Captured
Aster was...cold.
And confused.
Thinking was...slow. Difficult, that was the word.
Not quite awake, which was...not normal? Usually she was asleep or not, or sometimes almost passing out sort of felt like this, but she didn't remem—
She did remember, actually.
There'd been the party, and the ritual, and—
An explosion rent the air without warning, the shock wave staggering Aster and knocking Evans to the ground — people screaming, panicking, can't apparate out, trying to run — blood pounding — "Evans, run!" — apparation crack, cutting curse, dodge-spin-retaliate, don't think—
But she hadn't— She'd made it through the initial rush, killed the red-cloaked bitch who tried to curse her in the back without blinking — fortunes of war, especially when you attack a civilian target — never mind they hadn't been hurting anyone, that half the attendees hadn't been fighters, there'd been children there!
She'd gotten Evans to leave, started fighting her way toward the centre of the circle, most of the aurors were there, laying into the proper Death Eaters who'd gotten the worst of their bomb, fucking slaughter—
But then Dumbledore had shown up and gotten into it with Bella and nope, get the fuck away from that fight and another wave of non-Aurors— Phoenixes? Probably not, they'd been throwing lethal curses at the outer ranks, picking off panicking civilians. Hired warlocks? —so she'd turned her back on the main fight, took out a couple bastards on the outskirts of the killing field, helped break their line, let the kids and mums and other harmless Fourth-Circlers make a run for it.
Not pulling punches, but can't do anything too big, too many bystanders, collateral damage — precision curses, short range, messy enough to fall apart if they're deflected — Gods, don't let one of my curses kill an innocent kid... — pick them off like a thrice-cursed assassin— Heartstopper-Stripping Hex-Piercer-Immolation Curse— break off, deflect cutting curse — up only — shield elemental fire thrown at old man on the ground — decapitate that fucker— SHITE!
There'd been three of them, Hit Wizards, she'd been surrounded — better they go after her than the helpless bastards all around her, but the three trying to kill her clearly didn't care who they caught in the spillover — but they hadn't taken her out—
Duck, shield, diving roll at the slowest of the three dodging a Freezing Hex, pop up, get behind him, human shield, knife at his throat, screaming, disembowelled, cut his throat — mercy stroke — leave the knife, take his wand — bad match, weak shields but good enough, kill his killer— Third hostile! Where did he go?
The third Hit Wizard had disappeared, taken out by someone else or running away — Dumbledore signalled the retreat, left Bella alone in the middle of the field disapparating away, his people following him, Death Eaters and civilians too, anyone who could, as soon as they realised the disapparation palings they had to have put up were down — and then—
Checking bodies, living or dead? — "Got a live one! Hey! Take this one with you!" pushing the body of an unconscious teenager into the arms of an old witch to apparate away — Shite, missing arm, going to bleed to death— Kneeling in blood, casting a Cauterising Charm — check: not too late? — distracted, too slow, behind you! incoming Stunner, bad position, can't turn, can't shield, try to resist, but—
Obviously she hadn't just been stunned. If she had been, it wouldn't be so hard to think. And she hadn't been hurt, not badly, anyway. She'd been sedated, that's what it was, this slowness and brain-fog and— If she'd been taken back to Ancient House, she wouldn't be sedated.
Which meant she'd been captured.
Fuck.
The fear-fueled spike of magic sparked by that realisation undermined the effects of the sedative a bit more, enough to start taking stock— This is no time to panic, Aster...
Her eyes were still closed — chalk that one up to the sedative, without it she would've opened them when she realised she didn't recognise the bed. She didn't feel anyone else in the room with her, couldn't hear anyone moving, but there was some paling up around her — no, a ward. She wasn't good enough at reading active magic to say exactly what it was doing — not monitoring her, she didn't think — but she couldn't feel anything beyond it, so they could have someone there, or even just a portrait watching her or something. She kept them closed.
