By the end of October, Sharlen was going stir crazy. She had nearly memorized the Malfoy's home down to every pale, haughty portrait, and had taken to spending most of her days as an owl, outside with Piotr in the cold, just to escape them and Bellatrix. Draco had become mildly more bearable and she could tell he was equally as fed up with being stuck in the house. Most days while she was outside with Piotr as an owl, he would sit outside and watch them. She had refused to discuss their embrace once it had ended.

She had Harry's letters memorized at this point, having tortured herself rereading them late into the night so frequently that there was little need to stress the parchment by folding and refolding anymore. How many times had she imagined Harry tucked away in some secluded part of the Burrow, quilling "Remembering you, and the feel of your skin," by wandlight?

As the first week of November came to a close, Sharlen couldn't take the inactivity anymore. She was no closer to finding a Horcrux on her own, Hogwarts had started to seem like a dead end, and she had heard nothing from or regarding Harry and the others.

In a fit of insanity, or maybe desperation, she sent Lupin a message to meet her on the bridge in 24 hours and purposely neglected her potion. She had to hope he would meet her there before she blacked out.

Feeling that familiar lightheadedness right on schedule, Sharlen Apparated from the manor and landed woozily on the bridge. Lupin was already there, looking tired but focused.

"Sharlen," he called, walking forward. She swayed on her feet. Once again, his wand pointed at her. "What color was my aura when we first met?"

"Auburn," she muttered.

"Now you check me," he insisted.

Sharlen put a hand to her head, the lights of the bridge glowing too brightly. "When was the first time we spoke?"

"At Hogwarts, before your Sorting." Lupin lowered his wand and walked closer to her. "Have you heard anything from Harry, Ron, and Hermione?"

"No," she said, downtrodden, "I was hoping you had."

Lupin tried to hide too much of his disappointment. "Sadly no… Why did you want to meet tonight?"

"I must ask too much of you again. You are the only person I can trust to do this," she muttered, leaning against the fence. The water below looked deathly cold, like a black, bottomless, unforgiving expanse that would choke the breath out of you immediately. "I have some questions for my ghost. I need you to talk to her."

Lupin grabbed her arm to help steady her, eyes flitting over her body with brows furrowed. She was fading fast. "You haven't taken your potion?"

"No, listen, it's happening," Sharlen rushed out, forcing her flask into his hands as her vision began to vignette. "You probably won't have to force her to drink it, but just in case."

She had to admit she was frightened—every time before it had snuck up on her and she hadn't understood, but intentionally submitting herself into a lack of consciousness was too big for her to get a grip on. Her teeth chattered wildly. "I need you to get information from her and relay it to me and I can't explain anything about what you hear. I just can't, for Harry's sake. If she reveals it, it's just a chance I need to take." She took a deep breath. "The ghost is the Dark Lord's mother, Merope. I need you to ask her if she knows about them, and where they are. What they are. I need to be sure. I need to know the first."

"What are you talking about?" Lupin asked, sinking down with her as her legs began to give out. He kept his arms around her. "Sharlen?"

"Just ask… ask her what and where they are," she muttered as her vision went black.

Lupin looked down at the girl as her eyes fluttered closed and frowned at her, mind racing. Voldemort's mother? He wasn't sure what to expect or when the ghost would surface, but he continued to stare piteously at Sharlen's seemingly vacant body. Her cheekbones and collarbones were more prominent and he could almost make out the bones in her chest in the streetlit night.

A few minutes passed by in silence. Suddenly, causing him to jump, Sharlen moaned and brought her hands to her eyes suddenly, attempting to sit up in Lupin's arms as if just waking up from a deep sleep. "It's so bright," she whispered.

Lupin crouched beside her, hands hovering a few inches away, not wanting to startle her. He swallowed hard and asked, "Are you… Merope?"

Sharlen's face snapped up to look at him as though just realizing he was there, but those were not her eyes. Her usual pale gray irises were almost black, mere extensions of her pupils in the dim light. Wide and frightened, they took him in as though afraid he would harm her. "Why am I out? I don't want to be out. I don't want it."

"It's okay," Lupin told her, hands up to show her he meant no harm. "You're okay, Sharlen had a few questions for you. She let you out."

