Chapter 9
The sand crunched under Harry as he and the others landed where Dobby apparated them. The sand was damp and he still had the wand Draco had thrown towards him before Bellatrix had had Hermione by the throat.
"We're safe! We...we're all-" Harry turned in a slow circle. The realization hit him with a wave of nausea. "Where's-"
"Dobby could not wait." Dobby wrapped his hands around his ears, wringing them tightly. "D-Dobby had to!"
"Take me back, Dobby!" Harry shouted, too afraid to care that Dobby flinched. "Take me back right now!"
Ron grabbed Harry's arm before he could move any closer to Dobby. "Mate, Bellatrix said You-Know-Who was on his way."
Harry yanked his arm from Ron's grasp and stepped backward. "You've already written her off, haven't you?" The hurt shooting through Harry forced his voice back into a shout. "Haven't you?!"
Hermione held onto Harry, partially holding herself up with the front of his shirt--leaving splotches of blood where her cuts had opened back up. "No one's written anyone off, Harry. But we need a plan, we need to-"
Harry was frightened by the pallor creeping over Hermione's face.
"Oh no." Hermione's eyes focused on something in the distance.
Fred and Sirius had become much closer in the months the others had been on the hunt for the horcruxes. They made it their goal to go for a walk along the beach a couple of times a week. Arthur joined them when free, but he spent most of his time alternating between safe houses with information and supplies.
On their walk back to Shell Cottage, neither Fred nor Sirius expected to see a collection of people appear--let alone a gathering familiar. Fred took tally over the group, allowing himself the momentary hope that they had finished their mission and Rebecca had come home.
Except, as he counted, someone was missing.
Hermione's breathed out as Fred broke into a spring directly for them.
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"Rebecca?"
"Okay. Draco?"
"Okay."
It was their ritual, the new prisoners. Whenever one of them came back from the torture upstairs, they spoke the others name. It reminded them that they weren't alone in the cold and dark.
The afternoon the others had escaped was a haze Rebecca struggled to recall; she wasn't sure she wanted to. Bellatrix used she and Draco as an outlet for her anger at losing her wand, which had gone with Dobby's apparation. Even with the difficulty of using her sister's wand, Bellatrix made her fury at Harry's escape known and felt entirely with only fear for her own life keeping her from killing the both of them. The Dark Lord, after all, would still arrive.
"Rebecca?"
"Draco?"
What had at first been only making sure the other was still conscious became their routine. When the other was shoved back down into the cellar, they spoke the other's name. Reminded them of who they were, that they weren't alone.
The afternoon that the others had disapparated away was a haze Rebecca couldn't entirely recall. Bellatrix used her and Draco as an outlet for the loss of her wand, and her embarrassment at having played a role in losing one of the Potter twins. The only recompense Bellatrix had was that she had managed to keep Rebecca. The Death Eaters all had their orders--Harry was to be brought to Voldemort to be killed. Rebecca was supposed to be brought to Voldemort for other reasons.
In Bellatrix's mind, she had the twisted fear that her place at Voldemort's side was in jeopardy.
"You alright?" Draco asked next.
"If you are." Rebecca would answer.
The night after Bellatrix had tired herself out and Draco and Rebecca could no longer entertain her, Bellatrix called for Voldemort herself.
He answered the call of his most ardent supporter quickly, expecting bad news from Malfoy Manor. "What is it, Bellatrix?"
Bellatrix bowed deeply from in front of Draco and Rebecca, both now in chains. "A gift, my Lord."
Voldemort waved his hand in front of Rebecca, levitating her off the ground by an invisible force tightening around her throat. "What is he doing next to...her?" Voldemort had yet to look away from Rebecca and only gestured at Draco.
"He-" Bellatrix answered Narcissa and Lucius' silence. "He helped the others, my-"
"The others?" The idea that both Potters had been in this house pulled Voldemort's eyes from Rebecca. "He was here, too?"
"Yes, my Lord." Bellatrix lowered her head. "He got away due to the aid of-"
"You have seen what I do with traitors, Draco." Voldemort raised his wand. "You should have known better."
