CHAPTER 25

Christmas Eve comes all too quickly. In the Great Hall is a feast prepared for the Hogwarts professors and the five of us students who stayed. Large Christmas trees decorate the room, bringing a festive spirit that I am not feeling like engaging with right now. It's the most extravagant Christmas I've ever experienced, yet my heart's just not in it. Most of my Christmases have been spent in random Muggle houses. Of course, they never knew I had been there. I would sneak in late at night and just look at the Christmas tree, longing for a family that I would never get. Which makes me even more bitter that I can't enjoy it right now. I can't even enjoy having a family because—well, because of who they are. And that's taking away the joy of Christmas right now in general.

I look down the table. I don't know who the other students are, but they all seem to have some kind of connection to each other if their excited chatter is any indication. I look the other way at the professors, all of whom have probably known each other for decades and all of whom are just as comfortable with each other as the students are. Even Umbridge acts like she belongs, though the rest of the professors are clearly only tolerating her.

I can't bring myself to look at McGonagall—and haven't been able to since that day in her office. I haven't been back since, even though a rather large part of me says that I should because certain people are worth trusting. Besides, McGonagall can take care of herself—she's a witch, unlike Mrs. Stoico. Not only that, but she is a powerful witch, yet even knowing that is not enough for me to willingly put her at risk.

So here I sit in the middle of the table, uncomfortable with both groups of people surrounding me and growing steadily more miserable by the second. No one really seems to notice me, which is convenient because after eating a few bites of meal, I stand and leave and don't have to worry about anyone trying to stop me.

Had life been kinder to me, I would be finishing my dance with Draco in Malfoy Manor, eating a wonderful meal with him, and possibly even forming a family that I have never had. Instead, I stand in the falling snow on the Hogwarts grounds, staring at the frozen Black Lake, and dreaming of a day when Voldemort no longer haunts me. My breath comes out of me like a fog, and my nose burns and aches, but I kind of like the cold in this moment. It's almost comforting, though there's no clear reason as to why.

I take a step onto the ice, and while the cracking beneath me is concerning, there are no visible cracks forming, so I take another step, then look back at the castle. Torches stationed in every window burn brightly, warm and inviting, but I take another step away from it. Somewhere deep under the surface, the ice splits again under my weight, but still there are no visible markers, making it seem less precarious to continue moving forward. Besides, what's the worst that could happen right now anyway? I could die and escape my duty to Voldemort? That might be a blessing. I also want to be alone, and who's going to follow me all the way out here? The ice can crack all it wants to—I don't care.

I should be standing on the hardwood floor of the ballroom right now, not on cracking ice. But I'm not. The Malfoys are my relatives, but not my future family. I walk about twenty feet out onto the ice, turn, and sit on the frozen surface of the lake, facing the castle. My body shivers violently, the chill seeping through my clothes and into my skin and bones, but I don't want to go inside because everyone in there is too cheery, which I don't want to be around at all. I want to remain right where I am—as this is one of the few things I currently have control over, I refuse to let it go right now.

In the ice right in front of me, I cut a tiny circle with my wand, then plunge my hand into the water, gasping at the cold so intense it burns, little fires igniting every piece of exposed skin. However much the pain makes me want to remove my hand from the ice, a stronger force in my mind will not allow it—the pain is welcome. The cold takes away the burning hole that has been in my chest since the second day of the Christmas holidays, and I begin crying openly. It seems that the fire that has been consuming me is finally relinquishing its hold on me. I'd rather freeze than burn.

But the pain soon becomes too much, and I have to pull my hand back out of the lake. I can't even move it because it's so cold and stiff now. I am in control. I smile at the red skin before tucking it under my arm to bring feeling back to it. For that brief moment, my heart had not been aching as badly as it has been. For that brief moment, the only thing that had mattered was that hand, its pain, its relief.

I rest my head in my non-frozen hand, my cold palm pressed against my forehead. What have I been reduced to? How bad has my life gotten that I am sitting on an icy lake, freezing, waiting for my heartbreak to fade away.

For nearly half an hour, I sit here, letting the ice absorb the pain I feel because of Draco and—and mostly because of my mother. She hates me, and she doesn't even know me. How is that fair? Is my mother being Bellatrix Lestrange some sort of cosmic justice for all of my past wrongs? Why do I feel so disappointed that she doesn't care I'm alive, that she wanted to hurt me instead of celebrating that we found each other after all this time?