She was in a bed, a reasonably comfortable one, a thin, slightly scratchy sheet draped over her. Her left shoulder and hip ached where she'd been blasted to the ground at some point in the fight, and the burn from a fireball she hadn't quite managed to dodge, right side of her back, was tender and tight, but not raw. Whoever had captured her must have done basic first aid on her, at least. She wasn't comfortable, but she couldn't move, there were ropes (nice ones, smooth cord, not rough and chafing) around her wrists and ankles, presumably binding her to the bed. She didn't test them and risk alerting anyone to the fact that she was awake yet — if they didn't know her very well, they'd probably expect her to be out for another two to six hours, depending on what they'd used to knock her out, and there was no reason to assume they did.
Her short list of people who would kidnap me was pretty much just Bella (obviously not responsible in this case); Dumbledore (who would probably try to use her as a bargaining chip, but he'd left the field, and she hadn't seen any of his people around); the Ministry (more likely — there'd been plenty of Hit Wizards and Aurors who could've been playing dead and ambushed her from behind — Crouch would probably try to extract information from her); and...that was it. Maybe Dorea, trying to get through to her about Bella being evil and un-'brainwash' her, get her to come back to the Light, but she probably wouldn't try something like that now Aster had reconciled with the House. Dorea wasn't stupid, she knew a lost cause when she saw one.
The Ministry was the most likely, but she didn't get the impression she was in a cell. The bed was too comfortable, and it smelled like soap, and she couldn't feel the structural wards behind whatever was blocking her perception of magic, but there was something about the way the air moved, she was pretty sure the room was larger than she'd expect for a cell. And she didn't get the sense it was unfurnished?
Why did she think that...? Oh! That creak! There was a creak! It was quiet enough, subtle enough it hadn't consciously registered, but there had been a creak, like someone shifting their weight in a chair! And that faint warmth on her left foot, was that sunlight? It was light in here, she could see it through her eyelids. And since the creak had come from her right, and her head was flopped over to the left, she dared open them to check.
Yes. That was a window, apparently unbarred. The bed was only a couple of feet from the wall, so there was nothing much to see from this angle, but it was a perfectly normal-looking, non-cell-like wall, at least.
Though...straining her eyes to see as much as she could without moving her head, the bed was pulled out a couple of feet from the wall at the head of it, too, which meant the ward surrounding her was a secondary addition to the room, a circle someone had carved or painted specifically to constrain her Sight. Or, well. To constrain someone's Sight. Not necessarily Aster's, magesight wasn't nearly as much of an advantage as legilimency or prescience or something might be in a situation like this. It wouldn't really help her or hurt her captors if she could see magic outside of her immediate surroundings.
Well, okay, it probably would help her escape if she could track their comings and goings on the other side of the wall or whatever, but she could count on one hand the number of people she knew whose magesight was that sensitive, and also the number of people who were aware that hers was that sensitive. She couldn't see the runes from here, it could just be a general containment field, preventing her from using wandless magic outside a certain radius, though again, she could count on one hand the number of people who would consider that a potential concern, so either she was dealing with someone very paranoid who didn't have proper facilities for holding and questioning prisoners (which argued it wasn't the Ministry) or someone who knew her and her abilities unusually well (which made Bella the most likely suspect, again, but even Bella wouldn't set up a training exercise in the middle of an actual enemy attack).
The makeshift nature of her prison made her think Order of the Phoenix, or some other vigilante group, maybe, but most of the people who would know that she might be able to resort to wandless magic to escape were in the Order.
The window, from here, looked muggle. There were no curtains, so it was probably warded so no one would notice anything weird going on in here — a one-way concealment enchantment — but it was one of those ones that lifted up, rather than opening out, or just being conjured glass maintained by enchantments in the frame. And a muggle house taken over by wizards also suggested the Order had her — she didn't know much about the day-to-day operations of the vigilante organisation, but she knew they were moving muggleborns and their families who were too young for school out of the country. It wouldn't be all that weird if they'd taken some of the abandoned properties to use as safehouses or turned them into traps for any Death Eaters who tried to raid them or something.
Though if—
"Hey," a familiar voice murmured from the door, footsteps approaching the chair she'd heard creak, earlier. "Is he awake, yet?"
She carefully kept her breathing even, forced herself not to tense. Wait. He?
"No," an equally familiar voice whispered back. "Are you sure about this? Maybe we— We could still let her—"
"Him," the first voice said, still quietly, but very firmly.
