"ACCIO."

As with lungs collapsed under deep water, Luxanna was funnelled into the air—the night sky spun below her, the ground above—and landed with a bolt of electricity through her spine on a grassy surface, panting. Then, like through a portal torn in the mist, another figure came hurtling at her—Johnson, she realised—and dropped over Luxanna, along with the silver cup and some other objects she didn't see.

"Shit..." Johnson said, withdrawing back onto her knees. "Ugh, sorry... What happened?"

Luxanna couldn't answer that question. Not for the lack of air due to Johnson's fall, but because she hadn't seen what happened. The cup had been flying towards her, and then the next thing she knew, they were here. The vines that had moments ago been strangling her were gone, along with the winding hedges and sharp passages of the maze. In their place, rows of weathered headstones barely visible in the mist—the cemetery stretching out as far as she could see in the dark, its mottled headstones grey in the moonlight, accompanied by a damp, sweet smell of summer and decay. A charged pause imbued the air, as if the world itself was holding its breath before the inevitable.

A piece of parchment fluttered in the air behind them, late to arrive. Luxanna caught it in her outstretched fingers. It was a map—Potter's map. It could prove useful. Quickly, she folded it and stuffed it into her robe's pocket.

"Luksss, this isn't good!" Frost hissed into her ear. "That cup was a Portkey. Hide. Hide immediately."

Luxanna cradled the red marks that were no doubt forming on her throat. Some feet away, over by a large mausoleum, was the cup lying amidst the grass, and beyond it, two barely distinguishable outlines of Potter and Moody. Moody, who was getting to his knees, and Potter, still and unmoving. Johnson, who had just regained her balance and was looking around wildly, spotted them too, and pointed over. "Quick, draw your wand!" she said.

"Wait!" Luxanna cried, pulling on her robe to hold her back. "No, we can't, we have to hide!"

They kicked off the ground before he got to his feet and began hobbling towards them. The moonlight was unforgiving, Luxanna could hardly see past her own feet and make out little else besides the sound of the man's footfalls. They came upon the first tombstone in the row, and Luxanna fell to her knees behind it.

Johnson was at her heel when they heard it.

"Lumos! " Moody had said, and the wandlight fell upon the bushes nearest to them, piercing the fog and illuminating their hiding spot like a stage light.

It happened in a flash. Luxanna wasn't prepared; she flung her arms up in response, and Johnson staggered backwards, tripped over her robes and went sprawling into Moody's line of sight. There wasn't any room, there—

Johnson immediately scrambled to her feet, reaching for her wand before pointing it at Moody.

"Stay back!" she yelled.

Luxanna had cupped her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp, and darted back into the shadow of the headstone. Her foot skidded against the damp earth—a silent, yet audible squeal of her sole against mud. The stage light wavered.

"Is there someone with you?"

There was a pause—during which Johnson must have either nodded or shook her head—followed by a rattling noise, like air through a hollow pipe, which then evolved into the sound of a man's laughter, much like Moody's, except... foreign, like in a different handwriting. "I'm not quite sure how you managed to follow me in here, Johnson, but I've got to hand it to you. Good job. You were one of the cleverer girls in your year."

"Leave Harry alone! What do you want with him?"

"Do. Not. Move," Frost said.

"It's as your Slytherin friend said. Well... almost. Now, you should have listened to her, spared yourself the effort, but that's the trouble with adolescents, isn't it? They've always got to know things." The mockery continued, just long enough for Luxanna to muster up the courage to disobey Frost and peek from behind the stone. His laughter gained in pitch, and he had thrown up his hands up to his face, groping at the gash in his cheek and then his eye; it seemed to Luxanna as though he could not contain himself. Once Moody's palms left his jowl, she realised it was something else entirely; another man's face was looking back at Johnson, but the smile remained, the same cruel and twisted smirk she had come to know Professor Moody by. "And it gets them killed!" he wheezed out. "It gets them killed!"

"What?" Johnson stuttered. "Who... who are you?"

