So I know that I said last chapter that Chapter 9 would be a two part chapter. However because of the plot bunny took such a tight hold on me Chapter 9 is now three parts. The only real reason for three parts is that I didn't want to have to come up with a new chapter title. So basically I'm lazy. The good news is that chapter 9 is now done and there is only one more chapter left in this story. Enjoy
I felt frozen. As you can imagine I don't exactly keep in touch with Great Uncle (?) Rodolphus. Hell I'm surprised he's still alive. He had somehow managed to escape Hogwarts all those years ago that much I knew. But since he wasn't really family he didn't bother us any and we completely forgot about his existence. Under the current circumstances probably not the best idea my family has ever had. Even Draco must have forgotten about him because I don't remember seeing his name in the file and he's at least as crazy as grandma Bellatrix was.
"Welcome my dears." He said again. Lilly shuddered beside me.
"Now that our last guests have arrived we can begin the festivities." He clapped his hands and two death eaters I hadn't seen a moment ago stepped into our line of sight dragging someone. James. My heart constricted as I took in his appearance. He was bleeding from several cuts, had a split lip, and a bruised eye. Considering the company we were in I'm surprised it wasn't worse. But even the few injuries didn't make any sense. There was no way they could have captured all of us and tortured James in such a short amount of time. We haven't been in these damn tunnels for that long. What is going on?
Rodolphus lazily pointed his wand at James.
"Crucio."
Lilly flinched beside me, her hands tightening around both wands she possessed. James was writhing in pain for the duration of the curse but not a sound passed his lips.
"So tough to break." Rodolphus mused. Then his eyes landed on Rose. Oh. Hell. No. If James were in any condition to he would kill me for allowing anything to happen to his family while I stood in the room perfectly capable of preventing it.
"How long have you been down here?" It was the first thing that came to mind.
"Hmm? Oh ever since Draco Malfoy conveniently died leaving this place empty."
My hand tightened over my wand and I believe I saw red for just a second.
"You killed him!" I hissed.
Rodolphus laughed.
"Oh how I wish my dear Bellina. How I wish I could have killed that little brat. Both of them."
Astoria? What the hell did she ever do to him? What did Draco ever do to him for that matter?
"I see you are slightly confused Bellina. I suppose I should explain since it does have to do with you."
Cliché, cliché, cliché. Why is my life full of clichés? The bad guy always tells the good guy everything in the end. I mean really. Is life just full of clichés?
"The pride and joy of the Malfoy family, little Draco. He had shown such promise when he was younger. Of course he turned out to be nearly useless once the Dark Lord began setting things in motion. But I don't really blame him, no that was more his useless father's fault."
How insulting! That's my family he's talking about!
Lilly placed a hand on my arm as if foreseeing my outburst. Rodolphus continued as if he saw nothing.
"Bellatrix had so much hope in that boy even though he wasn't hers. Of course she didn't tell him that. Bellatrix was more the type to show her love and affection through torture and cruelty. Though I suppose you've heard all of those stories." He stopped talking staring blankly into space.
"And Astoria?" I asked. Keep him talking, just until I figure out what to do.
"Ms. Greengrass? What about her?"
"You said both of them." I wasn't really paying attention at this point, merely trying to analyze our situation. There were too many death eaters for me and Lilly to handle alone. To be honest there were more death eaters then the 6 of us could have handled alone. Where the hell did they all come from? Draco's file had no where near this many mentioned.
"Yes both of them. But I didn't mean Ms. Greengrass. I was talking about Astrid."
Rose was trying to signal something to me without bringing attention to her but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. But it didn't matter because when Rodolphus said Astrid my head whipped toward him and all other thoughts were forgotten. Astrid. I only knew of one Astrid that he could mean and he shouldn't even know about her. Rodolphus smiled at me.
"Yes I can see you know exactly who I'm talking about. Your dear mother Astrid, bastard product of the useless Lucius Malfoy and that bitch I called a wife."
Both Lilly and Rose gasped. Albus looked dumbstruck. While they were practically family I never told them who my mother's parents were. I never even really told them who my mother was just that she was permanently in St. Mungo's.
"How did you know?" my voice was low. This was the last thing I wanted to be talking about.
"How did I know? How did I know? Bellatrix actually thought she could keep from me the fact that she was with child after telling me, her husband, that she couldn't have any children. Then of course a little digging, a little spying and I find out the child wasn't even mine!" Rodolphus' face was nearly purple with rage. His wand was giving off red sparks. With a flick of his wrist he sent a stunner at me, one that I blocked almost unconsciously. That only seemed to make him angrier.
