By morning light, Sharlen was in a foul mood. She did her best to play as if she was restored to full health, a tall order with how dark and angry she felt, the real bracelet on her wrist under long sleeves and robes as she turned the copy over to Bellatrix. Bellatrix's relieved face as she adorned the fake bracelet made a surge of fury rise up in Sharlen's chest and she felt sure in that moment she would strike her, so she turned around to exit the back doors to the courtyard instead, the warmth of the real bracelet on her wrist irritating and the ringing in her head positively grating. Is this how Bellatrix felt all the time?
She transformed into an owl and flew over the hedge wall into the woods, Piotr joining her swiftly, and transformed back into her body when she was sure she was out of range of the manor. She threw up her arm in fierce lashes as she marched in a wide circle, thinking protective enchantments and redoubling the Muffliato Charm several times to be sure.
Only a few attempts to destroy the bracelet could be made the night before, in her room surrounded by the other residents of the manor, and it became apparent to Sharlen that this object was more than resilient—it was fighting to stay alive. After attempts to cut it, bend it, melt it, and physically crack it failed, she had resigned to try more powerful spells in the morning when she could escape prying eyes and ears without fear of making noise. Unwilling to let the bracelet out of her sight now that she had it in her grasp, she redid the clasp on it and slept with it on her wrist.
Her dreams were plagued by her fears—upon waking, she found herself confused and disoriented. She'd had actual nightmares for the very first time. Usually what she saw in her sleep was a constant, unconscious stream of uninterrupted visions that were true, whether they'd already transpired or not. These were fragmented figments of her imagination, she was sure. There was no way Harry could have seven different deaths, and that's what she'd seen. Harry dying, and dying again, over and over until the sunlight stirred her.
Sharlen watched Piotr for several minutes, fists clenched once her protections were complete. Harry. The very thought of him made her tense up with ire. She damned how clearly she could see his face in her mind. All these months he'd been hurting her, all those times she'd let him physically hurt her, or threaten to… She remembered the scar on the back of her neck from him tearing the amber necklace off of her and any sadness she'd previously felt toward it was replaced entirely with a white hot resentment. How could he not see all she'd done for him, to try and help him? Why didn't he appreciate the danger she lived in to try and help him survive?
And Ron and Hermione, she thought bitterly, waiting in the wings to further his distrust at her, speaking badly about her, egging on his prejudice… Why should she help them if they did nothing but reject her? Why should she stand for it?
Sharlen looked down at the bracelet on her wrist scornfully. She should discard it here, in the woods, within these enchantments no one knew about, this Horcrux the trio had no knowledge about… and no one would ever be able to find it. If they didn't appreciate what she was doing, why in the world would she feel the need to help them with this task that was not her own?
She tore the bracelet from her wrist and threw it down onto the fallen leaves where it glinted back at her, the labradorite stone casting a clear blue sheen where it landed. After a second, she realized she was breathing hard and wasn't sure why. After five seconds, eyes still glued to the bracelet, her face began to fall at the realization of how horrible it would be to abandon it here. After ten seconds, she sank to the ground, ashamed of herself for those thoughts, which felt like poison leaving her mind now. She looked down at her wrist and saw it was bright red as though burned.
Sharlen looked back up at the bracelet with a clearing breath, held out her hands, and thought Reducto. The bracelet shot up into the air surrounded by black smoke and Sharlen stood to inspect it. There it lay, several feet away but untouched. Not a mark or blemish tarnished its surface. Sharlen frowned at it and put the heels of her palms together. Incendio!
The bracelet burst into flames with a loud roar, but as the flames quickly diminished, it continued to sit in the charred leaves, untouched.
She tried again and again, shooting spells in rapid succession, spells that would destroy a person. Loud bursts of roaring flame and blasts filled the space. Expulso. Relashio. Diffindo. Sectumsempra! Reducto!
But even the purple fire spell couldn't touch it. The faint ringing persisted, never wavering, never halting. With a mighty sigh, Sharlen collected it from the ashes that surrounded it, slid it back onto her wrist, and locked the clasp, securing her sleeves down over it to conceal it. She nodded to Piotr, who swooped down to greet her as she transformed, the two flying back to the manor together.
