Disclaimer: The rights to the Harry Potter series go to J.K. Rowling. All original ideas present in this belong to me.

Chapter Fifty-One | Around and Round We Go

The interrogation room could be considered squalid at best.

Its walls were wet with grime, never washed even through the ease of magic. It was as if a thin green paste had worked itself into the crevices between heavy stone blocks, looking as though it would bubble and hiss upon being touched like the failed result of some potions experiment.

Lucius had never felt so safe, locked up as he was.

He glanced idly at the manacles that bound his arms together at the wrist, harsh steel clamped tight around the joint and chafing at the skin beneath.

Rubbing his fingers together, he shuddered, trying to ignore the unearthly chill that settled over Azkaban. It seemed to press in on him, a frigid malice given form. After four days there, even with 'preferential treatment' as the Aurors had said, it was no easier on his mind than before.

It was a small miracle, he thought, that he wasn't tossed into a cell without so much as a polite request to go fuck himself.

Instead, Amelia believed him.

"So, you say you're dead."

"Yes," he monotoned.

No matter the stress, he kept his composure. His father had beaten it well enough into him to have it so thoroughly ingrained into his person that he would still flinch instinctively if he caught himself smiling.

'A Malfoy is better than that,' he would grouse, forcing Lucius into yet another dueling session against one of his cousins - older boys who would happily send him back to the Manor with a fractured ankle and a smattering of bruises hidden beneath his robes.

"How, exactly?"

"Would you like me to spell it out for you, Bones? Potter came to my manor last weekend not just for Fudge but for me." He raised his hands to wipe at the cold sweat trickling down his chin, but only served to yank at his chains, the rattle of steel much too loud in that tiny room.

"Potter will- "

"Don't try and feed me that, Bones. You and I both know that I will find no mercy at the end of her wand, nor Voldemorts."

Amelia steepled her fingers, expressionless. "Yes?"

"He's… you know he's back, you believed me, right? This isn't some…" He trailed off, a falter in his usually pristine cadence. "This isn't some ruse that you're attempting, trying to- "

"I believe you." Amelia raised her hand. "I've thought he was back for quite some while. All the signs seemed to point towards it."

"So you know what's become of him."

She paused. "What do you mean by that?"

Lucius rolled the words around in his mouth, tasting them before speaking. "He's become a monster- " She snorted. "...more of a monster, than we ever thought him to be. He looks like one, mouth too full of teeth and his skin… it looks like raw meat left out in the sun too long. He- "

A choking sob was caught in his throat, his father's teachings forgotten. "He killed N- Narcissa. There… there was no justification, no reason, not even an excuse. He did it because he wanted to." Lucius clasped his hands together, pleading. "I just want my son safe, that's it. Do what you want with me. Throw me through the veil, leave me here for the rest of my life. Gods, sick the Dementors on me. Just save my son."

Amelia studied him, head tilting ever so slightly. "Alright, but I want some information in return."

"Anything."

"How do we kill Voldemort?"

Lucius bit his lip, looking down at the deep brackish ink beneath his skin. "You can't. No one can."

"Tell me," she hissed.

"No one can, that's what I'm telling you. He took steps, terrible steps to prevent his demise. I only learned of them a few months ago but the magic involved is…" Lucius shook his head, ignoring the shudder that ran down his spine. "It's horrific. Vile. It's a wonder I'm still alive after he learned of what I had done."

"Lucius." Amelia leaned forward, hands pressed flat against the table. "If you want your son to get out of this country safely, you will tell me what I need to know."

He paled. "You wouldn't."

"There's a lot of things I wouldn't have done, but that's not me anymore." She held eye contact, unwavering. "I will leave your son to the wolves if you don't give me that information."

"Horcruxes," he spat, the very word itself bitter on his tongue. "He made horcruxes, six of them."

"...and these are?"

"Soul receptacles, phylacteries. Until those are destroyed nothing in this world can kill him, not truly."

"He…" Amelia shook her head, lips pursed dramatically. "Where?"

"I don't know," Lucius begged, chains rattling as he slammed his fists against the table. "I was given one, years ago, but it's long gone missing. Probably destroyed."

"Probably isn't good enough Lucius."

"It's all I have. Please, my son- I… I can't let anything happen to him. Voldemort will kill him or turn him into something even worse than me."

A cackle filled the room, Amelia's chest heaving as she laughed at his words. "So you recognize what you are? Finally?"

"I've never been a good man, Amelia, make no mistake - but I've always done what I did to make this country better, damn it." He grit his teeth. "I still see plainly the-" Amelia glared. "Beasts, that muggles are, but times are changing, no matter how… foul I find them to be. A Malfoy survives, above all else."

"Nice spiel," she muttered, tapping one finger upon the tabletop. "You're a snake, Lucius, and don't take that as a compliment. You disgust me, but I want to win this war. Do you understand?"