"You...can't..." Rebecca gasped.
Voldemort turned his glare onto her, tightening the pressure around throat before allowing her the freedom to elaborate. As she was lowered to the floor to stand, her shoulder roared with a wave of agony and warmth dripped down as the bleeding began anew.
"Can't!" Rebecca breathed. "H-he is sworn to me. An Unbreakable Vow made it so. He can't die--not by anyone's hands but mine." She fought for a deeper breath. "I'll die too."
Draco nodded the best he could. It was either go along with what Rebecca was saying or be killed. He said he was done being a coward, not that he was ready to be an idiot.
"Why would the two of you make such a vow?" Voldemort's curiosity peaked. "Unless, of course, this is a fabrication devised for him to live."
"We-" Rebecca choked as the force around her throat tightened.
"Do not lie to me, girl."
"We're in love."
Voldemort threw his head back and laughed. The Death Eaters joined cautiously. "You expect me to believe this?"
"We've been courting for years." Draco kept his eyes to the ground, running through a haphazard plan to strengthen Rebecca's lie. If he did this right, his parents might even corroborate their story without knowing. "Ever since I nearly had a hippogriff executed. We worked together on its defense and it was-it was fate."
Narcissa and Lucius stared at the boy in front of them, not sure who he was but certain he was no son of theirs.
Voldemort stared down at them a long, heart-stilling moment. "Put them in the cellar, Wormtail. Bellatrix? Come. I have a task for you."
Wormtail grabbed the backs of the necks roughly and dragged them down the hall. "You two are in for it now."
In for it, they were.
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"Through the front door!" Fred pointed at the drawing they had made of Malfoy Manor. "We go in and blow it to the ground!"
"Dobby does not think that is wise, not at all." Dobby pointed to the bottom of the layout, where the cellar was situated underneath the bulk of the house. "If this is where they are-"
"I don't-" Fred's shout caused Sirius to grab Fred by the shoulder and pull him away.
Dobby cowered at the outburst, expecting punishment.
Sirius whispered at Fred furiously, reminding him the team they were all on.
"I'm sorry, Dobby." Fred brushed his hand against the top of the elves head and left the discussion as Sirius suggested.
"Tea?" Fleur asked, putting the kettle on without waiting for an answer.
Fred sat at the table and buried his face into his hands. It had been three days. 72 hours since he and Sirius had found the others on the beach. He had been in a constant state of motion ever since.
Harry, Hermione, and Ron tried to flesh out a plan to break her and Draco out under the assumption that Voldemort was in the Manor. They had to assume that they were being held in the cellar. Remus, however, had given them the idea to wait. If they did, perhaps they would have the chance of leading the Death Eaters inevitably on guard thinking that their rescue had been abandoned.
"They could have the cellar under constant supervision." Remus reminded those toiling over the map. "They could have it so that the second Dobby gets in, he is taken. Then what? We don't have another ex-Malfoy house elf."
Fleur put the steaming cup in front of Fred and wrapped her arms around him tightly. Fred didn't say anything. He had nothing worth sharing.
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"I have done as you asked, Dark Lord." Bellatrix appeared early the morning of the fifth day Rebecca and Draco remained in Malfoy Manor. Her mission had been one of exceptional difficulty, as punishment for allowing Harry to get away, but Bellatrix had succeeded. "He waits in the hall."
"Excellent. You have redeemed yourself quite well." Voldemort stood from his chair and waved for Wormtail to bring in their guest. "What is his name again?"
"WIlliam, sir." Bellatrix grinned. "William Irvine."
A tall, stocky man entered the room. His face was bearded and his eyes had a dark shine to them that Voldemort recognised--it was the glint of a man who wasn't afraid to get things done.
"Mr Irvine, please, have a seat."
"The woman," William nodded his head to Bellatrix. "Said something about money. Only reason I'm here. You either got it or I get going."
Voldemort chuckled. "Not a man for small talk, I enjoy that. There is compensation to be had. But, like any payment, it has to be earned."