When the cold aching in my legs becomes unbearable, my toes and feet completely numb, I slowly push myself upright. My movements are sluggish, but it's the best I can do under the circumstances. Everything in me feels like lead, like stone, and my muscles are too cold, frozen, and stiff to really listen to me. I take my right foot and try to force it forward—it collides with the ice, a lot heavier than it was when I had full control over myself. I shift all my weight to that leg and try to move the other.

The ice cracks angrily beneath me as I pull my left leg up to meet my right and slam it into the ice with the same force as my right leg. The ice cracks again, and before I can make another move, the cracking becomes visual, no longer just audible. It starts where I had shoved my hand into the water and spreads the twenty feet to the shore. I take another step, ignoring the hair standing up on the back of my neck, the uneasiness in my gut, the fear in my heart.

As I go to move forward once more, the ice beneath my feet splits apart, and now with nothing under me, my body drops into the arctic water, the lake consuming me, trying to devour me, and I'm tempted to let it. The cold encompasses me, and I debate not doing anything to stop it because this is likely preferable to whatever Voldemort has in mind for me.

At first, I cannot move at all. Everything blanks. My lungs shrink to half their normal size, and my heart rate doubles. I won't be able to get out of this. I will sink to the bottom of the lake, the surface will freeze over again, and I won't be found until the ice thaws or until Voldemort decides it is time for me to become his slave and cannot seem to find me anywhere.

Perhaps this is better, dying in the Black Lake at Hogwarts, the one place in this world where I have felt safe. Oh, the irony. Perhaps it will be better to die before I have Voldemort's child, before I have to face the fact that Bellatrix and I are almost the same person, before I have to face what I was chosen to do since I was a baby. No one has to know the truth about me, and all of those secrets can die with me. I can stop bearing them, these burdens. I can finally be truly and completely free of Voldemort.

And whatever Voldemort has in store for me might be postponed, which might make it harder for him to take over.

My death is beneficial to the Wizarding World.

Would Bellatrix care if I died? Why do I want to know?

I swallow down the thoughts. As much as I don't want to face my duty, I am not ready for death.

No, I can't die like this. My body will not be found in the Black Lake—I refuse to let that happen. With great effort, I force myself to calm down. Then I open my eyes, which I immediately regret as they scream when they come into contact with the cold water, and all I want to do is cry. I want this to be over.

The water is dark, the only light coming from the hole I've caused in the ice. I can hardly see anything, and that frightens me more than I would like to admit.

I am much too selfish to give up like this, to die like this. I don't care if my death will help the Wizarding World. I don't want to die. I don't want to give up the chance of having a life someday after Voldemort is done with me.

I try slowly swimming to the top, but it's difficult, so difficult that I'm not moving at all. I scream out for help that will never come, then watch powerlessly as my only air floats away from me. I reach out for it, but of course that does no good. My heart sinks, and I start to flail beneath the water, putting forth as much effort as I can to get to the surface.

My lungs curse at me. I find myself only wanting to be held, wanting someone to pull me from this lake and save me. I want my mother. No, Charlotte, you don't. You just don't know how to handle the idea of actually having a mother. She's not Mrs. Stoico. She won't save you.

I stick my hand far above me, my fingertips touching the ice, but I'm unable to grab it because my hand doesn't want to obey me. So I continue flailing until my face breaks through the surface. I take a deep breath before bobbing back below. Once again, I reach up and break the surface, this time managing to throw my arm over a chunk of ice and keep my head above the water for good.

It's a relief to be able to breathe again, no matter how badly my lungs ache, but it's horrifying to know that I can hardly control my body, which makes the task of getting out of the water that much worse. I throw my other arm up onto the block of ice and just lie still for a moment, letting my skin shriek as the cold burns me. I'll be lucky not to lose some limbs because of this ridiculous stunt of mine. Even though I can now breathe, I am not yet safe. For that, I must get out of this water completely.

A chunk of ice floats just a little farther ahead of me—kicking my feet as best as I can slowly allows me to get close enough to reach it. My arm weighing more than the rest of me combined, I reach out for that next chunk of ice. After managing to get my right arm thrown on it, I release the first block of ice. I sink down a bit and panic for a moment, afraid I am sinking again, but with my right arm, I pull myself up enough to swing my other arm onto the ice.

