'Cause I'm on fire
'Cause I'm on fire when you come
'Cause I'm on fire
'Cause I'm on fire so stub me out
It's so ironic. I've been given a room and bed upstairs but have been given explicit instructions not to leave.
A prisoner once more. Yet another filler chapter in the novel of my life. Though I hope it concludes with the slitting of Rodolphus Lestrange's throat.
How to end him. How to get you back. It's all that I can think about while having to endure endless conversations of battle plans, and the weepy would-have-beens if the war wasn't lost. A bowl of strawberries is placed upon the table by Molly at one point, and my mouth floods with the phantom taste of you. The moment the succulent fruit touches my tongue, I can't help myself from going damp.
I miss you.
And now? This is just torturous, Arthur and Molly have me sharing a room with both Black sisters, the conclusion to the triumvirate of the Black family psyche.
Andromeda the Ego, Narcissa the Super-ego, and you, of course, the charismatic Id.
I had plans to ease some of my earlier tension once your sisters decide to go to sleep. Unfortunately for me, they insist upon finagling their way into my private time, blah-blah-blahing about frivolous things that really don't matter.
It actually hurts between my legs. Love physically manifesting in my aching, untouched genitals.
Your sisters are both looking at me expectantly. I haven't chimed in once during this tête-à-tête they are trying to drag me into. I had the mute button on.
"Oh it's such a shame our sister marred you so." Andromeda says while scanning the love mark on my arm. As with everyone else, she just doesn't understand or appreciate its aesthetic value. "Not her best work either…"
"Bella was once an artist you know." Narcissa chimes in from behind the book she's been pretending to read this whole time, and I regard her with as much interest as I can feign. In actuality I find the mounted muskets on the wall to be of great intrigue. With one I could shatter Rodolphus skull at pointblank range. Splatter scatter shot. Paint a Jackson Pollock with his brain.
"All three of us." Andromeda adds to the burgeoning family history that I get to be part of tonight. Honestly, they don't seem to understand that I'm a little preoccupied at the moment. I tug the quilt on my bed up a little higher to cover my shoulders. "Bella was the painter and sculptor..."
"Andromeda the singer." Narcissa says with a smile.
"And dear Cissy the poet." Andromeda sighs wistfully. It sounds as if they're reading lines from a play. "Bella's work changed through her descent into madness...to the point where she stopped creating altogether."
I don't know how much of this I can take. I raise my scarred arm up for the two sisters to see, and speaking aloud for the first time, I suggest that Bella was perhaps testing a new medium.
"How dreadful!" Andromeda grasps at her heaving chest. "Bellatrix flirted with macabre subject matter before she became a death eater I remember. I shudder when I think back to that particularly gruesome rendition of Salome she painted in her seventh year."
"I rather enjoyed it. Oh how lifelike, the tension expressed on canvas was nearly palpable." Narcissa remarks and Andromeda doesn't seem too convinced. On the other hand, I can't help but wonder if you were ever planning on staging your own Salome; considering our circumstances I'd audition for the titular role. Roldolphus as a St. John the Baptist. Set in our own theatre of the macabre. His head on my platter.
"But can't you see the signs were all there! Pity father didn't try to intervene whilst she was so broken. Had her disposition been a bit brighter, it would've been reflected in her work!"
"It takes a damaged mind and heart to create something whole because happy minds do not create beautiful art." Narcissa says with her nose turned up in the air. "What she created should not have been considered what you so brusquely call a 'red flag'"
"I disagree, art is a reflection of the artists own psyche, a window to the soul. It is the very concept of beauty that is subjective on behalf of the viewer." Andromeda retorts and I'm feeling quite certain that I'm about to bear witness to a spat of sibling rivalry. I roll onto my side, and tune out their trivial argument with a pillow to the ear.
Pity they didn't ask me my opinion though. I find all art to be quite useless.
