CHAPTER 46

I've been keeping to myself since confessing my actions to McGonagall, and no one really seems to question it as long as I act excited about the end of the year when it's appropriate. As difficult as it is to remain calm and act normal, none of my friends seems to notice my struggle. Well, that's not entirely true—because of the time I spent studying with Zoe and Daphne, they kind of seem to have an idea that something is different with me, Zoe more so than Daphne because she saw me when I arrived back in the common room, but neither of them seem to be interested in pressing me about the issue, for which I am unspeakably grateful.

McGonagall has not tried to approach me or speak with me since our conversation in her office, which means I have no idea how she's handling the fact that I Cruciated Umbridge. Should she come to the concrete realization that I am a monster who has the capacity to harm others without really thinking about the subsequent consequences and without being able to stop myself, I'd rather spare myself the pain of her disgust in me and just never discover what she thinks of me, so I do my best to avoid her. If even the faintest trace of malice or disappointment were to show in her eyes when she looks at me, I would not be able to cope.

Something is wrong with me. And I think I know at least one person who might be willing to talk to me about it, but I can't see her until the term ends, which will end soon unfortunately—I don't really want to confide anything in Bellatrix, especially not my overwhelming fear of what I might be capable of when pushed far enough. If anyone can relate to my rage and my desire to hurt others during times of grief, it is the woman who passed that trait to me, who tortured people to insanity in her own grief.

As the days go by, I grow more and more uncomfortable with everything I've done and how it might come falling down on my head soon. I'm running out of time before this strangely somewhat-comfortable life here at Hogwarts ends, at least for the term, and I don't know what's going to happen to me when Voldemort no longer has me stashed away here. Where will they hide me? Will they lock me up for the months between now and the next term? Will I even be allowed to come back here after having escaped?

Three days before the end of term, Hermione and Ron are freed from the hospital wing, completely cured of whatever happened to them in the Department of Mysteries. I see them walking through the corridors and berate myself because I should have done so much more when they were fighting the Death Eaters. I shouldn't have gone to Malfoy Manor, shouldn't have attempted to speak with Bellatrix.

I was locked away when they were trying to stop Voldemort, locked away because I'm an idiot. How could I actually think Bellatrix or anyone in the manor would answer my questions?

The day before the end of term, at dinnertime, Umbridge is finally dismissed from Hogwarts. She tries sneaking out of the castle during the meal so she can escape undetected, but Peeves, seizing his last chance to do as Fred had instructed him, gleefully chases her from the premise, whacking her alternately with a walking stick and a sock full of chalk. Many of the students hop up from their dinner tables and run to the entrance hall to watch Umbridge be kicked out of Hogwarts. The Heads of Houses only half-heartedly try to stop all of it.

While part of me wants to follow and watch her run from the castle, I don't have the energy to do so and instead remain in my seat, laughing with Zoe and Daphne and the others who aren't as prejudiced as the Slytherin reputation demands. Zoe laughs louder than the rest of us, smiling from ear to ear. "I thought I was going to hate this year! But look at Umbridge run! I've never much cared for Peeves, but dammit, I would do just about anything he asked at this point!"

I'm close enough to the staff table to see McGonagall sink back into her chair after a few quiet attempts to stop the students and express her regret that she is unable to run cheering after Umbridge herself because Peeves has borrowed her walking stick.

I try not to watch her for long because I fear we'll make eye contact and it'll make her think of what I already did to Umbridge. As I myself don't even want to think about that right now, I certainly don't want McGonagall thinking about it either.

Shortly after our end-of-term feast, the students find our way to the Hogwarts Express.

"There's something I need to do," I say glumly to Astoria, Daphne, and Zoe who are all sharing my Hogwarts Express compartment with me.

"Would you like someone to go with you?" Zoe asks.

"No, I want to do this on my own." That, and I don't think I want her knowing all the secrets about me that I've tried so hard to keep quiet.

She smiles at me, and it almost makes me feel better about what I'm about to do.

I get up and leave the compartment, catching sight of a highly swollen Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle as they dodge into a compartment of their own. I missed the fight between the three of them and the D.A. when they tried attacking Harry. Couldn't bring myself to be a part of that because I don't want the other Slytherins to know my involvement with Dumbledore's Army, even if it no longer matters. That, and I don't think I want to put forth any effort into harming anyone else right now, even in defense of others who don't deserve to be attacked—I feel strongly that I would be unable to stomach that right now.

