Later, Delilah’s memories of the rest of that terrible day had a montage-like quality, jumping from one scene to the next with no in-between, like a children’s story. She’d stumbled out of the house and sprinted through the trees without looking back, her feet carrying her along the lane beyond it on pure muscle memory, taking her instinctively to the road that ran to the town centre, and collapsing on a bench on the kerb. She’d run so fast she’d outrun her tears, which had resolved into deep, gasping breaths which had nothing to do with overexertion. It was still morning, and still beautifully calm and sunny, which only made the whole thing seem more like a terrible, incomprehensible nightmare. The temptation to rush back to her mother’s house, to fight with her again, to reason with her, force her to remember her, was almost overwhelming; at one point she actually stood up and strode a few paces in desperate resolve, only to be overcome with the knowledge that it was utterly futile, and she crumpled again into tears and simply sat down on the grass and sank her head into her knees. It occurred to her that even if, over time, she could enlist help, witnesses and evidence to convince her mother of who she was, and that magic existed, and that Genevieve had been cursed to forget all about it, it would never be the same. At best her mother would be politely accommodating to a complete stranger for whom she felt nothing. It was the loneliest feeling in the entire world. Worse, almost, than if she’d arrived to find Genevieve cold and dead on the floor.
She couldn’t entirely escape the feeling – the horrible, unforgivably selfish feeling, that wasn’t even enough of a feeling to be a proper thought – that she would have preferred to have found a corpse.
And that was when the rage started. Freezing cold rage.
Eventually she walked into Uzés town centre, too drained to attempt to Apparate, but propelled by fury. She badly wanted a coffee to soothe her headache, but had no francs, so instead sat by the fountain in the Place aux Herbes and splashed her face and arms with greenish water. She drifted around the streets, which she knew like the back of her hand, in and out of the weird, bright market stalls and open shop fronts selling scarves, fruit, garishly painted pottery and postcards, seeing very little, until eventually, realising she was either going to have to leave or find a doorway to sleep in, she slipped into the solitude of a side street, screwed up her remaining strength and Apparated back to Calais, concentrating so hard on not leaving any of herself behind that she almost collapsed on arrival. At the port she saw the same ship she’d arrived on still docked, so simply walked back up to the hatch, used her wand to open it, and clambered in. Somebody had vanished the vomit from the floor (this, she thought, was probably a standard post-disembarkation task) so she hunted around until she found a pile of sacking and, too desperate for sleep to worry about what would happen if she were found, she curled up, put her handbag under her head as a pillow, and entered into a deep, blank sleep.
She woke up when the engines rumbled to life, and found herself still alone in the pitch darkness, freezing cold and stiff; she had no idea how long she’d been asleep, but painfully uncurled her limbs, stood up and jigged from foot to foot to loosen up and get warm. Nobody else had boarded the ship: evidently nobody wanted to come to England right now. She wrapped herself in one of the scratchy sacks and sat with her back against one of the crates, shivering so hard that it hurt, and tried to force her brain into life enough to think of what to do when she got back to England. She decided to head for London instead of Scotland: she felt she could manage Dover to London, but didn’t dare risk another cross-country apparition until she’d replenished her strength. In any case, unless she could contact someone in the school, the only way back into Hogwarts that she knew of was to brave the climb back up to the cave in Hogsmeade and the secret passage back into the castle, which she knew she wouldn’t be able to tackle, much less the vertiginous ladder and then the task of getting herself back to the ground from the caved-in corridor. In London she’d have a better chance of contacting Dumbledore or Lupin from the Leaky Cauldron, or she could try her luck at Grimmauld Place, where even a stranger was bound to be a friend.
Or she might find Snape.
By the time they docked again she’d begun to worry that she wouldn’t be able to get out, but thankfully, once the ship seemed to have stilled, she pulled open the hatch to find herself back on the little jetty in Dover, where it was dark and had started to drizzle. She Disapparated at once to outside the Leaky Cauldron, where she pushed the door open and made her way gratefully to the open fire, where the heat washed over her like a warm bath.