"I decided that day I found out to take the ultimate revenge on dear Bella." His voice was dripping with sarcasm and he sent another stunner at me. I blocked easily and pulled Lilly behind me, slowly backing up towards the nearest column.
"But it didn't work out the way it was supposed to. Bellatrix died. The stupid whore died! But so consumed with rage that I decided to take my revenge anyway." His smile was scary, no other word for it, "And you my dear Bellina were the product of that."
My feet froze and my eyes widened.
"Bellina?" I heard Lilly whisper my name but it didn't register. I only heard his last sentence echoing around in my head. It couldn't be. How fucked up is my ancestry?
"Yes dear Bellina. I took my revenge my impregnating Bellatrix's dear child and the result after nine months was you. A child that showed much more promise then your mother. I planned on taking you and raising you myself but your useless mother tried to stop me. So she suffered the same damage done to the Longbottom's by Bellatrix."
Insanity by the Cruciatus curse. The same one that was being used on James just a short while ago.
"But even then she continued to oppose me. She had immediately flooed to Lucius Malfoy and after that I couldn't lay my hands on you. But it doesn't really matter. Draco Malfoy, your guardian, is dead. You and your cousin soon will be and I'll make a note of sending Lucius and Narcissa right after you." Rodolphus ducked as he finished his sentence, my spell shattering the top of the throne he stood in front of. I was tired of his talking. I didn't care who he was, he hurt my family, and he promised to hurt them even more, he will pay.
"That could have been painful." He said lightly, observing the throne.
"Stupefy! Expulso! Reducto!"
Do you know how difficult it is to perform spells in a rage while your friend is dragging you backwards? Very hard indeed. Lilly somehow managed to pull me behind a column blocking us from the death eaters' view. Rodolphus managed to avoid every spell and was currently laughing his head off. Not in the evil bad guy maniacal way, he was just laughing hysterically. What kind of bad guy is this dude? If this whole scenario is gonna be a cliché at least do it right.
"Are you crazy?" Lilly hissed at me.
"Evidently it runs in the family." I snapped back.
"There is no way we can handle this many death eaters on our own and you just start cursing their leader? What happened to sensible Bellina?"
"She's on vacation." Ok really? That was the best I could come up with? Enough with the jokes; Lilly is right, glaring at me and my jokes are bad anyway.
"Ok ok." Time for a situation analysis.
It was me and Lilly, armed with three wands, against an unknown number of death eaters who had four hostages. Yep we're pretty much fucked.
"James is armed."
Oh and one hostage is armed. Wait, what?
"Wait, what?"
"I said James is armed or at least I saw his wand in his back pocket."
A joke about blowing off buttocks made by George Weasley bounced through my mind. What the bloody hell is with these jokes!
"What about the others?" I asked slowly. If we were all armed we had a slightly bigger chance of at least getting out of this room alive.
"I don't know. I couldn't tell. Why wouldn't they disarm hostages?"
I don't need a Ravenclaw to answer that question.
"The same reason they haven't attacked us yet. They want us to fight back."
Lilly stared at me blankly.
"That doesn't make any sense."
"Sure it does. Duel us, beat us, break us then kill us as we beg for mercy. Very appealing to a death eater."
"You people are sick." She replied bluntly.
"Hey now don't lump me together with them. I have nothing to do with it."
"So does that mean we're fighting back."
"Unless you'd rather hand your wand over to one of those death eaters."
Lilly grinned at me. She scares me sometimes. The teenage girl I basically watched grow up scares the living shit out of me.
"So how are we gonna do this?"
"We need to concentrate on getting our friends to safety. And we need to assume that James can't fight back and that the other three are disarmed. Then we need to get the hell out of this room."
Lilly nodded her head once then peaked around our column, lips moving and wand waving. Bat bogey. As she released her spell on the three death eaters holding Scorp, Rose and Al, I stepped out from behind the column and pointed my wand at the giant chandelier hanging above the center of the room.
"Confringo!" The chain blasted apart causing the chandelier to fall and several death eaters to jump out of the way. Rose, Scorpius and Albus were fighting for their freedom at this point clearly armed and winning.
"Incendio!" Rose's spell erupted in the center of a group of death eaters causing several to catch flame, and then the death eaters began fighting back. Not all at once mind you, but just enough to keep us on our toes.
"Protego!" I shouted blocking a stunner.
"Stupefy!" Stunned death eater.
"Incarcerous!" Death eater tied up.
"Protego!" Another stunner blocked.
"Reducto!" There goes a wand. Suddenly I found myself back to back with my cousin.
"I'm suddenly very glad that Mr. Potter forced us through those long summer weeks of dueling practice."