Sharlen made a beeline for her room to collect her tarot deck and then returned to the tiled back patio to be closer to nature, sitting cross-legged and shuffling as she thought How will I destroy this Horcrux? over and over again, imagining the glint of the labradorite stone clearly.
Draco and Bellatrix came to join her as she laid out her spread of six, never able to resist watching her read tarot. Sharlen fought the urge to roll her eyes—Bellatrix often asked her to do readings for her over petty things like how best to please her Lord. She pulled the first two cards face up and centered before her, then on a line above to the left the third and fourth, the fifth and sixth to the top right.
Sharlen placed her hands on the ground above the spread, curving her body over it as she focused. The first and second cards were the idea, the answer, and two cards associated with fire signs faced her. The first was the Knight of Wands—passion, impulsivity, energy. The second was Strength reversed, and the lion's eyes on the card seemed to burn into her own gaze. The reverse meaning meant a lack of control and self-discipline… The woman holding the lion's head on the card held a peaceful expression, even when it faced her upside-down. Sharlen bit her lip, focusing on those two cards and racking her brains.
"What are you asking?" Bellatrix whispered excitedly, breaking her concentration.
"I see no reason why my magical education should stop altogether because of my Master's absence," Sharlen lied, focusing again on the cards before her. Bellatrix watched her eagerly, Draco fearfully. "I'm trying to determine what next I should be learning, outside the restraints of Hogwarts' agenda."
Two fire cards, energy, a beast, lack of self-discipline requiring a calm control and confidence… But she'd already tried to set it on fire, to no avail. She glanced up at Piotr swooping from hedge to hedge. Fire and out-of-control animals. Dragons? Maybe the Dragon Fire Spell? She decided to continue to the second pair in the spread and sit with that for a minute.
"But who will teach you…?" Draco asked quietly.
Sharlen shushed him. "I'm about to find out."
The third and fourth cards meant to explain how this idea could be carried out. She often saw the Hierophant in her spreads, but in this case it signified a need to find a teacher; inside she laughed at the coincidence, glancing up at Draco with a small flash of a grin, a joke he wouldn't understand. The fourth card gave her less to smile about—the Tower stood for darkness and destruction. This outcome had to be carried out with the help of a teacher that embodied darkness and brought destruction wherever they went, had dedicated their lives to it… Sharlen glanced over at Bellatrix, heart beating faster, knowing she would be only too willing to give Sharlen anything she asked in terms of dark magic.
She turned to the fifth and sixth card and sat up a little straighter, eyes darting between them. Her outcome, what would happen if she were able to succeed at this new attempt. The Ten of Swords always seemed ominous at first, but the bloody foreground of the card was not meant to be the focus; it stood for new beginnings springing from defeat. This would work, whatever the first and second card were alluding to. The sixth card was an ace, always a good sign. The Ace of Pentacles meant prosperity and growth. Sharlen picked up the Ten of Swords and the Ace of Pentacles, trembling slightly. Yes, this would work. This was the answer. Dare she let herself think this new beginning from defeating the Horcrux could mean a positive reunion with Harry?
Sharlen set the cards back into place and sat back with a sigh, reassured despite concrete answers, despite herself. She looked carefully at Bellatrix's heavily hooded eyes, her wild hair, her aura pulsing with possibility. Sharlen knew hers must echo that. "I think you're meant to teach me something," Sharlen told her calmly. Draco looked at his aunt reproachfully.
"Anything, my Princess!" Bellatrix gasped, crawling closer. "It would be an honor to further your dark magic, I'm sure whatever you've learned from Severus was rudimentary at best."
"Surely."
"Well, what is it you'd like to start with?" she asked anxiously, leaning over the cards. Sharlen knew Bellatrix hadn't a clue what they meant and turned her eyes back to the first and second cards. She picked them up and held them close to her face.