"Only my Lord's most faithful servant," the man said. He was young, much younger than Moody, his face smooth and his hair a sandy blond colour. "The one who brought him that which he wanted most. The one who never faltered, never strayed. Let it be known that I, Bartemius Crouch Jr, was the first to ever flee from Azkaban, the first ever to infiltrate Hogwarts school. I stole Harry Potter from right underneath Albus Dumbledore's nose!" He threw his head back with laughter.

At that moment, Potter stirred from his sleep, and a loud cry ripped from his throat and Moody— Bartemius Crouch, averted his attention. Luxanna trailed his line of sight down past a row of stone slabs where a dark figure clad in a hooded cloak was approaching the scene in slow, careful strides. The closer it neared, the louder Potter's cries grew, until it halted by a marble headstone, one which towered over the rest, and wrenched the most awful noise from the boy.

Crouch had fallen down on his knee in a dignified kneel with his head bowed, and Luxanna knew right then and there—she knew what was hiding beneath that cloak.

"My Lord..." Crouch whispered, almost moaned out.

Something stirred within the hooded figure's arms, and a hand, tiny and withered, very unlike a lord's, reached out towards him. His voice was unlike anything she could have conjured up with her own mind; cold, cruel, and devoid of any semblance of humanity, save for a hint of pain and anguish that dripped and pooled from each word when spoke and said, "Kill the girl."

"Certainly."

Luxanna quickly darted back into cover, breathing hard, trying to make herself smaller.

"Avada Kedavra! "

A flash of green tore an outline through a copse of bushes behind her and cast it onto the green, green grass. For a moment, Luxanna's own shadow stuttered upon it, merged with the headstones she was cowering at together with a dozen gone souls. Then it was Johnson's shadow, collapsing into a dark clot before her eyes. Before it succumbed to the ground, the light was snuffed out and the grass became black again.

It was a small thud, like a whisper, insignificant, and Johnson lay dead with her head peeking out at the foot of Luxanna's headstone, half lidded eyes staring back at her, betrayed.

It was decidedly a small miracle that Potter chose that exact moment to scream out in pain, else Luxanna's own gasp, even through the muffle of her palm, would have given her away. Strangely enough, it hadn't been the Dark Lord's presence which did her in, but the sight of Johnson's corpse. Luxanna gagged, and at once she knew she had to leave—she had to get away, put as much distance between them as possible.

Chancing another quick glance at the scene—they had now tied Potter to a large marble stone—Luxanna lifted herself to her knees and crawled down the narrow path between headstones, hands and knees rubbing over unfamiliar resting places, still bloody from the hedge's thorns. Johnson would be one of them now, she thought, and she wished that this wasn't occupying her mind at such a crucial moment, but it was all she could do to ward off the sense of panicked confusion that assailed her. Or perhaps not, no, they might never give up her body; she'd rot right there, on the black grass, in the open air.

Crouch and his accomplice made their way out of view, leaving the boy to his torment, his cries growing louder and more pronounced, as they busied themselves with a large cauldron set upon the clearing. Luxanna was not close enough to see what was happening inside, but it didn't take her long to hear it—the bubbling of water, the sizzling sound of metal scraping against metal, the splutter of burning oils, and the unmistakable hiss of water evaporating into a mist that drifted and curled about the sides of the cauldron.

The dark figure had uncloaked, revealing unkempt hair and rodent-like features. He stirred the contents of the cauldron with both hands, while Crouch lovingly cradled the infantile bundle in his arms. Luxanna watched them from behind the trunk of a large yew tree. "Master... Master..." Crouch said into his arms, his voice strangled with lust. "Will you... allow me the honour? May I be the one to do it, Master?"

"No," said the voice. "Wormtail must do it." Crouch exhaled a longing sigh, but then it spoke again. Every word was a strain, a struggle for its blighted owner's body. "You have already proven yourself to me. It is Wormtail's turn..."

The unkempt man, Wormtail, took his master's body gingerly from the other's arms, approached the cauldron and unravelled the cloth which concealed him, lowering the flayed, naked shape into the liquid. He then knelt by the grave at Potter's feet. "Bone of the father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son!" he exclaimed, the echo of his thin voice swallowed by Potter's cries. The earth cracked, and from within he pulled a long, rounded rib bone, then dropped it into the cauldron. A piercing flash of blue stole a blink from Luxanna.