"She never said-"
"How would you like another chance at revenge?" Voldemort spoke with enough mystery in his voice to capture the last bit of William's attention. "The chance to avenge someone lost, perhaps?"
William sat back in his chair. "I don't want nothing to do with her. Not after-" He shook his head and crossed his arms. "I got rid of her once. Won't do it again."
"And yet, I have her here already. The world need not know a thing, Mr Irvine. I simply need aid in...persuasion. I need the truth and I fear it hasn't come easily."
William sat in silence a few minutes, hesitating only momentarily. "How much money are we talking about?"
Wormtail was sent to grab Rebecca within the hour. She and Draco were startled out of the doze they had slipped into. The two prisoners had been given water, but no food. The wound in her shoulder had been left without care and throbbed with every beat of her heart.
"Where to no, Petey-boy?" Rebecca jabbed as she was dragged to her feet and guided towards the stairs. "Off to abandon some friends-Oh wait, no. You did that already."
Wormtail moved his hand so that he pushed at the skin near her injury, quieting her a moment. "Not so talkative now, are we?"
"Like that will stop me." Rebecca looked over her shoulder and gave the rat-man a twisted grin. "I didn't realise that your brain stayed the size of a rat's." Wormtail shoved her through the doorway Voldemort had commanded him to bring her to. He found a sick pleasure in the pallor creeping over Rebecca's face, how her face lost all its cheek and a shade of green took her. "W-what are you doing here?"
"Mr Irvine?" Voldemort asked from the shadows he stepped out of. "He's my associate now. I don't frequent myself with his kind, as you well know, but sometimes...sometimes sacrifices must be made."
Rebecca was dragged to the shackles drilled into the stone wall, her legs shaking underneath her. Her arms were forced out and her legs were attached to the wall shoulder-width apart.
William surveyed the room and nodded in approval. The table along the side of the room was covered in sharp objects and tools any twisted mind could find a use for. "He tells me you're telling lies again. Is that true?"
Rebecca didn't react, her mind already trying to retreat into the very solitude it had as a child. It had always been her defense, pretend she didn't exist. The longer she was able to stay quiet, the quicker William had gotten bored and the quicker the abuse ended.
"I ASKED YOU A QUESTION!" William shouted, slamming his hand onto the table.
Voldemort smiled and motioned for Wormtail to shut the door. His plan would work exactly as he wanted it to.
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"Rebecca?" Draco asked nervously.
Her screams had filled the house above for hours until her silence had weighed on Draco's ears heavier than anything.
"Rebecca? Say something." Draco crouched beside the crumpled pile she had landed on the cellar floor in and shook her. "Don't be stupid now. Wake up!" Draco took a spoonful of the little water they had left and poured it over her face.
The cold shocked her eyes open, lifting the dense fog of pain that had settled over her mind for a moment. William's favourite play thing on the table had been a long baton that buzzed angrily when he held the button, electricity sparking from the end.
Throughout the torture, he had asked the questions Voldemort had told him needed to be answered.
"Where is Harry Potter?"
"Where did you get the power?"
"How did you bring Sirius Black back?
Rebecca wouldn't answer, not a single question. She was no stranger to pain, she could withstand.
William found her silence more angering than if she had ended the fun early by answering everything. He moved onto the knives. Then, her screams began with earnest. William had just lowered his hand from finishing the newest ornamentation he added to her face when Wormtail returned and marked the end of their session for the day. William had dragged the blade along the scar around her eye, reopening the old wound. Cuts of various lengths and depths marred her body, each one signifying an unanswered question.
Awakened from the darkness of unconsciousness, she grabbed onto Draco's arm and trembled anew.
"What happened?" Draco asked, already holding a chunk of his shirt to her face to try and slow the bleeding. "Who was that shouting? Who have they brought?"
Rebecca shook her head and turned onto her side to curl around his legs. Relying on Draco for comfort wasn't the same, but Rebecca stayed there until Wormtail trod down the stairs to take her upstairs again.
