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I'VE NEVER SEEN BARBADOS
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It was one week later when Shari was summoned alone. She swallowed a contraceptive and pressed her wand to her mark and landed in a darkened bedroom where the Dark Lord was waiting for her.
"Shari, I've been waiting for this day."
Remembering Severus's advice to give him what he wanted, she undressed and made herself play the part of a willing partner. The red eyes staring into her own as he moved over her made her soul grow cold. When she found herself screaming in pleasure from spell induced orgasms in spite of the revulsion she felt at being the Dark Lord's plaything for the night, she felt incredibly disgusted with herself. He, however, seemed very pleased with her and told her he couldn't wait to see her again.
"And I know what this means
Me and Jesus a few years back
Used to hang and he said
"It's your choice, babe, just remember
I don't think you'll be back
In three days time, so you choose well"
(Tori Amos)
When she finally arrived home in the morning, Severus was in the sitting room waiting for her. He stood up when she came through the door, but Shari could not bring herself to look him in the eye.
"Shari, are you alright?" He reached out and touched her shoulder.
She looked down at the floor and nodded.
"You took my advice and didn't fight him, and now you're angry with yourself?"
She nodded again, still staring at the floor, and a tear slid down her cheek.
"But you're alive. If you had fought him, you likely would not be."
"And do you know Carolina
Where the biscuits are soft and sweet?
These things go through you head
When there's a man on your back
And you're pushed flat on your stomach
It's not a classic Cadillac
Me and a gun
And a man on my back
But I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this"
Tears continued to run down her cheeks as she silently cried and studied the floor. She had kept herself alive, but she didn't have to enjoy it so much.
"Why won't you look at me?"
She shook her head, shame keeping her eyes fixed on the floor.
"You enjoyed it, didn't you? He gave you pleasure and now you feel ashamed?"
She nodded again.
"Please believe me when I say I'm not angry with you. Will you please just look at me?"
Shari finally raised her head and looked at Severus. There was only concern and love in his eyes, no anger. He reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek.
"Enjoying sex with a dangerous, dark wizard under threat of death if you do not- that's not cheating. It was coerced because he would have killed you if you had not, even if you did not physically fight him."
Her tears fell on the floor as she bent her head down again. He wrapped his arms around her and she rested her forehead on his chest. For several minutes both were silent.
"He said all these spells over me first and I don't know what they were. They weren't binding or torture spells."
Severus pulled away from her slightly and lifted her face up so he could look in her eyes. "You don't remember what he said in any of them?"
"Gaudens was one word he used."
"Okay, that was a pleasure spell, then."
"Impleo gravido was another one."
"He's trying to impregnate you." Now the tiny specks of jealousy Severus had been trying to occlude were breaking through his barriers. It was bad enough that the Dark Lord insisted on bedding his girlfriend, but to also attempt to impregnate her?
"I took that contraceptive you made me before I went." Shari felt suddenly nauseous and ran to the loo as her mouth started to water. She emptied her stomach of everything in it.
After she had rinsed her mouth and washed her face, he handed her two vials.
"Stomach Soother and Emergency contraceptive. Just to be on the safe side."
"Thank you."
After downing the vials and handing them back, she stared down at the floor again. "Why does everybody insist on me having their child? First Dumbledore and now him. I feel like I'm nothing more than a uterus."
He steered her towards their bedroom, accio'ing a vial of Dreamless Sleep in the process. "Because everyone thought the Borlosi line was gone, but you're here so they want to continue it and mingle it with their own, to increase their power."
Shari laid down and he leaned over and kissed her, then left her to fall asleep.
She drank a few drops from the vial and pulled the covers over her head, but she could still feel those cold fingers on her flesh and see the red eyes staring down at her.
When she woke up, both Slytherins were at the table eating dinner. Draco pushed a platter of take out fish and chips towards her empty plate. She smiled and sat down, but found she had no appetite.
She found herself contemplating the poisons she knew were in the lab. Then she remembered. If she were to off herself, the 17 year old sitting across from her would pay, possibly with his life.
The redhead didn't realize she was staring at him until they both asked if she was alright.
"Yes, I'm just reminding myself why I'm staying alive and why I'm doing this."
Draco's eyebrows furrowed. "Doing what?"
"Whatever he wants." Shari sighed and rested her face in her hands. A coldness had settled into her soul when the Dark Lord had touched her. She didn't feel like herself. When she looked in the mirror after she arrived home, she didn't recognize herself. A cold darkness had taken over her eyes. Was all the religious hoohaa she'd heard growing up about sex causing soul ties true?
