Aurelia landed onto a carpeted floor, but the speed in which she hit the ground caused her legs to buckle from underneath her. The patterns on the carpet rushed by in front of her eyes, encircling her while her brain processed what had just happened. The girl was quickly hoisted into the air and thrown backwards into a chair where another pair of hands grasped a tight hold of her small and clammy hands behind her back, the wooden back of the chair dug painfully into the tops of her arms. Aurelia's dizziness still caused the room the spin, but she saw the shape of Snape lunge towards her in two strides of his large legs. Aurelia struggled against the person who held her in the chair, it was then she smelt the putrid smell of the person. Aurelia shouted profanities at her captor and at her professor who stood in a merciless stance in front of her, in his hands he held two small phials of colourless liquid.
"Miss Lestrange, may I suggest that you don't fight me" Severus' unemotional monotone voice droned. However, the girl did not listen. She continued in her attempt to wrestle her hands free, her legs flailed about in front of her. She began to cry with panic. With one final pace forward Severus closed the space between them, he placed one hand on the girl's forehead and pushed her head as far back as her neck vertebrae would allow, she sobbed and screamed and jerked her head back and forth to avoid him. Snape then put the phials to his mouth and bit down on the corks to open them. Aurelia watched him through the water that pooled in her eyes, she screamed again when the male who stood behind her popped in to view and forced her mouth open. The rough skin of his hand pulled at her soft but bony flesh until she gave in. Aurelia struggled to swallow the sickly-sweet fluid, the angle that her head was held at made it impossible for her throat to function.
"Don't fight" Snape warned and once Aurelia had lifted her sorrowful eyes to meet his stern pools of coal, he let go of her head and she was able to swallow but with a gulp. Severus turned on his heels and left the room. It was then that Aurelia looked around and saw she was in some sort of living room, there were large tall bookcases and arm chairs and a lamp. The room was rather small and dark. She turned her head to the direction of the man left in the room.
"Pettigrew!" she spat and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She had seen him before in the Manor, he was forever scurrying from room to room. The man cowered in the corner at her gaze. "Why am I here? What is this place?" she spoke again but he only flinched further back into the corner.
The door burst open and Snape stood on the threshold with one arm stretched to hold the door in its position. Bellatrix squeezed herself between the gap but paused to look up at Severus. He looked down his hooked nose at the woman, his top lip curled with distaste when she spoke.
"Thank you Snapey. Your work shall be greatly rewarded" Bellatrix delicately whispered and walked her slender fingers up the man's chest to caress the under part of his chin with her index finger just the once. He never faltered in his outstretched pose, but his chest puffed with air when he turned his head away from Bellatrix and the room where her daughter stood.
Bellatrix brushed herself hard against Severus to step into the living room, sauntered over to Aurelia and clucked her tongue in her mouth. She looked over to Pettigrew and spat on him before she took both her daughters hands in her own. Aurelia and her mother were both like one another in their looks, they both had wild black locks of hair and the same shaped face. Only Aurelia had blue eyes and her mother had brown, almost black. Aurelia was reminded of the last time she and her mother shared the same air, it was when she had inexplicably ended the auction to sell Aurelia's virginity. The girl couldn't bear to look at her mother's face anymore and looked to the ground, in her line of vision her mother dropped one hand and yanked the left sleeve of her jumper up her forearm and to her elbow. The bare, white skin pierced through the dimly lit room.
Bellatrix admired her daughters arm, she caressed the smooth skin with her finger nails and licked her lips.
"Soon you will be one of us" Her eyes had a glint of mad happiness in them. "You're destined for great things, just like mummy." She gloated.
Aurelia's stomach bubbled, her fingers trembled, and her eyes bore holes into those of her mothers.
"I am nothing like you" Aurelia said and ripped her arm from the grip of Bellatrix's and made a dash for the door.
"Grab her Snape!" Bellatrix yelled, and Severus looped his arm around Aurelia's waist. The force that she collided the man with lifted her feet into the air. The pair jostled in the tight hallway of the house, but Aurelia appeared to be winning in her fight for freedom.
"Hold her, you coward! Don't let her run!" Her mother continued, and Snape was able to regain composure and control of the tiny frame of the girl. Aurelia's feet were back on the floor, but Bellatrix still pushed her face backwards into Snape. "Hold her" she screeched again. Severus laced his fingers into the girls' hair and around her skull. Aurelia felt helpless in that moment, she was stunned, her mother had wordlessly placed her under a hex. Bellatrix yanked and pulled at the girl's clothes; her school jumper ripped from the v neck straight down the middle. The buttons of her school shirt popped off and her tie was crudely wrenched from around her neck.
Aurelia had begun to panic, she could only move her eyes, her face was a violent shade of crimson, her eyes were fit to burst with angry tears. The girl's body jerked in the directions her mother pulled at her clothing. Her headmaster never moved from his spot and grip on Aurelia, his cool eyes didn't move from their fixed stare ahead although he felt Aurelia's head move in his hands.
