Warning: This chapter contains physical violence.

Trauma

Parvati jumped back and involuntarily let out a scream of terror. As she did so, she tripped over her broom, which had got between her feet, and crashed directly into the bushes from between which Draco had just emerged.

Draco had scrambled on his feet in the meantime and was looking around frantically. "Who's there?" he called out; it sounded like a cry of horror. Parvati hardly recognised his voice, so full of fear and madness was it. Something dark was sticking to his forehead—blood?

What happened to him? Shall I—

No!, it instinctively flashed through her mind immediately afterwards. He mustn't find me! Then he'll totally lose it … I can only hope that the Invisibility Cloak is still in place!

Parvati stayed where she was; she could hardly move anyway. Belly down, she stuck in the bushes, twisting her slender body around every possible branch, burying the broom underneath her as best she could.

"Who's there?" roared Draco again, and Parvati could see his eyes flashing in the pale light of the red moon; they barely looked human, and she felt ice-cold with fear. What did he see? What were they doing to him? Severus's potion doesn't seem to have done much good …

Parvati hardly dared to breathe, and her heart was beating so loudly that she was convinced everyone a hundred yards away must hear it. And maybe it was—because suddenly, without any warning, Draco shouted: "Petrificus Totalus!"

Parvati stiffened like a board and painfully hit on the ground with her stomach and face, several small branches and thorns jamming into her cheek.

"I knew it," Draco hissed between his teeth and reached into the bushes to pull out his prey.

"Well, well," he said with a sneer after dragging Parvati by her feet across the uneven ground and tearing the hood from her head; but there was also surprise that resonated in his voice. "The mudblood!"

I guess you didn't expect that, Parvati thought grimly. She was still lying face down on the dusty ground, her right cheek burning like fire.

Now Draco grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and turned her onto her back. "What do you want here?" he barked at her, but it was obviously only meant rhetorically—Parvati could not speak, her jaw was just as immobile as everything else about her, except for the eyes with which she stared at the Slytherin full of fear. He could do anything to her now. Really anything.

At that moment they heard the next dreadful scream; endlessly drawn-out, it passed through the forest, past the silent trees.

Draco froze for a moment as if in agony; then he looked again hurriedly from left to right, as if someone might have followed him. Parvati could now clearly see that the dark stuff on his forehead was the hint of a drawing. Apparently it was supposed to represent a skull with a snake crawling out of its mouth—the Dark Mark.

Draco took the curse from Parvati and hissed, "Come on, get up! I don't feel like dragging you all the time!" He tore Parvati rudely to her feet and jammed his wand between her ribs. "And no dirty tricks," he whispered into her ear.

Parvati could feel his breath. It smelled metallic, as if he hadn't had anything to drink for a long time or was terrified. Draco grabbed her by the back of the neck and pushed her off the path, into the thicket. Parvati let it happen to her without resisting. Her fear that he might do something rash was too great. I have to calm him down somehow, she thought numbly. He must be in shock.

They walked for quite a while, deeper and deeper into the forest. Draco pulled Parvati forward without any regard, constantly glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was following. Parvati stumbled after him almost blindly; branches whipped her in the face and several times she stumbled and fell. Each time Draco yanked her up, cursing, and his wand pierced more and more painfully into the area where her right kidney was.

When he finally felt safe enough, he stopped and pressed her against a tree, one hand closed around her throat. Parvati could barely make out his face, but she could still feel his rapid breaths on her skin. "You're actually just in time, you know that?" she heard his voice in the darkness, suddenly sounding velvety but trembling slightly. "The Dark Lord is pleased today with any sacrifice we can offer up to him!"

Parvati became stiff with fear. I thought he hated it!, she thought confusedly. He had just run away from them! But then she realised abruptly what he was up to. Draco had lost control and deserted—and now he regretted it and wanted to save his own skin.

"Draco—forget it!" she groaned; with his hand pressing against her larynx, speech was barely possible. "Snape will—certainly not—like that …"

But Draco no longer seemed receptive to reasonable arguments. "But before that," he continued, as if she hadn't said anything at all, "I'll have my fun too! Nothing comes for free!"

"You don't mean that!" whispered Parvati, giving an incredulous laugh.

Draco took her chin in his hand with a very delicate gesture. "You bet I mean it, Patil. I know for a fact that you messed up my night with Brown—this is the perfect opportunity to make up for it!"

