Chapter 3 - A New Burden
Harry and Ron arrived at the seemingly abandoned house that the directions on the parchment had led them to.
Enter the back door.
They did as the parchment instructed and walked around to the back of the house. The door lead to a dark hallway and at the end was another open room where they saw light.
"Ah, Mundungus. I see you've c-come around." Wormtail's voice came from the direction of the open room.
"Dad!" A girl's frantic voice called. They heard a slap. Then there was silence.
"C-come Mundungus, unless you would prefer that your daughter suffer the c-consequences of her father's stupidity."
They walked down the hallway, into the open room. There stood Wormtail with a girl around their age in his clutches. She looked a mess and one side of her face was reddened. Wormtail's wand had been at the girl's throat, until he saw them. The wand was now pointed in their direction and their wands at him.
"What are you doing here?" Wormatil sounded stunned.
"I came for the girl." Harry answered, feeling his rage start to rise.
"Petrificus Totalus!" Harry watched the light go towards Ron. It hit him in the chest and he was frozen stiff.
"Don't push me, Wormtail." Harry snarled. Wormtail began the Cruciatus Curse, but Harry had predicted he'd try that even before the word came out of his mouth. He made sure his disarming spell never left his mouth either as he used his nonverbal skills. Expelliarmus!
Wormtail's wand flew out of his hand. Harry began to approach when Wormtail put his hands around the girl's throat. She seemed calm, but then her face started to turn red and she began to struggle.
"I have the Horcrux." Harry said quickly as the girl's face was now turning pale. Wormtail did not loosen his grip on the girl's neck.
"Let me see it." Wormtail demanded.
Harry pulled the locket out of his pocket and held it out in front of him. The girl's eyes were unfocused. "Let her go."
"If I let her go, you'll leave before you give me that locket."
"And if I give you the locket, you'll kill her anyway." They both glared at each other. The girl's struggles were weakening. "I'll throw you the locket and you let her go." Wormtail looked to be in deep thought, but then nodded. "One…two…three…"
Harry threw the locket at Wormtail. When it reached him, he let the girl go to catch it, sending her to the floor, gasping for air. As soon as he caught the locket, he went fumbling for his wand. Harry jabbed his wand into Wormtail's back, insisting that he unfreeze Ron before he pulled a disappearing act. He complied and Ron fell to the floor due to his loss of balance. He was gone a second later. Harry turned around. The girl was still on the floor, rubbing her neck and coughing.
"Are you alright?" Harry asked while helping the girl sit up.
She coughed two more times. "I think so. You saved my life." Ron had come over and knelt down next to Harry. "D-do you remember me?"
Harry looked at the girl. Her long, brown hair was in knots with two braids that lined her face, her eyes a very deep color brown. She had the appearance of being underfed like he had once had. Overall she looked nothing like Mundungus and was a somewhat attractive girl that he had never seen before in his life.
"Harry doesn't remember anything from that night." Ron interjected.
It then hit him who the girl was. The server girl he had been talking to at the reception. The girl appeared embarrassed. Or was that hurt? He felt guilty for being unable to recall ever talking to her.
"So…what's your name?" Harry asked.
"Brooklyn Fletcher." She said.
"You don't look anything like your father." Ron said.
"I'm adopted."
"So, umm, how old are you?" Harry asked dumbly.
"Just turned 18 last week."
"Did you go to Hogwarts?" Ron asked anxiously.
"I was in Hufflepuff. I graduated last year."
A jolt of pain went through Harry's scar and he winced at the burning sensation. Neither of them seemed to notice his cringe of pain, but they were still talking to one another, Ron helping her stand. Ron's ears were turning redder with each word he spoke.
That was more than enough small talk for Harry's liking and his voice felt overused once again. Without saying another word, they all apparated back to Mundungus'. What greeted them sent Brooklyn screaming and into tears. Mundungus lye dead on the floor.
He had been murdered and Harry immediately recognized the slashing to be from Sectumsempra. There was blood surrounding his body. Brooklyn crouched down next to him, blood soaking her pants, shaking him as if trying to wake him up from a deep sleep.
"Harry…look." Ron pointed to some markings on the floor next to the pool of blood.
Next to Mundungus' outstretched arm was what appeared to be writing. They got closer. The writing becoming clearer with each passing step and the blood glistened by the light of the fire.
Take care of her
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Did you get it?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, but there's something else going on. Harry will be here any second with Brooklyn Fletcher." Ron said quickly. "Mundungus was murdered."
"Murdered! By who?"
Crack!
Harry appeared with the sobbing Brooklyn clinging onto him. He wasn't comfortable with being her personal tissue, but he didn't really have a choice in the matter after she grabbed onto him after Ron apparated. When she finally broke away from him, they were both covered in Mundungus' blood.
"Tergeo!" Hermione said. They were instantaneously blood free.
"I think he noticed it was a fake." Harry said quietly.