After a few moments’ blissful warmth, she made her way to the bar, where a hunched man was polishing a glass.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I wonder if you could help me. I need to use to Floo network to contact somebody. Can I do that here?’
The barman looked up at her and frowned.
‘No Miss,’ he said slowly. ‘Sorry. Floo’s been cut off.’
‘Oh,’ she said, disappointed. ‘Well, then can I take a room here?’
‘Let me check,’ he said, and shambled off. She perched herself on a bar stool to wait for him, and nibbled on a peanut from a bowl on the bar. She heard a shuffling of papers from a room beyond, and then some muttering.
‘Sorry,’ he said, returning several minutes later. ‘No rooms here. The Mugwump’s Hump should do though, just up the Alley.’
‘OK,’ she said, sliding off the stool. ‘Thanks.’
She made her way out of the pub into the courtyard beyond, took out her wand and tapped the brick that made the Alley’s archway blossom into view. She’d never been there so late at night before: with all the shops closed it was totally dark except for the bracketed lanterns and streetlamps, and the lights from the windows of shop owners’ homes overhead. Gringotts loomed pale and ominous in the dark, and she felt strangely diminished as she scuttled past its steps. The shut-down shops had been cleaned up since the previous summer, all the smashed windows covered up with wooden boards, plastered with various posters. She glanced automatically up at the forlorn site of Florean Fortescue’s ice cream parlour, now with no sign of its former identity except the wooden sign that still swayed gently in the spring breeze; then she saw something that made her stop in her tracks.
Right in the middle of the boarded-up window was an enormous photo of her face.
WANTED
REWARD: 500G
At the exact moment that she saw the poster, she heard a voice in the night, an indistinct yell coming from the direction of the Leaky Cauldron, and she took off at a sprint, running helter-skelter down the Alley in the darkness; she turned a corner to see a black-cloaked figure materialise in front of her, mercifully facing away but already turning towards her, and dove out of sight down a side street with a micro second to spare, ducking into a doorway and pressing herself against it, her heart hammering against her chest. She saw the figure running past the side street, and she took off again, away from the Alley, turning randomly right down another narrow street, with no idea where she was going; she galloped blindly for a few minutes through a winding maze of doorways and turnings, sure she was concealing herself deep within an impenetrable residential burrow, until, to her horror, she stumbled back on to Diagon Alley, right in front of the well-lit entrance of the Mugwump’s Hump. She was about to double back when she heard a door bang behind her, and so hurtled ahead, past the pub and onwards down the middle of the horribly well-lit Alley, mad with fear; she reached a crossroad and paused, unsure whether to turn left or right or continue on, when she glanced over her shoulder to see another black-cloaked figure materialise in the lighted area in front of the pub. In panic she ducked around a right-turn corner which, to her dismay, turned out to be a dead end, so she stood, with absolutely nowhere to run to or hide, pressed against the wall, praying that the cloaked figure would go the other way, for if he came anywhere near her she would be seen at once.
Out of the darkness, a hand grabbed her shoulder. She gasped, and another hand clamped over her mouth. She looked up wild-eyed through the gloom, to see George Weasley standing beside her. He took his hand slowly off her mouth and put a finger to his lips, then gestured an open door a few feet further along, led her into it, and closed it silently behind them.
He started up a rickety, unlit flight of wooden steps, and so she followed, onto a small landing and then up again, and it wasn’t until they were three storeys up and walked into a small, cosy sitting room that he rounded on her. He was wearing a creased blue shirt, and his hair was rumpled as though he’d been sleeping, but his expression was livid.
‘Are you fucking insane?’ he demanded angrily. ‘What are you doing wandering around Diagon Alley in the middle of the night when there are Wanted posters for you all over the place?’
‘I didn’t fucking know,’ she said with equal fury. ‘I mean, I knew they were out there, but I didn’t know they were posted all over the place. How long have they been up?’
‘They went up today.’
‘And how did you find me out there?’