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Draco had been subjected to William's interrogations half as many times as Rebecca had. William lacked the interest in the blond boy. It was nowhere near as fun to torture a stranger when you had access to the one person you blamed for every grievance in your life.
Rebecca was a walking wound. She limped whenever she was conscious enough for Wormtail to force her to walk to the room upstairs, she couldn't move her shoulder at all--not even that arm. The stab from Bellatrix's knife had yet to stop paining her in the slightest and weeped blood almost constantly in one degree or another. It was red and hot to the touch, especially dark in veins leading away from it. Draco tried to keep it as clean as he could, but they hadn't been given water since the day before.
They had both gone so long without food they no longer felt hungry.
"Rebecca? You alright?" Draco asked as she was unceremoniously dumped back in the cellar.
"No." Rebecca answered weakly.
William had left her face alone after the first time he had taken the knives to her. It wasn't worth it when the pain knocked her out so much quicker than if he focused his attentions elsewhere. But that only meant that he had turned his energy towards blunt-force trauma. Her body hurt with every breath, cried out with every movement. One eye was dark and swollen and her glasses had long been cracked and left in disrepair.
Draco put her good arm around his shoulder and aided her to the stone bench they laid on at night. "That's not what you're supposed to say."
"I'm not a very good liar." Rebecca looked at him and tried to focus on the two-Draco's that appeared in her swimming vision. Despite it all, there were tears welling up in her eyes. "I'm not, Draco. I'm not lying. I don't know where-"
"I know." Draco said quickly. "I know you're not lying."
"I've never been a good liar. You had to have heard it around the castle."
Draco nodded and kept the conversation moving towards places far away. "I heard lots of things about you. I know about the pranks you do with the Weasleys, especially the ones when someone really deserves it. I heard about the salve you handed out in fifth year, too. And the one you showed me, with the oil and the armour."
"Operatic Oil." Rebecca turned her head to cough, wiping at the speckles of blood that came with it. "Proud of that. I really, really was. Can't believe how stupid I was-"
"It wasn't." Draco looked down at her. "What I said that day in the Room of Requirement. That, that was stupid." He paused. "I want you tok now that, if-"
"I don't want to hear this." Rebecca let her head fall back against the bench. "I don't do goodbyes, Draco. Not like this."
"I'm not going anywhere, so it's not a goodbye." Draco laid his hand on top of hers. "That day, I was trying to get you to stay away from me. I needed you to realise I wasn't the person you always treated me like I was."
"And what was that?" Rebecca looked up at him. "How did I treat you?"
"Like I wasn't bad. You didn't look at me like you already knew me."
"I didn't." Rebecca tried to smile, but only managed a grimace. "Why are you here, Draco? Why did you give me your wand?"
Draco stared at her a long moment, trying to answer the question himself. "Because I was done letting anyone else tell me who or what I was."
"Then why are you apologising?" Rebecca turned her head and coughed again. "Can I have the water?"
"It's empty." Draco nudged the bucket with his foot. "They never brought more."
"Just as I thought this was a four-star stay."
Draco lay down beneath her and the two of them waited for full-dark to settle in the cellar as the sun slipped below the horizon outside. The uninsulated, windowpane-less cellar grew icy in the late hours of night. Rebecca shivered beside Draco, his body heat nowhere near enough to stave off the chills.
"I lied." Rebecca's teeth chattered as she whispered. "M-maybe we do n-need goodb-byes."
Draco held her closer, shivering too. "They'll c-come back for you. I know it."
"Us." Rebecca corrected as she had every time Draco said that there would be aresuce for her and that he would be left behind. "I-if this i-is it, you're going to need t-to give this...to him. You understand?" Rebecca slipped the ring off her finger and pushed it into his hand. "I n-need you to p-promise me."
Draco took the ring, wanting her to try and sleep before the sun rose and William called on her again. Her eyes had a dangerous glaze over them, a look as if she weren't entirely sure where she was anymore. "I won't need to, they are coming. But, I promise all the same." Draco had to promise in the end, he was beginning to be unsure if a rescue was even possible.
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Earlier that evening, upstairs in Malfoy Manor, Voldemort called for William to dine with him.