She flinched further from his touch. "Please don't—this skin is feverish. It's like fire. She's sick."

Lupin nodded, taking a breath. "I won't touch you. You have my word."

Merope's thin hands found her mouth. She was trembling. "It's terrible out here."

"Are you cold?" he asked, shimmying out of his thick cloak and draping it over her, careful to keep his promise about not touching her. She sank visibly as if the weight of it was more than she could support.

Merope watched him with a mix of sadness and fear that he found hard to swallow as she folded her legs beneath her almost deer-like, making herself as small as possible. "It's always cold out here. Ghosts aren't meant to be back in human form. I feel everything…" she said, teeth chattering again.

"So you don't like having control of the body?" Lupin asked.

Merope shook her head. "Being inside is almost like moving on, except for the feeling. That is constant."

"You can go back soon," he told her. "I just wanted to ask you something."

She was rambling. "Last time I didn't know where I was, but there were people everywhere, students I think… I tried to find the potion so I could go away again but it took so long to find, and people kept trying to speak with me… I went outside but the snow was deep and I couldn't take the cold anymore. That was the longest I've been out since my son anchored me. I drank the potion and fell asleep." She felt for the flask weakly, eyes glazed. "It's so warm…"

"I have it her," Lupin told her, holding it up. Merope's eyes turned up to follow it, blank with hunger. "I just have a few questions and you can go back inside, I promise," he continued soothingly. "Sharlen needs your help."

Merope's gaze melted miserably as she turned her face down to the stone beneath them. "Oh Sharlen. She has been so sad so much of her life. All of this is my fault."

"You're aware of what she feels?" Lupin asked, unable to stop himself from getting off track.

"That's all I'm aware of—not what she experiences, but what she feels." Merope gave a shuddering exhale. "She should never have existed. It's tragic that she came to exist. I tried to stop him."

"Your son?"

"Tom," Merope said, her voice full of tears. Anguish. "I want to go back inside."

Lupin felt devastated watching this person through Sharlen. It was clear that being in a world she felt she'd caused harm to was less bearable than constantly feeling the pain of another. "Merope, Sharlen let you out on purpose tonight. She needs you. She wanted me to ask you if you know about 'them.'"

Merope's face snapped back to him again, the eyes as wide as before and with a hint of hysteria. She reached for Lupin and clutched the front of his vest, wincing almost painfully at the contact. "They know? It has begun?"

"She wanted you to confirm where and what they are, that's all I know," Lupin told her, trying to rebalance to keep her from pulling him down without touching her. "She wouldn't tell me any more than that."

"I know them all," she whispered, her fear gone. "He's always with us."

Lupin stifled the questions he had bubbling to the surface within him and cleared his throat. "She needs to know what they are. She said she needs to know the first."

"I was following him around all his life. He was tired of me," Merope muttered, more sane than she seemed since she came to consciousness. "But no matter what he tried to banish me, I saw everything. The first was Morgana's bracelet. He was practicing. He was testing the magic. She has to find Morgana's bracelet."

"Morgana? Morgana le Fay? Do you know where it is?" Lupin asked eagerly.

"He didn't care for the object—it was simply powerful, it meant nothing more to him. He won't have kept it as safe, like he has with the others, despite its significance. It's gilded silver with a labradorite stone. It is probably among other long-forgotten treasures. The magic doesn't work anymore."

She was still shivering while Lupin took a second to think. Why would Sharlen need an object that had been rendered powerless? "And the others?"

"They know what they seek if she said she needed to know the first. I don't know where they are now. I can't help you with that," she told him. "My sight has been gone so long."

"I will tell her," he promised.

Suddenly Merope grabbed his wrists, pulling herself up a little with her surprisingly strong grip on him. Startled, Lupin could feel her shaking as she smiled straight up at the sky, her eyes completely white. They moved back and forth across the sky rapidly, as though she were following a fast sequence of images. He watched, startled and wondering what contact vision she was having. She gasped, full of emotion. "I can see," she cried with another gasp. "Yours is a real love. I had no hope of it. And I will be free soon…"

She released Lupin from her grip, her irises and pupils regrowing steadily as the vision faded, and he gripped her arms tightly, now frightened. "What do you mean, you will be free soon? What did you see?"