"I'm still trying to figure it out," Sharlen muttered. "Maybe Dragon Fire, but that's reparable…" She rubbed her neck and shoulder where her skin was white from the scar. "It could be worth a try…"
"A good spell, for sure, extremely painful," Bellatrix said smugly, sitting back and twirling her wand appreciatively, "but it's got nothing on Fiendfyre."
Sharlen flinched so hard that she almost dented the cards in her hands, not looking away from them. She suddenly felt crazed, manic. What lucky gift was this, for her father to have put her so close to Bellatrix, who had proven so useful in this endeavour, who had twice in the same 24-hour period blown her world wide open, giving her answers to questions she had no idea she was demystifying? Sharlen wouldn't question it, excitement vibrating through her.
"Bellatrix," Sharlen cried out suddenly, one hand out as though to reach for her. Bellatrix turned her chin over her shoulder, eyes widened slightly, barely daring to breathe. Despite her post as Sharlen's steward, she had never asked anything from her. "Teach me to control Fiendfyre."
Bellatrix's lip curled with an evil satisfaction, her aura leaping light pinks and yellows jovially, as though suddenly burdened with glorious purpose.
"The flames will only go out when completely cut off from either something to burn or an energy source," Bellatrix said and they climbed down into the quarry. Several miles from the manor, Bellatrix had found this place made entirely of earth and rock for them to practice Fiendfyre. It had taken some persuading to force her to find an alternate to her first choice: The center of a Muggle village. Sharlen had laughed as though the idea of brutally murdering a town of Muggles with flaming hellbeasts just tickled her, but was insistent that her father didn't want her to draw attention to herself.
Sharlen jumped down behind Bellatrix, feeling irritable and anxious to get this over with. Would she be able to throw the bracelet into the flames when Bellatrix was distracted? Her teacher continued talking back to Sharlen as she made her way to the center of the clearing. "They can smell fear, the flames. Of course whoever you're using it on will be scared out of their minds when they see it," she said deviously, letting loose a little cackle, "but your own emotions will be fueling it. To control it, you have to control your emotions."
"Easy enough," Sharlen muttered. That was Occlumency in a nutshell. "How can it work as a weapon, then?"
"Well any idiot can cast the spell," Bellatrix said loudly, "but it's terrible to control, and anyone that could would know you can't use it as an attack if you're furious or frightened. Confidence will rule it."
"So if you're dueling someone," Sharlen said sarcastically, "and you can look them in the face, calmly and devoid of emotion, and kill them, you're good."
Bellatrix nodded excitedly, happy she understood, the sarcasm lost on her. "Your father is a master at it, there's no doubt you'll be the same."
"Such a comfort, Bellatrix," Sharlen growled. "Let's do this. Show me first." Bellatrix turned away and raised her wand and other hand, taking a deep breath. Sharlen undid the clasp on the bracelet Horcrux and let it slide down into her fist. As Bellatrix was telling her the incantation, Sharlen paused and looked at the soil beneath her feet, feeling a guttural hesitance. She had no idea what to expect when the Horcrux would be destroyed. She thought back to the cards, biting her lip—they had called for a teacher, not an accomplice. Sharlen looked back up at Bellatrix to be sure her back was still turned and hurriedly reattached the Horcrux to her wrist, pulling her sleeves down to hide it just in time.
Bellatrix looked back at her over her shoulder expectantly. "Are you ready?"
"Can you tell me the incantation again?" Sharlen stuttered.
"Flammeum Bestia," Bellatrix reiterated. Her aura was indeed calm and confident, and Sharlen nodded to show she understood. Bellatrix turned away again and pushed her hands out away from her, wand held firm and still, and from its tip grew a fire that radiated heat to Sharlen immediately even from twenty feet away. She took several steps back as the fire rose nearly fifty feet tall to form a giant chimaera of flames roaring deafeningly into the surrounding gorge, its wings spreading as though to take flight. Sharlen watched with huge eyes as the wings turned at the tips to form a serpent, and then a dragon, spreading and spreading, Bellatrix strong and determined before it. Delighted, even.
"There you have it!" she shouted, dazzled by the flaming, screaming beasts.
