Chapter 15

Disclaimer: JKR owns the Potterverse.

AN: Thanks to septentrion and LadySunflower for betaing.

The moment it was safe to do so, I resumed my attempts to escape from Atropos. I hadn't wanted to risk getting Splinched by trying to break free whilst she was Apparating.

Kicking back at her, I felt my own shin threaten to give way beneath me.

"Stop it!" Atropos shoved me away from her, sending me sprawling onto the double bed occupying the room. "I only want to talk to you."

Rolling over, I sat up, shaking my hair out of my face. Absently rubbing at my shin, I noticed Atropos bending down to do the same thing. Her robes had partially opened, revealing more cleavage than I was aware of possessing. Perhaps that was how Severus saw me?

Her words abruptly sank in. "Talk? After everything, you want to talk?" I couldn't believe my ears. "You think that after killing my friends – trying to kill my husband! – that I'm going to just sit here?"

I made to get up. Atropos pounced, pushing me to lie flat on my back, straddling me. "Shut up and listen!" Her lips almost touched mine as she spoke, her unsteady breaths raising the hairs on the back of my neck. "You are the only one who can possibly understand."

"What?" I asked. Even to myself, I sounded cold and suspicious.

Atropos pulled her head back, grabbing hold of my wrists with her gloved hands, restraining me before I could try to get free. "All I want is to create a world fit for myself and my child. Surely you want the same thing?"

My jaw dropped. She couldn't be serious….

"I've been inside your head, much as you've been inside mine, Granger," Atropos breathed. I turned my head to the side, uncomfortable with the intensity of her gaze and the way her breath kept giving me the feeling of ghostly kisses. Freeing one of my wrists, she took hold of my jaw, forcibly turning my head back. She smirked, stroking her leather-coated fingers against me in a mocking caress.

Her voice dropped to a seductive alto. "We are much alike, however much you want to deny it. Join me. Together we can—"

"Join you?" I laughed bitterly. "You're insane. We may be the genetically identical, but we haven't been the same mentally since the start of puberty. I don't kill for the sake of it. I have control, something you seem incapable of understanding."

"That is not true," she spat. I closed my eyes, grimacing, raising my free hand to wipe the spittle from my face, careful not to touch her. "I have been known to exercise mercy. Before you initiated our mental contact in St. Mungo's, I spared the same toddler no less than three times."

"Yet you killed a pregnant woman at the Ministry," I said flatly, revealing only the slightest hint of the outrage I felt.

Looking stricken, she drew her head back, her face paling. "I did? It must have been when I let the dark rage take me… I admit that I do lack control in those circumstances." Her voice gained a wheedling tone. "If you joined me, you could keep me under control."

"The fact remains that you have killed far too many for me to entertain the thought of forgiving you, let alone joining you," I murmured, watching as her eyes narrowed and her jaw clenched.

"How can you refuse me?" She struggled to contain her rising anger, voice trembling. Her grip tightened to a bruising pressure, which she ignored even as it was inflicted upon herself. "You hold the fate of your precious world in your hands. The fate of your friends, of your beloved husband, depends on you. There's nothing to stop me from murdering them in their beds now that I have the knowledge of your headquarters."

Brilliant. She'd acquired the means to get into Grimmauld Place from me whilst I learned of what had twisted her into this monster. My blood ran cold as my options were fast running out. I could only see one way ahead, and could I really do that?

She took my lack of answer as confirmation of my rejection. "So be it. You will regret this, I promise. I think restraining you within a pentagram would get you out of my way." She bared her teeth in a nasty grin. "If you're lucky, I'll bring Snape here for you to say your goodbyes before I kill him."

It was clearly a necessity rather than a choice now….

With a wrenching twist, I threw her off me. Our positions were reversed within seconds. I grabbed her wrists, careful not to touch her skin. She glared up at me, eyes bright with tears of fury as she fought to escape me. While we were equally matched in terms of physical strength, it wasn't easy to keep hold of her.

It was doubly hard to focus on Apparition, particularly taking my captive without Splinching. Rather than risk going to Grimmauld Place first, I targeted my ultimate destination: the Death Chamber.

I had no attention to spare to look around the large, dimly lit room. Still on top of Atropos, I had materialised at the edge of the dais holding the veil. Bucking her hips, she flung me off her.

As she scrambled to her feet, I drew my wand, grasping the opportunity to conjure my Patronus. My first attempt failed; I was hardly in the right frame of mind to easily do so. Severus was really going to regret teaching me how to send a message using the silver beasties in the time Atropos had laid low. When I managed to summon my ghostly Thestral, it promptly unfurled its wings, flying straight through the ceiling on its quest. Just in time, for Atropos was raising her wand even as I pronounced the spell.

"Expelliarmus!" Atropos cried, causing both of our wands to fly out of our hands. Her voice sounded oddly muffled by the unsettling silence permeating the chamber. "Who did you send that to?" she demanded.

"Guess," I hissed, blocking her as she attempted to move to the edge of the dais.

Her lips were bloodless. Breathing raggedly, she looked distinctly unwell as she nervously glanced back at the veil. "You'd inflict me on another world?" Her lip curled. "I knew that was your initial plan, but after learning that it would endanger others, I thought you would never do it. I guess you're not so different from me after all," she scoffed, the effect spoiled by her breathlessness.

"You'd be surprised," I attempted to sneer back, to find that whatever was afflicting her affected me equally. Through my peripheral vision, I noted that the blood red runes now completed coated every single surface in the room, barring the veil itself.

With a multiple cracks of Apparition, the cavalry arrived. Looking around, I saw that only those with wands had come: Minerva, Lupin, Harry, Croaker and Severus. I was barely able to keep myself from flinching as I briefly met my husband's eyes.

"Bloody 'ell!" Croaker exclaimed, staring at the rune-coated room in surprise. The others also looked shocked; it seemed that the presence of two Necromancers enabled anyone to see the runes, although not to translate them. Thank God. It would be a disaster if Severus could actually tell what the message was….

Taking advantage of my distraction, Atropos lunged past me, moving as fast as she could towards the exit. My backup performed their duty admirably, capturing her with a combined Incarcerous.

My earlier struggle with Atropos had convinced me that I couldn't throw her through the veil myself, as any physical fight between us would be akin to an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.

I could feel it when Atropos tried to tap into her Necromantic powers to free herself; felt them threaten to be torn asunder prematurely by the proximity to the veil.

Lupin and Severus manually dragged the bound Atropos over to the crumbling archway on the dais. As she passed me, she smirked at me, a hesitant expression through her pain and unease at her earlier words. Making no attempt to plead or make threats, she maintained a dignified silence as she was frogmarched to her exile.

Forcing myself to move, I staggered around to the other side of the veil. I could see Severus, Atropos and Lupin's feet under the ragged black cloth. At least this way I couldn't see Severus's face, a thought that filled me with mingled relief and regret.

'If I could look at him, I won't be able to do this.' I inhaled a shaky breath, ignoring the stinging of my dry eyes. 'I'm sorry, Severus. I have to do this. I will do what must be done.'

I waited until Atropos was being hurled through the veil before allowing myself to respond to the runic summoning.

"Don't follow me, Sev—" My words were cut off by a silent scream of agony as I passed through into blackness. It felt like I was being torn asunder, heart and soul. Yet in that pain and darkness, I wasn't alone.