Crouch's mouth tightened into a smile as Wormtail produced a silver blade from within his robe. "You cannot do it," Crouch said eagerly. "You're afraid, coward. Too weak and pathetic, unworthy of service. A traitor through and through." And, surely enough, he was right; Wormtail's lip was trembling and he hesitated above the nook of his elbow.

"Let me remind you that it was I who came to free you from..." Wormtail began to say, but was interrupted.

"You? It was the Dark Lord who came for me! You were only his errand boy, following his commands. He knew that I was his most cherished servant, that I would be the one to deliver the boy to him, that's why he came for me. Now, you'll watch as I do this, eh? You'll watch in silence, because watching is all that you're good for."

At once, Crouch seized the dagger from Wormtail, extended his own arm above the fumes, and...

"Don't look," whispered Frost, but Luxanna, as much as she wanted to, could not avert her gaze.

"Flesh of the servant, willingly given, you will revive your master! "

The skin split under the blade, blood gushing forth, spurting from the lacerated artery within, then, with surprisingly little effort, it severed straight through the bone, unlatching the limb from its owner. It fell into the blue water like a piece of meat with a plop. Wormtail quivered, and Luxanna could not blame him one bit; her own insides twisted at the sight... at the sound of it.

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe."

Then, as Crouch laid the blade on Potter, for a moment she thought—worried—that he might meet the same fate, but with several drops of blood drawn, he circled the cauldron again, held out his palm and let the blood trickle down where it greeted the liquid with an explosion of white billowing steam.

The man who was You Know Who was not entirely man at all. His body, if it could still be said to be his, was now the vessel of a being that looked to Luxanna's eye like a cadaver, a skeletal figure with ashen skin stretched too tightly over its own bones. His bare chest exposed a ribcage that appeared almost hollow, the ribs jutting beneath the surface like the spines of a fish, and his face... oh, his face, Luxanna thought suddenly, with a rush of revulsion, his face was no face at all, it looked like a skull, like something that should have been buried aeons ago, with sunken cheekbones and teeth rotten and crooked in a smile that seemed to almost be mocking his own body's integrity, and red, dripping eyes that now gazed upon the boy who had once vanquished him.

They were not alone anymore. A handful of other figures had been summoned to the graveyard, masked and cloaked—his Death Eaters—and her father was somewhere among them, she felt it. The Dark Lord had picked them out one by one, and offered little sympathy for their inadequacies, and even less praise for returning at all; Wormtail, who had failed in following through in his ritual, had his arm severed as punishment anyway, while Crouch had been compensated for his undying loyalty with a luxurious silver limb, fashioned by the Dark Lord himself. Others, worse yet, were tortured, submitted to the Cruciatus Curse; none of their cries had matched her father's.

Once when He finally arrived at Cepheus, however, He paused, regarding the man with an expression that seemed to somehow hold both admiration and disgust in his inhuman features, and as they waited, a chill went up Luxanna's back; had Cepheus done something wrong?

"Cepheus," He simply said.

"My Lord," Cepheus replied, his voice sounded strange beneath the mask, as though he weren't human either, but merely an extension of his master, and he bowed low, which the Dark Lord did not appear to appreciate at all, nor the way that Cepheus' head dipped ever so slowly before straightening, like some kind of dog that had caught a scent and forgotten its master's order to stay put.

"You disappoint me."

"My Lord, I beg your forgiveness, I... I didn't know how else to go about it, and we didn't have time to..."

"Spare me your excuses," the Dark Lord spoke over him, and he waved a hand, halting the words mid-sentence, almost like a charm. "I know how much you... care, for your family."

"It is true enough."

"Yes. Now, Crouch informs me you have enjoyed a promotion at your place of work."

"Yes, My Lord."

"This will prove useful in the future, in my campaign to unseat Albus Dumbledore once and for all... I can imagine that you are eager to see the back of him and get started on that task?"

"More than eager, My Lord. I will do what it takes."

