Chapter 6: Radolphus Lestrange

The Imperius Curse - Imperio - a spell proscribed by Wizarding law and classified as one of the three Unforgivable Curses. Once casted, it is said to emplace all target's capabilities of speech and action under the control of the caster...

Rushed breaths escaped her. With each passing moment her lungs grew wearier. What had he done to me ? I'm dying...

The sound of the incantation Riddle had uttered remained to haunt her - Imperio. And just what is that ? Imperio, it sounded vaguely familiar, so familiar but only vaguely. She reached down to feel the soft fabric she was in ; Elizabeth was still strapped in her formal party dress. Her ears twitched to the silence of the hospital wing. Ah, if Hogwarts was her second home, the hospital wing would be her third. How often you come here, Elizabeth, but now, how are you to leave ? She turned to her side, the sheets crumbled after her and her hands clasped under her left cheek. She had been lying on the hard mattress for numerable minutes and no sleep would come to her eyes. How could it ? Elizabeth stared at the satin blinds enclosing her bed. What did he do to me ? Something stirred within the room. Elizabeth drew her breath and lay as still as if she were marble. Her eyes piercing the floor-length curtains, she hoped to catch a glimpse of something but only in vain. It was too dark, alright. "Meow." Are my ears deceiving me ?

"Arfur ?" Elizabeth called. There was some more noise of glass containers tinkling up ahead and soon appeared in the circle of faded torchlight a hint of a luxurious white fur tail waving. At last, Elizabeth heard something smooth itself in from under the hanging blinds and she grinned satisfactorily once no other than Arfur had pounced up by her side on the mattress. Elizabeth reached to stroke behind his ears and chuckled,"Well, well, well, looks like his majesty has decided to pay me a visit. What an honor." Arfur batted his eyelashes and fixed her in a most brilliant gaze of his emerald eyes. Elizabeth might've paused to admire Arfur's bonniness if not distracted by a string tied smartly around his neck and at the back of it was a folded note.

She eyed it warily. "Who could you be delivering for, Arfie ?" Elizabeth mouthed with barely a tone whilst she smoothed out the note. It was penned with a careful cursive handwriting and it read," What a smart pet you own. It knows your scent and probes about the castle for you if you'd gone for too long. Now come to me." Now come to me. With those words, something clicked within Elizabeth and rivaling voices - one being her own and the other intrusive - vied in her head for which decision was the right one to make.

I must go...

What ?! To where ?

We must leave...

No.

Come along with me.

Nonsense , it is cold and dark. There's no where to go. We are staying here, in bed.

But 'they' weren't staying in bed, for along with the banal decisions made by the arcane voice came physical force, whilst Elizabeth's thoughts remained mere thoughts. And they moved out of bed, her bare legs rubbed against the warmth of the sheets, and left to the cold of the night.

No, no, no, no, STOP ! The words she intended to yell played out in her head as thoughts again. HELP ! Elizabeth screamed internally. She cruised through the dark, her legs commanded themselves, trudging towards a door her panicky wide eyes couldn't see. Her mouth dangled open in a silent scream ; her mind went up in flames with muddled thoughts, yet her body moved so smoothly ; the cold air, which wiped about, caressed it.

Could this be possession ? Elizabeth thought. By straining her mind, she attempted but all in vain to trigger something, anything that would give her her body back. It was of no use. She could've been one of those Muggles who knew magic for "telekinesis", a brain power. They would gawp vacantly at objects such as spoons, hoping to twist them, papers, hoping to stir them. But they would always fail. She was no different then. Elizabeth panicked away as her physical self marched on into the darkness, out of the the hospital wing. Wide windows across the hall poured in shafts of moonlight which allowed her a sight, and she gazed upon a slithering corridor semi-engulfed in darkness. She listened with all her might in a dying hope of an awakened soul to catch her but the hallways had the foreboding silence of a cemetery at night.

Elizabeth thought back to the note. "Now come to me," it said and out of the blue she ascertained the identity of her corespondent. How very imperious in everything he did. Imperious. Very imperious, indeed. What was it that he said again ? Well, of course, Imperio. It all makes perfect sense now. How much of an idiot I had been. A moment of angry contemplation passed with all of its 60 seconds and panic was kicking in again. Wait, does that mean he is dragging me over to the chamber ?! Oh, no, no, I better figure something out. Quick. The walls thinned and narrowed at her sides and Elizabeth was involuntarily pacing down an attenuate bricked passageway lit by flickering torches of dancing red flames. This is my chance, she thought, and miraculously, she succeeded. Then, Elizabeth had strained the gears of her brain to the point where she could feel a hurtful throbbing at her temples and at last wrenched her willpower from the hands of dark magic. She crashed against the brick-wall to her side and slid downwards to the tiles. But it wasn't the end of it for instantly had the voices sparked again only louder this time.