That— She hadn't been paying all that much attention to her own body beyond whether it was injured and could move, but now that it was pointed out, she was currently male, wasn't she? But...why? Well, obviously that fucking moron had lost the plot, but—
"Fine, him. We could still let him go..."
"No. We're going to figure out what they did to him, and we're going to fix it, and we're going to get Sirius back!"
"But, Jamie..."
"No buts, Pete. You read Remy's letters!" Remy?! "They– They brainwashed him into this Aster identity somehow, not seeing the evil bastards for what they are goes along with it, I'm sure of it! We just have to make him remember who he really is!"
What the fuck had Remus told them?! And how the hell had they gotten it twisted to Aster being brainwashed into being Aster?! Suspecting de Mort had been fucking with her head to make her think he was more reasonable than he actually was made sense (maybe more sense than Aster growing up enough to read his manifesto and consider his philosophy and goals with a degree of maturity instead of just constantly mocking him for being a creepy snake-fucker, actually) or that Bella had used the Family Magic to compel her to come back to them (not that she would), but I'm the same fucking person I always was, you fucking twat, I'm going to murder you!
"But wouldn't the mind-healer—"
"No. Mum said Bellatrix recommended him, and he wouldn't let her talk to Sirius last time she tried to catch him there, he's probably in on it! Look, just come tell me when he wakes up, I'm—"
"I'm awake," she bit out, turning her head to face them and forcing magic into the ropes they'd bound her with, willing the conjuration to unravel.
Nothing happened.
Well, Potter went red like she'd walked in on him wanking again — embarrassed, slightly guilty, and shocked like she'd somehow managed to take him by surprise, despite currently being tied to the bed apparently with actual ropes, seriously, what the fuck?!
Well, obviously her former friends were aware that she could do a contact finishing charm, but—
Peter just looked enormously guilty, and more than a little concerned, eyes flicking between Potter and herself. "Er. Hi, Aster."
"Sirius," Potter corrected him, scowling.
"Sorry, I just got used to calling her– him 'Aster'!"
"Pete. Potter. What the fuck do you think you're doing here, exactly?" When Potter failed to immediately respond, she added, "Have you lost your thrice-cursed mind? I'm not brainwashed, you fucking moron!"
"Really, Sirius? You think we wouldn't be able to tell there's something wrong with one of our best mates? I'll admit, it took a few weeks to figure it out, the girl thing threw us for a loop, it really did, but—"
"But nothing, James Charles! Forcing a sex-change potion on me while I'm unconscious and tying me to a bed like a kinky motherfucker is not— Well, okay, actually, in certain circumstances I might be into this, but not with you, you complete and utter arse! This is not okay! I'm not brainwashed, and if you don't let me go right now, I swear by all the gods—"
"But As– Sirius," Pete 'corrected' himself, throwing a darting glance at Potter, "that's exactly what you would say if you were brainwashed."
"It's also what I'd say if I weren't! You can tell because I'm not, and I'm saying it right now!"
"But—"
"Untie me, and I give you my word," she said, making a concerted effort to sound calm and not like she had every intention of strangling both of them with her bare hands, "that I will not tell Bella who kidnapped me. We can all pretend this never happened. Unless you want to go see a mind-healer, I guess, which, let's be honest, you probably should, if you think the solution to your best mate turning into a girl is to kidnap her and forcibly turn her back into a bloke."
"We're not going to let you go, Sirius," Potter said, in his obnoxious Lord Potter voice. "Not until you remember who you are and come back to us."
"Then I will laugh my arse off when Bella finds us and paints the walls with your blood." She would, Aster was sure of it. Between blood magic and the fact that Aster had renewed her bond with the family magic, it shouldn't even be difficult. It might take a few days, depending on how badly the Death Eaters had been fucked up in the attack, but—
"She's not going to find us," Pete said, not sounding terribly certain of it. His eyes darted anxiously toward Potter. "She's not going to find us, right, Jamie?"
"No. Molly said this house has a Fidelius Charm on it. The Blackheart couldn't find us here if she had her nose against the window."
"Molly's in on this, too? Christ... Where's Dorea?" Aster demanded. She had no idea what a Fidelius Charm was, but she could still feel the Black Family Magic, so she was sure it would be able to find her.
"Er..."