"Hello?" said Parvati mockingly. "You do know who you're dealing with, don't you?" But she suddenly began to shake uncontrollably. Draco's wand was still digging painfully into her side, and she couldn't for the life of her reach her own.

"At night, all cats are grey," Draco whispered, pressing close to Parvati. She could feel his heat through his clothes and smelled his tangy cold sweat. "So, how would you like it, Patil? Voluntarily or … forced?"

"Jesus, don't be ridiculous," Parvati hissed as she tried unsuccessfully to fight off Draco's hands, which were by now tugging uncoordinatedly at her cloaks. "Snape will bail you out of this! You're really acting like it's your last night!"

"Shut up, Mudblood!" shouted Draco uncontrollably; an even worse swear word followed. Unexpectedly, he grabbed her by the collar, just as she had grabbed him at lunchtime today, and slapped her hard across the face.

"It is my last night!" he cried loudly. Again he struck; this time Parvati was knocked to the ground by the force of his blow. Blind with rage, Draco kicked and hit her stomach. Gasping, Parvati curled up and held her arms protectively in front of her face, not a moment too soon. The next kick hit her forearms and a moment later her shoulder exploded in pain.

Draco had found a way to vent his anger and hatred, his dreadful fear and the hopelessness of his situation. Sobbing wildly and screaming, he kicked the girl lying on the ground; apparently completely out of control by what he had to experience.

My God, Parvati could only think, while his hard boots maltreated her shins, arms and also her back with muffled noises. Is he trying to kill me?

Again a cruel scream rang through the forest, hardly human at all. Parvati barely heard it because of her own desparate sobs, but Draco stopped dead for a moment. Parvati seized the opportunity—groaning, she scrambled to her feet and pulled her wand in a flash. "Petrificus Totalus!"

"Imperio!" cried Draco at the same time. He ducked and Parvati's curse whizzed over him—but she was hit. Immediately a strange but familiar feeling of emptiness came over her. Just stand still, a voice whispered inside her. Don't fight him …

Parvati knew exactly what was happening to her. And now she benefited from the numerous lessons in Defence Against the Dark Arts that she had enjoyed in the fourth grade with the wrong "Professor Moody"—apart from Harry, she had been the only one who could oppose the Imperius curse at that time.

"No, Draco Malfoy!" she screamed loudly. "You have no power over me!"

With all the willpower she had left, she managed to fight off the Unforgivable curse before it could really take possession of her. But the horror shook her. He can really do it! He wasn't bluffing in front of Lavender!

Immediately she tried again to give Draco the Full Body-Bind curse; she had to render him harmless before he thought of something even worse than the Imperius curse. And again he ducked and shot back. "IMPERIO!"

This time it hit her so hard that she instantly froze. The curse took away all will of her own, sucked all thoughts out of her; made Parvati let Draco press her against the tree and tear down her cloaks without resistance. "This is my last night!" he uttered dully. "And you better stop bitching now, you hear me!"

Parvati sensed Draco fumbling around with her trousers, breathing heavily, finally opening them and pulling them down with her panties in one go.

She felt nothing about it; there was only one big emptiness in her head. She knew what was going to happen, but there was nothing she could do about it. Just as there was nothing she could do about the terrible screams that echoed through the otherwise silent forest at regular intervals.

Only when she felt his ice-cold hand hard between her legs, saw the wild triumph in his pale face, did a small seed of resistance stir in her heart—you will not be the one! Not you!—which she fanned with the last of her strength and let quickly grew larger. And the crash of his zip finally tore Parvati out of the trance-like state—the curse slipped from her like a great heavy cloth.

She waited a moment until Draco lowered his head to free the contents of his trousers with erratic movements. Then, in a flash, she let herself fall away to the side, reached into her robe that lay on the floor and her fingers clasped the cool wood of her wand with which she desperately aimed at Draco's manhood: "Reducio!"

It had all happened so quickly that Draco first stared at her in total bewilderment—and then at the place where, just a moment before, his most precious part was sticking up. "What have you done?" he screamed as if out of his mind. "Have you gone completely mad?"

"Petrificus Totalus!"

"Expelliarmus!"

Parvati's wand flew away in a wide arc. She had never encountered such a nimble opponent as Draco; except Harry, perhaps. Of course, her favourite curse had once again flown past Draco—and her wand was gone! Oh God, she thought, filled with horror, as she saw Draco's face contorted with rage above her, his wand pointing directly at her face. I guess, that's it, then!