I laughed though it was a bit forced.
"I was just thinking the same thing."
We were standing near the center of the room near the fallen chandelier. The right side of the room had caught flame and we really needed to get out of there.
"Scorpius, see if you can find the others and make your way to the door before this place goes completely up in flames."
Without waiting for an answer I ran in the direction of the throne, where James and my 'father' were last seen. By now the air was thick with smoke and I believe someone somewhere was fuelling the flames because no way in hell should a stone room be able to burn. I stumbled through the smoke directly into James whom I nearly cursed before realizing who it was.
"James." I said relieved. He looked ok. At least he was able to stand and grip his wand. He wrapped his arms around me, crushing me to his chest.
"How sweet." I whipped my head around to see Rodolphus standing at the edge of our visibility, a sneer on his face, "Your grandmother would be so disappointed in you Bellina."
"I don't really give a damn." I snarled stepping in between James and the death eater. I refuse to acknowledge him as my father.
"Bellina." James murmured in my hair.
"Don't bother James. Nothing you say will change my mind." I tightened my grip on my wand and pointed it at Rodolphus. He merely stood there staring back at me. I felt James back away but where he went when he left my side I don't know.
"You know Bellina, you don't need to do this. We can still change things. Harry Potter's death is the real goal behind all this. Kidnapping his children was the fastest way to get to him. Kill Harry Potter and you could be the Dark Queen to rule over all of England, the world if you wanted."
"You can go take your plans of a Dark Queen and shove it up your arse." I snarled, "Stupefy!"
Rodolphus managed to block it but he wasn't expecting any non-spoken spells.
"Langlock." I knew the spell had worked because he glared at me. Unfortunately when dealing with a wizard who has finished schooling and has had so much more life experience gluing their tongue to the roof of their mouth doesn't really help. Rodolphus shot off a number of brightly colored spells that I managed to just dodge but in doing so I lost him in the smoke. Without being able to see I was fully unprepared for when his cruciatus curse hit me. The pain was excruciating, so bad that the floor seemed to spin beneath my feet. I collapsed to the ground gasping for breath.
"Useless, useless, useless. Your entire family is made up of useless beings my dear." Rodolphus stared down at me sneering, "I suppose you're better off dead after all."
"You're gonna kill your own daughter." I wheezed. Rodolphus smiled before stepping aside to reveal James standing behind him.
"No I won't, but he will."
Imperio. Probably the worst spell in existence at the moment. I stared into James' face hoping that he was just playing along waiting for the perfect moment to strike, but his eyes were blank and his wand was pointed at me.
"Crucio." James' voice was a dull and echoed version of what it was normally and I think that pained me more then the curse did.
"Sectumsempra." I hissed in pain but I couldn't defend myself. I couldn't hurt James.
"Crucio. Sectumsempra. Crucio. Relashio."
The pain was unbearable, my life's blood was freely flowing out of my body but I didn't let a single sound escape my lips. Out of the corner of my eye I saw flickers of orange and red so at least I knew relief would come soon. Burning to death wasn't really the way I wanted to go but dieing at the hands of the man I loved was much worse.
"James." I murmured. Rodolphus laughed.
"Yes. Call out to him. It won't matter but I'll make sure he knows you did before he killed you. Now finish her."
James raised his wand so it was pointed at my face but that was it. He made no another move to attack me and I felt a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, I would finally get lucky in life and James would break out of the hold on him. James blinked twice and suddenly his hazel eyes were clear and focused. Hell yea! Someone somewhere must finally be taking pity on me cause this is the first thing all year that has gone right for me. Well maybe not the only thing but it's the only thinking I can think of as I lay bleeding all over the floor.
What happened next seemed to take place all in slow motion. Rodolphus had immediately noticed James breaking the imperio curse and raised his wand at him. At the same time James swung his wand at Rodolphus and simultaneously ducked. I, with the strength for one last spell pointed my wand at Rodolphus' feet.
"Avada Kedavra!"
"Expelliarmus!"
"Incarcerous!"
The killing curse missed James barely, and if he hadn't ducked it would have killed him. James' disarming spell hit Rodolphus an instant before my spell, meaning the death eater was unarmed as thick ropes wrapped around his entire body.
James immediately came to my side cussing and coughing as the small clearing we had been in the entire time suddenly clouded with smoke.
"Bellina!" He cradled me in his arms, tears pouring down his face. I smiled weakly at him and clenched his shirt in my fist.
"Don't act like I'm about to drop dead." I whispered. The last thing I saw was a smile on his face before I fell into unconsciousness.
O.O Such a surprising turn of events for Bellina, it even took me by surprise as I wrote it. R&R