‘I heard some Death Eater Apparate outside the window and went to look, then I saw you running along a minute later. You’re lucky the first one went off in a different direction, you’d have walked right into them if they hadn’t. What the fuck is going on? Why are the Death Eaters after you, and why aren’t you in hiding?’
‘I just told you I didn’t know the posters were everywhere.’
‘But you just told me you knew they were after you, and you come cantering down the middle of Diagon Alley? Again – are you insane?’
‘Oh, fuck off.’
The glared at each other for a moment, then Delilah sagged.
‘I can’t believe I just said that. You just saved my life. I’m so sorry. No excuse, but I’ve had a really, really long day. Like, two days long.’
He looked at her for a long moment, then put his hand on the small of her back and led her into the sitting room and pushed her firmly into the nearest armchair in front of the fireplace.
‘You look terrible,’ he said. ‘When’s the last time you ate?’
She thought, and then laughed weakly.
‘I honestly don’t even remember,’ she said. ‘I had a peanut about fifteen minutes ago.’
‘Right,’ he said, and vanished into an adjoining room. Delilah looked around the sitting room. It was somewhat threadbare, with two mismatched armchairs and a sofa that were all clearly second hand, and a coffee table strewn with a few dirty coffee cups and old newspapers, but a brightly coloured rag rug lay in front of the hearth where a cheery fire was burning. There were two windows with blue curtains drawn over them, one of them pulled back slightly, presumably from whence George had watched her running into view. A thick blue hand-knitted throw was folded neatly on the arm of the sofa; Delilah reached over for it and pulled it over herself, still freezing in spite of the roaring fire. It was beautifully soft, and she snuggled into it, staring at the crackling log in the hearth.
‘Here we go,’ George said, emerging with two steaming bowls, and two bottles of Butterbeer tucked into the crook of his elbow. Delilah reached out for one of each, and he sat on the sofa. She took a huge, grateful swig from the bottle and set upon the bowl.
‘How the hell did you just rustle up a boeuf bourgignon in like, four minutes?’ she said, blowing on a spoonful of sumptuous smelling stew. There was a large hunk of lavishly buttered fresh bread resting on the side of the bowl.
‘I can’t take credit,’ he said. ‘My mother’s a feeder. She’s convinced Fred and I will starve to death if she doesn’t deliver us constant sustenance. I don’t know how she thinks the rest of the world cope.’
‘Is your brother here?’
‘Nope, he’s off scouting new products in Amsterdam.’
‘Amsterdam? Not for the WonderWitch range then, I take it.’
‘No, that’s my department,’ he grinned. ‘Everyone thinks of Fred as the ladies’ man, but I’m playing the long game: he might give them the night of their lives, but they’ll all be flocking to me when I finally crack the secret to the perfect Eyelash Elixir.’
‘You do know what women want,’ she laughed. ‘Wow, this is so delicious.’
‘You look like you really need it,’ he said, observing her rapidly diminishing bowl. ‘Seriously, Delilah. You look like you’ve been to hell and back. What’s been going on with you? Why aren’t you in school? Why aren’t the Order protecting you? And why are the Death Eaters after you?’
‘I have been to hell and back,’ she said bleakly. ‘And the Death Eaters… It’s a long story. A really long story.’
‘You can tell me if you like.’
Delilah took another mouthful of stew, staring thoughtfully ahead.
‘Truly, I wouldn’t even know where to start,’ she said at length.
‘You can not tell me, if you like.’
Delilah smiled gratefully over the rim of her bowl.
‘The thing is, I am so angry, I don’t think I can actually talk about it right now. I’ll just start crying, or shouting, and probably throw Butterbeer all over your lovely rug.’
‘That’s allowed,’ George said. ‘All of it. Only if you want to though.’
Delilah regarded him, warm and solid in the firelight, his face as open and safe as any she’d seen since she’d left The Briar House. The habit of keeping everything inside, keeping her guard up and her cards to her chest, had become so ingrained that the idea of opening up to him at first seemed not just frightening, but preposterous, wrong; her wounds were so raw that it seemed obscene to expose them to him. Her secrets were wound up so tightly inside her that she worried that if she began to loosen them, her whole self would unravel, and she’d end up even more of a mess than she was already.
