CHAPTER 35

I put my legs up into the seat next to me and lean against the wall beside the window of my lonesome compartment on the Hogwarts Express. I was one of the first students down to the train simply because facing anyone seemed unbearable and rushing down here seemed like an easy way to accomplish that. McGonagall probably should have been someone to go speak to before facing Voldemort and Bellatrix, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Not a single atom of my being wanted to talk about it after losing my opportunity during the Conjuration lesson. Nothing anyone can say will really help anyway because no one will be able to remove this terror from my chest.

I take my wand out of my robe pocket and twirl it around in my hand. Having never seen Bellatrix's wand but knowing the twin cores between our wands, I begin to wonderf what hers looks like. Is it stiff like mine or more pliable? Is twisted like mine or straight? Why do I care? "Avis." A loud bang, a puff of smoke, and flock of birds fill my compartment, fluttering around and chirping almost annoyingly. The first step in my long journey to truly learning Conjuration—all thanks to McGonagall.

The sound of the compartment opening tears my eyes away from the birds. "Oh, sorry," a voice says.

The birds vanish. "Nothing to apologize for," I say to Zoe Accrington.

"Mind if I sit in here? The other compartments are full of . . . the other Houses." It's like she doesn't even want to taint her mouth with those names.

"Not at all."

Zoe sits on the other bench, her legs sprawled across the bench, facing the window. "Where's your home?"

"Wiltshire," I answer, giving the location of Malfoy Manor. "You?"

"London. My parents died my second year, and they left me our house. I lived there with my grandma until a few months ago when she passed."

"I'm sorry about your grandma and . . . and your parents," I say quietly. "I know what that's like."

She smiles sadly. "Car crash took mine. What happened to yours?"

My soft laugh is bitter, more so than I meant for it to be, when I say, "They got rid of me when I was really young. My aunt and uncle took me in begrudgingly." I pick at my wand and add quietly though I'm unsure why, "I always wonder why they chose—whatever it is they left me for—over me. Like, why was I not enough, you know?" Because of Voldemort. I'll never be anything to them so long as Voldemort lives.

Zoe very suddenly throws her feet off the bench, comes toward me, pushes my legs off the bench, and sits next to me, facing me. She watches me intently, a hand on my leg. "Never think that you weren't enough," she says sternly. What's it matter to her? "They left you because they are selfish and unfit to be parents. That has nothing to do with you, Charlotte. You need to know that."

"You don't know me. Or them. Or why they left."

"You were a child who had done nothing wrong. I know that much."

Something about her words bring a smile to my face, and I cover her hand with mine. "Listen. I appreciate the sentiment, but—"

"Charlotte. I had a friend once whose parents left her and she blamed herself. She's gone now because she couldn't stand the thought of not being good enough for them. I didn't tell her that it wasn't her fault—I failed her—so I'm telling you. It is not your fault."

Her kindness pricks at my heart, and I give her hand a squeeze, then look up at her. "Thanks." That's when I first notice her eyes. They're stunning. Golden like honey and shining brightly. I'm struck with a sudden, strong desire to let myself get lost in them. My smile widens, and her gaze flutters to my lips for a brief second before she looks back into my eyes. All I want in this world in this moment is to know how soft her lips are. Though heat rises to my cheeks at this thought, I can't seem to look away from her.

"No!" a young girl shrieks, startling us. We both glance at the door to our compartment, and a group of first-year girls run by. "No! I don't want to!" Their voices drift off. I look back at Zoe, but the moment has passed, and she moves away, taking her seat on the opposite bench again.

I guess I should be grateful those first-years interrupted us. What would I have said to Fred? Does it even really matter what I would have said to Fred? I don't think we're even really dating. But I certainly would have felt guilty.

Zoe clears her throat. "Shouldn't you be back at the school, preparing for your O.W.L.s?"

"Shouldn't you be preparing for your N.E.W.T.s?"

"That's true."

"I just needed to get out of Hogwarts for a while, really. I'll be spending the holiday with a friend of the witch who took me in after I ran away from the orphanage. You?"

"I wanted to get away from Umbridge. I'll be with some Muggle friends. Any time I can spend with them, I take it."

"How'd you meet them?"

"I'm a Muggle-born, didn't you hear Malfoy last night? I grew up with them." She laughs, and my heart flutters at the sound. She seems vastly different now than when she was yelling at Draco and still so alluring that I want to follow her off the train instead of going to the manor. "I don't talk about it much. It's not something I like to broadcast considering the Slytherin reputation, but they all know. So long as I keep to myself and the few who aren't prejudiced, they don't spend much time dwelling on my blood status. Even Malfoy and his group hardly drop the 'm' word at me because I try to stay away from them for the most part. Except in instances like last night." I don't have the heart to tell her that that's the first thing he said about her when I first met him. "The last thing I need is for the rest of the Slytherins to turn against me."