He ground his teeth together, rough and so terribly unrefined that Abraxas must have shuddered from beyond the grave. "Yes."

"I'm going to bring some people from the Department of Mysteries to speak with you so we can learn more about these… phylacteries."

"Rookwood."

"Hmm?"

"Rookwood is one of us." His tongue flitted out across his lips, cracked and soon to bleed. "He's a Death Eater."

Amelia quirked one eyebrow, slowly raising from her chair. "Really? Well, thank you for that Lucius. I'll make sure he takes a lovely vacation through the Veil."

Lucius screwed his eyes shut, letting out a deep breath. "Thank you, Bones."

"That's Minister to you," she said, slamming the door behind her.

-::-

I wrench my head back against the pillow, drums thundering - bouncing about within my skull.

Rip, tear, kill…

A laugh bubbles from my throat, high pitched and hysterical as I push down the urges, the frightening voices that scream out to be joined. A call from the Deep, the lost and broken crying out for their brethren.

Brother, o' brothers and sisters!

They wail so loudly it feels as if my head might burst, nothing left but a mess of blood and softly dripping gore pouring from the cracked edges of my skull. A broken cup, spilling over.

I throw myself out of bed, listening attentively to the light patter of feet beyond the walls, Fleur dancing about the kitchen with a low whistle on her lips.

To create life anew, that's her curse.

The voices don't speak to her of death and only death, not of the last door - not of the train, resting in a world of fog and much-too-large books, cracked with age.

They want her to create, to make room for more life. They want her to open the first door, to welcome in budding souls and shriveled roots, the sprig of an evergreen working its way through the soil as though a worm.

Mine urge nothing but destruction. To fill that broken cup to the brim and watch it all pour out, running across the tablecloth and staining the fabric below a horrid red.

The more that is made, the more that must die.

The end, the end, the end, the enD tHe EnD~ thE eND- th

I smash my open palm against the side of my head, fighting off the memory of how Voldemort's soul tasted as it passed over my lips, lighting across my tongue like a flame.

Bitter, sweet, a spice so terribly hot as to burn me from the inside out.

Delicious.

Groaning, I open my eyes, the light above held in lamps of crystal, an Everliving flame.

Not everlasting, the Gubraithian art but an imitation of the true thing. Necromantic flame, Albumantic flame, something pure and so beautifully wild.

"Quite a sight, isn't it?"

I can feel my teeth strain angrily as they're mashed shut, the tip of my tongue splitting off and falling to the floor with a wet drop.

"You."

"Oh dear, you seem to be in a frightful state," Death mutters, legs kicking playfully off the dresser. "All that power just bubbling up inside of you, what a thing, eh?"

I snarl, tongue flicking out.

Death smirks as the bloody needle passes through him, shattering against the stone. "Ah," he tuts, wagging one finger. "That's not very kind. Why, last time I saw you we had a delightful discussion. You visited my home, in fact."

"What do you want?"

"What do I want?" He presses his hand against his chest, sundial catching the light. "I don't want anything, Helene. I just came to check up on you." His head tilts to the side questioningly, hair not moving an inch. "Are you quite alright? You seem a bit shaken."

"The voices," I growl, new flesh budding from the end of my bloodied tongue. "Stop them."

He clicks his tongue. "The voices?"

"The voices."

"Oh, yes!" He raises his hand, waving it lazily. "I completely forgot. My children are a bit loud, you see. I'm terribly sorry about all that. Nothing much that can be done, I'm afraid, not with how you are."

Breathing heavily, I turn to the wall. "You're omnipotent. Do something about it."

"It's a part of you, Helene. I can't just…" he waggles his fingers. "Just get rid of it. You're a Necromancer, my champion, that means that you're for lack of a better description - permanently a part of this."

"A monster?"

He laughs. "A monster? No, anything but. I recall you saying to dear Fleur something along the lines of 'no longer human.' I feel that fits the bill quite nicely."

"Then what." I throw myself out of bed, Death ignoring me as my hands pass through his legs, pulling open the drawers. "I just live like this?"

"Yes. You love them, don't you?"

My shirt meets the floor, and I push my arms through the straps of a bra, clasping it neatly behind my back. "Love or not, I'm likely to kill myself is this keeps on."

"Well, by all means." He flicks his hand, wrist twisting gracefully. "Be my guest."

I continue getting dressed, trousers snug around my thighs. "Would you even let me?"

"Yes. Who am I to impose on such a life changing choice? That's all you, my dear."

Snorting, I lace up my boots, pulling the strings taut and wrapping them around the ankle once. "How kind of you."

"I'm glad you see it my way," he declares, smiling widely. "Regardless, the voices wouldn't stop if you'd decided to end your own life. In fact, the ones speaking would be your neighbours. Wouldn't that be lovely? I recall you very vehemently stating they were yours."

