BOOK SIX: THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE
CHAPTER ONE: Relentless
"I'm going to get you out of there, El. You know that, right?"
Only a few hours had passed since the cage bars had crashed down between them and Ellie had been transported from the Ministry of Magic into the dark, cold basement she was being held hostage in. Fred was still a visitor in Ellie's dream. They had spent most of the night talking—having much to cover after their nearly eight months apart. But Ellie was ready for the kissing to start—even if it wasn't quite the same as kissing in the real world.
"I know," she said. "I'm not afraid of him, Fred."
For the most part, she meant it. She had once been absolutely terrified of Aleks, and still despised him for what he had done to Cedric, but she refused to let him scare her now.
The fact that Voldemort was involved, on the other hand, was undeniably frightening.
"I should really be back there, working out a plan," Fred said anxiously. "It's got to be close to dawn by now, and judging by how your dad was when I left, he's surely already up and working on it. If he ever even went to sleep."
"It's only been a few hours since you got here. Dawn's ages away." She climbed into his lap and put her hands on either side of his cheeks. It didn't bring her nearly the satisfaction that it would in the real world, but it was still leaps and bounds better than not having him at all. "I just got you back. I don't want you to leave again."
"I just got you back!" he moaned, placing his hands on hers and squeezing them. "I'll kill Aleks for this—I swear to God."
"Okay," she said impatiently, inching closer to him so that her lips were nearly touching his. "But in the meantime, kiss me."
For about three seconds—maybe even four—he did. And even without the sensations her earthly body possessed, it was a damn good kiss.
But then she was ripped out of her dream by a surge of pain so sudden, violent, and torrential, she let out an ear-splitting scream.
It was Voldemort, she realized when she opened her eyes in the real world—the Dark Lord himself, pointing his wand straight at Ellie with a look of pure madness in his snakelike, red eyes.
"That's right," he hissed at Ellie as a hailstorm of flames, thunderbolts, daggers, and bullets cascaded into the cage with her, hammering into her shield. Even without any of it hitting her skin, Ellie felt the impact of all of it. It sent her to her knees, clutching at her gut and gasping for air. "Scream, little girl. Scream for your blood traitor friends to come and rescue you."
She did. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction, but she didn't have a choice.
Jesus Christ, Fred said in her head, voice high and panicked. Don't think about it, El. Focus on my voice. I'm going to find Sirius now. Just focus on my voice.
Slowly—far too slowly—the pain subsided.
But not completely.
"Tell me what you know about the Prophecy," Voldemort barked at her as the stream of ammunition changed into a smoking, pungent sort of acid. "Tell me what Dumbledore has told you."
"I—I—I don't know anything about a prophecy!" she stammered back. The acid seemed to tear away at her shield. It felt like a thousand fire ants were biting at her skin—all the way down to the bone. "Dumbledore didn't talk to any of us about that kind of thing last year—not me or Harry!"
"Don't say his name in my presence!" Voldemort shrieked, changing the acid into a thick, black cloud of smoke that gathered up around her shield. It didn't make its way down her lungs, but it, like everything else, still did a number on her—stinging her eyes and giving her a wicked cough. "The boy should be dead four times over by now. His luck ends now—thanks, in part, to young Aleks here having finally caught you."
Ellie's eyes trailed behind Voldemort to Aleks, who was watching her with a cruel smirk on his face. She had no idea how he had managed to escape the fray at the Ministry when, according to Fred, none of the other Death Eaters had besides Bellatrix Lestrange. Even Lucius Malfoy had been arrested.
Which explained why Voldemort was so angry.
"I want you to be relentless with her, boy," Voldemort told Aleks as he thrusted his wand in her direction yet again, this time crashing a tidal wave at her with a force so hard, she was thrusted to the back of her cage even without a single drop of water touching her skin. "Make her pay—make all of them pay. She either dies or agrees to fight for me. Either way, she's done protecting the likes of Harry Potter."
And with that, Voldemort vanished.
It's not going to come to that, Fred told Ellie desperately. I swear it won't, El. I'm with Sirius now—Tonks and Lupin are already here, too, and the rest of the Order will be any minute. We're working out all the places you could be, based on what I've seen in your head.
She tried to focus on his words, but it was hard not to pay attention to Aleks as he strode casually over to the wall of her cage closest to him. She realized with a surge of hatred that he loved seeing her like this—curled into a ball on the floor, shaking from head to toe, writhing in agony.
"Try and catch your breath," he told her cheerfully. "As soon as I finish telling you how things are going to go from here on out, you won't get the chance to do so for a very—very—long time."
Don't listen to him, El. Listen to me. Remember how much I love you.
"We plan to take it in shifts," Aleks told her. "I'm the boss of the operation, of course—being the expert on all things Ellie Black." He winked at her, and she resisted the urge to vomit all over her cage. "But everyone gets a shift. I reckon you'll know all of us quite well by the end of this."
"The Death Eaters were all imprisoned after the battle at the Ministry," she told him through clenched teeth. "All except you, Bellatrix, and Peter—"
"Oh, nonsense," he interrupted with a wave of his hand. "The Dark Lord never would have sent all of his forces for such a simple job. Lucius botched it, to be sure, but mark my words—he'll pay for that."
So Lucius had been the leader of the operation? And he hadn't brought all of Voldemort's forces to the Ministry?
