27
Sarah POV
Exhausted, I left Dumbledore's office and went to the Common Room. As soon as I walked in, Harry was there, waiting anxiously by the portrait hole. "Sarah, I'm so sorry, it was my fault-"
"Harry, don't be an idiot, it's my fault. I shouldn't have lost myself that easy." I said loud enough to keep him from talking over me. "It's ok." I said seriously, putting my hands on his shoulders. Harry grinned and gave me a hug.
"Thank, Merlin, ok, you're ok? You're fine?" He asked, begging for clarification as he pulled away, looking at me closely.
"I'm just really tired, I think I'll get some rest," I told him, and, nodding vigorously, he pushed me towards the girls' staircase. I did exactly as Professor Dumbledore told me; I went straight to bed. The rest was exactly what I'd needed, and when I got up the next day, I felt like my old self again. After spending an extra moment of solitude to focus and make sure my mind was fortified, I went down to the Common Room. Hermione was sitting on a couch giggling to herself, and Ron was beside her, looking slightly sickened. Both had their eyes glued to something I couldn't see across the room.
"Hey, guys, what's-" I started, walking over to them, but when I saw what they were looking at, my mouth dropped open. Harry and Ginny were sitting across the room, snogging. "Took him long enough," I said after I'd jerked out of it, chuckling as I plopped down next to Ron. When Harry and Ginny were finally done, we all went down to breakfast together. As we walked in, I automatically looked to the Slytherin table. Draco looked up when he heard Hermione laughing at Ron's expression, and his eyes found mine. Smiling, I gave him a tiny, inconspicuous wave before following my friends to the table. I could feel his eyes on me for awhile afterward.
As the year wore down, I felt better and better. I met with Draco often, even if it hurt. We never met on Wednesday or Thursday because of my Occlumency, but I saw him at least twice a week. I was kind of proud of myself- I was having such a beneficial affect on Draco. He wasn't as sickly looking anymore, and he laughed more. When he was with me, it was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He was still arrogant and naïve, but his occasional downright stupidity was hilarious. He never realized how sheltered he was until after he'd spoken and then he'd sulk like a child, only making me laugh harder. But as we got closer and closer to the end of the year, I could tell he started to get nervous. All my work started to reverse, and we started drifting apart. Dumbledore already had a word with Draco about the protection measures, but it didn't seem to do Draco much good. When we did meet, I didn't bring up his mission at all, but instead focused his attention on school, or books, something.
One night in early June, Harry came barging into the Common Room and over to us, looking excited. He said he was going with Dumbledore to find a Horcrux. In a rush, he left us the Marauders Map and his Felix Felices before he was gone again. Hermione and I, anxious for his safety, pretended to do homework. In reality, we fretted continuously, drumming wands and quills on the table in an effort to calm down. Ron, on the other hand, was quiet, looking impressed. He had put his wandtip on the map and was spinning the paper underneath it in tight circles, evidently bored. "I wish someone else went with them." Hermione said finally, standing up and starting to pace between the coffee table (which I was leaning against) and the couch (where Ron was sprawled out). Ron snorted, still spinning the map.
"Who'd go with them, 'Mione?" He asked, his head starting to go in circles as he followed the map's progress. He slowly started to go cross eyed as Hermione paced faster.
"I don't know, Lupin or someone! Dumbledore's a great wizard, but I'm still worried!" Hermione insisted. Leaning against the coffee table, I internally agreed with Hermione. Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard alive, and Harry was a very good wizard, but the two of them alone still made me apprehensive.
"The Horcruxes are supposed to be a secret, Hermione. But the Order's here tonight, don't worry." I reminded her, catching her pantleg as she paced passed me and tugged her towards the couch. She sank down onto it with a sigh, drumming her wand against her leg. Ron lost control of the map and it hit me in the back of the head and slid to my left onto the floor.
Ron apologized hastily as I picked it up from where it'd fallen. "Here, put it-" As I was telling Ron to put it away, I got a huge shock that made me gasp. The pain of it zinged from the mark on my wrist and all through my body, making me stiffen. The map slipped from my fingers and onto the floor as I lost my grip, eyes widening as it happened again. I went to get up, but it was like the flashes of pain had paralyzed me; I couldn't move.
"Sarah?" Hermione slid off the couch and next to me, inbetween the coffee table and the couch. She looked concerned, but her, Ron and Harry were used to my seizures by now. But this…this was different. My arm, outstretched to give the map to Ron fell to the carpet with a thud as a burst of dark magic entered the castle. The mark burned white hot- she was here. They all were.
"The Order," I croaked, trying to shake off my frozen state without much luck. "Get the-" Cutting off my warning, Bellatrix suddenly attacked my mind with all she had and triggered a fit. The last thing I heard was Hermione and Ron's yelps of surprise before I was desperately trying to hold her back as the burning and pain crept higher and higher. How did they get in? I thought wildly as I struck out against Bellatrix- but it was weak. Sensing weakness, Bellatrix lashed back like a bullwhip, making my whimpers turn to groans. It had to have been Draco. My mind figured out for me as I started to slip. No, it couldn't have been. I insisted back, trying to summon inner strength that didn't exist. As the Death Eaters moved closer, I lost it completely, and Bellatrix blasted into my head, wreaking havoc. We fought hard for what seemed like ages until she hurt me so hard, I was stunned. Now the fun begins, little girl. Her thoughts, clear as day, echoed in my head as she mentally built a prison around me in my own head. Lying in the blackness, I continued to resist even after I felt myself stand up and my eyes open. Hermione was kneeling on the floor where I'd been thrashing, sitting stock still, eyes wide. The Common Room was silent, Ron missing. Bellatrix, now taking full control, had me draw my wand and leave without a word. As she walked me down the corridor, going Merlin knows where, I got up, stinging and sore from the seizure, my continued fight, and the pain of the Death Eaters as I got closer and closer to them. Experimentally, I touched the wall of the little prison she'd built around me, eerily similar to the block in my head around the information Dumbledore had told me, as well as everything about Draco I so yearned to tell. When nothing happened, I punched it hard. Seconds later, a punch came back and sent me staggering. Trapped, I felt fear rise in me as I tried urgently to think, tried to ignore the scorching pain building in my body. How was I going to fight her off?