He realized Merope had taken the flask from him as she shuddered with the warmth of it. She smiled sadly down at it in her hands. "I am sorry to burden you with this information. I can see you care about Sharlen a great deal. I am comforted to know someone does," she said calmly. "I believe part of her has already made peace with this truth, but Sharlen is not long for this world. Soon we will both be free. Death will be merciful to her, almost as an equal; she should never have existed, so he will accept her as someone who did the best with what she was handed. No matter what transpires from this point, no matter the path she chooses. And I will be allowed to move on from this world, at last."

Stunned, Lupin reached for her again. "There must be another outcome," he said fretfully. "The future can be changed. She deserves more of a life than what she's led."

Merope shook her head sympathetically. "Some things are unavoidable for certain outcomes to be a reality. I'm afraid she was marked for this death the moment she was born." Merope lifted the flask to her lips and drank, swallowing twice, before she slumped to the side, unconscious again. Lupin took up the flask before it could spill and capped it, taking Sharlen back into his arms. He folded his cloak tighter over her and waited, his brain buzzing. His heart felt heavy with how content Merope had been to learn of their future. Death will be merciful to her

When Sharlen began to rouse, the sky had just started to lighten with the next day's sun. Her teeth began to chatter again and she instinctively reached for her flask to take another few gulps. Lupin helped her sit up and watched her with his brows furrowed. "Remus…?"

"I'm here, Sharlen," he told her softly. She turned to face him, eyes sweeping his perimeter.

"You're upset," she noted softly. "What did she tell you?"

Lupin relayed the story of the bracelet and Sharlen absorbed it quickly, searching her memory for an object that could fit the description. "She seemed to think you knew of the others. She couldn't say any more."

"Did she seem reluctant with the information? We could do this again and you could give her Veritaserum…" she muttered, thinking hard.

Lupin shook his head. "She was being open. She didn't like being 'out;' she was very distressed."

Sharlen felt guilty. "I don't even know her and I never can but I feel like I do. It makes no sense."

"She knows you too," Lupin told her. "She can't see what you experience but she feels everything you feel."

Sharlen lowered her eyes to the ground. "Thank you for doing this for me. You have no idea what a relief it is to hear about this bracelet from her. I hope someday I can explain it all to you. Or Harry can. I have to go find it."

Lupin looked at her miserably, the sight of her so full of purpose breaking his heart. He pulled her into his chest and held her tightly. "You deserve better," he said, his voice hard. When he pulled back he looked at her for several seconds before saying, "She says you're running a fever. You're not taking care of yourself."

Sharlen rubbed her arm sheepishly. "I have been… afraid... I've never worried so much in my life. I feel like I'll never be calm again."

"Weren't you working with Professor Trelawney on meditation last year?" he asked, clearing his throat. She thought his eyes looked misty as she nodded. "It may do you well to start practicing again. I'm assuming you haven't been."

Sharlen shook her head and looked out over the chilly water. "It's too dangerous for me to open my mind at the Malfoys'. My father comes intermittently, when Death Eaters arrive I'm made invisible… but it's too dangerous for you, Harry, and the others for me to attempt that practice while I'm there."

Lupin nodded sadly, unable to speak.

Sharlen had just finished transfiguring her clothing again, this time replacing the sleeves with lace and making her cloak an emerald green. She'd been practicing what Tonks had tried to teach her about self-Transfigurations, but she was rubbish at it. Satisfied with merely shortening her hair to just below her ears—knowing she could undo it and nothing more complex—she took her daily dose of potion and prepared to leave. She'd told the Malfoys she was under the weather and not to disturb her, which was the truth—while she hoped the potion would help her feel at least marginally better, she still felt lightheaded and frail. Hot to the touch. She asked them not to disturb her sleep and locked her bedroom door, not that it would keep them out if they really wanted to check on her.

She had to risk one more trip to Hogwarts, knowing now what she did from Merope. She Disapparated from the room and transformed into an owl once she landed in Hogsmeade, conceding to fly into the castle rather than attempt to get through the Dementors again in a weakened state.

Hogwarts had seen an early snowfall, no more than a few inches. As she flew toward the castle, she felt a pang of longing to walk around the snowy grounds again, alone, as she had done so many times the year before. The Astronomy Tower was open to the top floor, as she knew it would be; she flew inside, heading to the seventh floor, hoping to run surveillance on one of the statues for as long as was necessary.