The praise was tainted to say the least, like dangling a toy in front of a starved child, knowing full well that the only reason it would be given was to distract until the moment when there was nothing left for it to eat but its own fingers, but Cepheus was so desperate in his desire to please, that he had swallowed it whole without question.

"You lie," He said, shrill and cold. "How can you be? When your adversary stands right there"—He pointed over at Crouch, who was caressing his own lips with silvery fingers, as if tasting the metal—"awarded beyond measure for his services? While you grovel at my feet, begging for scraps—I would have you killed right now if not for your position."

Luxanna hardly comprehended the former part of the statement; her fingers dug into the trunk of the tree, sinking into its bark—praying.

"Your family means nothing to me, Cepheus," He said, and she had to blink hard to remember that this was a foreign world, a place where people were cruel and unfeeling, and her father was not her father, but instead just another pawn to be sacrificed to his master's game. She found that she did not want to know what sort of expression he was making under that mask. "You're an ambitious man. Hateful and jealous of those better than you. This ambition extends beyond your meek fondness for your woman and child. So do not think for one second that I believe you when you say that you are eager."

"My Lord, I do want more, though there is nothing left of me, save my loyalty and my devotion to you..."

He was not believed, for not a moment later, the Dark Lord drew his wand, pointed, and said, "Crucio!"

Cepheus collapsed onto the ground, a deep, echoing cry emanating from his convulsing shape, the sound of it so agonising, so terrible, that a few of the onlookers winced away.

"Cowards!" the Dark Lord shouted. "Do not avert your eyes while one of your own suffers in my name, I tell you, do not avert your eyes, or it will be your turn next!"

Luxanna had sunk to the root of the tree, and had covered her ears, unable to bear the sound any longer. She could not hear herself sobbing, but she was sure it must have been a similar sound that Cepheus was making now, a terrible keening, like a wounded animal crawled under a shade.

She had never seen such a thing before, this torture, and as she sat trembling at its end, she wondered why she had ever thought that her life had been difficult in comparison to Cepheus's, and why she should never have thought otherwise.

"Get up! Get up, now! Avery, kneel before me!"

"Lukss... the spell."

"The spell?" sniffled Luxanna.

"Your father's spell, use it now, while they are distracted. You musst let him know where you are."

Luxanna wiped her nose on her sleeve and peered out from behind the tree. Another man's wails now filled the air—Avery's, while her father remained on the ground, his moans fading rapidly towards silence. Right... Focus now. Please focus. Her wand placed firmly against her temple, she recreated the scene before her in her mind's eye as keenly as possible; the grass, the mist, the headstones surrounding the clearing, her father's contorted shape on the ground... A blue light shone against her closed eyelids, then burnt out just as quickly. There was a voice—sharp, cold, feminine. Not hers, not Frost's, but another snake's.

"It'sss your father who my massster is hurting. I can sssee it on your face."

A large python was dancing around the tree; circling, coiling and undulating around Luxanna's feet, parting the grass in its wake, the tip of her tongue tasting the air.

"No!" replied Luxanna, stepping backwards, glued to the body of the tree. "No... No, you can't tell him, no... Please don't."

"And why not?" she said, polite.

"He'll kill me."

"Doesss he have reason to?" she asked curiously.

Luxanna did not reply.

The snake took this as confirmation. "Then perhapsss he ought to. I'm... sssorry for that." She sounded... strangely sincere. "But I musst tell him. I serve him above all."

Frost had uncurled from Luxanna's collar, slid from the front of her robes down to her sleeve. The two snakes were silent for a moment, regarding each other in an almost familial manner, unfolding like a sacred ritual that Luxanna was not privy to.

Frost was the first to break the silence. "No," she said. Luxanna had never heard her speak that coldly. "There is another thing which you ssserve."

The snake blinked its black eyes at Frost.

"Do not disrespect the order."

She turned to Luxanna, as if taking in her actual presence for the first time. "I see..." was the only thing she offered as she uncoiled from the tree, and Luxanna stepped aside, allowing the snake to pass her by.

"Frost... what was that?"

"I cannot tell you," Frost said, returning to her spot. "Now is not the time. Perform the spell."