I ignore him. "A part of me would go down, but not all of me."

"Yes, true, but the largest part of you?" He chuckles. "That's the one that's going down. What? You thought just because you were my favourite that you were exempt? It's unavoidable. Yeshua of Nazareth, for all his lack of vice and poison - even a sliver of him resides in my domain."

Death points at me with a long, crooked finger. "You are of Death. As such, you are mine."

"I'll obliterate my soul then," I spit, fists clenched. "Destroy my own existence. It'll be as if I never was, stricken from history."

"Really?" He seems to be almost shocked. "You'd go that far?"

"Do you see this?" I hold out my hand, all bound shadow and broken nightmares. "Do you see the scars on my body? Do you hear the screams of your children? Every waking minute is an effort to hold on to whatever scraps of sanity I have left. I'm falling apart at the seams, you think I want that torture in death as well as life?"

His face twists into an ugly scowl, already impossible eyes darkening further - the abyss trapped in sockets of flesh and bone. "You are playing with Fate, child. Do not try to make a fool of Gods."

"Fuck you!" I shout, seething. "Fuck you and fuck Fate! Fuck all of this! I'm a monster now, a fucking monster. I ate a goddamned soul. I torture now, and I like it. I- "

My breath catches in my throat, the words frozen.

Death holds his hand out with a bored expression, fingers twitching. "Quiet. You will listen when I am speaking, girl." He rises to his feet, indomitable. "I will not allow you to throw away the gift I have given you so recklessly. The only reason you still live is because I made it so. You think I would allow you to erase yourself from history? You truly believe that I would allow you to kill yourself?"

His chest heaves as he laughs, loud and terrible. A funerary chant voiced by dry, rasping whoops. "You- you my dear, you have a part to play. A part that you will play, otherwise, we'll just have to do this all over again."

Again?

"Oh my, did I say that out loud?"

Death's shoulders roll as he laces his arms behind his back, bowing forward to look me in the eye. "We've been through this before Helene. A few times, at least. Oh, you fail every time when push comes to shove. You never quite make it." He sighs, shaking his head. "So I meddle a little. A push here and there, a question whispered in your ear, or maybe in that of your old Headmaster so many years ago.

"A man who was considered a paragon of justice, righteousness given form. Yes, preachy, I'll admit, but a good man all the same. You think he put you through all that hell of his own volition? Nonsense." His fingers dance, that of a puppeteer tugging playfully at the strings of his faithful marionette. "Visiting a mortal man in his dreams to… offer suggestions on how to handle this newborn saviour? Simple."

Death conjures a chair, taking a seat and crossing his legs, foot rolling in lazy circles as he stares me down. "Blood Magic, Necromancy? Well, you were always a touch too squeamish to take those steps. So, I whisper a few words and then oh, isn't that convenient? These Goblins seem to have all this very important paperwork on file, and it looks as if little Helene has developed a bit of a grudge against her supposed mentor."

"Why," I ask. I can taste how thin my voice is, how it just falls from my lips like a corpse from a tree.

"Because some things must happen. There is a method to all this madness, and you seem quite happy to trot off wherever you'd like, ignoring the lovely path that immortal beings such as myself have made just for you. Do you hear that? You. This path- " he stabs one finger towards the ground. "Is yours. It will be walked, otherwise… well, you understand what happens. Round four. Five?" He taps his chin. "It could be more, I seem to have lost count."

"So… what, this is all some ploy?"

"A ploy! A ploy she says!" Death howls in laughter. "You call the active writing of history a ploy? Helene, Helene, Helene... trust me, my dear. In good time you will realize how important my work is. Prophecy exists for a reason, and yours? Well, let's say that it's a… commonality." He holds his breath for a moment, smirking. "There are some prophecies that exist in every universe, every plane of existence. Yours? That's one of them."

Wiping his hands against the breast of his suit, he strides towards me. "Now, we can't have you going off and doing something so silly as to kill yourself or, heavens forbid, wipe yourself from the annals of history. So…"

He places his hand against my forehead, impossibly cold. I shriek in pain as he tears through my mind, snatching up knowledge in his path. I let out a sickening gasp as he removes his hand, silver swimming in his palm.

Pinching it between his fingers, he drops the memory into his open mouth, swallowing loudly. "There," he announces, a wide grin plastered over his face. "All taken care of. Oh! Don't let me forget the book."

The tome appears in his hands, and with a tap of his finger I know it's all gone. "Can't have you learn those spells again, can I?"

"Fuck you."

"Language!" He tuts quietly. "You ought to know better than that. I raised you better- no, wait, I raised you quite poorly. The Dursleys were awful to you, weren't they?"

"Is all of this a joke to you?"