She perched on an ivory statue of a man named Sir Cadogan down the corridor from the entrance to the Room of Requirement and waited. Staying very still, the students that passed between classes took no notice of her, and every once in a while a student would emerge nonchalantly from the tapestry and join the sea of students. The entire atmosphere in the castle was different than she had ever felt it; fear lay, still and solitary, just beneath the threshold of everyone and it was eerily quiet even when the movement was greatest.

After about two hours of watching students leave and none enter, she saw Neville emerge from the room. Intently watching Neville, thinking this may be her chance to try and enter the room, she didn't notice the paintings behind her moving.

"You, bird, away from my great likeness!" came a loud voice close behind her, startling Sharlen off the armored shoulder of the statue she'd been perched on. After being still for so long it took her a few seconds too long to engage her wings, so she transformed out of instinct to break her fall with her arms. The figure in the painting, the knight she assumed must have been the portrait of Sir Cadogan, was continuing through the other paintings down the corridor, monologuing loudly about "honor" and "cads."

Sharlen looked over her shoulder to see Neville had spotted her and, glaring, slipped back into the room. Sharlen hit her fist against the ground and stood to find no less than thirteen students had emerged from the Room of Requirement with Neville at the helm. Among them were Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and Ravenclaws alike—students she recognized as members of Dumbledore's Army.

"How did you get back in here?" Neville asked her, wand by his side.

"I have to get inside," she said, standing firmly before him. Ginny pushed her way to the front.

"When you made it clear you needed to get inside we made sure you would never be able to," Neville told her. "You can try to fight your way in but you'll regret doing it."

"This is for Harry," she tried to reason with them, head spinning and overheating. "You have to believe me. If you could see what I see, you'd know."

"Harry himself warned us what you are. The enemy," Neville said firmly.

"You don't understand."

"Explain, then."

Sharlen sighed, glancing around the corridor. Were they stalling her, hoping a teacher would come along? Or was the room now empty?

"All I see," came Seamus's firm growl, "is the daughter of a murderer. A bargaining chip, perhaps."

"That's an interesting idea, Seamus," Michael Corner added thoughtfully, ominously. "What could we accomplish if we had the Dark Lord's daughter held captive?"

"Nothing," Sharlen said incredulously. "You'll all be killed. All your families will follow closely behind you."

"That does sound like something you'd want us to think," came the voice of little Colin Creevey.

"Sounds like a threat," Ginny muttered coldly. "But I'll bet it would help Harry to have you out of the way." The wands were raising.

Sharlen knew, assessing the situation with her days of Auror training in mind, that she had no hope of getting out of this without seriously hurting at least a few of the students that stood defiantly before her. She wasn't willing to give them a reason to further turn against her.

Ginny seemed to see the fight or flight raging inside her. "Watch her hands," she warned the others. Sharlen looked down at the floor and pointed, thinking calmly, Bombarda.

The floor beneath her feet burst and down she fell to the chorus of gasps and shouts from above as the others scattered out of the way. She rolled out of the way once she met the floor, held both hands to the ruined ceiling, and thought Repairo to reseal it behind her. She heard footsteps above as the students scattered, some retreating into the Room of Requirement while others set off to find her.

Alecto, alerted by the sound of the explosion, came running as well. "You!"

"Me," Sharlen said bitterly.

"This time I'll deal with you myself," she declared, raising her wand. Sharlen took up the sleeve of her left arm again and exposed the Dark Mark. Alecto's wand stopped in midair and the unmistakable shine of deja vu poured into her aura.

"Take me to Professor Snape," Sharlen said quietly. "Now."

"You are incorrigible," Snape told the back wall of the Headmaster's Office after the yew door had closed behind Sharlen. Alecto was gone and it was just the two of them now, Sharlen in the center of the room watching with mounting anxiety. Upon entering, Snape stood from the desk, turned away from Sharlen, and ordered Alecto to leave them alone. He had still yet to turn and face her. "What pleasure do you get, dare I ask, from pushing your luck?"

"None," Sharlen answered honestly.