The girl was stripped naked, and then her face was distorted inside Bellatrix's iron grip, their noses were millimetres apart. Aurelia's heart beat wildly in her chest, she was deathly afraid her stomach would be noticed but her mother's eyes never strayed from Aurelia's face.
"You are to go upstairs and bathe, scrub every part of yourself...or I shall get him to do it" Bellatrix spoke firmly to her daughter and motioned to Peter Pettigrew who stood in the doorway to the living room. Aurelia's eyes rolled over to see the rat that her mother had pointed towards, she felt the binder hex leave her body and instinctively covered her figure with her hands. Aurelia tried to nod her head in agreement, but Snape still had a secure clutch of her hair and Bellatrix still had her cheeks squashed in her hand.
Severus Snape undesirably dropped his unyielding position and gracefully ascended the stairs.
"Try and run dearie... he will still find you... 'he who must not be named'" Bellatrix cracked a wide grin across her face and mocked The Dark Lord's nickname. She let the girl's face go and Aurelia turned away from her mother.
There was a long black cloak hung on a coat stand, Aurelia took it and placed her arms through and wrapped it around herself. She walked with admitted defeat up the stairs and to the only room with an open door; the bathroom. Before she entered she noticed there was something in the deep pocket of the cloak, Aurelia placed her hand inside and pulled out the two phials that Snape had held earlier. She studied them, she looked for a label, she sniffed them and tried to get enough of what was left from inside out onto her hand. It was then that she realised this was Snape's cloak, and therefore probably Snape's house. She looked around at the walls of the dark upper hall landing for any signs that she could be right. But there was only wallpaper.
Aurelia walked to the doorway of the bathroom, Snape was still in there, he had filled the bath tub with warm water that had a slight lavender tone to it, the steam rose and misted the cabinet mirror and window.
Severus Snape couldn't bring himself to look at the girl who stood in front of him. He refused to approve of the plans that were made for her life as a follower of Voldemort. He had even risked his life and exposure when he had implored Bellatrix to change her mind. He took a steady deep breath and beckoned her forward.
Aurelia cried aloud as she dropped the cloak and stepped into the bath, her body and breath quivered with her sobs. Her professor didn't leave but he also didn't interact or show any sign of emotional involvement. She was too embarrassed to raise her eyes to him and she hugged her knees to her body to hide her breasts and belly. Aurelia lowered her head so that her knee caps neatly fit into the hollows of her eyes.
"I thought you couldn't apparate from inside Hogwarts" She mumbled.
Snape was surprised that she resorted to a question like that when her mind must have been swimming with questions because she knew absolutely nothing of her surroundings or her looming predicament. He took an inward smile, he knew that the power of knowledge, and that of which he had given her, will undoubtedly see her through her initiation and ensure that she succeeds where others have failed.
Aurelia received no answer so lifted her head but continued to hold a tight grip around her knees to protect her body from sight. Snape was perched against the sink, his legs were crossed at the ankle and his arms were folded over his chest, his dark eyes were fixated on the small panelled glass part of the closed door. His eyes flickered briefly down his own hooked nose to Aurelia in his bath tub, her eyes looked so desperate.
"You helped Draco. Will you help me?" she begged.
His eyes slid back down to her and paused for longer that time, but again, he didn't provide her with a response.
The adrenaline and fear that had pumped through Aurelia's veins had caught up with her. The water in the tub sucked and sloshed as she flew from the bath and began to retch into the toilet. The pumping of her stomach was relentless. Aurelia was so weak that she took a moment to regain her breath before moving from the toilet. Fresh tears clouded her eyes.
Severus gathered the cloak from the floor and placed it over the rounded back of Aurelia, her black curly hair covered most of her body anyway, but he was protective of her none-the-less.
The girl rose to her feet and wiped her snot and saliva on the sleeve of the garment she held wrapped around her and clasped at her chest. Severus closely watched every intricate move she made, how her eyebrows furrowed when she wiped her face, how her fingers shook, how her toes curled to grip the tiled floor and how his cloak swamped her, its length gathered on the floor behind her. His heart wanted to help her, just like he had wanted to help her when she was just 12 and sat in his classroom, scared, and scarred. She was still just as scared but even more scarred. His black eyes moved to look at the permanent scar on the side of her face, his mind wandered to the question of how it got there. Although the girl never raised her eyes from the floor, she spoke again.
"I'm not returning to school, am I?"
He took a breath to finally speak but the door of the bathroom swung open. Pettigrew stood there hunched over and he stumbled over his words in a frenzied panic. Severus resumed his casual position on the sink and folded his arms over his chest again to watch the pitiful fool. Pettigrew tried to speak again but his jumbled words were insufferable, he scuttled forward and grasped Aurelia by the cloak she wore and pulled her with him down the stairs. The girl tripped a few times on the stairs due to the lengths of fabric beneath her feet and once Aurelia reached the bottom and stood back in the small hallway again, her hands flew to her mouth in horror.