"You'll have the pleasure of meeting the Carrows first," Aleks told her. "They'll be here in a few hours—that's Alecto and Amycus. Gibbon is up today, as well, along with Goyle. Pettigrew's got the night shift—at least tonight." He dropped his voice several octaves and added, "I fully plan on enjoying future night shifts, mind you."
"You son of a bitch!" Ellie shrieked at him, feeling a surge of power flow through her as she leapt to her feet and sprung toward the bars of the cage.
They weren't really her words; they were words that Fred had screamed so emphatically in her head, they actually burst to the surface. It was the closest thing to possession Ellie had ever felt.
She didn't mind the surge of energy, though. She sorely needed it.
"Still feisty, I see," said Aleks with a smirk. He pointed his wand at her, grinned, and said, "It won't last long."
And then he proceeded to torture her until the Carrows arrived.
Don't think about it, El. Focus on my voice. We have a plan. Do you hear me? We're storming Malfoy Manor tonight.
Ellie wasn't sure how long it had been since she was captured. She knew that she'd spent several hours of bliss in her dream with Fred, followed by the torture at Voldemort's hand and several hours of torture by Aleks, and then the Carrows, who were still there… but, then, didn't that mean she had only been there for less than a day?
Surely that wasn't possible, was it?
Her shield seemed to be depleting in strength by the minute. Though it still provided enough protection to keep her skin and organs safe from harm, it provided virtually no solace from the pain. It was like it had merged with her body—become an outermost layer of skin—one that was slowly, horribly, tauntingly being burned, hacked, and chiseled at.
Who's storming Malfoy Manor? she asked Fred as she closed her eyes, pressed her forehead against the cold, stone floor, and tried to think about anything other than the pain.
The Order.
What about the Ministry?
They aren't acting fast enough. They claim they're searching for you, but Tonks and Kingsley say they haven't even had a single meeting about you yet.
Bigger fish to fry, I reckon.
He didn't laugh, though she found it a tad bit amusing. What did the Ministry of Magic care about Ellie Black, who had caused them nothing but trouble, when they had to find a way to tell the entire wizarding world that Voldemort was back?
Karma was certainly a bitch.
"Is that a smile I see on her face?" Alecto asked her brother Amycus. "We must not be hitting hard enough."
Ellie cringed as they both increased their intensity.
Please be careful, she told Fred as she squeezed her fists so hard, she could feel her fingernails tearing at the skin of her palms. If I really am at Malfoy Manor, they're going to have it well-guarded.
I don't care how well-guarded it is. His voice was bordering on manic; he was seeing what was being done to her, and it was torturing him, too. I'm going to kill them, El. All of them.
But she didn't have the strength to answer him.
When the Order attacked Malfoy Manor that night, Ellie desperately wanted to track things from Fred's perspective the way he had been doing from hers. She had exercised the ability fairly well shortly after being captured, but now, as she was actively tortured by the sixth person that day, she found it harder.
"All yours, Peter," shouted Goyle Sr., lowering his wand with a disturbingly satisfied smile on his face. "God, that was fun."
Ellie glared at him as he skipped happily up the stairs. She knew that these few minutes of peace were her best chance of tracking the Malfoy Manor attack, but she couldn't bring herself to expunge any more energy; she had to rest.
"Bloody hell," said a voice from the stairs. Ellie didn't have to look up to place the voice; she recognized it from the few interactions she'd had with him, along with the few memories her father had shown her.
"What's the matter?" she spat at him, because even though she needed her rest, she hated him—hated the monster who had killed all those people and put her father in prison for it. "Don't enjoy seeing your best friend's daughter being mercilessly tortured?"
To her surprise, he actually didn't seem to like it. The expression on his face was somewhere between disgusted and ashamed.
"I'm not proud of it, you know," Peter told her, conjuring up a chair for himself and sitting down on it. "I always wanted to be like James and Sirius—cool, strong, and brave. But then James and Lily made me their Secret-Keeper, and I was just… terrified."
Shouldn't she have heard something by now? If the Order was upstairs, breaking their way in, wouldn't there be shouting and crashing?
Ellie had a sinking feeling that she wasn't in Malfoy Manor, after all.
"Even if you hadn't had a choice in giving them up," Ellie growled at him, "which I know you did, it would never excuse your killing all those Muggles and blaming Dad for it."
"No," Peter agreed—"I suppose not. But with the Dark Lord, I don't need to be excused for it. He accepts me for who I am. And he's willing to accept you, too."
So this was Peter's approach? Trying to actually… convince her to join the cause?
At least it was better than the torture.
"Where are we?" she asked him. Might as well try, right?
He chuckled. "Certainly can't tell you that, dear girl. I can tell you that it's heavily guarded, though. Even when I'm not down here with you, I'm either upstairs sleeping or guarding the door. And I'm not the only one."
It might not be much help, but it did provide her with one very important piece of information: he lived here. When the time did come for her to escape, she could take him with her.
"I'm going to get out of here," she told him. "And when I do, I'm going to turn you into the Ministry, and you're going to serve more years than Dad ever did."
Peter smiled sadly. "The only way you're getting out of here is by joining us. That, or in a body bag."
I know this chapter was brutal, and we still have a bit more brutality ahead of us, but I promise I won't force you OR Ellie to stomach this for too long. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? And makes your boyfriend dead-set on vengeance? Stay tuned, and don't forget to review and follow! Always love to read your predictions of how the heck she'll get out of this one!