"Fantastic!" Sharlen screamed to her, backing up further. The heat was extreme even though they were outside. The flames were looking for something to burn. "Now shut it down!"
Bellatrix brought her hands back toward herself and put them against her breast, the flames drawing toward her ferociously, shrinking, smouldering, and soon gone with nothing but the overwhelming smell of sulfur in their wake. Bellatrix hopped up and down twice, turning around to see Sharlen's approval. Instead she found dismay.
"Just… just like that. You don't say," she muttered weakly. Bellatrix came to join her.
"You ready?"
"Ready? You have nothing else to tell me?" she asked incredulously.
"There's nothing else to tell," Bellatrix said, again devious. "You're in control. You are giving these giant, deadly flames power. Your power." She inhaled as though intoxicated while the smoke in the air had given Sharlen a terrible stomachache. "You're perfectly capable at Occlumency, you're clearly in control of your mind. That applies here."
Sharlen watched her disbelievingly, then shrugged her shoulders. "Can they be smothered? If needed?"
"You won't need—"
"That's not what I asked," Sharlen said firmly. "I will be more confident if I have a fail-safe."
"That's why we came here," Bellatrix said, gesturing around. "It would take a massive amount of dirt to put out those flames."
Sharlen looked around the quarry warily and knew this wouldn't do—she couldn't attempt to destroy the Horcrux this way unless she knew she could control it, but she still felt fear. Control was her specialty, what she'd been working at all this time. Combining her work with Trelawney and her Occlumency, she took a deep, calming breath and shut down her thoughts. She nodded her head and Bellatrix stepped back, only a foot or so behind her, showing no fear herself. Did she have that much faith in Sharlen's ability, or was she insane? Sharlen held out both her hands before her as she'd watched Bellatrix do.
"Take another breath first," Bellatrix warned.
Flammeum Bestia.
She was instantly glad she'd heeded Bellatrix's advice to take a breath; as the huge, flaming beasts rose up from her, the warmth raging in her veins all the way up through her fingertips to her shoulders, the oxygen was all but sucked out of her lungs, the fire drawing from all it could. Sharlen looked up into the eyes of a furious manticor, then a serpent, then a lion with a mane of flames that must have been fifty feet wide… Taking in a breath that seemed largely to be ash, Sharlen focused on calm and pushed her emotions away from the surface. She drew in her hands to her chest the way Bellatrix had ended the spell, but the heat of it was scorching her. Briefly, panic erupted in her stomach and she lost her concentration. Roaring obscenely, the manticor charged toward the cliffside, seeking forest to burn with a lake of fire in its wake.
"No!" Sharlen shouted, coughing despite herself. Bellatrix stirred behind her, shouting something about focus and confidence and power. Sharlen directed her hands toward the scattering beasts and pulled them back to her again, imagining them being drawn inside of her and smothered by her own flesh and bone. The second time her palms met her chest, the flaming fiends were drawn in and flickered out with a terrible roar.
Unable to hold back the coughing, Sharlen fell to sputtering, the sulphur almost too much to handle, stomach aching horribly from the smoke. She held her palm to her mouth and drank heavily from the cold water she produced with Aguamenti. Bellatrix was cheering and jumping up and down behind her.
"See! No need for the precaution after all!"
"If we had been anywhere else there would have been!" Sharlen shouted, unsure where her anger was coming from. "You are so reckless! If we'd tried this anywhere we weren't surrounded by rock, they would have spread immediately!"
"I only meant that you were completely in control," Bellatrix said carefully, peering up through her heavily lidded and lashed eyes, dark as soot.
"I almost used the dirt," she muttered in response, kicking a rock aside fiercely. "After I couldn't banish them, I almost gave up and started levitating dirt over it."
"But you didn't," Bellatrix urged. "You were in control of all the power."
Sharlen had to admit to herself that it did feel overwhelmingly good to think of it from that angle. She looked down at her blackened hands, the warmth of them stinging in the cold air, imagining all the energy of those huge flames burning within her. She felt awake and invincible. And so angry.