Or, on the other hand, telling him might release some of the incessant grip of pressure which had knotted her shoulders and her chest for most of the year. She continued to look uncertainly into his blue eyes, which watched her, invitingly but without expectation.
‘Like I said, it’s a really long story,’ she prefaced.
He simply nodded. She used her bread to capture the last remnants of her stew, and set her bowl down, turning sideways in the armchair to drape her legs over its arm.
‘Well, it started last summer. It was my Dad’s birthday…’
She started to cry almost as soon as she began the story, but once she had started telling it, she didn’t pause; she galloped through the part where Ormond had died, hiccoughing and high-pitched but dogged; then she doubled back and told him about Genevieve, and about Connie and Matilda, and about going to Beauxbatons; about her summer at Grimmauld Place, and even about the mortifying day that she’d opened the door and the Order all apparated into the corridor and stunned her; she didn’t tell him about Terry, or of course about Snape, but she didn’t obscure any of the details of the feigned attack before Christmas, nor of her role in Connie and Matilda almost being caught by the Death Eaters; she stumbled over her confused recollection of the scene in Dumbledore’s office when she’d first met Prenderghast, and when she got to the part about the Witch Weekly extract, she realised she’d forgotten to mention the first extract, and had to go backwards and fill that part in, but he listened patiently, sitting completely still, nodding to show that he was following, but not interrupting at all. Only when she described going into the forest clearing and what had happened with Prenderghast did his silent composure give way, as she described Prenderghast sending his letter off with the owl, and he gave a sickened gasp, like she’d shared the disgusting, gruesome details of an injury she’d sustained; and then, even though she’d forgotten to mention him at all in the story until then, when she told him about Wilbur falling in the way of Prenderghast’s curse, she choked on her own tears again, and thought she saw his eyes water in sympathy. He leaned forward in rapt fascination as she described Helena’s intervention and the secret passageway, and then her journey to Uzès and to her mother’s house; but when she got to that part, her strength failed, and she fell completely silent, her throat closed up so that she couldn’t physically speak. She clenched her eyes shut, curled her legs up on the arm of the chair, and pressed her forehead into her knees.
George spoke for the first time, very softly.
‘Was she dead when you got there?’
He’d asked, she knew not out of impatience, but to relieve her of the burden of saying the words herself if it were true. She stayed scrunched up in the armchair for several seconds longer, before taking a long, shuddering breath and lifting her head.
‘No,’ she replied, as calmly as she could. ‘She’d been cursed to forget me. She didn’t know who I was. She said she didn’t have a daughter.’ She said this at the bottom of her breath, so that her voice wouldn’t strangle with the sob that was heaving her chest. George sat with his mouth open, just staring at her, visibly lost for words. Delilah raised her eyes to the ceiling and leaned back on the cushion, staring up at the rafters, knowing that if she looked at him she would again succumb to tears. Her head felt stretched like a balloon on the point of bursting, a tight, blinding pain flickering between her temples, behind her eyes, and crying again would be agony.
George did the best possible thing at that moment: he leant back in his chair, putting one hand behind his head, gazed pensively into the fire, and asked a question.
‘So who do you think cursed her?’
Delilah turned to him in surprise, relieved that he wasn’t being sympathetic, or probing at her pain, but mostly jolted from the verge of tears.
‘Well, the Death Eaters. Who else?’
‘What would they do that for?’
‘Well… to fuck with me. To torture me.’
Even as she said it, she realised she hadn’t really thought about it. George was shaking his head.
‘That isn’t how the Voldemort tortures people,’ he said. ‘He tortures people by… well, torturing them. The Death Eaters aren’t subtle. This just isn’t their MO.’
‘But why else? Who else?’
‘To protect her. The Order of the Phoenix do it quite a lot – erase the memories of Muggles who have seen or learned something, so that they can’t be actually tortured for information.’