"She was the only one summoned last night. Why do you think he would summon a woman by herself?"
She heard him gasp and felt her godson's eyes on her, but she didn't dare look up. Feeling the call of the liquor cabinet, she made her way to the sitting room and popped open a bottle. The first sip burned her throat gloriously and she sighed at the sensation. Perhaps the burn of the whiskey would heat the permanent chill she felt.
Like many other nights when she'd drank herself unconscious, she woke up next to Severus in bed. He was watching her, a rare display of emotions on his normally impassive face. Sadness, longing, loss, love. She said no words but reached out and touched his face. The time they had together was over, the Bald Cunt had successfully gotten between them.
That reminded Shari of the need for him to make an anti-venom.
"Severus, do you have an antidote for Nagini's venom?"
"No. Why?"
"You need to start working on creating one. Just trust me on this. Please?"
"Why? What did he tell you?"
"Nothing. He didn't tell me anything. I just know. Please?!"
He finally agreed to start creating a powerful anti-venom and keep other powerful antidotes in stock.
He and Draco had to return to Hogwarts the next day. He was returning as Headmaster and she had a feeling he was not looking forward to it.
Two weeks later, she was summoned again, and this time everybody was present. Shari was pulled into the center of the circle. She quickly hid the memories of the morning after potion behind barriers as she got on her knees.
The Dark Lord circled around her with his wand, then waved it over her and chanted the pregnancy test charm.
When his wand glowed white, he let out a roar and hauled Severus to the center next to her.
"Why is she not carrying my child? Did you brew a potion for her to prevent her from conceiving?"
"No, my Lord. I understand how important it is for you to have an heir with the Borlosi line. I would never stand in your way."
"Yet she is still barren, despite me saying conception spells over her. I tested her fertility with magic, her uterus is healthy and ready. Utero aperire, Impleo gravido. Both powerful spells. She should have conceived. You are not permitted to touch her. Only I may have her." He angrily pointed his wand at the potioneer. "Crucio"
Shari watched in silent but carefully masked horror as Severus collapsed to the ground, writhing and grunting. She watched the Dark Lord's eyes grow larger and the beam intensify and Severus began to scream.
Suddenly it let up and she was being hauled to her feet and pulled into the same bedroom as before. Other Death Eaters took over torturing the man she loved, as the one obsessed with her pulled her into a room alone.
She steeled herself for another sexual encounter like previous, and quickly disrobed, not wanting to find out what might happen otherwise.
He said the same spells over her as before, but then said Proximum Gaudens and she was suddenly experiencing an intense orgasm.
What followed next was what seemed like hours of the Dark Lord on top of her. Shari felt so cold as he kept thrusting himself into her, but she forced herself to rub his head and whisper to him how amazing and powerful he was.
"You can laugh, it's kind of funny
The things you think at times like these
Like I haven't seen Barbados
So I must get out of this"
(Tori Amos)
When Shari was finally released and allowed to dress, she walked out to the main room and found Severus still laying on the ground, tremoring and bleeding. The room was otherwise empty, for that she was glad. She didn't have it in her to deal with Bellatrix's jealousy.
A house elf appeared. "Master told Minzy to help Miss Shari take him home. Master says Miss Shari is a Malfoy."
"Yes, I am, partly. Thank you, I can't get him home by myself."
Minzy apparated with Severus and the American to Spinner's End and helped get him into bed.
"Thank you, Minzy."
"You is welcome, Miss Shari. Miss Shari is Malfoy, so she need only call Minzy when she need help."
"Thank you, Minzy."
Shari retrieved the potions from his lab that she thought would help. Draught of Peace, an antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory and a pain reliever. It was the first time she had been in his lab alone in all the time she had lived with him. She had stayed away, partly due to her limited potion knowledge and partly because she knew she was a bull in a china shop.
She chose to forego Dreamless Sleep as she knew he would insist on getting back to work soon after waking.
His healer's manual was nearby, so she looked up diagnostic spells but felt unsure using them because she was still shaking from watching his torture and from her own ordeal.
"Minzy"
The elf popped into the room.
"Can you retrieve Nymphadora Tonks for me?"
"Minzy will go get Missus Tonks."
When she popped back in the room with the woman a moment later, Shari told her about Severus receiving the Cruciatus but not about what happened to her or why he was hurt. While she ran diagnostics on him and put Essence of Dittany on his wounds, the redhead returned to the lab and swallowed a vial of morning after potion, labeled as simply 'hangovers'.