The two Apparated back to Malfoy Manor as the sun was starting to set. Nursing a glass of wine for dinner, Sharlen felt venomous, but also strong. As badly as she wanted to get rid of the Horcrux quickly and not push her luck, she didn't feel safe attempting the Fiendfyre on her own when she was so wound up. That night, she attempted to open her mind and test out the meditation practices she had worked on with Trelawney, but the wider she opened herself up, the more negativity flooded inside her. She couldn't calm herself down, and the ringing in her ears washed out every quietness she tried to create within. When she was finally able to sleep, all she saw were betrayals and deaths, namely involving Harry and Snape.
She walked into a room in a high tower. It seemed to be Malfoy Manor, though no such area of it existed, she was sure… Or was she sure? As she entered the threshold, the stairs she'd climbed to get there melted away into blackness, a wall forming behind her.
Harry was on the floor, straddling the rest of what used to be Draco Malfoy. He continued to punch the still body until, alert, he whipped around to see her over his shoulder and leapt up, his own body larger than she remembered. His shoulders were hunched, fists clenched and knuckles showing whiter through the dark red blood that stained them. His eyes were black with rage. Sharlen glanced at Draco's body on the floor, his face bloodied and pulp-like, his chest ripped apart. His blood colored Harry as though he'd been caught outside in a downpour.
His footsteps thundered across the room to her and he put his fist through the wall past her shoulder. Sharlen settled back against it calmly, not looking from his eyes and the furious air rippling around him.
Then he started shouting. "He touched you," he said again and again, his voice throwing its own punches so loud it hurt her ears to be so close. She kept her body against the wall. "He put his hands on you when you're mine!"
Sharlen gave a small, soft smile and reached up to hold the base of his throat in her hands. A surge of heat radiated from Harry, so furious with Malfoy, so out of control with blackout anger that every muscle actively fought not to tear her away or shove her. He gripped her arms painfully tight instead. "Now look what you've done," she told him softly.
"He shouldn't have dared," he shouted. "I had to bloody kill him for it."
"But your anger still rules you," she said, her fingers finding the pressure points behind his ears.
"Don't," he warned her, now murderously quiet. Her smile deepened into a knowing smirk. "You should know better."
"You wouldn't hurt me, no matter how angry you were," Sharlen replied quietly in a very different calm than his. She arched her back against the wall and looked back at him sideways, head back. "Though the restraint might drive you crazy."
"I'm going to keep killing him," Harry promised. Fury dripped from every slow syllable. Sharlen shook her head and Harry glared at her, gripping her tighter. "He has it coming."
"Come back to me," she whispered, but he was too angry to hear. He kept ranting about Malfoy as though he were still alive, obsessed and alight with madness. She leaned forward, hands still massaging his throat.
Harry released her and slammed both hands against the wall, still towering over her. "Let it go," she told him.
"I bloody can't," he insisted. In his aura, she could see the consistent burning of hatred. There was nothing else inside him.
Sharlen leaned up and whispered in his ear, "Come back to me," as her fingers pressed and slid down along the hollows of his neck. She took his earlobe in her teeth and gently pulled.
Harry slammed her back against the wall, securing her legs around his waist as he lifted her and crushed her body with his own. He kissed her hard, tearing at her.
Sharlen awoke with a stuttering gasp, her back and chest damp from sweat, aching and wet between her legs and seething with her own hysterical fury.
Avoiding the other inhabitants of Malfoy Manor more than usual the next day, she brooded on the nightmares she continued to have and her mood did nothing to improve. Coupling the irrational anger were bouts of sadness that bordered on emptiness. As the hours passed, she couldn't remember being this confused about what was real and what wasn't since she was very, very small. Since she first met Harry. She mulled over the nightmares, the scenes they vividly painted, and agonized over whether or not a true vision was buried in there somewhere. That was a constant she knew for sure and had always been able to count on: Her dreams were visions. These were messing with her reality, and the anger singing inside of her almost felt like hallucinating.
As night fell again, Sharlen was beyond frustrated with herself. She couldn't control the Fiendfyre like this, and if she couldn't control it… She pulled up her sleeve and looked at the pristine, glinting bracelet around her wrist. She glared at it, hating it, hating the trouble she was going through trying to destroy it for Harry. Had he proven himself worth this trouble to her?