‘That’s different though. That’s the International Statute of Secrecy, it’s totally routine.’
‘Not necessarily – don’t forget how many people there are with Muggle family like you, sometimes you just get one witch or wizard in a huge extended family, and that’s a lot of potential leverage for anyone who wants to get at them. Doesn’t guarantee that they won’t be tortured for the sake of it, but it’s less likely if it’s obvious there’s nothing to be gained.’
‘And so that the Death Eaters won’t get anything out of it even if they do torture them,’ Delilah said slowly.
George fingered the label on his beer bottle.
‘You said that after you got Parkinson to attack you, they wouldn’t let you see your mother even then?’
Delilah nodded, looking at him without seeing him.
‘Look, I don’t know,’ George said. ‘I’m just spitballing here. I just really can’t see this being a Voldemort thing. And like you say… Why else?’
‘Hey, George,’ Delilah said abruptly. ‘Can we talk about something else?’
George seemed to understand at once. He saw her clenched fists, and how she was thumping one of them compulsively against the side of her leg, and perhaps he understood that if she allowed herself to continue the train of thought she was on, she would find herself at a destination she couldn’t tolerate. Not just then, at least.
‘Well,’ he said easily after a moment, readjusting his position on the sofa, ‘we’re going to have some amazing new stuff in the shop come autumn. Fred found these bonkers Bavarian twins in some dive bar in Leiden when he was there sorting out a new shipment of Satyrion; they fancy themselves in the same sort of line of work as us but they’ve never really got started, and when they found out we were a twin set too they decided we should all go into business together. They got Fred steaming drunk and the next thing he knew they were waltzing and Weisswursting or whatever it is they do, and by the next morning they were firm friends. They’re rubbish at managing themselves and could never have a shop, but they’re geniuses with potions and herbs and things, we just tell them an idea we’ve come up with and they tinker away until they get it right. I don’t like to think where their knowledge of stimulants comes from, but they’ve been a gamechanger.’
Delilah had already began to unfurl at the change of subject.
‘They sound unreal,’ she grinned. ‘What are their names?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘Oh, please say it’s something like Wolfgang and Otto.’
‘It’s even better. Friedrich and Heinrich.’
‘Oh you are kidding,’ Delilah spluttered, covering her mouth and slapping her thigh. ‘That’s priceless. ’
‘I know, especially Fred and Friedrich. Dream team.’
‘Pity they’re not Friedrich and Jörg. What have you all come up with for the shop?’
‘Loads of stuff. Like, for ages we’ve wanted to nail some sort of slow-release stimulant for women, which could be in a cream or potion form. It all seems to be vibrators on the market right now, and they’re so crude, and hopeless in a work or school setting, which as you know is sort of our speciality. We’ve got some pretty good topical stimulants but they’re really fast working, and we felt sure we could liven up a lot of witches’ boring night shifts, or long broom rides, if only we could find the right formula that would build over time, but nothing we tried worked. We had the Bavarian guys over to see the shop right after Fred met them, and when we happened to mention the idea to them they got it straight away, started yammering away to each other in German, and they’d cracked it in a week.’
‘That sounds amazing. I’d have bought it in a heartbeat,’ Delilah said, remembering the interminable beauty salon demonstrations she’d been forced to sit through at Beauxbatons. ‘Can you adjust the dosage to make the timings work for whatever you need?’
‘Yes,’ George nodded, ‘that was one of the main things we wanted. There’s an upper and a lower limit, but there’d be no point if it only worked over exactly two hours, or whatever. That was what Fred and I couldn’t figure out, but these guys had it sorted in no time. They’ve also worked out a really good charm for a shampoo that feels like hands massaging your head, and they’re working on a soap to do the same for – well, anywhere else. It’s trickier with soap because people don’t tend to put a big thick lather on a concentrated area like they do with shampoo, but they reckon they’ll get there. It’ll be how we advertise it as much as anything, I think. Oh, and we’ve finally figured out the aphrodisiac thing I sent you earlier this year. With their help we’ve got it down to a fun sexy potion from… what did you call it? “Weapons-grade”?’