When she returned, Tonks did a double take when she saw the mark on her arm.
"What happened?"
"He got on the Dark Lord's bad side."
"Obviously. Why?"
"He's trying to force me to have his child, and I won't let it work. Severus made me a morning after potion."
Tonks paused and stared at Shari in shock. "He raped you?"
Shari looked down at the floor. "Well, evidenced by the fact that I'm still alive, I didn't fight him."
"More than once?"
She nodded again, feeling ashamed and embarrassed. After the Dark Lord had reached completion, he had said an incantation over himself and done it all again. And again.
"When were you marked?"
"On the summer solstice. He threatened to torture Draco if I didn't receive it."
"It doesn't change who you are. You're still you."
Shari looked up into the other witch's eyes for a long moment.
"No, Tonks, it changes everything. I'll always be 'one of them' now. I know there are people who say that a person doesn't just stop being a Death Eater."
"Have you had to kill anyone?"
Mad Eye Moody's face flashed through Shari's mind. He wasn't begging for his life when she killed him. He was insulting her and calling her a whore up until she stomped on his crotch. Then she remembered the muggle woman and the guilt hit like a ton of bricks. She decided to answer without actually answering.
"It kind of goes with the territory." Shari looked at the floor and avoided the Auror's eyes.
"So, yes, then."
Tonks stayed long enough to make sure Severus was healed and Shari was resting, then went home. She didn't probe further about what the redhead had to do at Death Eater meetings. The less she knew, the better.
When he woke up, he asked if she was alright. She avoided his eyes and nodded. Her long hair was down and it hid her face.
"Shari, don't lie to me. He touched you again, didn't he?"
She was silent, not feeling able to speak.
"Shari… look at me."
She turned towards him and he pushed her hair back so he could see her face.
His eyes searched hers. "Did you fight him?"
She shook her head.
"Was he rough with you?"
She shook her head, letting her hair fall over her face again. When he reached his arm out to her, she stiffly laid her head on his shoulder.
"No, he wasn't rough with me. He was very happy."
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It was late October, and both Severus and Draco had come home for a night. She sat on his lap by the fire and laid her head on his shoulder. She could feel the strain between them. They were forbidden from sharing any physical intimacy and any breach of that would result in Shari being forced to live at the Manor and severe punishment for the potioneer.
She had been summoned twice since she had last seen him, the day he was tortured. A thought in the back of her mind had quietly whispered that the more Voldemort was obsessed with her, the less he focused on Harry Potter. With that in mind, she tried her best to please him and boost his ego whenever he called for her.
There was a secret growing in her uterus that no one else knew of yet. That night, she had a nightmare that she was laboring alone in the Forbidden Forest. When the child was born, it reached up and began to strangle her. It looked just like the Dark Lord.
Shari woke up with a start. It was still dark. She immediately started the day with her new routine of throwing up for half the day. When she finally emerged from the bathroom, she munched on a piece of dry toast.
As she stood in the kitchen with dry toast in one hand and plain tea in the other, she felt black eyes on her.
"Do you want a potion?" She looked up at him, not surprised that he knew. His face was expressionless. She wasn't sure what kind of reaction she expected. It crossed her mind to continue the pregnancy to keep Voldemort distracted. She decided against it after remembering her nightmare.
"Not if brewing it for me will get you killed."
"Does he know?"
"No. He doesn't yet. But next time he calls for me, I'm sure he will. He knows the pregnancy test charm and he seems to know an awful lot about my body, which is creepy as fuck."
"Then it won't get me killed. Do you want it?"
"Yes, I do."
"How many weeks?"
"4. I just missed. I forgot to take the contraceptive before and after, just once."
He disappeared into his lab and emerged two hours later with a vial in his hand. "Take all of this one now." Then he handed her another one. "Take this one tonight." She swallowed the first one immediately.
She didn't know what his reaction would be. He didn't yell at her or get angry. He just held his arms out and quietly held her while she listened to his heart racing. If it hadn't been for that, she wouldn't believe it affected him at all.
"I'm sorry, Severus."
"I know. It's not your fault. He's making you do this. Consent under threat of death is not consent."
"The more he focuses on me, the less time he spends focused on Harry Potter. The better I please him, the better the chance they have."
"You're right, Love. Are you sure you're up for this?" He brushed her hair away from her face and looked in her eyes.
She took a deep breath, thinking of how the battle was seven months away. "I think so."