Before I ended up in between these two loving siblings, Arthur outlined their plans for tomorrow: a raid on the ministry. Strike at the Overlord, and kill Nagini when we get the chance. The Overlord's defenses are down thanks to Fleur and Neville springing me from Azkaban, and with Draco on the inside...well they figure their chances are good. I couldn't care less.
Hopefully it means I get to see you again...and kill your husband. Prove my love once and for all.
Narcissa and Andromeda are like two squawking parakeets in the same cage, shame there isn't a blanket big enough to shut them up.
They are so caught up in their intellectual nonsense they hardly notice me slip out of the room toward the bathroom down the dimly lit hall. I have to go, my bladder is so full it hurts.
Snores and mouth breathing punctuate the silence of the sleeping quarters of this dilapidated place. In one room I can see Fleur and Bill spooning on their bed, and oddly enough I can clearly see Fleur is pregnant. Didn't notice it before back in Azkaban. And if you did, you didn't really care one way or another. Torture is as torture does, stomach full of fetus or not. One of bills hands rests upon her stretched out belly.
Funny. Her unborn child has already done time in Azkaban.
I continue toward the bathroom and gently push the door open. I've got privacy at my disposal for the first time in three years. I was lucky in Azkaban to have the toilet directly next to my bed, didn't have to creep up on it in the night like I have to do here. Nor do I have a strung out neighbor watching me. I ease the door close and relieve myself.
A quick hand washing and I gaze at my reflection in the mirror. Nothing's changed. I still look like I just came from prison.
There's a knock at the bathroom door.
Who is it?
"It's me. Cormac."
Fabulous, how am I going to deal with this now. One thing I've learned is that the world is your armory. Any object could be a weapon when you mix in enough imagination. There are towels, toothbrushes, a shower curtain, curtain hooks, and the list goes on. But these mundane things don't suit my needs at this moment,…oh but that looks intriguing.
How convenient. A small amber bottle of lye sits on the counter by the mirror. The sink must've recently been clogged and someone forgot the appropriate spell.
I pocket it before reaching to open the door.
We're both lying naked on your floor, a small candle our peripheral for the evening. You hold your fingertip above the flame for an agonizing amount of time. Moments earlier you told me not to try to stop you. You needed to feel invigorated. Needed to feel the bite of fire on your flesh to ignite a metaphorical fire within you. Burning to feel alive.
It's all a bunch of bullshit if you ask me, but it's hard to sit by and watch you cook your flesh for pleasure. I want to tug your hand away, but you wont budge. Your lip curls and you're biting down so hard, blood dribbles down your chin. I lap it up with my own tongue, tracing the contours of your chiseled face, leaving behind a snail trail of saliva that glistens in the candlelight.
Finally you whip your burnt digit away, and using astute toddler medical savvy, shove it into your mouth. When you finish sucking the pain away you give me a devilish smile.
"Are you ready pet?" With a flick of your wand you summon a bottle of rubbing alcohol. You pass it to me with a kiss.
I can only nod and watch you dip a finger into the small bottle and trace the letter "M" on your naked stomach. You shiver from the contact and already I can see it evaporating from your milky skin. You give me a kiss before muttering "Incendio" into my ear.
M for Mudblood ignites instantaneously. Your pretty face contorts between the planes of agony and pleasure. And I push my fingers hard inside you.
"You set me alight my muddy one…" You say through your teeth, climax imminent. "...though don't be afraid to burn anything in your away."
Cormac, the smug asshole, leans on the doorframe as if he's posing for an advert.
"Up late are we?" He smiles.
Had to go, I reply and make to move past him, but his arm blocks my path.
"C'mon, you just got sprung, least you can do is talk to me for a minute. I've already forgiven you for damaging my sleeve earlier tonight." His voice is slick like oil, and my fingers creep toward the vial in my pocket. His own fingers reach out to trace my jaw, just how you like to do, but this time it feels dirty. "Remember…back in our slug club days I couldn't take my eyes off you. Thought it was a pity you fancied Weasley, rest his soul and all that. Didn't think you could possibly get more beautiful...and here you go proving me wrong."