To the chamber, we must head down to the chamber...

The earth before her lurched forward then backward, forward, backward. Her insides squiggled and she felt the suffocating bile rise in her throat. Elizabeth clapped a hand upon her mouth in resistance and thought, no, it is my body ! Has my head gone up in flames ? For that's how it felt ; a fiery rioting in her mind but soon enough came the concord end of it all. The throbbing had ceased. The headaches had receded. And the voices had silenced. She'd fought back Riddle's curse.

You're a strong girl. You're a very strong girl. Elizabeth congratulated herself as she drew measured shaky breaths. Whatever she'd eaten at the banquet must stay down at the pit of her stomach, for if she were bound for a face-off against Riddle, she better remain well-nourished for whatever he has up those sleeves. But no. No. I won't be going up against him. Someone has to know. I ought to tell someone. But who ? And Tom's searing words clawed their way up from the depths of her memories,"And to imagine them believing you." Who would believe me ? Who ? And as if in unbidden response, her subconscious sketched the face of Dumbeldore on a blank space in her questioning mind. "Well, of course, Dumbeldore," she muttered, keeping an unwavering eye at the stretch of dim passageway before her. The torchlight twinkled in her eyes as she went out of focus and sank deeply into her thoughts.

But what are you going to tell him ? Nothing. I won't tell him a thing. I will show him.

Elizabeth collected herself hastily off the ground and turned on her heels with nothing in mind but Dumbledore's office. It's late at night. Could he be awake ? What are the odds ? Whilst her thoughts and fear were ahold of her, a flurry of blistering, heavy footsteps thumped like war drums against the tiles and were shortly followed by the swishing emerald tail of a jinx. Elizabeth dodged and skipped away around the corner. The jinx had banged against the side of the wall in a shower of fiery sparks and dented its side. Could that have been a killing curse ?! Elizabeth's back was pressed against the wall. Her breathing was ragged ; her chest heaved in terror. Oddly enough, the torches were put out and the darkness settled. Every atom in her yelled for a swift escape but how ?! At the end of the corridor she'd turned to was a towering solid dead end. The one exit that she banked on was the passageway she took run from and where her assailant still stood. Elizabeth had caught glimpses of him while she had turned on her heels. Riddle had brought friends.

Radolphus Lestrange prowled the passageway bellow, his wand brandished before him, and his eyes dead with a glint of lunacy about them. It was as if they were trapped in a ring. Elizabeth the prizefighter whose promised prize was her own life and Radolphus the beast whose eager for the taste of sizzling blood upon his tongue and the warmth of the tattered flesh between his fangs.

Surely someone must've heard that. Elizabeth pulled her breaths as she examined the pitch darkness. Unless...

Unless specific charms had been lain. Unless this whole scenario had been previously premeditated. Why, of course, he wouldn't had been truly Riddle if he hadn't thoroughly forethought this ordeal. Should've brought my wand, should've, Elizabeth thought regrettably.

"Glad we could finally meet, Emerson," he spoke at last and his voice seemed to gong throughout the passageway though it were a mere whisper. Elizabeth flinched and cluelessly decided to drop to the tiles at the sound of his feet shuffling forward. Shuffling closer. "Won't you come out ? You can't hide forever anyway or not. Stay right where you are. This should be fun."

Don't panic, now. Stay very calm. It's too dark in here. He probably can't see either. The falls of his feet grew heavy. She could feel him rounding up the corner, and that's when an animal-like desire for survival cranked up in her. Unarmed and boney, she stood tall against Radolphus who was in a great measure of contrast to her as he was hooked with a ready wand and his built rather bulky. The sight of her left him momentarily dumbfounded. He apparently wasn't expecting a stand-off for he seemed to have had a fun torture session in mind. It could've played on so traditionally ; him cornering her, an outburst of pitiful pleading, a pinch of whimpering here and there, a zap of the cruciatus curse, and last but not least, the screaming. However, his sadistic fantasy had unfortunately been put on hold.