‘Oh,’ Delilah grimaced, ‘yeah, the batch you sent me was lethal.’
‘Sorry about that,’ George grinned, ‘I did warn you. I’ll send you some of the new stuff to make up for it.’
‘I’m not sure anything will make up for that debacle. Although I can’t blame you, I wasn’t exactly a responsible user.’
‘You’re going to have to elaborate on that.’
‘Only if you promise not to laugh at me.’
George held his hand solemnly to his chest like a boy scout.
‘I make no such promise.’
‘Well… I tried to sneak it into someone’s drink, and I…’ she broke off, because George let out a roar of laughter.
‘You didn’t put it in the wrong cup!’ he howled, as Delilah confirmed with a sheepish nod. ‘That’s absolutely superb, like a storyline in a musical comedy! So some complete stranger ended up drinking it and hounding after you?’
‘I don’t know why you find it so funny,’ she said reproachfully as he continued to laugh. ‘Poor bloke felt terrible after it wore off, and I could hardly admit what I’d done without looking like a total psychopath, so he still has no idea what happened.’
‘Sorry,’ George chuckled, ‘you’re right, I’m sure it’s not remotely funny to him. Anyway, like I said, I’ll send you some of the new stuff, on the house of course, to apologise. Make sure it ends up in the right hands – or in the right mouth – this time.’
‘Sounds fun,’ Delilah said. ‘Not sure what I’d do with it though.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, I was trying to get someone into bed, as you know, and I… Well. I did.’
‘Ah, well, at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes,’ George said in a comical deep-voiced imitation of a radio advertisement, ‘we take the view that love is not the end, but the beginning.’
‘I’m not in love,’ she said peevishly, laughing at him in spite of herself. ‘That would be far too straightforward.’
‘Yeah. Nothing’s ever simple,’ George agreed easily. He sat up, and indicated her bowl. ‘Want seconds?’
‘Not right now,’ she said. ‘I think I’d explode. That was so gorgeous though, and just what I needed.’
‘How about a whisky?’
‘I would, but it’d send me straight to sleep. What I really need to do is wash my hair. Maybe after that.’
‘Sure, I’ll show you how the shower works. Or would you rather I ran you a bath? We’ve got one, although we’ve never used it. I‘m sure it works though.’
‘Shower. Definitely.’
George stood and held out a hand to her, which she took gratefully, and let him pull her to her feet. She followed him up another flight of stairs to a bathroom where he showed her how to adjust the pressure and temperature on the shower, then she closed the door, started the shower so that the room filled with steam, and peeled off her blouse and jeans. She stepped gratefully under the flow of hot water, rubbed a huge glug of shampoo into her hair, and soaped herself all over. She stood still under the blissfully hot water, feeling it hammer into her knotted shoulder muscles, then tilted backwards and forwards so that it hit her temples and forehead. It felt glorious to be warm, full and clean. She stood for several minutes luxuriating in the hot water before she heard a cautious knock at the door.
‘Delilah?’ came George’s voice. ‘Sorry, I’ve just realised I forgot to give you a towel. I’ll just leave it out here – I’ve got some pyjamas for you too. They won’t be a very good fit but they should do.’
She smiled dreamily at the door for a moment, glazed and somewhat anaesthetised by the hot water and fragrant steam. She stepped out from under the shower, turned it off and opened the door a crack, to see two blue fluffy towels on the carpet, with a pair of blue striped pyjamas neatly folded on top, and a brand new toothbrush on top of that. She towelled herself dry, brushed her teeth, wrapped her hair with the second towel, and pulled on the cotton pyjama shirt, which was far too wide at the shoulders but too short at the sleeves, and the trousers which were also too short and barely stayed up even with the waist drawstring tied at its tightest. They were soft and comfortably worn, and smelled of chamomile. When she emerged with her hair hanging damp down her back, she found George making the bed in the room opposite.