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The Dark Lord began to summon Shari every month, sometimes more. Somehow he had figured out when her fertile time would be. It seemed to her every time he had a new conception spell he would add to the ones he already said over her. He no longer waved his wand over her abdomen for the spells but inserted it right up inside her and directly against her cervix. While she was with him, she kept him focused on her and only her.
Severus rarely made it home and she suspected he was being intentionally kept away from her.
She continued to do everything she could to please the Dark Lord, so that he spent more time focused on her. He loved being told how powerful and amazing he was, so she did a lot of that.
In January, during a summons that so far had lasted all night and day, the Dark Lord called a meeting and insisted Shari be present. She was so sore from his attentions that she could hardly walk, and she was exhausted at having been kept awake all night. As she approached the long table, completely unsure where to sit, he patted his knee and gestured for her to sit on his lap. She knew it was an order, not a request.
This brought forward a look of rage from Bellatrix and masked sorrow from Severus. She noticed the Dark Lord was staring him down as if daring him to challenge him.
So while they discussed Harry Potter's last known movements, he held her tightly on his lap. She began to fall asleep, which she thought was safer than risking him reading any info about Harry in her mind. The Bald Cunt pushed her head against his shoulder and rubbed her back.
"Poor thing. She can't get enough of me and I completely wore her out." She heard snickers around the table and felt like a complete whore. How long before he tired of her and passed her around?
She saw him silently move his wand towards her and she suddenly was experiencing an intense orgasm. She bit her lip and hid her face in his shoulder in embarrassment at the loud moan that had escaped her mouth before she could control it. She heard a quiet but dark chuckle in her ear and immediately used Occlumency to shield her rage at being humiliated like this. Finding the situation completely intolerable, she forced herself to go to sleep on his shoulder with the cold fingers digging harshly into her ribs.
Loud voices woke her up. When she heard the Forest of Dean mentioned as their possible location, she began to leave little nibbles and kisses on his neck and his jaw and rub his chest.
She heard him chuckle a little and then moan slightly as she wiggled her hip against his crotch.
"I think my little minx is telling me it's time for bed. You are all dismissed."
She wasn't allowed to leave until the next day, but she successfully kept his mind off Harry the entire time. When the elf brought her home, she hit the shower and the bottle, in that order. The more she involved herself in their liaisons, even if it was accomplishing something good, the worse she felt afterwards.
The radio sat silent, the kitchen empty. Bottles of booze, provided by Minzy, piled up in the sitting room where she sat watching the sky at night, as well as in the bedroom under the window sill. She was drunk more than she was sober.
She chanced a look in the mirror in the bathroom she shared with Severus when he was home. Her skin was pale, the shadows under her eyes were deep purple and blue. The expression in her eyes was blank, vacant, gaunt, dark and cold. In just a handful of months, she had aged decades. Deep crows feet splayed out from each of the far corners of her eyes. Lines crossed her forehead. She was just a shell now, just a vessel, just a body for the Dark Lord to play with. A reanimated corpse is what she felt like, so dead inside she was. The cold darkness she had felt the first time he had taken her into his bed had never left. It was there in her eyes, she could see it.
Occasionally, the radio came to life, but only with songs like Close My Eyes Forever by Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne.
"If I close my eyes forever
Will it all remain unchanged?
If I close my eyes forever
Will it all remain the same?"
Tonks came knocking, but she never answered. She didn't want her friend to see her like this.
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In February, the Dark Lord called another meeting while she was at the Manor. He initially had her sitting on his lap, until he grew enraged at Severus over the presence of Dumbledore's Army at Hogwarts.
He insisted that Severus kneel in the middle of the room, and Shari saw rage in his eyes.
She quickly unbuttoned two buttons on the shirt she was wearing and opened it wide. She sidled up to the Dark Lord and put her arms around him from the back, taking care to push her breasts against him. Then she kissed his neck and begged him to come back to bed. When he turned to look at her, she whispered in his ear all the dirty things they could do if he came to bed. By this time, she had learned his kinks and knew what turned him on. She could tell he was very aroused, so she grasped his hand with both of hers and insisted he come and make a baby with her in her sexiest voice. He started to follow and told Severus he was dismissed. She managed to catch the potioneer's eye and gave him a wink.
Of course, she followed through with her promises, knowing she had just saved her boyfriend from torture and not wanting to bring down wrath on him, herself or especially Draco.
The Potions Master was in the house when she got home the next day.
"Severus, I hope you understand why I did that."
