A/N: hello all! The hiatus is over! Please enjoy this chapter, it's short but the next two chapters will probably be quite long and then that's it - we're finished!
Special thanks to FalseIndigo0o0, Purplestan, SmallLittleCagedBird, Aly2496, and Louise for your encouraging reviews. I'm really very grateful.
I appreciate that I haven't posted in ages so if you have any questions about this chapter/can't remember where we got up to, please review or DM me and I'll get back to you.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Night
A surprisingly warm mid-April breeze fluttered through the open window of Llewyn's playroom, causing the pages of the bedtime book Arianwen was reading to flap about. Llewyn cried out in annoyance, bouncing up and down in Arianwen's lap until she found the page they were on, where a picture of a dog was chasing a butterfly.
"You like dogs hmm?" she asked him softly. Llewyn twisted in her lap and clapped happily, his eyes sparkling. She laughed at his excitement and planted a kiss on his forehead. "Maybe we should get you one…but not until your little sister's here," she added as an afterthought, rubbing her stomach thoughtfully.
Llewyn, having forgotten about his book, slid off her lap and bent forward to rest his head on Arianwen's now five-month baby bump. She stroked his soft white-blonde hair, leaning back against the sofa behind her and thinking absently about what her new baby would look like. She'll probably look exactly like her father, she thought bitterly. It was a good thing, Arianwen decided, that Llewyn had retained the soft green Gwydion eyes when he'd gone through Nimue's ritual, it would've been too painful to look into grey eyes every day – Draco's eyes.
"Duchess!" a voice she recognised to be Montgomery called from the hall, pulling her from those dangerous thoughts of a past love.
"In here!" Arianwen called back lazily, lifting Llewyn up and standing with difficulty.
"Duchess," Montgomery panted as he entered the playroom, another five or six men in his wake, "there are Death Eaters here in Carmarthenshire!"
"What?" Arianwen gasped, holding Llewyn tightly to her, as if hoping to shield him from their conversation. "How many?"
"All of them!" Montgomery exclaimed.
Aneirin stepped forward from behind Montgomery. "There's a whole army of them here," he explained quickly, "they're just now moving beyond the Dragon's Back."
Arianwen gulped, her eyes bulging as she looked between each man's face, each one equally as stunned as the next. "Then we fight." She concluded simply; it was their only choice, the Death Eaters would be upon them in minutes anyway.
"Betsy!" She called. One second later Betsy appeared in the room, rushing to help her mistress. "Take Llewyn, I want you to take him to Brianne and-"
"I'm here!" Brianne burst into the room, her cheeks red and her hair sticking unattractively to the sides of her face. "What do you want me to do?"
"I need you to take Llewyn," Arianwen ordered, "keep him safe. I have no doubt that my uncle will be amongst the Death Eaters here today." She passed Llewyn over, her heart breaking at his fearful expression, his attempts to wriggle out of Brianne's arms and back into hers. "Be good, darling," she soothed as she kissed him goodbye. Brianne nodded; she looked positively petrified, but hurried away with the young boy nevertheless.
"Right," Montgomery was saying to the small crowd that had gathered in Llewyn's playroom whilst Arianwen had been talking to Brianne. "We need to get to higher ground, where possible. My men and Gwynedd's men will take the high ground, hiding in caves and out-of-sight where possible. The Duchess of Carmarthenshire will take her men to the woods-"
"Why don't I send some to the lake too," Arianwen cut in, "we can camouflage ourselves, and if you drive them into the valley floor we can attack from within, we'll have them surrounded on all sides."
"Yes," Montgomery agreed. "Excellent. Any questions?" He barked. Nobody had any, and so, with a shared feeling of impending doom, they all marched from the house and into their positions.
Draco marched forward, cursing to himself as he scarcely avoided tripping over yet another rock. "Watch yourself, Malfoy," a cloaked figure from behind him spat as he nearly collided with him. In a move very unlike him, Draco chose not to send a scathing retort in response, his mind too caught up on the location that the Dark Lord had chosen for their latest ambush. He'd taken a leaf out of their book, he'd told the Death Eaters smugly, his mouth twisting into his most gruesome of smiles. Where better to stage a midnight attack then in the very home of the woman who'd mocked them all by escaping Malfoy Manor, by murdering so many of their comrades, and by refusing to surrender the 'key to Wales' as they now called Llewyn.
Before Draco had left Arianwen's house, Ty Myddfai, where she'd told him of her pregnancy, Draco had summoned Betsy, asked her to fetch him Arianwen's dragon brooch that she always wore with her ceremonial cloak. When Betsy refused, citing her allegiance to the Gwydion family, Draco cast an Imperius Curse on her and forced her to find it for him. Knowing that Arianwen would wear the cloak with the brooch attached when involved in any kind of warfare, he cast a seeking spell on it so that he could always find Arianwen's location.
And now, stood at the mouth of a river waiting for the order to attack, Draco cast the spell under his breath.