"On the contrary, I find it to be incredibly important. It is the fate of your planet, after all. So, now that I've filled you in, so to say, I fear I must be off." He taps the sundial adorning his wrist. "Things to do, civilizations to destroy. I wish you the best of luck in your coming battle, and worst case scenario?" He smiles. "We'll just have another go at it."

I blink once and he's gone, not even a whisper on the wind.

"Fuck!" I shout, smashing my fist against the wall and shattering every bone in my hand. The stone crumbles, cratering underneath the impact.

I pull away, my mangled fingers split open at the knuckles, shards of bone poking out of the skin and thick, grayish blood ebbing out of the ragged holes. "Fuck!"

Fleur throws open the door, and I can smell her fear before she's even stepped through. "What happened?" she mutters, taking my hand and muttering quietly and she passes her wand over the gnarled limb, skin knitting back together and bone sliding into place. "Are you okay?"

"Death," I spit, the word a curse. "He decided to… bring me a bit of news?"

"What is it?"

"Nothing. It doesn't change anything." I pull away from her, but find myself unable to ignore the hurt in her eyes. "I just… he planned all this, wanted all this."

Fleur nods slowly. "Yes?"

"Dumbledore, my relatives… shit." I giggle, something manic and wild. "Probably Lockhart too. All those things that happened? He made them happen."

"Oh. Oh." Her hands clench into tight fists, white knuckled and furious. "What do you- "

"Can we go kill someone, please? I- "

"Yes." She kisses my forehead, terribly warm hand placed against my cheek. "Let's go."

I nod dumbly against her touch, leaning into the comforting heat of all that is Fleur. "Thank you."

She kisses my temple, lips tracing over my ear. "I love you."

"I love you too."

-::-

"Croaker, you're telling me that- "

"Minister, please." Amelia could tell that he was frowning beneath that damnable hood, face covered in black. "This is extraordinary. We can't let something like this slip through our grasp."

"He will live, Saul. Britain will be a ruin if we let him continue on."

"Oh, but we have methods for that." He glanced to the right, watching as Rookwood was thrown screaming through the veil, even the very sound of his death rattle stolen by the near invisible curtain. "As long as he is captured we have nothing to fear. Even if he is 'killed' again we still have methods to… slow his revival, especially if we manage to get our hands on one of his horcruxes."

The man shook his head, astonishment in his voice. "It's remarkable. You know, throughout the entire history of our kind, no one has ever created more than one? On their own they're no real trouble. Many Dark Wizards and the like have been put down without too much of a fuss, but to go so far as to create six…"

"It's foul."

"Well, yes - that, but it's still remarkable."

"What do you want, Saul?"

"I want us to find one of those horcruxes so we may study it. It's not as if we could force someone to create one, the magic involved is finicky at best. Often results in the caster being turned inside out or summoning some sort of Being. It's unreliable unless one is steeped in dark, dark magic - having had to have practiced it near their whole life."

"If he tries to attack- "

"We will find a way to put him down. There are… certain spells that we can utilize if we have the horcrux that make dealing with Voldemort much easier." She can feel his gaze piercing through the shadow, his hood doing nothing to diminish the functioning psychopathy that is Saul Croaker. "He could be a puppet, something to be used by the Ministry."

"No." It takes everything Amelia has not to stamp her foot in childish anger. She pushes down the simmering fury she can feel bubbling at her throat. "The instant this war picks up, we put him down."

Saul sighs. "Fine, Minister. But I would like to get my hands on it. We'll begin investigations on our end. If anything comes up, you know where to find me."

He wanders off back to his laboratory, a room full of golden instruments so terribly complicated Amelia fears her brain may puddle out of her ears if she stares at them too long. There are objects in the Department of Mysteries that were kept locked away for good reason.

Living, breathing things that would sooner turn you into a gibbering mess than be of any reasonable use.

She had once heard of a dagger that was kept in the research hall for magical objects, seemingly plain upon first sight - nothing but a wooden handle, a few strips of leather, and crudely fashioned bronze.

It could cut through anything, and they still hadn't found out how it worked even after three centuries.

She chose to pointedly ignore the deck of tarot cards that no matter what cards you filled it with, it would always draw death, and result in the same too. Or the glass that when drunk from would slowly rot one from the inside out, leaving them chanting the words of a long dead language and unable to bear the light of day.

Amelia ignored the blatant stares as she left the Department, thankful for the attuned hallways leading her quickly back to the lift.

"Fucking Croaker," she whispered, heels clacking loudly as she stepped into the lift, slamming an open palm against the button. "Fucking Potter."

Walking out, she was met by a red-faced Auror, his flushed skin matching his robes.

"What?" Amelia barked.

"Minister, I- it's Hogwarts."

"What about?"

"It's under attack."

Oh boy! A wild cliffhanger appeared!