Hermione led Brooklyn upstairs to a bedroom. She came down about a half hour later saying that Brooklyn wanted to be left alone. Harry knew what she was going through for he had been getting away from everyone any chance he got. It was the only way, talking about it was just too painful. The mere thought of it was. Unfortunately, his muses always led back there, making him feel a little worse each time.
Harry was about to retreat to his own room when Hermione insisted on talking about what happened with Mundungus. Ron did the talking while Harry didn't even listen. His mind was preoccupied with the dull searing sensation of his scar. He was becoming convinced it had something to do with the locket that still remained around his neck.
"So you really think V-voldemort killed him?" Hermione asked.
"Who else would it have been? Well, I guess it could have been a Death Eater, but still, You-Know-Who had to have been behind it." Ron insisted.
"Snape." Harry said with vengeance in his voice. "He used that spell that I used on Malfoy." There was silence.
"Well, about that note that was in the fake locket, I'm pretty sure I know who wrote it." Hermione said. "I was studying the Black family tree and noticed Sirius' brother's name was Regulus Black."
"Maybe that's why he's dead. Voldemort knew he stole the locket." Harry said.
"But why would You-Know-Who leave the fake one there?" Ron asked.
Hermione looked to be deep in thought. "There would be no point to go through all of that pain for a useless trinket. Besides, he was probably hoping for something like what happened to well, happen." Harry closed his eyes. The scene was playing like a movie in his head. "V-voldemort probably found out that Regulus stole it through Legilimency, so he killed him."
"I'm going to go to bed." Harry said.
"Wait! We still need to discuss how we should go about destroying the locket!" Hermione protested.
"Later. Someone should report Mundungus' death to the Ministry."
Harry turned away from Hermione and Ron's opened mouth faces and headed up the stairs. He heard the faint sound of sobbing as he passed the door before his. Stopping and checking in on Brooklyn wasn't even a thought that crossed his mind. He locked the door to his room behind him. Hedwig flew over towards him, but he didn't put out his arm for her to land on. She landed on his shoulder and affectionately nipped at his ear. He knew she wanted his attention, but he had none to give.
Sitting down on his bed, Hedwig made the short flight to the back of the headboard of the bed, hooting for his attention. He laid back. Two bright yellow eyes stared back at him with what appeared to be confusion. Or was that curiosity? Either way, he could really care less, because he had witnessed more death today. A gruesome one at that. And to make matters even worse, he now had another burden. The glistening words flashed on the black background of his closed eyes.
Take care of her
He did not know how long he had been in his room for, but the knock on the door disturbed his perfect silence. He opened his eyes. The bright yellow ones greeted him yet again. Harry pulled his wand from his pocket and flicked it at the door. It unlocked and he saw the handle turn. Behind the door stood his latest burden.
Brooklyn's grief ridden eyes looked intently into his own. "C-can we talk?"
The last thing Harry wanted to do was talk, especially to her. He had already started to feel resentment towards her, because Mundungus knew Harry wouldn't be able to turn him down to his face, forcing him to follow through with the request. Brooklyn had already closed the door behind her, but she hadn't progressed further into the room. Her hair was still knotted and bruises had formed on her neck. She was just another burden he had to endure.
"About what?" He finally said.
She came and sat on the end of his bed. "Well, I figured if anyone, you'd be the right person to talk to about…" She looked like she was about to cry.
"Death?" She nodded and he started to get annoyed. "Yeah, that's me. I'm starting to lose count of how many people I've seen die."
"I'm sorry. I'll leave."
"What is it?" Harry said sounding very annoyed. "You want to know how to cope? You want to know how long the feelings of grief, guilt, and agony last?" She stood up and started to back away towards the door. He stood up. He wasn't done with his little speech and he was yelling by now. "I'm still waiting for all of those feelings to leave me and I don't think they ever will! Coping? You can try to suspend reality and act, but you're only fooling yourself! I was a fool all of last year in this fantasy of feeling happiness!" Tears started to fall from her eyes and her hand reached behind her for the doorknob. Harry lowered his voice, but it was still one of extreme annoyance. "Truth is I don't know how to cope so I have no friendly advice to give you." He said the word friendly with the utmost sarcasm.
Harry knew that he should be feeling guilty for yelling at Brooklyn like that, but that feeling was nowhere in his mind. He in fact was feeling as though he had just performed a Pepper Up charm. This was not a good thing. He shouldn't be feeling happy after causing someone innocent pain. It didn't matter though, he loved the feeling. He basked in it.
'Feelssssss good doesssssn't it?' A familiar voice came into his head.
No. This wasn't happening. He covered his ears with his hands.
'Hurting people, Harry, it'ssssss in your nature.'
"No! It's not!" He shouted. What Harry wouldn't give to be good at Occlumency right now.
'And to continue thisssss feeling, it issssss a neccesssssity that you return the Ssssslytherin locket to it'sssss rightful owner.'
"No! I won't do it!"
'Come now, Harry, don't be a fool. It'ssssss time to return the locket.'
And for some reason, Harry felt it was the right thing to do.