Elizabeth could be awkward and terribly anxious but she was not a prey either. Before he had thoroughly progressed such turn of events, Elizabeth charged at him. Again, wandless and frail, her pace hastened into a jog and her arms were out-stretched as if to catch a disconcerted Radolphus in a tight embrace. At last, her nails slashed away at his neck and her legs kicked rapidly at him. He crashed headfirst into the ground but Elizabeth's assault clearly had not met its end just yet. She kicked the winded Lestrange as if he were some rag-doll until it hit her that enough was enough and she saw that she had to make a run for it. Radolphus's recovery was rather swift for as soon as she had galloped away into the looming darkness had his cries of obscenities tailed her.

She continued to thrash though the dark heedlessly. Her sense of direction had been distorted by the need to put as much space between herself and Lestrange as she possibly could. Yards away, twists and turns afar, kindling torches welcomed her eyes. She could see them, but oddly enough, their illumination seemed to had been limited to what's forwards such that their light couldn't fall upon the semi-circle she still ran through. Her pace slumped to a simple trot as she approached the unnatural border between the light and the dark.

It was a barricade. A magical fence. It could've been taken for a clear mirror if not for its drawback of a sinister era and wavy edges that clicked in and out of motion. So, that's what's been blocking the sound.

Elizabeth was seething. How unfair but distastefully a clever setup it all were. Riddle hadn't seemed to had missed a step. She looked beyond the barrier and took in the unsettling normality of the stretch of wide hallway ahead. The torches were motionless, unwavering and their orange illuminance was far too refulgent . The tiles were checkered and ominously spotless. It was notable how they seemed to glow - to illuminate themselves. No torchlight fell upon them. Dead. Everything looked to had been dead. This was not of Hogwarts. This was not the homely, stately Hogwarts ; this was a painting. Elizabeth was amazed. How had he managed to fabricate that ? Just how much dark magic did he know ?

She thought of caressing the barrier, of feeling it, but decided against it. Surely he had arranged for what was to happen if his barricade was met with physical contact and it can't be pretty. Elizabeth looked over her shoulder to oversee the dark. The silence was unnerving. Radolphus must be leering about, waiting to jump out at her.

Elizabeth decided that an unbroken pace would be a wise decision and she marched off towards her left which lead to yet another inky passageway. She tried to recognize her whereabouts and establish a route. The maze must come to an end somewhere. However, her eyes couldn't penetrate the dark. With her eyesight down, she put her other five senses to work. Elizabeth sniffed about like a stray dog, hoping to catch the waft of stew coming from the kitchens which could only mean that the Hufflepuff quarters lay nearby, but the only scent that infiltrated through her nostrils was that of the lake.

She felt the walls, hoping that a smooth surface could mean that the Gryffindor tower or the Ravenclaw lair weren't afar, but the coarse bricks did not appease to those demands. These were the dungeons, alright. "I promised," her ears twitched to the sound of the blood-chilling whisper," that I'd bring you to him unharmed. Not a single hair touched. That was if you'd been a good girl, of course. But now, that you've chosen to misbehave, to play games with me, I've decided to break that promise. So, yeah, play rough, Emerson."

Her feet took her sprinting into the caliginous passageway away from Lestrange but not from his curse. The whooshing crimson sparks struck her in the shoulder, and Elizabeth felt their stabbing pain ripple through her from a tissue to another, one muscle to the next. A low grunt emitted from her pursed lips and she crumbled to her feet, the crippling pain blanketing her.

As she lay with her cheek pressed against the chilling tiles, trying to contain the agony, Radolphus let out a low whistle and laughed. "That could've easily been one of my best shots yet." His footsteps approached her sprawled body. Elizabeth had only just realized that she was floating in a puddle of her own bestrewing blood when her head began to spin with wooziness. Lestrange was towering above her with a vile smirk speckling about his lips. "I wish I could go on, you know," he leaned in to her," I wish I could rip you from limp to limp but then we won't have much to work with down at the chamber."

Her glowering eyes had a wish to see him dead, humiliated and that was when an impulse arrogated every nerve in her and she spat at him. He turned away in disgust and wiped his face with the fringe of his sleeve. The face that loomed back to her was, to her own pleasure, sullen and mirthless. Elizabeth smiled weakly at him. "You're going to die, love," he murmured to her ever so arrogantly. Getting ahead of her, he took hold of her right leg and pulled her across the tiles. A trail of renewing blood tracked their path.