For disclaimer and author notes please see chapter 1.
1986-01-01 11:00 UTC, Malfoy Manor
Marius Flint apparated to Malfoy Manor's front gates and walked in to the front door, where Lucius met him and led him into his office. They exchanged pleasantries for a while, then went down to the dungeon; Flint was raring to go, as usual. "It is high time we played with the girl, is it not, Lucius?", he asked, in a tone that wanted to convey disinterest, but failed utterly in doing so. In any case, Malfoy knew Flint too well to be taken in by a casual-sounding question.
"I've already told you, Marius, the girl is not to be harmed until she becomes ready to be a woman. I believe a few months more will suffice, according to Rothwell".
"She is uncommonly beautiful Lucius!"
"Yes, and that is precisely why I took her before someone else found her, even though she was at least a year too young for our play at the time."
Not just a monster, but a calculating, scheming, monster. As if I did not already know this, thought Hobby, who was silently following the two death-eaters.
A few minutes later, they turned the slightly large handle to the door leading to the dungeons, went down the stairs, and came upon a scene that really spoiled their mood.
The two men appeared to be dead, killed by each other evidently, since the girl was in the opposite cell and would not have been able to reach them. Their skin was bloody in many places, with muscle and bone showing through on the cheeks. The nails on the men's hands were at least partly torn off, indicating an attempt to scratch something. One man had both his eyes gouged out, while the other had one eye in the same state.
The girl was silent, facing the back wall and whimpering to herself. Lucius barked an order to her to turn around, but she did not.
"Hmm; something really bad has happened. I had trained her to obey me under all circumstances, and she has seen death several times here too. Something caused her conditioning to fail". He waved his wand around looking for any foreign magic, but all he could find was Dobby's magic.
"Dobby!", he shouted. Hobby popped up a few feet in front of him and bowed low. "Master calls?", he said.
"You have used some magic here, what did you do?"
Hobby had not realised that wizards could detect elf magic the way they could their own. This was a shocker, and may cause several of his plans to change.
But there appeared to be a silver lining - it was only possible, it seemed, to find that elf magic was used, but not anything more specific. Thank God! So, when I want to hide what was done, I must use elf magic, but when I want to hide who did it, I must use wizard magic - they will never associate that with me anyway. Damn; I need to keep things straight in my head and not use the wrong magic for the situation!
"Master, the men were fidgety, and one of them accidentally spilled his gruel. I used magic to clean up the floor and put some of the gruel back for him. Dobby is sorry if that was not the right thing to do, but Master said they must be fed gruel every day."
Oh man, I used "I" in the first sentence; I hope he does not notice. I need to work on my "Dobby English" before I get caught; Lucius is not stupid!, thought Hobby.
"Hmm, alright. Next time something like this happens, make sure you report it to me. Now go."
"Yes master, Dobby wills do that", Hobby bowed deeply again, and popped away.
Lucius spent some more time examining the bodies, but really, there was nothing to see, so he turned to the girl.
Opening her door, he walked in and physically turned her around. Pointing his wand at her, he asked "do you remember this?"
She shook her head, "no".
Lucius was incensed. Without a moment's thought he fired off a crucio and held it for about ten seconds.
"Now do you remember?"
The girl whimpered, but did not shake her head. Close enough, Lucius thought. "What happened here?", he asked, pointing to the two men.
The girl took one look, and started screaming her head off, pointing at the men, then tearing at her own face with her own nails. Luckily her nails were cut short and she did not damage herself too much, but Lucius stopped her anyway. She was after all, as Marius said, "uncommonly beautiful", and it would be a shame to mar that beauty with scars before he could enjoy her as a young woman.
Marius was silent all this time, not saying a word. His knowledge of magic, of detecting it, determining the differences between various kinds of it, and so on was close to zero. The men he had little interest in - oh he enjoyed a bit of crucio as much as the next death-eater, but his entire attention, for the past few months of coming to Lucius's dungeon, was on the girl. Everything else paled.
Hobby, who had popped away but come back silently and invisibly, watched him quietly. Hermione would wash my mouth out with soap if she heard the words I am thinking about this bastard! I wonder what would happen if I told him that was his son!, he grinned wickedly to himself.