"I do." He let out a deep breath and avoided her eyes. "It didn't make it any easier to watch, though."
"He's completely obsessed with me and I knew he wouldn't be able to resist what I whispered to him. This obsession is slowly leeching his power."
"I think you might be right." He squeezed the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes, trying to dismiss the image of Shari with her arms around the Dark Lord. "I don't want to know, do I?"
"No. Hell, I don't even want to know. That was a nauseating and very uncomfortable 24 hours. Over the last six months, I've learned what he likes, so I use it against him."
"I'm sorry you're having to do this, Shari. Thank you." He rested his hand against her cheek and she leaned into it.
After he left, the triumph she felt faded into her normal numb oblivion and she resumed her spot on the couch and drank herself unconscious. When she woke up, it was the next evening.
The next week, the Bald Cunt summoned her again and wanted again what she'd promised him in the drawing room. She had to give it to him for two days, but it was two days less that he spent chasing the trio.
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In late March, she ran out of the morning after potion Severus had made the previous fall. She discovered it upon returning home after spending an entire day and night being confined to his bed.
He had kissed her with those flat, barely existent lips, and stroked her hair with his icy hands.
"Ah, Shari. My beautiful Shari. Your heart belongs to Severus, I know. I want all of you, not just your body. I do not want you longing for another man. Soon, you will realize I am the only one for you."
"My heart does belong to you, my Lord."
He started touching her and brought her to an orgasm that she tried to fight but realized it was safer not to. After she had come down from it, she realized he hadn't stopped touching her and she was super sensitive.
"Okay, okay. Stop. That's too much."
Suddenly his face was looming over hers and he screamed at her and slapped her.
"I will decide when I'm done!"
She whimpered in fear and discomfort at the continued touch and suddenly found her mouth bound closed.
She tried to wiggle away and found herself bound down to the mattress as he continued to touch her more roughly. The sensations went from intense pleasure to pressure to intense pain rivaling labor contractions, but she couldn't get away. He had his wand up inside her and was chanting something. Suddenly, a terrible burning pain consumed her entire abdomen. Her magic broke through the mouth binding and she screamed in agony.
The red eyed snake stopped and stared at her in shock. The pain suddenly disappeared. She was still crying and now heavily bleeding vaginally. The blood seemed to draw his attention and suddenly he flipped a switch and became gentle and undid the bindings on her limbs. He wiped her tears away, her blood still dried on his fingers. Then he stroked her hair again and talked to her about having his child. It was all Shari could do not to vomit when he climbed over her again.
As he moved over her, she occluded every negative emotion and focused on distracting him.
After he finally released her, Minzy brought her home as usual, because she was always too exhausted and broken to apparate.
While searching for the emergency contraceptive in the lab, she came across many other vials, including foxglove, wolfsbane, death potion, hemlock and angel's trumpet. They were hidden in a drawer that she was certain would normally have been warded but that she was somehow able to open. She wondered if Severus was giving her a way to end her life if she needed to.
She sat down in his chair and numbly looked at the collection of deadly potions. Her way out lay in front of her. No more allowing the Dark Lord to use her body as he desired. No more being his plaything.
She had been brought to this world to be Dumbledore's sex slave but now she was Voldemort's. Her life had become intolerable. It was a crazy mixture of playing an enthusiastic, doting lover to a psychopath at the Manor and being a melancholy alcoholic being kept from the man she actually loved.
Shari poured through the large potions manual on his desk, studying each toxin and determining which would do the job the quickest. She decided on the hemlock potion, and reached in the drawer for it, noticing an odd flash of light that surrounded her briefly as she did so. Just as she pulled it up to the desk to uncap it, she heard a pop and Severus suddenly appeared in the lab.
"I warded that drawer to alert me if anybody else reached their hand into it. Talk to me, Shari. I want to know why you were about to drink that." He placed the potion back in the drawer and leaned against the desk.
"Severus, I can't take it anymore. He's been summoning me every month, then he fucks me all night. Yesterday it was for a whole day and night, and he got rough and hurt me."
Anger flashed in his eyes but he quickly schooled his features. "What brought you in here? You rarely come in here."
"I ran out of the morning after potion. I couldn't send you a patronus, because I can't conjure one anymore. He spends a half hour chanting spells over me before he fucks me each time, including painfully jamming his wand inside me. Then he keeps me there all night, and all day and all the next night. I can't do this anymore, Severus. I can't take it. I just want out of this."