Neville exits the compartment I'm heading toward, and I silently thank my lucky stars that he won't be in there for my conversation with the Golden Trio because he probably wouldn't take it well to learn that I am the daughter of the woman who destroyed his parents' lives and consequently his as well. I know I wouldn't handle it well if I were in his shoes. If I were him, I'd be tempted to get revenge through Bellatrix's child since I wouldn't be able to hurt her daughter. He's not you. You're a monster, and he's not.

Either way, I'm glad I don't have to find out just yet.

I slide open the door and say, "I . . . I feel like I need to tell you something." I gesture toward the space beside Ginny and Ron, kind of wishing Ginny wasn't in here with the others. I don't know any of them that well, but I know her even less. Oh well. There's not much I can change about this right now, and asking her to leave would be uncomfortable. "Would you mind?"

Hermione puts down her copy of the Daily Prophet and smiles encouragingly and motions for me to enter. Ron and Harry temporarily pause their game of chess, and Ginny lowers a copy of The Quibbler. I really shouldn't be in here. I should just leave and pretend this never happened, just don't tell them anything, but instead, I take the seat next to Ron and Ginny, across from Hermione and Harry.

It's been an embarrassingly long amount of silence as I play my fingers and berate myself for not figuring out exactly what I was going to say and why I thought it was important to say at all. I definitely should've thought about it all before entering the compartment, but I hadn't planned this far and am just kind of winging it at this point. Hermione helps me out of this rut by saying, "Charlotte, it's all right."

I look up, still not sure if I want Ginny to know all of this, but she'll probably find out soon enough anyway because it's doubtful the three of them would keep it from her anyway. "Don't hate me," I say. "I'm still the same Charlotte Rodgers that was in the D.A., that Stunned Snape for the fun of it . . ."

"You did what for fun?" Ginny asks. I had forgotten that she doesn't know that story.

"Have them tell you about that later if you'd like." She nods, and I continue, "Harry, I want to start by saying—"

"If you're going to say how sorry you are for my loss, don't," he cuts me off coldly.

I don't even blame him for the tone because I'd feel the same way after suffering so recently the way he has. "That's not exactly what I was going to say." Maybe I had thought about saying that, but it was definitely too cliché. So I don't think I will, especially not now. "I'd like to start, Harry, by saying that I spent almost a week with Sirius—please don't interrupt me," I add when I see him on the verge of doing so. "Let me finish. All of you can ask me questions when I'm done." They all nod.

"I spent the better half of the Easter holidays at Grimmauld Place with him. We talked a lot. Harry, he loved you so much. When he talked about you, his eyes lit up like they did when he talked about his days at Hogwarts with your father." A weak smile prods at Harry's lips, and it almost breaks my heart. He's lost so much. "He talked about you a lot that week, any time he could, really."

I take a deep breath, really just trying to brace myself for however they might accept what I'm about to tell them. "And I want to apologize for what happened—what did I ask about you interrupting me?" Harry had just tried to cut me off again, but I don't really care. If he wants to cut me off and yell because I just said what I wasn't going to say, so be it. I give him a short moment to see if he wants to say something, and when he doesn't, I continue, "Anyways, I have a reason for the apology; it's not the empty, sympathetic apology you have no doubt gotten from loads of others." I fight down my fear bubbling up in my throat. "I saw him, before he left for the Department of Mysteries—I tried to stop him from going when he heard that you were there, but I couldn't. I think I should have tried harder."

"How did you get away from Hogwarts?" Hermione asks.

"It's . . . a long story, actually, and it's not as important right not as everything else I feel I should confess." I clear my throat and backtrack a bit. "You all know me as Charlotte Rodgers, a transfer student from Durmstrang. This is a lie. It is a lie concocted by Dumbledore. I am in danger, sort of. But I'm also safer than any of you." This sounds just as weird to me as it does to them; I can see it on their faces. My cheeks grow warm. I hate trying to talk about this without preparing for it. "Hang on—let me go back."

With as few words as possible, making sure not to tell them anything I absolutely do not want them to know, like how I'm a Metamorphmagus, I explain to them about the lies I believed (my mother dying in Azkaban and my great-uncle taking me in and changing my name and later placing me in an orphanage). I explain my escape from the orphanage and how I went to Alphard's and found nothing.