"You think they'd turn on members of their own House?"

Zoe shakes her head. "I doubt they'd attack me themselves, but a few of them come from families sympathetic to Death Eaters who are also very anti-Muggle-born or from Death Eaters themselves"—I swallow—"so I can't trust them. Especially not Malfoy. Do you know who his family is? Not Lucius Malfoy, obviously. The Death Eaters from the Black family side."

"The Lestranges," I whisper.

"The Lestranges," she scoffs. "What a great reputation they left Slytherin, right? Almost as great as the one You-Know-Who left."

Silence falls around us, and I struggle to find my voice before saying, "There's something you might need to know."

She watches me curiously.

"My aunt and uncle are . . . friendly . . . with the Malfoys. According to their letters, Narcissa Malfoy will be picking me off from King's Cross. I know you hate them, so I thought I should warn you."

"You know how awful the Malfoys are, no doubt," she says airily. "I'd watch my back around them if I were you."

"I always do. They don't like me very much."

"I'd hate for one of the decent Slytherins to get hurt." She grins at me.

"You think I'm a decent Slytherin? Even though I dated Malfoy for a few months?"

"You're no longer with him though." She slides down on the bench to lie down and puts her arm under her head. "And I guess you're decent even though you've been spotted in the corridors snogging that Gryffindor."

"Not all of the students in the other Houses are bad."

"That's what they want you to believe. Give it time." She yawns. "I'm taking a nap before this train stops. Wake me when we get there, will you?"

"Sure."

It was much easier to ignore my impending meeting with Voldemort when I had someone to talk to. Now that it's silent in here, aside from Zoe's occasional soft snore, I find myself slowly being consumed with fear. What does Voldemort want with me this early? Surely he will wait until I get out of Hogwarts before he tries impregnating me, right? So why does he want to see me this early? What good will that possibly do?

No answers magically come to me, and I'm left in the same state of panic when the train comes to a stop as I was in when first boarding. I stand up and walk over to Zoe, giving her shoulder a gentle nudge. "We're here."

It takes her a few minutes to really wake up, and by that point, I've gotten our bags down for us. She grabs hers up. "Thanks. Care to walk with me?" I nod, and together we leave the compartment and get off the train. "You said Narcissa Malfoy was coming to get you? I don't see her." She looks around for a bit. "Maybe today will be your lucky day?"

"We should run off. I can just disappear for the holiday." Maybe I can skip out and blame Narcissa for not showing up to take me back to the manor.

Zoe smiles. "I can help you sneak out of the station," she offers. "No one will ever be the wiser. You can crash with me, and they'll never know where to even begin looking for you."

Happy at the idea of this spur-of-the-moment plan to avoid Voldemort and Bellatrix, I briskly walk down the platforms, trying to escape, Zoe at me heels. "Charlotte!" I hear a frantic voice. I close my eyes and sigh. So close . . . I turn.

"This is where I leave," Zoe says quietly. "I can't deal with her." Then she speeds off, going to enjoy her Easter holiday while I will be trapped with Voldemort and my mother at Malfoy Manor.

Narcissa comes toward me. "Charlotte!" She's much calmer now. "Oh thank Merlin I found you."

"Narcissa," I reply flatly, "I was honestly hoping you wouldn't."

She takes me by the arm. "Nonsense, come with me." My aunt leads me to a car similar to the Ministry car I rode in last time I went to the Malfoys. We both crawl into the back, sitting across from each other (wouldn't want to get to close to the Dark Lord's whore, would she?), and look at each other in a gloomy silence.

After just a few minutes, I can no longer take it. "How long am I going to be with my oh-so-loving family?"

"I'm not sure," she says. "The Dark Lord"—I tense at the mention of him—"will arrive either today or tomorrow. How long it takes after that, I can't say. It depends on what he wants."

I try not to think of what Voldemort might want from me. I look down and fidget with my hands, willing my tears not to come. My pride won't tolerate crying in front of Narcissa Malfoy. Whatever hope there had once been that she could support me is gone now, having vanished the minute Bellatrix tried to Cruciate me. Narcissa wouldn't betray her sister to help her niece. That would be asking far too much.

"Charlotte," she says quietly. I look up to see a blurry blonde woman watching me. She's slightly hunched over; her voice is heavy; her head hangs a bit. Her breathing is heavy.

"Yeah?" I say, trying my best to force indignation into my voice. She sees right through it and moves to sit next to me. She takes my hand in one of hers, threading her fingers through mine, and puts her other one on my knee in an oddly comforting way.