He put an arm around her and led her out of the lab, into the kitchen. He did a double take as he saw all the discarded bottles in the sitting room.
Her radio sat silent, and dishes were piled up in the sink. She hadn't been cooking or baking and her weight had dropped drastically. With no one to cook for except herself and no appetite, she rarely went in the kitchen.
As Severus wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly to his chest, the radio flared to life with Laura Branigan.
"You take my self,
You take my self control
I, I live among
the creatures of the night
I haven't got the will to try and fight
Against a new tomorrow
So I guess I'll just believe it
That tomorrow never comes"
Shari rested her head on his chest, still numb but relieved to be in his arms. She knew he could be punished for even touching her.
"I feel like he steals a piece of my soul every time he takes what he wants and soon there will be nothing left but a shell."
Severus kissed the top of her head. "Please don't kill yourself."
"'Til your world burns and crashes
'Til you're at the end, the end of your rope"
(Lady Gaga)
"I can't do this. I hate this."
He pushed her away enough to look in her eyes. "I know you can see the future. Does he win?"
"No, he doesn't." She remembered that Harry had nearly half of the horcruxes. The locket would be destroyed soon, if it wasn't already. The cup still needed to be destroyed and the diadem, and of course, Nagini and Harry himself.
"Is he going to be defeated soon?"
"Yes, very soon." The battle was just over a month away.
"So… You have an end in sight. Please don't try to end it all. I know it's easy for me to say that when I'm not the one being repeatedly fucked by a snake faced wizard. But please don't kill yourself. Remember, every minute he spends with you is one he doesn't spend focused on Potter."
She grabbed tightly onto his robe and buried her face in his chest. "I know. I'll pull it together."
He looked down at her, then at the window, then sighed. "I know you haven't wanted to see her, but I'm going to send a patronus to Tonks. I don't feel safe leaving you alone, but I have to get back."
Shari took a deep breath, knowing there was no point in arguing. She watched as a doe leaped out from his wand and charged out the window.
A knock soon sounded at the door. Shari stood frozen in the kitchen as she listened to Severus let her in and talk in hushed tones.
"...I don't know what he did to her, but she said he was rough. I think it was bad. She was looking at the poisons in my lab. Please help her."
"I'll try, Severus."
She heard them approaching the kitchen and tried to straighten her hair and her clothes, but she knew it was pointless.
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Tonks had seen a lot in her years as an Auror.
She'd seen the after effects of the Cruciatus. She'd seen a body after the person had been tortured to death by the Dark Lord and Death Eaters. She'd seen the Imperius curse in effect.
But nothing prepared her for the sight of her friend. The change since the last time she had been in this house in August was excruciating.
She was thin and pale. Her eyes reminded Tonks of the vacant, dark boarded up shops on Diagon Alley. Deep shadows circled under her eyes. There was a darkness about her that the witch couldn't put her finger on.
Severus kissed Shari on the cheek, then nodded to her in gratitude. Then he was gone, back to Hogwarts where he was the most hated Headmaster ever.
She put an arm around her friend, only to have her shrink away initially.
"Okay, okay." She moved her arm but kept a hand on her shoulders. "Let's go. I'm going to get you into the tub."
Shari stood quietly while Tonks ran her bathwater and added pain and calming potions. She helped her undress and was shocked by the amount of blood on her clothing and inner thighs, as well as bruising.
She swallowed down bile that threatened to come up.
"Shari, what did he do to you?"
"I don't know, exactly. Just that he kept touching me and wouldn't stop and it kept hurting more and more. He didn't stop until I started screaming and bleeding heavily. He bound me to the bed and covered my mouth, but I broke the mouth binding."
"I wonder if it was old conception magic meant to open the cervix. Had he ever done it before?"
"Never. It fucking hurt, I know that. As much as when I had..." Shari stopped, knowing she was about to say too much.
"When you had what? It's me, Shari. You know you can tell me anything."
Shari looked at her for a moment, thinking of things she had done in Death Eater meetings. Things she had done in the Dark Lord's private chambers. No, she couldn't tell her everything. "It hurt almost as bad as when I had my daughter."
Tonks realized they had been right, she had a child in her previous life. "I won't breathe a word about her, alright?"
"Alright. Thank you. I don't want anyone else to know, for fear they'll bring her here."
The red head climbed into the tub, a moan escaping her lips as the heat soothed her sore limbs that had been bound to the bed. Tonks helped her wash up, then helped her put on pajamas and lay down. Then, instead of leaving, she laid down next to her and held her until she fell asleep.