"Sarah?!" I heard Ron yell, sounding scared, from the top of the corridor I was currently walking jerkily down. As I fought her with slowly increasing strength, I started to walk almost like a robot. I tried to open my mouth to warn Ron, to tell him what was wrong, but Bellatrix wasn't having any of that. I turned the corner and she picked up her pace, heading for the Astronomy Tower. "This way!" Ron yelled from a long way's behind me, and I heard lots of footsteps following me. Turning a corner, I arrived at the dead end corridor that turned into a staircase, going up. Seconds later, a hand curled around my upper arm. From out of the shadows stepped Bellatrix, smiling a truly evil smile. Inside, I shuddered and closed my eyes, trying not to see her face, but it was as if I was in a horrible nightmare I couldn't wake up from; closing my eyes wouldn't save me.
"My little prize," she hissed, and more Death Eaters solidified next to her, looking either bemused, eager or bored.
"She doesn't look like much." One said disdainfully, then raised his hands defensively as Bellatrix turned on him. Before she could do anything, a curse rocketed around the corner and hit him, blasting him off his feet. The Death Eaters launched into action as Order members dashed around the corner to attack them.
"Oh no you don't," Bellatrix almost cooed, as I twitched, almost going into the fight, to my side. She dragged me into an alcove in the hallway then put her free hand on my forehead, grabbing my head in her bony fingers. My whole body jolted in her grip as she tried to break into the protected vault in my head, full of information from Dumbledore. "An Unbreakable Vow?" She snarled, letting go and grabbing my chin. Reflected in her eyes, I saw that my own eyes were black as coal, my whole face slack and expressionless but strangely stiff. "That won't stop me," She hissed in my ear, pulling me back out into the fight. Fight them. She ordered, sounding gleeful already, and my body turned to face my friends, wand arm rising. No! I fought her hard and it jerked to a stop, trembling in midair.
"There, over there!" I heard Ron yell. With that sound, I beat against the walls of the prison with my fists. Winning small ground against Bellatrix, my head turned to follow the sound. Ron was crouched under a painting with Lupin, pointing at me from across the fight. Both of them were flushed with the heat of battle, already beaten up a little, looking at me, clearly frightened.
"Avada Kedavra!" Bellatrix roared over my head, taking my shoulder in a vice like grip and pulling me backwards against her, aiming for the two of them. Lupin and Ron scattered, and, thank Merlin; the spell scorched the ground where they'd been only seconds before. "Come with me," She growled, dragging me among the Death Eaters, away from the Order and towards the staircase. My heels dug uselessly into the ground a few times, but any control I'd won back for myself Bellatrix quickly snatched back. Seeing Bellatrix move, the other Death Eaters started to follow us, converging on the stairs. The Order pushed forward, but as the last Death Eater passed over the first stair, Bellatrix cast a spell in front of us, and a grey, see-through wall went up right in front of my face. As Death Eaters in front of us started up the stairs, Lupin charged at the wall and when he was right in front of me, looking right at me in determination, he was blasted off his feet and down the hallway. "We have a meeting to attend," She cackled, as members of the Order converged around the wall, glaring at Bellatrix fiercely or looking at me in shock. "Say goodbye to your little friends!" She laughed gleefully, taking my arm again.
"You sick, evil woman!" Tonks shouted, incensed, on the other side of the barrier, raising her wand as Bellatrix pulled me up a step. The spell she cast was absorbed into the wall; nothing happened.
"Stop resisting," She snarled at me when trying to force me up the steps did nothing. Tonks' act had woken me up a bit. Bound and determined to stop this now, I launched a full out attack against her, beating on the walls of my little prison, kicking, punching. Bellatrix's face tightened and she sagged against the wall, but then she started laughing, a wild, crazy sound. She straightened again, raising her wand. "It's time I taught you obedience." She whispered, eyes crazed. Kicking harder and with more repetitions, I stumbled back onto the staircase wall, feeling her power on me flicker. I started getting flashes of seeing normally, as if I was free. Bellatrix simply raised a hand and smashed it across my temple in real life, making me slide down the wall with a choking noise, eyes fluttering closed.
"Leave her alone!" Ron bellowed on the other side, and Neville tried to breach the wall, flying off down the hallway as Lupin had done. Bellatrix half laughed, half panted as she kept me down while baiting the Order at the same time. Watching the faces of my friends, she attacked me in my own head, making me inhale sharply and my body freeze. The flickering died, and in my head, she hurt me into the stunned state again, crumpling in shock and with mind-numbing pain. Full out cackling with laughter now, Bellatrix grabbed my arm and pulled me up the steps, my friends' anguished faces getting smaller and smaller until they were gone.