"Leave Mother out of it, Sirius."
If Aster didn't know James Potter's face better than her own, she might not have caught the flicker of anxious guilt there, but she did, and she had. "Dorea doesn't know about this, does she?"
She knew the answer was no. Dorea might, in theory, approve of un-brainwashing Aster, but that carpet had long since left port. Dorea wasn't a fucking idiot, she knew that. If she knew that her son had kidnapped Aster, she would be terrified — not only of what Bella would do when she found out, but what Aster might do, if and when Potter and his fellow morons slipped up and gave her an opening to escape. Potter was already dead to her, but she could easily make him dead to everyone else too, and the Blacks did not take kindly to being kidnapped, as a rule.
"No. Mother doesn't know. That head-shrinker got to her too, at least enough that she believes him when he says that snake-obsessed freak hasn't done anything to your mind, even though it's bloody obvious that he has! He has to have! The Sirius we knew would never have gone back to Bellatrix!"
"The Sirius you knew was a fucking lie, Potter! And not even a very convincing one! I was still going to Death Eater training events the summer before last!" she admitted. She'd avoided telling them at the time, because she knew they wouldn't understand how tempting it was to go join in a war game or one of the baby Death Eaters' knock-down, drag-out, rules-are-for-sissies duelling tournaments. "The only reason I didn't go last summer is that I thought Bella hated me!" Which, in hindsight, had been a stupid thing to think, Cruciatus or no Cruciatus. Aster was far too much like Bella for Bella to hate her. "And everything's different, now!"
"No, Sirius, it isn't."
"Yes, it is, and stop calling me Sirius, you twat!"
"No! You are Sirius! You just have to remember that!"
"Yeah, I'm Sirius. Serious as a fucking heart attack." The one up-side to being Sirius was the endless opportunities for puns. Aster couldn't resist, even under the circumstances. "And we are not on familiar terms anymore, Potter!"
"Yes! That's good! That was totally a Sirius thing to say!"
"James Potter, I am going to murder you!" Aster shrieked. "I am going to rip your fucking throat out with my bare hands! Let me go, you fucking psycho!"
That was also a very Sirius thing to say, though in all fairness to Pete and his, "That...not so much," she wouldn't have meant it literally back when she was Sirius. Right now, at this exact moment, she absolutely did.
Potter, though he looked somewhat shaken, sighed. "Well, we knew it would take time, right? Let's go, give him some time to think before we try again," he suggested, herding Pete out of the room, giving Aster a single concerned glance over his shoulder before he closed the door.
Fuck.
What was she supposed to do now?
Stupid question, she knew. There was only one thing to do in a situation like this. She would have to...play along. Be cooperative. Try to lull them into a false sense of security. They would slip up eventually, and when they did, when she found an opening, she would take it, even if it meant killing Pete. (Out of the three of them — Pete, Potter, and Molly — Pete was, Aster thought, the most likely to drop his guard around her, give her a chance.)
She didn't want to, she was sure he'd just gotten dragged into it by Potter, that much had been obvious from their conversation just now, but her first priority had to be getting the fuck out of here, whatever the cost.
Once she had her wand again — and maybe a couple of Death Eaters to watch her back — she could come back here and burn this makeshift prison to the ground, and Potter along with it.
If you wanted to convince me to come back to the Light, Potter, this is exactly how not to do it...
And if Dumbledore had wanted to convince her that the Light were in any way morally superior to the Death Eaters, raiding a peaceful solstice gathering, sending in fucking mercenaries to murder civilians and children who were every bit as innocent as the schoolkids Bella had slaughtered in Kensington, laid to rest any hope of doing so, once and for all. (Gods, she hoped Evans got out alright...)
Bella, she already knew, would be fucking thrilled to learn how thoroughly the Light had just cursed themselves in the foot, practically forcing her back into the Death Eaters' arms. She might consider it acceptable for Aster to play against her (if she really wanted to), but they both knew she'd much rather have Aster fighting at her side.
She just had to get back there, first, she thought steeling her resolve and turning her mind to taking better stock of the room and the efforts which had been made to contain her.
She would escape, she had no doubt about that, it was only a matter of time.
And when I do, you're fucking dead, Potter...