Besides, at this point in time, the man does not even know his son is missing. Marcus was a late riser, and not seeing him at breakfast was common enough.
1986-01-02 03:30 UTC, St. Mungo's
Hobby popped quietly, and invisibly, into St Mungo's reception. At that time of the night, it was unmanned. The injuries from various night-activities - bars, brothels, etc. - had tailed off, and the morning rush had not started. This is pretty much the quietest time of the day.
Hobby went behind the counter and opened the register, looking at the names. After a few seconds, he found it: "Emily MacEgan, ward 3, bed 12". Ward 3 was the common ward used for muggle-borns, some half-bloods (the poorer ones anyway), and such "riffraff", according to a quote from the director of St Mungo's at the time the ward was opened.
Quickly moving up to ward 3, he found bed 12 and looked at the person sleeping on it. Physically, she looked fine, but then that was true even yesterday morning. It was her mental state he was not sure of, and Malfoy had confirmed that she had witnessed several deaths while in that hell-hole. And when Malfoy says 'death', he does not mean a simple, clean killing curse; they would have been bloody, cruel, and filled with the screaming of the poor victims. For a ten-, soon to be eleven year old-, Hobby shuddered.
Still, there was nothing to be done about that right this minute. He was ready to take her home - he had already scouted out her home in Corston the previous night, in order to be able to jump straight there with her. So he did just that - picked her up and apparated to her house.
After landing, he looked around to see where he had ended up. It was a simple, two-storied, house. A quick revealing spell showed two adults in one of the upstairs rooms, and nothing else. They had landed in the living room, so he gently put Emily on the sofa, conjured a blanket and a pillow, and let her continue to sleep. He then settled down on a chair for a quick nap; the Malfoys were never early risers, and neither he nor Nolly would be needed before 7am or so.
Shortly before 6am, the woman woke up and came downstairs, rubbing sleep out of her eyes and walking slowly. She glanced into the living room, possibly out of some sixth sense, and saw the two people there, upon which she screamed and promptly fainted.
Hobby of course managed to catch her before she actually fell, so he put her on the same sofa as her daughter and woke both of them up.
If he was hoping for a tearful reconciliation between mother and child, with the child's nightmares soothed away by her mother's loving embrace, he was in for a big disappointment. The young girl was crying silently, unable or unwilling to believe her ordeal was over. The woman, however, was another matter. She was screaming "who are you?" and "how did you get into my house?" alternately.
Clearly, this was no relief to the poor girl and, while she may not have been wishing to be back in the dungeon, and this clearly was her living room, it was not the comfort a ten year-old rescuee needed. So Hobby silenced the woman, stunned her, put Emily to sleep again, and went looking for the father. Hopefully he had not been obliviated, as the woman appeared to be.
The father appeared to be fine. More than fine, physically at least - because he took one look at Hobby and started swinging a cricket bat at him, forcing Hobby to duck quickly. Hobby then petrified him, freed his head, and asked him a simple question: "do you have a daughter?"
The hope mingled with fear on the man's face was a sight to see. He nodded yes. Hobby asked him the girl's name. "Emily", he replied. So Hobby took him downstairs, freed him from the petrifaction, turned himself invisible, and stepped out of the way.
Well, a father is never as good as a mother in these circumstances, but the girl was not going to be picky; once she realised that it was her father, and he was not screaming as if he did not recognise her, she clung to him like a leech, sobbing great huge sobs that gradually subsided, by which time it was clear she had fallen asleep.
The father would not let her go, but now found his wife asleep on the sofa. Seeing him try to wake her up, Dobby quietly released her from the stunner, then hit her with a calming charm. He then left the family alone, trusting the father to figure out how to deal with it. He would have to find some professional help to come and help the lady; her current state was quite untenable.
Hobby went back to Malfoy Manor, determined to come up with some solution within a day or so. He mentally reviewed his list again. The first item had changed to "help Emily's mother", it wasn't done yet. So, in 24 hours he had completed- what? One item? But it was still there so maybe count it as 'half'?
This was going to be a long- he almost thought "day", but really, "life" fits better! Then again, what did he expect? Harry hadn't even known there would be victims to be rescued, but he wasn't expecting a totally smooth ride, was he?
Now, who could he ask for help?