Wand trembling at her temple once more, Luxanna recited the incantation aloud, her voice quivering with the effort to steady herself. The blue light appeared again, dim at first, as her vision blurred with tears she fought to blink away. She closed her eyes, trying to force the world into focus by clearing her mind, but her frustration was mounting.

Sensing her struggle, Frost climbed back and coiled around her neck as if to embrace her. A light touch, reminiscent of her garden friends in Italy. The simple times. It relaxed her, if only briefly, enough to make the blue light appear brighter than before—mirrored inside the pocket of Cepheus's robe; urgently, he fumbled for his wand, and as he withdrew it, Crouch tore his eyes away from the spectacle of Avery's torture and frowned. She was correct, he did know the spell...

As Cepheus connected, her vision blurred and the scene before her materialised as a reflection of itself. There she was, obscured by the mist, shadowed by the trunk of a yew tree. Through his eyes, she also saw that the Dark Lord had turned on Potter now, and it was Potter's cries of anguish which rippled through the graveyard that severed the connection between Cepheus and her.

"Don't worry, he sssaw you," Frost assured her.

It was hardly a comfort. She was worried, this time for Potter, how could she not be, now that she had for herself witnessed the anguish inflicted on a human being by the Cruciatus Curse? Potter screamed; a shrill, piteous sound—it startled the crows which had perched atop the branches above her, and Luxanna's eyes grew teary again.

"...I want there to be no mistake in anybody's mind," the Dark Lord announced. "Harry Potter escaped me by a lucky chance. And I am now going to prove my power by killing him, here and now, in front of you all, when there is no Dumbledore to help him, and no mother to die for him. I will give him his chance. He will be allowed to fight, and you will be left in no doubt which of us is the stronger. Just a little longer, Nagini," he whispered to the python she and Frost had just met. "Now untie him, Crouch, and give him back his wand."

The Death Eaters encircled Potter, the boy now limping in the middle of them, his back straight, his wand clutched in his hand. The pain was evident all over his face.

"We bow to each other, Harry," He said, demonstrating. "Come, the niceties must be observed... Dumbledore would like you to show manners... Bow to death, Harry..."

Please, just bow, Potter. Please...

He did not.

Instead, the Dark Lord pointed his wand at Potter and bent him down until his face was level with the wand's tip, enforcing compliance. Then... it was the Cruciatus Curse once more and Luxanna could not do it... she could no longer stand to look at the sight of his agony. "Muffliato," she muttered as she sunk to the ground once more, her body numb to the feel of the dirt beneath her, to the chill in the air...

A flash of light. Red and green. It spilt across the ground before her, shaking her from her thoughts. Luxanna tried to look back at the scene, but before she could see what happened, a strong arm had grabbed her and she was whisked away from the graveyard. Her surroundings blurred—red and green, a masked face, two brown, glossy eyes staring back at her with... what was it? The next thing Luxanna knew, her palms met cold, solid ground, and she was fighting back vomit.

"What in the world were you doing there?" Cepheus's voice boomed through the space, shaking off the fog of fear and adrenaline that had clouded Luxanna's senses and making her aware of the blood-soaked, dirt-stained clothes that clung uncomfortably to her skin as she sat up, still reeling from the shock, the adrenaline wearing away faster than the memories that flashed through her mind, so that the pain numbed by was set free into her body.

"Mamma..." was all that she could manage to form.

Surely enough, Carina was there. She flung her arms around Luxanna, and with one hand cradled her head upon her own chest. "It's alright," she said. "It's alright."

The tears poured forth without any effort on her part, and she could not stop them as they came flooding, spilling into her mother's shirt. Her loud, uncontrollable sobs filled the room.

"I'm sorry," Carina said. "I'm so sorry..."

To contrast Carina's gasps, Cepheus remained silent, and surveyed them with an expression that was inscrutinable through the blur of her tears. He simply stood there, her father, unable to say anything. Anything else but, "I need to leave for now. Before they realise I'm gone. We'll speak upon my return..."

Cepheus did not return that night. She would pretend that it was another late night at the office, another late trip, another business meeting. This time, she would have been glad of the lie.