"Why haven't there been any results?" Voldemort asked, his tone calm but a wand idly spinning in his hands.
William answered cavalierly, eating his dinner with the voraciousness of ignorance. "Dunno. I'm asking the questions you said to." He looked up, wondering himself. "Who is Harry Potter anyway? And what's this power you're looking-"
"You don't ask questions to anyone but her." Voldemort stood and left the room with his robes trailing behind him with Bellatrix following close behind. "He's got one more day, Bellatrix. Then you can finish him and the task at hand."
Bellatrix nodded. "Yes, my Lord."
"I will know where she has gotten this power and I will take it."
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"It's been a week." Fred snapped as more variables were discussed. "We go today!"
Remus eyed Fred warily. More things in the cottage than not had been thrown by the boy while Rebecca remained captive.
In fact, Harry and Fred had already exchanged blows when Fred suggested that it was Harry's fault for not staying by her side. Blood was shed, but both Harry and Fred ended sobbing. Ron busied himself with Hermione--at her side every moment of the day to offer aid or assistance. Molly had done the best she could with Hermione's arm. The scar would remain. Blades with dark magic left difficult wounds behind.
Everyone in Shell Cottage was at the end of their rope.
Harry had caught Dobby punishing himself earlier in the week, and caught the elves hands before any further damage could be done. "No, Dobby. We didn't-We didn't do anything wrong. We can't punish ourselves." Dobby let Harry embrace him tightly, finding it as soothing as Harry was. "I never, ever want to see you do that again. We do not punish ourselves."
Dobby nodded and agreed to not. Harry hadn't seen it since. Thoughts of punishing one's self weren't only applicable to Dobby, however. Morbid thoughts followed Fred around like his shadow. A week. Rebecca had been there a week. He knew as well as anyone else that their rescue could very well be a body retrieval at this point.
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"Everyone knows what they're doing, right?" Harry asked, looking to Ron and Hermione. It had been quickly decided that Fred was too unstable to go.
"Dobby is." Dobby held his hands out to those around him. "Dobby is ready."
Ron grabbed Dobby's hand tightly and looked to Hermione. "Are you?"
"We need to be." Hermione answered by grabbing Harry's hand to close the circle the four of them made.
The location for transport had been chosen to be outside of the cottage, in case the arrival of the rescue party was noticed and Dobby brought back any Death Eaters while apparating everyone back. While the four travelers planned on finding and bringing back the two who had secured their escape, the adults remained behind in terrified states of panic.
Draco jumped at the pop of apparation in the cellar, putting his arm up in front of Rebecca. He couldn't believe that they had come, though he wanted them to more than anything. In the days that he had been in the cellar, he had come to accept that the rescue would leave him behind. Despite the fact that Rebecca always said the opposite, Draco was ready for it. Once Voldemort learned that Rebecca had escaped, Draco knew his anger would be deadly. But, just as he was ready to be left behind, Draco was ready for his punishment.
He had never been strong enough to stand up to the powers that influenced and made him join the dark leagues, but he would be strong enough to die at their hands.
Harry and Ron stepped out from the shadows they apparated into while Hermione kept her wand focused on Scabior who sat in the chair posted at the gate. The Death Eater's soft snores could be heard throughout the cellar, and Hermione watched and listened for the slightest movement that would signify the guard was awake.
Harry's breath hitched in his chest at the sight of her. "What would she do? What would she do if this were you?" Harry slipped his arm under her neck and hooked the other under her legs, lifting her carefully.
Draco stayed on the bench as Harry carried Rebecca back to Dobby. Though he was ready, he hoped that death was not the end. He wanted the opportunity to make up for how he had treated this life.
"Oi!" Ron hissed, waving for Draco to hurry. "Let's go!"
Perhaps, Draco thought, there would be the chance to make up this life while still living it. He hooked his arm through Ron's and held onto Dobby's tightly.
As quickly as the rescue party had entered Malfoy's Manor, they were gone. The damp, frigid darkness was as empty as it should have been.
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