I've been inside you!
With a wave of heat in her chest, she ripped the bracelet off her wrist and it fell to the floor. Sharlen sighed as a cool breeze seemed to blow through her. The volume of the ringing mercifully halved. She looked down at the hateful thing, breathing hard. She frowned at it, feeling sad and disappointed in herself, but calmer than she had in days. More sure, more confident.
It was making her hate Harry.
Gingerly, Sharlen took up the Horcrux and put it in her little black bag. She left her room and went down to Draco's, knocking on the door softly. Draco opened it after a short wait, peering at her warily. She felt a little ashamed at his expression. "I'm very tired. I'll be going to bed," she told him. He blinked at her. "Please let the others know I don't want to be disturbed."
Draco nodded once and she turned to leave, but he reached for her hand. She looked down at it hesitantly. "Hey," he said, "Are you okay? You've been unapproachable the past couple days."
"I apologize," she whispered, still looking at their joined hands. "I haven't felt like myself. I will be fine after I rest."
Sharlen turned again to leave and saw Bellatrix standing between them and the door to her room. She started past, quickening her pace.
"Are you not feeling well again?" Bellatrix called from the top of the stairs. She held out her wrist. "Do you need the bracelet?"
"Leave me," Sharlen muttered over her shoulder as she walked past.
Bellatrix started. "But My—"
"Leave me," she ordered, clenching her fists. She wanted this over with.
Closing and locking the door behind her, Sharlen strode to the window and Apparated to the quarry she and Bellatrix had gone the time before. Sharlen felt much more confident now that the Horcrux was off of her and unable to negatively influence her every thought. She took it from the black bag and threw it as far as she could before focusing on her practice the other day—the heat of it, the surge of energy, how it melted back into every ounce of her.
She paced past it several times, eyes never leaving its hateful form several yards away in the rubble.
She took one last breath and thought the incantation clearly, pushing the great flaming beasts out from her chest and roaring into life.
For a second, Sharlen watched them melt and flicker and leap and soar higher and higher, surrounding her, before she directed them, great serpents and cats with terrible teeth, toward the Horcrux. The ringing reached a crescendo, making her cringe, until the second the flame touched it. A deafening explosion took its place, overtaking the roar of the Fiendfyre and sending Sharlen flying onto her back.
She hit the ground hard and let out a cry as a sharp pain surged through her shoulder bone, the flames flying up erratically as her arms soared through the air and soot and ash flooded her lungs. Hacking and gasping, Sharlen sat up, wincing in the swelter to see the billowing black clouds erupting from the Horcrux coloring the Fiendfyre black. She covered her face with her arms as it washed over her.
Sharlen peeked out and saw the fire was back to burning with its normal brightness, the black shadows of her father's soul gone, and began to panic to see how far it had begun to spread. Screwing her face up with extreme focus, she called them back to her willingly. As the flaming creatures ran back to her and the wall of fire towered and collapsed around her, she closed her eyes and smiled, seeing Harry's face, imagining his thankful smile as she brought her palms to her chest.
It was quieter than she'd experienced any one place since before she moved in with the Malfoys. Sharlen opened her eyes and the night was black and starless, and all around her the sulphur smell and the ash blackened the quarry, still smoking. She let out the breath she'd held in, fire living in her stomach, and coughed a little, a gray cloud of ash escaping from her throat. She brought her palms to her mouth, streaming with the Aguamenti spell once again, and tried to fight the coughing with gulping.
Once the soot had been choked down and wet hands run over her face, Sharlen took steps forward tentatively to find the source of her anguish. Her shoulder throbbed brightly as she reached down to brush a mound of blackened earth aside to reveal the now tarnished silver bracelet, the labradorite stone crushed and the band itself broken nearly in half. Warped by the flames, broken by the soul's destruction, she grinned down at it and revelled in its silence, in its vacancy. Placing it back in her bag, she nearly forgot the pain in her back for her triumph.