Making it sound not as awful as it was, I explain how I lived in Diagon Alley without anyone knowing who I am. I need them to know that I was just as clueless as everyone else about my identity. And while I'm really only telling them this because it builds up a trust for what I'll have to tell them later, that doesn't make it any easier to admit this to people who are not close to me at all, who I've never spent substantial time with outside of the D.A. meetings.

They're all just watching me as I speak, and it's not comfortable. It makes me really nervous, even more nervous before. I let out a shaky breath and thank Hermione silently for her encouraging smile. She doesn't seem as caught off guard as the others, but that's because she knows some of it already.

I let out a shaky breath and force myself to continue, "For five years I was on the run from Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy being my most fierce hunter—yes, I knew he was a Death Eater before I began dating Draco. He found me and caught me two weeks before the beginning of this year's first term. They had—" I stop, not wanting to tell them that Snape is a Death Eater. "They had me sent to Hogwarts for my protection, under the orders of Voldemort. I was sent there because he wants me safe—which is how I am safer than most of you. He wants me well taken care of—I'll get to why in a moment." Well, not the real reason, of course, because I don't trust any of them enough for them to know that.

"For the Christmas holidays, I went to Malfoy Manor with Draco." I swallow down the sorrow building in me. "The Death Eaters had escaped from Azkaban in November. The Ministry didn't let anyone know until after Christmas, but I don't know what changed and made them tell, so don't ask that.

"Narcissa Malfoy is Bellatrix Lestrange's sister. So naturally, Bellatrix was at Malfoy Manor and has been there for a while now. The second day of the holidays is when I met her. Narcissa took a look at the pocket watch." I take it out of my robes and hand it to Harry. "Do you recognize the emblem?"

He stares at it for a moment, trying to decipher it. "It's hard to know for sure, but . . . it looks like the Black family crest," he says quietly.

I nod. "So I found out." He hands it back. "My great-uncle was Alphard Black—Sirius's uncle. My mother did not die in Azkaban as I was led to believe most of my life. My mother is Bellatrix Lestrange." Harry's face becomes expressionless. "And that is why I feel I should apologize. It was my mother that killed Sirius. I saw her before she left to go to the Ministry of Magic. I tried to stop her, to get her to tell me what was happening, but she was—she hates me and refused to answer any questions. If I had—I don't know—if I had put up more of a fight, maybe I could have slowed her down and she wouldn't have had a chance to kill him . . . Maybe if I had tried to—to create some sort of relationship with her months go—I might have been able to stop her from going at all, and she wouldn't have had a chance to—to kill Sirius. I could've—I don't know." I take a deep breath. "I met Tonks in Hogsmeade in February. She took me to meet Sirius over the Easter holidays, after—

"The beginning of my Easter holidays was spent at Malfoy Manor." They don't need to know that I met Voldemort, so I stop myself from saying it. "Anyways, I met Tonks in Hogsmeade again, and she took me to meet Sirius. I spent the rest of the Easter holiday with him at Grimmauld Place. And I just—I don't know. I want you to know how much Sirius loved you, and I am sorry that he's gone. I feel like I should have stopped Bellatrix from going there that night—I went to the manor but she wouldn't listen to me. But I should have fought her harder."

We're all silent for a moment. "I believe I'm done now."

Ron is the first to ask a question. "So . . . you're Malfoy's cousin?"

I nod.

"Malfoy dated his cousin!" he laughs. Then he realizes that the same applies to me, and his laughter quiets, fading into an awkward throat clearing.

"You can't speak of this to anyone. Only three people who aren't in the family or connected to Voldemort know about this: Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape." The latter knows because he's connected to Voldemort, but they don't need to know that. "Now you four know, and you mustn't tell anyone." I quickly add, "Not even Fred. I need to be the one to tell him."

"What's your real name?" Ginny asks.

"Aurelia Lestrange. I may or may not have a middle name. I don't know."

"How did your uncle fake your death?" Hermione asks.

I tell them about Regulus's feud with Alphard and how he attacked. I tell them what Narcissa had told me during the Easter holidays, about them faking my death and sending me to the orphanage, about the baby whose body was so badly destroyed that they couldn't even really identify me.

"Why does Snape know?" Harry asks me fiercely.

"He's the Head of my House. Dumbledore thought he should know, just in case I needed something or if I was threatened. He'd be able to help me."