‘I’ve changed the sheets for you, and I’ll sleep in Fred’s bed,’ he said, sliding a pillow into a pillowcase. She folded her jeans and blouse onto the back of a chair in the corner of the room, took another pillowcase and helped finish making the bed, then drew the curtains. George pointed his wand at the bedside lamp so that it lit the room with a warm glow. They turned to face each other.
‘I don’t know how to thank you for all this. Really.’
He gave a crinkly smile.
‘It’s nothing. A meal I didn’t even make, a shower, and a bed. Least I could do.’
‘You saved my life. I was fresh out of luck, there’s no way I’d have got out of that situation without you.’
‘Well.’
He gave an embarrassed grin which she returned, and they just looked at each other for a few moments, the lamplight flickering over their faces.
‘Well,’ he said again, running his hand through his hair. ‘I guess I’ll leave you to it, you must be shattered.’
‘Strangely enough, I’m not really.’
‘Oh. Well, is there anything else you want? Maybe that whisky?’
It was something about being warm and clean and fed after so much panic and pain. An extraordinarily blissful feeling spread through her; her limbs felt springy and loose, and her mind, at least for the moment, deliciously clear and blank. George, in his creased shirt with the sleeves pushed up, with his hair shining amber in the lamplight, his bulky shoulders and broad chest, his soft blue eyes which had always struck her as so appealingly candid, made her feel limp and open. Her toes curled involuntarily into the carpet, and she took a small step towards him.
‘Remember how earlier I said all I really wanted was for you to distract me?’
George regarded her, damp-haired and fragrant in his over-large pyjamas, and his eyes darkened.
‘Yes,’ he said in a low, cautious voice.
‘Well, that still stands.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Yes.’
He reached out his hand and ran the tip of his thumb slowly along the line of her jaw, then down her neck, and she raised her chin invitingly to receive his touch. He stepped in closer and grasped her around the waist, pulling her in close to him and kissing her on the jaw, the cheek, the nose, before finally meeting her lips with his soft, insistent ones, which worked expertly at her mouth until he moved his kisses down to her neck with a rough exhalation which smelt of whisky and peppermint. She deftly unbuttoned his shirt as he did the same with hers; as soon as her top buttons were undone his hands sought her breasts, and he groaned extravagantly with pleasure, closing his eyes as he felt them throbbing under his touch. His excitement sent a red-hot flare to her clit, and she grabbed him round the hips, clenching a handful of his waistband in each fist and ground up against him, pressing herself against his protruding trousers in a fever of desire, gasping unrestrainedly and forcing herself harder against his hands. He moved one hand to her shoulder and the other to the small of her back in order to guide her round to the bed.
He paused suddenly, his fingers toying with a lock of her hair, his forehead resting against hers.
‘Hey,’ he said hesitantly, ‘were you wanting… Did you want me to go and get stuff from downstairs? From the shop?’
‘Stuff from… what? No, just fuck me. I just want you to fuck me.’
At that he smiled broadly and picked her up, with the enthusiastic assistance of her legs wrapped around his hips, and threw her down on the bed. The pyjama bottoms he had lent her fell off with almost comical ease, and he eased them off her ankles, resting one knee on the bed. He handled the long, bony foot which emerged from the blue striped trousers as though it were an artefact, smoothly bowed like a hare’s ear, the jutting angles of her heel and ankle bone, and ran his hand along her downy shin and up her leg, his hands shaking slightly as he stroked the warm skin on the inside of her thigh and felt her muscles contract in anticipation; she thought he was teasing as he stroked her soft, hot skin, and she ground her shoulder blades into the duvet, tossing her head in excitement, but he was really gathering his nerve to touch the lustrous chestnut growth that contrasted so frankly with the translucent skin of her pelvis, so pale around her hip bones that a few raised violet veins could be traced through her papery skin in the dim light. The only other girl he’d been with had had a tiny, geometric rectangle of hair slotted into a neat little system of arms and legs, like a beautifully constructed model built with angle girders and snug axels; Delilah, lying before him with one turbulent foot hooked softly in his elbow and the other still wrapped around the small of his back, her hair swirling damply around her neck, wearing nothing but his unbuttoned pyjama shirt pushed up to the elbows, her eyes sparkling darkly, looked like a terrifically powerful wild plant, the undulating length of her back and lingering limbs and fingers, the deep hollow of her navel, all tendrils and buckling ferns, an unfathomable phenomenon of nature growing irrepressibly from its central point, not so much carnivorous as too mesmerally appealing for anyone to hope to survive her.