My breathing is ragged and excruciating. Why is this so difficult? There are a few more chunks of ice ahead of me, and I follow the same procedure to slowly work my way toward the shore. To my immense relief, the water becomes shallow enough that my feet can hit the bottom. I let go of the ice altogether, not caring that I fall face first into the water, and begin walking towards the shore. I drop to my knees when I am only a few feet from freedom and crawl the rest of the way out of this icy prison but don't stop there. I keep moving on my hands and knees until I am a good thirty feet from the water; then I collapse and pull my knees to my chest.

Now that I am out of water and my fear is dissipating, the gaping hole in my heart begins to make itself known once more, and all I want to do is inch my way back to the lake.

I clench and unclench handfuls of snow. The pure white becomes tainted with red, my hands screeching in pain as the skin cracks open. No, wait. My hands are not screeching, I am screeching in pain. This obnoxious noise is coming from me, from my mouth. As quickly as I can control my frozen hands, I stop and let go of the nice. Blood spills heavily from the cracks in my hands, marring the snow with a deep red, but the blood is slightly warm, and without thinking, simply wanting to be warm again, I wrap my bloodied hands around my neck, letting the heat from my blood take away some of the chill that is eating me alive.

Closing my eyes and biting my tongue, I pull my knees closer to my chest. Each breath sends icy shards into my lungs. I sob, but not from my physical pain. I sob because even though I am going through this much icy torment, the only thing I can think of is Draco. He had been the only person I have relied on in years, the only person who ever loved me, and the only person I ever loved. I was truly alone until I met him but had been blissfully, ignorantly happy about it. Without him now, I realize how empty I am. I scream in agony. Had Lucius not been so adamant about hunting me down for Voldemort, I would not have met Draco, and I wouldn't be in this much pain right now.

Had Voldemort not chosen me, I would not be lying in the snow, freezing. I wouldn't be here at Hogwarts. Or maybe I would be here. I don't know. But if I were here, I would surely be here for different reasons. I wouldn't be here for protection until Voldemort decides to make me his slave. Why did it have to be me? What made Voldemort choose me?

A hand touches mine, and I grab it, pulling it closely to me to gather its warmth. "Just kill me," I try to say, my voice hardly audible. "Just kill me, please. I would rather die than have that baby. Please! Please!" I begin sobbing again. "I can't do this."

I can't see who is standing in front of me, and I don't care. They are warm, and that's all that matters. I reach out and touch a face. "Just kill me."

"Can you walk?" the person whispers.

I shake my head, still crying. "I . . . I don't think so. Please just kill me."

"As much as I would enjoy that, I can't."

Unable to speak, I just start crying again.

"Try getting up." I grab this person's hand, and they try to help me to my feet. "There, see, now we can—"

One step later and I am lying the snow again. The person groans irritably, impatiently. Warm arms slide around me, one under my knees, one around my shoulders. A man lifts me into the air. He is so very warm, and I grab the front of his robes to pull myself closer for his warmth, hiding my freezing face into his shoulder. "Please kill me," I whisper.

"I can't," he answers, his voice sounding genuinely sad, though whether he's sad he can't kill me or because I am so pathetic is unclear. "You have to live through this."

I close my eyes. "But I won't. I will be a slave. That's not living."

"It's the best you'll get."

I start crying again.

I jerk awake and begin coughing, surprised to even find myself alive, even more surprised to find myself lying on a rock-hard bed that is just large enough for me to lie on but not large enough to move much. Wherever I am, it's poorly lit, and it's tiny, really tiny, really not much bigger than a broom closet. I don't think I've ever seen this place before but can't be sure because everything is simply too dark. I scoot backward, trying to sit up as much as possible, and reach for my wand. My breath escapes me: my wand is missing. For a heart-stopping second, I think I must have dropped it in the lake. But that can't be the case . . . at least I hope it isn't. I think I remember it being in my pocket.

Calming down about my wand because, really, that is the least of my worries right now, I try turning to fix my pillow and discover that my left hand is tied with a tightly knotted rope to a metal loop in the stone wall. I look around, searching for any clue as to my whereabouts, but see none.

What is going on?

What I do see is a clock on the wall. It is nearly ten—presumably, it's nighttime. What time did I leave the Christmas Eve dinner to go to the lake? What happened after I left the lake?