I'm cornered in the bathroom tripping over the legs of these jeans that I'm too skinny for. Cormac licks his lips and all that flashes in my mind is you. His eager hands rub my bony shoulders and begin to travel downward. These touches aren't like yours.
"Must've been pretty lonely those three years eh? Bet you've got some...frustrations to vent...I could help...Merlin knows how long I've wanted you…" His stubbled chin starts a descent toward my face, his lips being drawn in like a fish.
My right hand works to uncork the bottle and I throw the white powder directly into his eyes. Immediately I'm shoved away and he claws at his face, wailing in agony. Boiling his corneas under his eyelids. The skin around his eyes is beginning to look like ground beef, and like an idiot he rubs at it with his hands, only spreading the lye to his palms.
"My…my wand! G-g-g-give me my wand cr-crazy bitch! Ahh!"
Simple muggle chemistry has no magical fixer. Another lesson from Azkaban. A
And his blubbering isn't helping him. Idiot. He'll be blind in a matter of minutes, saving myself and females as a whole from his predatory gaze.
Ugh. I haven't been here a full day and already I find myself growing anxious, I want to get out of here. Away from them, and back to you. I know you're out there right now looking for me.
Your mudblood is looking for you too.
I decide to build my arsenal, smashing the bottle of lye and carefully wrapping the largest shard in a scrap of towel. I'd sand it a little if I had time. It'll serve as my own caustic dagger.
Cormac's face continues to melt as I make my way into the hallway and down the stairs. Behind each door I pass people are waking up, most likely due to Cormac's rudeness. I wouldn't expect to sleep through these unwarranted screams either.
I can't stay here a moment longer. These people aren't worth my time and all this serves is to delay my finding you. You're out there right now, I know it, and I'll do what I can to meet you halfway.
As I pass the rooms I can still hear your sisters arguing over nonsense, Neville's mouth breathing, and Molly's snoring. An orchestra of humanity I really don't want to listen to. I don't believe for a second these people have the capacity to topple the Overlord.
Making my way out of this forsaken place I grab one of molly's satchels from a hook on the wall. I'll need something to carry my arsenal. If I am going to kill your husband tonight, I need the right tool at my disposal.
I pocket a few steak knives and a cleaver, stuffing them into a thick oven mitt. A meat tenderizer. Cheesecloth. A bottle of grain alcohol. A box of matches. There's a guitar in the foyer and I snap off the D string, stuffing into my little bag of anarchy. I'll kill Rodolphus Lestrange several times over, just to make doubly sure he is dead.
They aren't going to do anything. The longer they sit holed up in this pub, the longer they delay the inevitable. Death doesn't deal in strategies.
And to rouse the hive, first you've got to smoke them out.
I pour out a little bit of the grain alcohol and stuff the cheesecloth into it's neck, just enough to let the end touch the clear fluid inside. Delicately with one of the burners on the stove, the flames lick and ignite the cheesecloth instantly. I've got maybe thirty seconds. I lob the bottle at the far wall. It strikes the long oak table first before shattering and spilling a deluge of fire onto the floor.
Flames lovingly begin to eat at the walls and I make for the exit. I'm sure they'll follow, the flames will let them know it's time.
Above my head the rafters creak. Everyone must finally be waking up thanks to Mr. McClaggin burning away in the bathroom…and the Dead Dog below them being reduced to a steak.
Before I can leave Arthur stumbles into the kitchen his wide fish eyes reflecting in the orange flames. He starts to scream. "Merlin! We're under attack!" He uses his wand to extinguish the flames. Cheater, surely there's water he could've used. He turns to me, metaphorical fire in his eyes this time. "Hermione, wake everyone! We storm the Ministry tonight!"
Well...shit.
A/N: winkwink, you know who you are.
A/N 2: A cookie if you catch the Oscar Wilde quote in there! :D
A/N 3: Lyrics at beginning from Banquet by Bloc Party.
