True Colours, part 1…

This plot bunny latched onto me after a discussion on the fanficauthors.net mailing list. I currently have only a vague idea where this is going, but it might prove interesting. And I wasn’t able to make any progress on my two main stories until I’d written some of it down. This is un-beta-ed and I’m not sure I’ll ever post it anywhere else so… we’ll see.

True Colours

When your nightmares have become a refuge, it’s pretty much a given that your life officially sucks.

That thought stuck my funny bone a good one, and I almost laughed. Fortunately, I was asleep, so I didn’t have to work about a broken rib popping a hole in my lung. Even so, I tried to smother my amusement. If the part-time tenant in my head thought I was healthy enough to laugh, he’d probably assume I was healthy enough for some more of his brand of entertainment.

So I kept my thoughts as quiet as possible as I watched Voldemort summon his Death Eaters to a room that could only be described as a throne room. His was the only chair, elaborately carved arms and a straight back and seat that I fervently hoped gave him piles. Lounging on it, in an elaborately embroidered red silk robe, and looking like a cross between a snake and an overly sinister lounge singer was the Dark Lord himself.

Of course, I was seeing this from his point of view, but I’d been in that room often enough to have memorized all the gory details. Like how truly irritating his voice could be.

“Do you have any results to report, Rudolphus?” he asked in a deceptively mild tone.

“Y-yes, milord!” one of the dark-robed sycophants stammered as he stumbled forward. Why the hell do they want to follow someone they are so obviously terrified of? Some obscure masochism? “We’ve found a ritual that we think will work,” he continued, but then paused. “But there are some… requirements.”

“What are these requirements?” Voldemort asked in a chilling voice.

“The ritual will transfer all of the boy’s magic to you, my lord,” Rudolphus… one of the Lestranges?… continued, “but it requires the willing assistance of a witch to perform the ritual.”

“Bella should be more than qualified to perform any ritual,” Voldemort said. “So why do you hesitate? What are you not telling me, Rudolphus?”

Rudolphus took his life into his own hands by hesitating again. “Milord, it is a tantric ritual… it requires that the witch be… untouched. Her defloration is a key component of the rite.”

At this, several of the other Death Eaters shifted uncomfortably, some even turning to look at the one who just spoke. From what little I knew, that meant this was a severely dark ritual. It would also probably kill at least one of the participants. Three guesses who was at the top of that list.

“Is that so?” Voldemort asked. “Are you sure this will do what I require?”

Rudolphus nodded a little more enthusiastically. “All of the sacrifice’s magic will be transferred to the witch, and through her, to you as you… complete the rite.”

I didn’t need to feel the pleased anticipation building up in Voldemort’s mind to understand what that meant. Immediately after I was captured, one of his little helpers took exception to my instep intercepting his crotch. As I’d halfway been hoping, the wanker pulled out his wand and cast the killing curse. Five feet away, nothing between us, and me half-conscious – I didn’t have a prayer.

Except for my head to nearly explode with agony as the curse rebounded and snuffed out the death eater’s life. I don’t know if it was my mother’s leftover magic, the prophecy, or what – but I didn’t die. Of course, Voldemort found this all intensely interesting. If I really did hold the secret to resisting the Killing Curse, that was one more way he could stop death from taking him. It wasn’t like he was under any pressure, not with Dumbledore dead and the Ministry ineffective as ever – just better at faking it.

So I was chained up, tortured periodically, but not permitted to die until he found some way to get whatever I had. And now it looked like he had the means at last. Bloody wonderful.

“Parkinson,” Voldemort said as a wide grin spread across his inhuman features, “you have a daughter, yes?”

Another black-robed wizard threw Rudolphus a venomous glare and stepped forward. “Yes, milord,” he said, raising his chin slightly.

“And she is loyal to our cause, correct?” the Dark Lord asked.

“Yes, milord,” Parkinson answered.

“Bring her here, immediately,” Voldemort demanded. “You will be honoured for your sacrifice to the cause,” he promised with his next breath.

Parkinson started to speak, swallowed, and then cleared his throat. “Ah, milord, there may be a problem with that…”

“How so?” Voldemort asked in a dangerous tone. He did not like being told “no”… I could feel his irritation through the link.

“Milord, Pansy was… quite taken… with the Malfoy boy since before they attended Hogwarts. Our families have entered into a betrothal contract and…”

“I said,” Voldemort interrupted him, “you would be honoured for her sacrifice. I will ‘speak’ to Lucius if he has an objections,” he promised with an evil leer.

“Er, that’s not the problem milord,” Parkinson said nervously, “it’s just that kids these days… well, I’m not sure she still qualifies for the honour of participating in this ritual… milord.”

The feedback I felt through the link was only a fraction of the agony Parkinson felt under the Cruciatus curse, but that was still an agonizingly long thirty seconds.

When Voldemort released his follower, he raised his voice again. “This is the price of failure! Know it well!” He glared around the room, reminding me of Dudley when he was short a birthday present. “Bulstrode!”

“Yes milord,” a large broad-shouldered man answered.

“I don’t suppose I have to ask if your daughter still qualifies for the ritual?”

The man’s jaw tightened slightly. “She does,” he agreed. He looked vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t until I began speculating about a daughter that finally placed his name. No, Millicent Bulstrode was no beauty queen, not by a long-shot.

Voldemort had his willing participant.

Bollocks.