Snape whipped around, furious. "Do you realize that your 'luck' is completely contingent on my leniency? Something I am rapidly being relieved of?"

"You've given more than you ought to, perhaps," Sharlen said quietly, averting her eyes. Looking at him was like looking into an oncoming tornado. Snape slammed a fist down onto the desk.

"How is it you're here right now when the Malfoys are supposed to have their eyes on you?" he demanded.

"Oh, is that what they're supposed to be doing? Watching after me?" Sharlen asked, unable to keep the rebellion out. Snape had a way of getting under her skin like no other. "Someone may want to inform them of that, then, because they're all basically terrified of me."

"Believe me," Snape said through gritted teeth, leaning on his long fingers over the desk, "After this little stunt, I'll be sure they know to use excessive force from now on."

"I have to find something and then I'll go, it's the only reason I came," Sharlen said shortly, not believing her misfortunes the day had brought as she undid her sparse transfigurations. "If I can just go look—"

"It is astounding, truly, that you think you are in any position to make requests," Snape interrupted dangerously. "You were forbidden to come anywhere near this castle. You continue to disobey the simplest orders. You are forcing my hand."

"Look, I know you," Sharlen said quietly, chancing a glance up at him around the curtain of her hair, "and I know you can be ruthless, you've shown me what you will and will not tolerate before…" She reflexed her fingers into fists and out again, his physical beating standing out more clearly in her mind than any brand of torture she'd yet to endure. "I know I've pushed you and abused your tolerance but you still covered for me about the Ministry, and that leads me to believe that you don't want my father to kill me. For whatever reason, you kept my betrayal a secret."

Snape watched her closely but seemed unable to speak. Many of the portraits in the Headmaster's Office were watching them warily. She pressed on. "I won't assume I know your endgame or true allegiances or anything of that nature, but… I don't think you wish me any absolute harm. I will try, in the future, not to abuse that. All I ask is that you grant me the chance to try and live some semblance of a life I want." She watched him with desperate eyes, but he was immovable. His aura pulsed deep black—despair or hatred? "I have some things I have to do. It is my choice. I only ask that you bear with me a little longer."

Snape seemed torn and finally muttered, "I'm escorting you back. Immediately."

"I have something to find," Sharlen said firmly. "I have to look for it. I'm not leaving until I do."

Snape glared daggers at her. "Foolish girl, what am I being unclear about? You are not permitted to be here. You've exposed yourself to Alecto and now I must erase her memory of you. Every step you take puts you in further danger."

"I don't care about any of that, and you shouldn't either," she told him clearly. She became aware that the previous headmasters' portraits on the left wall were all watching her closely—including Dumbledore. "If you send me away now I'll just come back to look. I have to do this, and I'm willing to fight you for it."

Snape seemed taken aback, which she assumed was the brief calm before a storm of outrage—she had never attempted or hinted at trying to defy him to that extent. His punishments, she'd always taken them. Accepted them. But this was too important.

"Sharlen," Dumbledore's portrait warned. She longed to banish Snape from the room and sit counsel with him for the foreseeable future.

Snape walked toward her and raised a hand. Flinching despite herself, Sharlen held up both hands to defend herself, but he placed the back of his hand against her forehead gently. Startled and disarmed by his touch, Sharlen had no choice but to succumb to the vision of the night her father put her in his arms and gave the order to be her guardian. "You're ill," Snape muttered as he took his hand away.

"I'm not," Sharlen said stubbornly, shaking the vision from her mind.

"I always know when you're ill," he said, taking hold of her arm. Before she knew what was happening, he was dragging her from the castle by Side-Along Apparition.

Snape dragged her up the steps of Malfoy Manor and burst through the front door, stopping at the base of the stairs and throwing her onto them. Her head connected with one iron stair with a sickening clang. The Malfoys and Bellatrix made their way into the foyer, startled by the commotion.

"If you cannot keep her where she belongs, I'll see to it you learn how to," he shouted, turning his wand on her. Sharlen screamed as he unleashed the Cruciatus Curse, bearing down on her mercilessly. She squirmed against the bottom steps, hands finding the wrought-iron banister and holding fast to it, every inch of her skin on fire; she thought she glimpsed regret and purpose in his aura before blackness overtook her sight and she lost consciousness.