"CRUCIO!"

A pain seized Parvati the like of which she had never experienced before, paralysing her limbs, making her scream in agony. All the nerve endings in her burned like fire, awakening the desire in her to roll wildly on the floor—but she could not move!

"Stop it!" she gasped at Draco, even the screaming hurt beyond imagination. Her lungs were a sheer burning furnace, her intestines felt as if someone had thrust hot spears into them in various places.

Draco looked at the girl in front of him from narrow eyes without doing anything. "Say please," he finally said in a monotonous voice.

"Please!" panted Parvati. She would do anything, anything, just to make this incredible pain stop again.

With a pointed indifferent expression, Draco picked up his wand and the pain stopped immediately. Gratitude was the first emotion that flashed through her, but fear returned right away. What curse is he going to unleash on me next?

For a moment Parvati lay motionless, staring at the moon above her, still shrouded in that evil, dark red glow. Then she tried to sit up with a groan. All this had only lasted a few seconds—a human being cannot endure more than that!, she thought, her whole body trembling.

"Have you finally had enough?" asked Draco, tugging Parvati up by one hand so that they were face to face.

"Now listen," Parvati tried again; she was still swaying under the after-effects of that violent pain attack, and the cold air on her legs reminded her that she was still completely naked from the waist down, while her trousers flapped around her ankles. She quickly bent down and tugged them back over her hips.

"There's a solution for everything … Draco," she said urgently as she furtively closed her zip. "Let's get out of here before really anyone gets here and wait for Severus at Hogwarts! He'll think of something!"

"Spare me your psychobabble!" snarled Draco. "There is no solution!" The hopelessness in his eyes said more than any words. Draco really did seem to think he had nothing left to lose—that he was going to take Parvati to Voldemort he had, it seemed, completely forgotten, and she had no intention of reminding him.

But one matter still seemed to interest him despite his misery: "So, now you hex my … thing back to normal size, otherwise you might get another taste of pain right away!"

"If you tell me where my wand is," Parvati said cheekily, but her voice was strained with fear. What does he need his "thing" for when it's all too late anyway?

"How should I know! Go find it, you bitch!" shouted Draco at her, pushing her away from him. "And don't even try to run away, I'll get you anyway!"

Trembling with fear, Parvati went down on her knees and searched the mossy ground around her, which was littered with leaves and small twigs. How is one supposed to find anything again here? Besides, it is pitch dark—

Parvati saw almost nothing, but for a moment she thought she heard voices far in the distance. Are they done with—whatever?, she thought, and a new shiver of fright ran through her. What if someone finds us here? Oh please, dear God, let it be Severus … surely he wouldn't want to return to Hogwarts without Draco …

"For Merlin's sake—can you get a move on, you slowcoach?!" hissed Draco behind her. "Lumos!" For a moment he indeed stood beside Parvati and assisted her search by lighting her with his wand; but then, the matter was seemingly so urgent to him that he joined in himself.

"Got it!" he gasped after a moment. He came to Parvati and, with pointed fingers, handed her her wand, while he kept his own still directed at her. "And no dirty tricks! Otherwise you're dea—"

"Petrificus Totalus!"

"CRUCIO!"

This time, both curses hit their target. Draco and Parvati hit the ground hard next to each other, he lay stiff as a board on his back while she writhed in convulsions, screaming again.

And suddenly Parvati realised that this time she could say "Please!" as many times as she wanted. If a miracle didn't happen soon, she would die from this unbearable pain that reduced everything inside her to a screaming bundle of nerves.

Her wide eyes flickered around before they found the moon again as a fixed point in all this horror. The celestial body, by now almost disappeared behind a treetop, now seemed distinctly brighter to her again. The eclipse was over—Voldemort's deed was done.

And again, as she gasped for breath between her screams, Parvati heard a low murmur of voices in the distance; again and again, strange popping noises that she could not place. Were they Disapparating Death Eaters?

Oh, they mustn't find us! What if they hear me! she thought in panic and tried without success to suppress the screams that came out of her throat as if by their own accord and already sounded a little hoarse. Then we're really screwed.

But then who will free us from the curses, was her last thought before an all-devouring blackness enveloped her and she fainted.