Shouting, swearing, cries of pain as people got hit; it was carnage. Arianwen flailed her arm around, "Confringo!" Her spell blasted a whole through the trees ahead, causing the bark to fly aflame and trees to creek as the buckled under the weight of felled trees nearby. Death Eaters were advancing upon them, they'd come much closer than any of the War Councillors had expected and now they were paying the price of underestimating the enemy. Arianwen could only hope that the fighting in the areas that the mid and northern welsh armies had covered was going better.
"Duchess!" A man she didn't recognise shouted, "duck!"
Arianwen flung herself down onto her knees and just in time – a flash of green light shot passed her, whizzing her hair in all directions as it flew past. "Argh!" The same man shouted and Arianwen shot up to see him crumple to the floor, lifeless. She sucked in the air around her, fear and panic and rage crushing her chest, preventing the air from gaining entry. Despite everything she'd seen, every death was painful, every kinsman lost - a tragedy.
And then, darkness. Pitch black. Everywhere, everything, consumed by the night. But shouts of confusion around her meant that it was not just she that was experiencing the blackness. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end suddenly; a warm, familiar hand pressed against her mouth and an arm encircled her waist from behind.
"Don't move."
She'd been dragged all the way across the fields, through the river and up the bank into her house. Poetically, her captor had taken her to the grand hall, the room in which he'd murdered her father, and bound her in ropes.
"Do you know where we are, Arianwen?" Dafydd said, his voice thick with malicious glee. "Do you recognise this room?"
Arianwen couldn't move to nod or make a sound but something of the look in her eye must have told Dafydd that she did. His smile grew even wider.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you just yet. Or at least not in the same way I killed your Father. I brought you here because I have something to show you."
Confused, Ariawnen watched as Dafydd moved towards a corner of the room that was out of her field of view. There were small sounds of struggle, as though Dafydd was trying to coax an unwilling animal out of the darkness. When he stepped back before her, however, it wasn't an animal he was holding in his arms. It was Llewyn.
Franticly, Arianwen tried to make a sound, move her arms, but she couldn't. Whatever Dafydd had done to her had completely paralysed her.
"This child," Dafydd said, "is the key to my freedom. I know all about you Arianwen and your little magics," and here his face grew very sharp and almost manic, and Arianwen could see the madness that had been brewing come to the fore. "You see this?" and with a sudden jerk, he raised the arm not holding the child, his robes slipping away to the elbow and Arianwen could see a fresh and hideous scar, discoloured and warped like a burn. "I got off lightly when you escaped the first time but if I don't return with something to demonstrate my loyalty, there's no way the Dark Lord will let me live. I thought about just giving him you, but then you left my son so unprotected I could hardly pass up the opportunity. The Dark Lord will grant me the highest position of favour for such a prize."
Arianwen could feel her lungs starting to constrict, whatever poison Dafydd had given her was starting to slow her breathing but she needed to fight, she needed to get free.
"Such a prize," Dafydd said again, "just think, Arianwen, the power of our bloodline under such guidance as his. My son will truly be the most powerful wizard ever to walk the Earth."
But Voldemort won't want a more powerful wizard, Arianwen thought desperately, he'll just kill him, he'll kill him to take his power. Arianwen reached inside herself, trying to find the ancient magic to draw it forth to kill Dafydd before he could leave with Llewyn. But there was nothing there.
She felt her body rising as Dafydd flicked his wand, the ropes fastening themselves to the ceiling and she was left suspended.
"Now, dear niece, you get to watch me walk away to victory. It'll be the last thing that you see before the poison completely overtakes you, so your suffering won't last long. Consider this my final kindness."
Llewyn was wailing in Dafydd's arms, his cries barely muffled by the fabric of Dafydd's robes, one small hand reached out for her and Arianwen could do nothing but watch as Dafydd walked through the door and into the darkness.
Draco had followed the seeking spell to the house but as Dafydd had entered the room in which he was keeping Arianwen, he had sealed the door behind him and Draco couldn't risk an explosive spell to force it open in case he killed Arianwen immediately. He didn't even know what spell Dafydd had used or if there was any way he could break it, so all he could do was wait outside and listen as Dafydd threatened first Ariawnen's life and then his son's. He knew he would have to act quickly when it became clear that Dafydd intended to leave with the baby and he positioned himself to be just outside of the doorway, gripping his wand in his suddenly sweaty palm. He had heard everything, the poison, the plot—he'd have to summon Betsy as soon as possible to get the antidote for whatever it was Dafydd had used, he could only hope that the house elf's magic could detect it in time.
The door swung open with all the pomp and drama that Draco had come to expect from Arianwen's uncle and the man himself stepped through, the squalling babe clutched in his arms. Llewyn was struggling fiercely, clearly desperate to get down, and Dafydd's arms tightened around him.
"Shut up you miserable brat!" Dafydd snapped.
"Sounds like he wants his father." Draco said, and as Dafydd turned, surprise etched across his face, Draco raised his wand and there was a flash of green light.
Dafydd collapsed to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut and Draco started forward in alarm, only to see Llewyn pushing himself free, unfazed. Looking up into Draco's face, Llewyn extended his pudgy hands in an obvious request to be held, and Draco couldn't help but smile.