When Sharlen woke the next day, she was bedridden and concussed. She managed to rise long enough to run to her adjacent bathroom and vomit, remaining on the cold white tile, too weak to stand, until Narcissa came to check on her and put her back in bed. Her fever peaking, she succumbed to her failure, and her sickness.

Unable to keep anything down, including the potion they supplied her to lower her fever and help her body fight, she worried too much about wasting her Exspiravit Ancora to take it. Just as she started to lose her grip on herself, Snape sent along a third potion that would prevent her from getting sick. It sat in her stomach with the other two potions like a boulder as she wasted away under the covers, fighting a losing battle against sleep, against dreams.

For the next week she lay there, reciting the Horcruxes into the ether. The diary, the ring, the locket, the cup, something from Ravenclaw… maybe Nagini… the bracelet of Morgana Le Fay… the bracelet…

With every entry to her little black book, her scrawl was getting smaller and more cramped; in addition to her usual revisits to Scrimgeour's death, she was now seeing Muggle deaths throughout the country, with no particular significance or relation to each other. Muggles strung up, Muggles levitated in the streets, Muggle homes blasted into nearly nothing. She also kept seeing Hogwarts with a shimmering film over the grounds, like a large bubble.

But she wrote them all down, no matter how mundane, to keep her mind clear. Though it killed her to watch the hours pass, laying in bed, she had to get her strength back. She couldn't let this happen again.

Voldemort continued to visit while she was ill, checking on her briefly in her room to have a mostly one-sided conversation about their regime. She looked up at him from her pillow, pretending to be too weak to speak, as he smiled down sinisterly. She couldn't see his aura, but his eyes were never smiling—it was obvious things weren't moving at the speed he wanted them to. All these months, all these Ministry powers he'd taken, and still he didn't have Harry Potter. But he remained purposeful and continued to reassure her that her time was coming. Then he'd leave to counsel with Bellatrix and Lucius.

She began chancing the walk down to the back courtyard garden bundled in many layers, Draco keeping her company on the bench. She remained silent with deep, dark bags under her eyes, and Draco didn't try to force her to speak. As she sat, waiting and willing to recover, she plotted her remaining casing of the manor; she would still save the basement for last, because going down there would require bewitching Wormtail, who she knew was stationed to stay down there. She rarely, if ever, saw him since her stay there began. Draco's room would be the easiest to get into, then Bellatrix's—the real struggle would be entering into Lucius and Narcissa's room without detection long enough to search it thoroughly.

Now December was approaching. Thinking of how much time had passed since she'd seen Harry, angry but very much alive, made her quake. She was starting to feel strong enough to fly with Piotr again and had to be bundled up thoroughly to go outside in the cold. Ready to put herself back into action, Sharlen took up Draco's hand, both of them wearing gloves, and tugged him up off the bench. "Let's go inside," she said quietly, pale eyes glancing back at him knowingly.

Draco nodded and stood, closing his book. "Are you too cold?"

"Take me to your room," she demanded, barely more than a whisper.

Draco's aura flooded with knowing smugness and excitement. She turned away from him and walked inside the back terrace doors, still leading him by the hand. Lucius Malfoy looked up from his paper at the dining room table to watch them, but said nothing as they walked past and out of sight around the corner.

"You're still feeling ill, yes?" he asked, helping her up the grand, iron staircase. She nodded and glanced over to see his disappointment coloring all around him. She shook her head very slightly but leaned on him regardless. He was lonely, and fond of her. She couldn't help but feel badly using him this way.

Once inside his elegant, blackthorn wood door, Sharlen Confunded him. She narrowed her eyes at the confusion crossing over his face and thought Petrificus Totalus. His arms and legs snapped together instantly, the same confusion paralyzed on his face as he hit the floor loudly. Sweeping past him, Sharlen began her search; she had no high hopes of a Horcrux being in here, but had to rule it out.

The closet, bookshelves, and floorboards all checked out. His bathroom yielded nothing but expensive-looking silver toiletries and instruments. The desk was disappointingly bare. She checked under the mattress, behind furniture, through all the drawers. Once she felt she'd successfully ransacked it, she turned to Draco and lifted the paralysis, Confunding him once again when she helped him up off the floor.