"Charlotte," she says again, this time a little louder. "I know . . . I know that you and I—well, it's no secret that we've had our differences." She offers me a weak smile. "But, you made Draco happier than I have seen him in a while, and I . . ." She fades off. I'm surprised to find myself disappointed when she removes her hand from my knee to wipe a tear from my cheek. "I hate that things worked out this way." Unable to look at her, I keep my eyes focused on our interlocked fingers. "He truly—he really did love you."

That gets my attention, and my eyes flutter to hers. "I loved him too."

"Granted, I was shocked when he showed up with you," she continues with another weak smile. "But, if things were different—your not being his cousin and never having been promised to the Dark Lord—I think I would've approved of the two of you." She rubs the back of my hand. "You were obviously happy together." With her free hand, she reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. "I saw the two of you when you were here for Christmas."

"That one day I was here," I add with a bitter laugh.

"Yes, that one day. But it was enough for me to see how much you cared for one another. I saw you in the yard, by the lake."

With a sigh, I lean over and rest my head on her shoulder, letting myself take advantage of the kindness she currently shows me, trying to let myself be comforted before having to face my nightmares. As she does nothing to seem uncomfortable or to make me move, I remain like this. "We had been playing in the snow."

Her shoulder vibrates with silent laughter. "He dove to catch you and ended up face-first in the snow."

"I thought I saw someone watching."

"I was," she confesses belatedly.

We sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes, but it is interrupted when a sob tears its way through my chest and jumps out of my mouth. I quickly regain composure to the best of my ability. "Charlotte." Narcissa's voice is worried and kind, and she pulls away from me so she can look into my eyes. "Charlotte, what's wrong?"

"Will . . . do . . . is . . ." I don't know how to phrase my question without openly displaying the fact that I am so scared. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter because she's likely already guessed my fear by now considering the years I spent running. "Is there any way Voldemort would choose another, instead of me?"

Narcissa wipes another tear from my cheek and brushes more of my hair out of my face. "I don't think so, dear."

Another sob breaks free, and I find myself wrapping my arms around my aunt and burying my face into her shoulder. "I'm scared!"

She rubs my back gently. "I know you are."

Though I despise myself for breaking in front of her like this, after everything, it's comforting not to be alone right now. Narcissa doesn't pull back as I thought she would and instead remains a rock I can cry on and lean upon, seemingly willing to do so for as long as necessary. I am the one that pulls away, wiping my tears, whispering, "Sorry." In answer, she shakes her head, which I take as her saying that it's fine. We're both quiet for a moment as we regain control of our emotions. "Narcissa?"

"Yes?"

"Why—how did I supposedly die?"

For a split second, she is taken aback. Then she pushes through it and says, "Well, your mother was a very proud supporter of the Dark Lord"—she shifts almost uncomfortably—"even after his death. She . . . she and Rodolphus—her husband, your father—continued the Dark Lord's work. Before his death, he chose you. Bellatrix, she didn't know about it. Neither did Rodolphus. The Dark Lord told only me and Lucius. We were supposed to look after you in the event of your parents' death or incarceration, which was always a possibility given their line of work." What a delicate way to put that.

I swallow the lump in my throat.

"Bellatrix told me to hide you. She felt that people were after you, because of who she was—is. I took you and gave you to Alphard. We thought no one would suspect you were there, considering Alphard had been disowned. He wanted forgiveness, I guess, but he most certainly wanted the money we were giving him—he was always a greedy man. No more than six months later, he contacted us and told us that you had been killed—a stray curse. It was no surprise that you were still in danger with him, but we thought it would be safer than with us or Bellatrix." She lightly clears her throat. "Regulus had hated him ever since he'd helped Sirius; Sirius and Regulus were brothers. Alphard claimed that Regulus had found him and attacked. You were . . . caught by a curse during the duel. Or, well, the child in your place did. The body was so badly burned—" She shakes her head.

"The Dark Lord was furious, as you can imagine." She closes her eyes. "I don't know what he did, exactly, but Regulus . . . he died." She opens her eyes again. "It had been becoming obvious for a while that he was having second thoughts about serving the Dark Lord. But once you give your life to him, there's no going back. Your supposed death was the final straw.

"The Dark Lord, just before his death—if you can really call it that—informed Lucius and me that he had found another young witch. Her name was Charlotte Rodgers. We didn't know you were the same child. We'd never laid eyes on you until you had escaped the orphanage. You were put there because the Dark Lord didn't want you to be in danger, which he believed would be the case if you lived with us. He commissioned us to collect you when you turned eleven. But you were already gone. We couldn't risk our family's safety, so Lucius began hunting you and employing others to do the same.