What has happened to me?

There is a door straight in front of me, which is only about a few inches from the foot of this tiny bed I am chained to, but that door is not what has caught my eye. In the corner of this little closet, right by the door, is a chair, and in that chair sits a man, probably the man who saved me earlier, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his head drooped backward, resting his head against the wall behind him, his legs—I don't know anyone with legs that nice, who is this?—stretched straight out in front of him, his ankles crossed. I can't see his face because of the darkness, and I have absolutely no idea who he could be. Am I even at Hogwarts anymore? Merlin, if I'm not at Hogwarts, I could literally be anywhere, and that idea sits just about as well with me as telling Umbridge the truth about who I am, which is to say not at all. "Hey! Hey!"

I force my gaze away from his lean thighs. "Get up! GET UP! WAKE UP!"

I give up on shouting any real words and devolve into simply shrieking at him. With one long sigh, his arm slides into his robes and pulls out a wand. "Quiet," he whispers. There's a flash of red, and everything goes black.

The next time I wake up, the man with the nice legs is gone. I take this opportunity to try untying the rope binding my hands, but it seems that every time I try to loosen it, it simply tightens. Which gives me an idea—a bad idea, but an idea nonetheless—and so I brace myself (just in case this doesn't work and it ends up hurting me more than helping me) before yanking as hard as I can on the knot as if trying to tighten it.

And, because every now and then the universe has to give me a break (right?), the knot loosens enough for me to slide my hand out of the rope handcuffs. I sigh in relief and cradle my wrist to my chest. All the pain of the icy lake is gone, but this rope has rubbed my skin completely raw. However, I can deal with that later because right now I need to get away from this place and head back to Hogwarts immediately. It will probably be beneficial for Dumbledore to know that somehow I was abducted for the Hogwarts grounds—of course, I'll have to explain why I was down at the lake, but if it makes me safer from the Death Eaters (or whoever is now trying to harm me), I guess I can deal with the embarrassment.

I slide off the side of the bed, surprisingly not as sore as I thought I would be after fighting for my life in the icy depths of the Black Lake. A wide smile from takes over my face as I reach for the doorknob because I didn't drown. Whatever else happens to me, I did not drown in that lake. Before my hand even touches the cool metal, the wooden door flings open, and I am looking into the silhouette of a man. The shadows stop me from seeing his face, but I have my suspicions now about who he might be, and I suddenly feel sick to my stomach that I was admiring his physique earlier.

"Trying to escape, are we?" His voice is icy and cruel. "I'm afraid that is simply not an option for you right now."

"Please, if you could please just let me go, I'll do anything you ask. I swear, I won't tell anyone—"

"Silence," he cuts me off coolly. "You are not allowed to leave."

"Can you at least tell me where I am?"

He chuckles cruelly.

"Is that a 'no' then? You can't tell me where I am? Or are you not allowed to?"

Again, he only chuckles, but it seems so fake, like he's just trying to anger me. And the worst part is: it's working.

"Please, I don't have any money, but I promise I'll do anything if you just let me go." Tears are threatening me again. "I'll find a way to pay you back, please. I-I-I I know people with money, and I'm sure—I'm sure they'll pay you anything you want. I mean, what use am I to you? I'm nothing special really, I'm positive you have the wrong person."

"Are you not Charlotte Rodgers?" he asks, his voice mocking and condescending.

Apparently, I am the person this creep meant to abduct. "Yes, I—I am. But, no one has to know about this. No one. If—if you knew who wanted me alive, you wouldn't be keeping me here like this. He'll kill you. Lord Voldemort will kill you for harming me. Really, I'm just looking out for you."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, completely. If you let me go now, I'll even tell him you were kind to me, that you gave me a place to sleep, that you saved my life. Please."

"You can either return to the cot, or you can take another Stunning Spell."

I huff at him. "Are you going to tie me to the wall again?"

"I will not tie you to the wall with that rope again."

"I don't believe that's what I really asked, is it?"

"You can walk back willingly, or I can Stun you once more."

With one burst of courage, I attempt to shove by him, but he simply grabs my shoulders and forces me back toward the cot. I manage to catch a glimpse of the room outside the closet. Am I in Malfoy Manor? Another flash of red, and everything goes black.