"What are we…" he asked, brow furrowed in confusion. His eyes went to the made bed, shoulders dropping slightly.

"We came in here so you could get me one of your cloaks," she muttered, crossing her arms. "It's gotten colder outside."

"Did we…?" he asked, turning back toward his closet. He brought her an extra cloak and she turned to allow him to drape it over her shoulders. Turning back, she gave him a small smile of thanks.

"Come on, it's almost time for dinner." She took his hand again and led him back downstairs.

At the dining room table with the Malfoys and Bellatrix, Sharlen tried to turn down food again. She was met with protests from Narcissa and Bellatrix about her health and conceded, irritated by their nagging and the ringing once again in her ears. Sometimes she could block it out, but mostly it seemed to ring through her maddeningly.

"Are you feeling well?" Narcissa asked her, brows furrowed as the house elf she only saw at mealtimes, Tifty, ladled stew into a bowl for her.

"Not in so many words," Sharlen answered quietly, eyeing the stew reproachfully. She thanked Tifty, who bowed lowly and ran from the room.

"You've been ill for a long time now…" Lucius said conversationally, avoiding her eyes.

"It's too bad you don't have one of these," Bellatrix mused smugly, admiring something beneath the sleeve she'd just rolled up. Sharlen's eyes seemed to move to her across the table in slow motion, the ringing in her ears growing louder when her eyes fell on it.

A bracelet made of gilded silver with a labradorite stone.

"Belonged to Morgana Le Fay," she boasted loudly with a sloppy gulp of her wine. Sharlen was unaware that her mouth was open in shock as she stared. "It's said to fend off any ailments. I never get sick."

"Where," Sharlen whispered, clearing her throat and shaking her awe out of her head. "Where did you get such a magical object?"

"The Dark Lord gave it to me, years ago," Bellatrix told her, almost breathless with pride as she mooned over it. Narcissa and Lucius were busy with their stews. "I never take it off."

Of course he did, she thought excitedly, staring a little too openly, unable to believe her luck. Of course he gave it to Bellatrix. She's so obsessed with him that she'd never let it out of her sight. It's perfect.

"That's quite an honor," Sharlen said, trying to butter her up. She coughed a little and took a swig from her flask. A trickle of devious delight shuddered down her spine. "I bet that would cure me for sure, then."

Bellatrix met her eyes across the table, her aura stricken.

Sharlen pressed on, her mouth in a thin line. "Could I maybe wear it for the night? I'm sure I'd feel better in the morning."

Bellatrix looked to her sister for reassurance but Narcissa still wasn't looking up. Draco looked between Bellatrix and Sharlen casually, not seeing the problem with any of this. Sharlen could tell, reading Bellatrix's mind, that she had no idea what the object really was—it was the very idea of parting with such a gift from her Lord that had her on edge. Looking back down to the bracelet, Bellatrix took a deep breath. "Yes. Yes, of course, my Princess," she said, making up her mind as though this was clearly what her duty would oblige her to do. "You are in our care," she added, handing the bracelet over the table to her.

Sharlen took the Horcrux with shaking fingers and put it on her wrist. It felt almost warm to the touch, but she assumed that was from Bellatrix's own body heat. It became clear as she looked at it on her wrist that the ringing she'd been hearing all this time was from the Horcrux, and that no one else could hear it. Playing it up, Sharlen took a deep breath herself and sighed as though feeling relief. "Yes. I think it's working," she lied. She ate her stew with the others to ease them, trying to be pleasant. Bellatrix, on the other hand, seemed more authentically pleasant than she had ever seen her.

Excusing herself from the table, Sharlen retreated to her room as soon as it wouldn't be dubbed suspicious, thanking Bellatrix again for the bracelet. Locking the door behind her, Sharlen threw herself to where her spell books were, taking up the Transfiguration text she used the year before in McGonagall's class. She flipped pages feverishly, refreshing herself, eyes darting over the page so fast it made her dizzy. She summoned a silver hairbrush from her bathroom and put both hands over it, concentrating on the spell with her eyes on the bracelet.

When she uncovered it, the hairbrush was gone. In its place was a copy of the bracelet. She inspected it thoroughly, and every indent was exactly the same.

Pleased, giddy even, she put the copy on her bedside table to give to Bellatrix in the morning.