"And McGonagall?" Ron asks.

"I wanted to tell her."

"How are you safer than the rest of us?" Hermione asks me.

I can't tell them about having Voldemort's child, not yet at least. There is only so much unwanted information that one can take in a single day, and there's only so much I'm willing to tell right now. "Well, I'm the daughter of two of Voldemort's greatest supporters and soldiers, Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange. He wants me to join my parents in his Inner Circle." I add quickly, "I'm not going to, but he thinks I will, so he doesn't want anything happening to me. He wants to groom me to be one of his little helpers, one of his followers. A Death Eater. He thinks having a new generation of Lestrange will benefit him, especially if I can report back to him about anything at Hogwarts he wants to know about."

"So you're really the daughter of Bellatrix?" Harry asks me.

"Yes."

None of them seem to want to ask me anything. Then Harry asks, quite abruptly, "Is Snape a Death Eater?"

"He was."

"Is he now, though?" Harry prods.

Though I don't want to lie, there doesn't seem to be any obvious way to twist the truth, so I have no other choice. "No," I say firmly.

"Are you sure?" he asks me.

It's almost like he wants Snape to be a Death Eater. "I'm positive."

He becomes oddly dispirited after that.

"Why are you telling us this?" Ron asks.

I look at him. "Because I needed to apologize for my failure to stop her. Bellatrix, I mean. I'm going to do what I can to help you stop Voldemort, or to let you know what I find out if it can help any of you or your families because I should've done more to stop her. I'm in a position that allows me to help because they'll keep me at the manor again most likely, so I'm going to try." I meet each of their eyes. "I'm trusting you not to tell anyone." They all nod, and silence falls into the compartment.

"But if you're not Charlotte Rodgers," Harry says, "why does your name still appear as 'Charlotte Rodgers' on the Marauder's Map?"

"The what?" Harry takes out a map of Hogwarts that shows the location of each person currently at the school. "I'm still Charlotte Rodgers, though that might not be my given name. I'm not Aurelia Lestrange, I've never been Aurelia Lestrange, and I will never be Aurelia Lestrange." I stand to leave but don't necessarily want to end the conversation like that, so I smile and tell them about me tackling Umbridge into the Portable Swamp (conveniently leaving out the part about Cruciating her or hexing her face), a story which lifts their spirits before I leave their compartment, passing Neville as I make my way back to the Slytherins, none of whom ask me where I went or what I was doing.

When the Hogwarts Express stops at King's Cross and I exit through Platform 9¾, I debate for a moment just Apparating somewhere and disappearing again. If I can't be certain that they'll allow me back at Hogwarts, then I'm at risk of being locked away in the manor for an unknowable amount of time. Running away could be my best option, but the thought of trying to struggle alone to survive drains me immediately. That's now how I want to live again.

"Someone's trying to get your attention," Zoe sighs, motioning to Fred who stands waving to me. My spirits rise considerably. "I'll write you?"

"I'd like that very much."

"Go on, he's waiting."

I say my goodbyes to Zoe, then go to Fred and wrap my arms around him. He kisses me lightly then turns to two redheaded people behind him. These must be his parents. "Charlotte," he says, "this is my mum and dad"—so I was right—"Molly and Arthur Weasley."

I shake Mrs. Weasley's hand. "It's great to meet you," she says.

"It's great to meet you too."

"Fred's talked a lot about you."

"I hope only good things."

She smiles. "Great things."

Mr. Weasley greets me warmly, and I return the kindness.

Fred pulls me to the side. "The shop's brilliant," he tells me, smiling. "I'll see you there often, yeah?"

"You know I will. As often as I can."

"Where're you staying? Where're your parents?"

As if on cue, Narcissa Malfoy walks up to the two of us. "Charlotte," she says. Fred shares my confusion. "Charlotte, you'll be staying with us for the next few days."

I nod slowly. "I'm staying with you?"

"Yes, come along now."

I look back up at Fred. "I'll come to your shop every day."

"Great!" He bends and whispers to me, "Don't let the Malfoys give you any trouble. Give 'em hell if you have to."

I smile at him. "I'll see you tomorrow." I join a scowling Narcissa to go to Malfoy Manor, which is a ride taken in uncomfortable silence, Draco, Narcissa, and I looking between each other without saying a word.