Cauldron just last week. It would be a vision of the sort of family Charlotte had always wanted.
It had all been a lie.
Across the yard, Severus now stood staring at her with wide, wild eyes.
"CHARLOTTE!"
His voice carried over the screams of the wind around her.
He probably wasn't real, Charlotte told herself.
The wind sounded eerily of Bibsy's dying breaths.
She was seeing all kinds of things that weren't real, she reminded herself.
Charlotte's eyes dropped to her hands. Even now, years later, she could faintly see the Black crest branded into her palm from the doorknob. She traced its silvery lines as the buzzing in her ears drove in octave to a low roar.
'Toujours Pur'.
Next to her, Bibsy pressed her large head against the witch's arm. She let out a soft sigh that rang like a scream in Charlotte's ears.
"Let's go have some shortbread, Mistress," the house elf sighed, "And wait for Master Regulus."
Charlotte found herself nodding.
"Take Bibsy's hand, Mistress," Bibsy climbed to her feet and outstretched a hand filled with soot-streaked, long fingers, "Master Regulus is waiting."
Her legs felt like jelly beneath her as she stood, her arm reaching for Bibsy's outstretched hand as the skin split and blistered.
"Bibsy will do anything for Mistress," the house elf was saying as her eyes began to blacken and burn, "Anything for Mistress Charlotte."
A sob broke through Charlotte's mouth, and she stumbled forward.
If she took Bibsy's hand, perhaps, it would all stop.
Perhaps she would wake in front of the fireplace, waiting for Regulus. Maybe it would be different now. She could make different choices. She could burn, instead. It would be better, she thought, than living like this.
Such promise, indeed.
Her fingertips touched Bibsy's, and a smile broke through her twisted mouth as the house-elf began to return to her old appearance. It seemed to spread from her fingers – pinky, washed flesh, the fine crushed velvet remnant from Charlotte's curtains in that same brilliant emerald hue.
A hard body slammed into her.
The chimaera.
Charlotte's eyes looked above her to see the beast, its paws pressing against her shoulders.
"CHARLOTTE!"
Its roar sounded eerily familiar – its voice a sharp, rumbling thunder.
"MISTRESS!"
Bibsy was screaming now, and Charlotte struggled against the searing paws of the beast above her, her arms outstretched to the house-elf.
"BIBSY!" Charlotte's voice split and fissured as the heat filled her throat.
The fire was engulfing the elf now, the emerald curtain now a toga of flames.
It had been her, she recalled vividly. She had never been able to forget.
Don't leave the house.
House elves never disobeyed an order from their mistress.
Bibsy had burned for her loyalty.
Charlotte's searing throat sucked in a lungful of hot, ashy air. The scream that erupted from her mouth shattered the windows behind her. It silenced the wind howling around her and the roars of the chimaera above her. It ruptured the blood vessels of her eyes until they were red, amber, and streaming.
Oh, such promise, it growled. Such promise indeed.
Her body stiffened.
Murderer, it crooned.
Murderer.
Murderer.
Murderer.
"I didn't mean to," Charlotte whimpered, "I didn't know."
Such promise, indeed.
Stupid, foolish girl.
Charlotte's arms pushed behind her, her lungs gasping for air against the chimaera above her.
Her fingers pressed into something soft, and moist.
Slowly, she turned her head.
Regulus's bloated, pale face stared up at her.
Alongside him were others she recognized.
Wilhemina's purple, bloodshot eyes.
The Wingers's bruised, bent necks.
Peter.
The Potters.
The screams which tore from her mouth split the air like the roar of the chimaera's – as nails cutting chalkboards as she scrambled across the bodies beneath her. Each stifling breath she took to unleash another filled her mouth with the stench of decay and rot. Faces shifted against her weight until she was sinking between them.
Wilhemina's purple eyes faced her own, her mouth contoured in a silent, gaping cry.
Murderer.
Murderer.
Author's Note: Well, this chapter took an exceptionally long time to write. Real life has been a hippogriff ride! Mr. K and I are planning a wedding in October now that we've gotten all moved into our cozy new house. I hope you all have been happy, healthy, and well, and my thoughts are with all of you during these uncertain times. Please remember what Dumbledore told us, "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light".
Don't forget to turn on your lights.
Bring your House to Glory!
Leave a review with your House Name for Five Points towards the TPMW House Cup!
Gryffindor - 150
Ravenclaw - 80
Hufflepuff - 75
Slytherin - 100
An additional five points will be rewarded for each reviewer who names one horcrux in their review!