"We did not know that you were Aurelia Lestrange until . . . well, the Christmas holiday."

"But Voldemort knew, didn't he?" She takes a sharp breath at my saying Voldemort's name.

"I believe so. Whether he found you before or after Regulus's death, I don't know. But he definitely knew who you were."

"And he didn't tell my mother? He didn't tell Bellatrix—his greatest follower—that her daughter was alive?"

Narcissa bites her lower lip. "Bellatrix became . . . overly fierce after your death. She devoted every minute to the Dark Lord when she lost you. He likely didn't want to lose her ferocity. She was always his greatest follower, but when she lost you, Charlotte . . . no one could compare."

I grimace. "You expect me to believe that? After the way she responded to my being alive? You expect me to believe that she actually grieved my death?"

"Yes," she says plainly. "Bellatrix lived for nearly fifteen years believing you were dead. She'd come to terms with it. Seeing you only revived the horror of when you died. She didn't expect that. Then to learn of your duty to the Dark Lord . . ."

"And so she threatened to Cruciate me?" I ask her flatly.

Narcissa take my hand in hers again. "You have to see the world they way Bellatrix does, Charlotte."

"Meaning?"

"The world is strictly a place for power to be grown and harvested. Now that she's escaped Azkaban, nothing—other than her devotion to the Dark Lord—matters to her anymore. She . . . she is devoted to him beyond anyone else. The fact that he chose you—that killed her. She's out of Azkaban now, but it's not the same for her now as it was then, and seeing you . . . I think she was reminded of the very different life that could've been had things gone differently. She saw using the Cruciatus Curse as a way to save you from the horrors you've faced and you're going to face."

"Only because she wants to be the one given the 'privilege' to have his child!"

"That's only partially true."

"Then tell me the whole truth!"

She takes a deep breath. "The Dark Lord chose you as punishment for her."

I frown at her. "Punishment?"

"Yes. Bellatrix only had six months with you before you were sent to Alphard and then later presumed dead, and from the moment you were born, and even before, it was obvious that her affections for you rivaled her affections for the Dark Lord. He wanted to make an example of her."

I can't keep the skeptical laugh out of my voice when I say, "Then why does she hate me so much? I want to believe you, but she obviously doesn't want me to be her daughter! If she loved me the way you say she did, she would have been happy to find me alive!"

Narcissa just shakes her head. "Charlotte, there are two reasons why she would not want you to be her daughter," she says calmly. "First, if you are not her daughter, it will be easier for her to watch you go through your duty. Because—and I don't mean to frighten you more—it will be dreadful. Second, she has already borne the pain of Aurelia Lestrange's death. If you are not her daughter, if you are Charlotte Rodgers and not Aurelia, it will not be as painful if something happens to you, which there is always a possibility of when you get mixed up with the Dark Lord. She can't go through your death twice. She doesn't want you to be Aurelia because she can't go through that again."

"So, to me, she will be Bellatrix Lestrange, and to her, I will be Charlotte Rodgers?"

"I'm afraid so, yes."

"You're 'afraid so'? Are you kidding me? That makes this so much easier for me. I've hated myself since knowing who my parents are. That she wants to distance us as well is a blessing."

Narcissa looks as if she is about to say something but runs out of time when the car stops. We are at Malfoy Manor.

My aunt leads me to the same large dining room in which my life had crumbled around me once before. Try as I might to keep thoughts of Draco and what happened over Christmas out of my mind, it proves much harder to do when standing in his house. I take a seat far from where I sat last time, and Narcissa sits down as well in a seat across from mine.

Lucius walks in. "Aurelia," he says through gritted teeth.

I glower at him. "Don't ever call me that."

"You are invading my home. I'll call you whatever I see fit."

"Don't make me complain to the Dark Lord about your hospitality, Lucius," I say harshly. "I don't want to cause my own uncle's torturous death . . . but I will if it comes down to that."

He glares at me then walks to where Narcissa is and sits beside her. "I believe the Dark Lord would kill you before me."

"Really?" I say sarcastically. "Because, by my calculations, there are more idiots in the world that can take your place as a Death Eater than there are pureblooded daughters of Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord's greatest follower, to take my place."

Lucius opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off and say, "Forgive me, Narcissa," for she was obviously upset by my words. She was nice to me earlier, so I should return the favor. She nods at me. "So when is Bellatrix supposed to arrive?"

"Any minute now," Narcissa whispers.

A thought suddenly occurs to me: Could I manage Disapparating before facing her or Voldemort? Could I just run away now instead of going back to Hogwarts? I could be on the run again, away from all of them. I could give up the warm, soft bed and the food and be free.