‘Oh, you tease,’ she groaned with a half-smile, slithering down the bed, so that he found his fingers suddenly nudging the unyielding axis of her thigh, and barely had a chance to flounder at the feeling of the heat of her against his hand when she took it firmly in hers and guided the pressure of his palm, moving her hips slowly against him, and slowly releasing her grip, giving fluttery little breaths of delight when he continued to circulate the heel of his hand against her as she’d directed. He watched, captivated, as her eyelids opened and closed rapidly, her fingers closed around the rucked bedsheets, and his own breath became so shallow that his head span as she became hotter and harder and wetter under his touch, until her jaw shuddered and she gasped, and he felt a ripple run through her, so exciting that when she flopped over on the bed in hot, heavy disarray, her eyes closed and her breathing slowing, he nearly collapsed on top of her. He was so violently aroused that he fumbled hastily at the button of his trousers, ripping at the zip so that it snagged in the material of his shirt, and he gave an impatient growl as he tugged frantically at his trousers to get them free, aching with excitement, and finally managed to tug them down to his mid-thigh so he could fall roughly on her, trying to push her thighs apart.
‘Give me a second,’ Delilah breathed, ‘I just need to catch my breath.’
‘Of course,’ he whispered back, although he thought he might explode with desperation, so he kissed her neck, his mouth ranging restlessly around her body, kissing the sharp curve of her jaw, the forest floor of her throat, her earlobe as soft as a ripe fig, the cleft of her underarm, but it wasn’t until he ran his tongue over the hard, raised buds of her nipples that she gave a long, ragged gasp, and he felt her heartbeat throb under his tongue, and her hips move under his; he didn’t think he could get any harder until he dotted tiny kisses all over her warm breasts and heard her give a high-pitched, ecstatic ‘yes’, and then couldn’t wait another second to be inside her, but he didn’t have to because her fingertips were already sinking hard into his hips, guiding him towards her, and when he slid into her he wanted to shout, to scream with pleasure, but his mouth just opened and closed, and his hands clenched in a bruising, rictus grip around her thighs, gagged and bound by the sensuous potency that flowed from her and racketed through them as they moved together in riotous harmony.
*
It was the early hours of the morning when Delilah woke with a raging thirst. She slipped out of bed and crept to the bathroom where she found a spotted glass on the side of the sink, which she filled and downed so quickly that it spilled over her chin. Then she filled the glass again and walked back into the bedroom. She slipped through the door which stood ajar, and regarded George, fast asleep in the chaos of the sheets, peaceful in the light of the lamp they’d never extinguished. Through a crack in the curtain she could see that the first tinge of dawn was showing in the violet sky beyond, and she picked up George’s shirt from the floor and slipped it on, wandered over to the window and nudged the curtain aside, gazing out for a few moments. From this vantage point she could appreciate for the first time how sprawling and labyrinthine Diagon Alley really was, weaving inconspicuously through crannies of Muggle London like an ancient tree whose roots have crawled around the foundations of the surrounding buildings, sprouting a little growth wherever it found a pocket of space. She spent a few minutes looking down on the higgledy-piggeldy roofs of the Alley under the starless London sky, watching the barely perceptible tints of lilac blossoming on the horizon, sipping absently at her water glass.
She shivered in the chill of the cold air near the window, and was about to turn back to the bed when a noise made her pause. It was a distant raised voice, and then the unmistakeable whiplash sound of someone Apparating into the alley directly beneath. She craned her neck to see if she could glimpse them, and thought for a moment she must have missed them, before a figure strode into the soft glow of a streetlight. He stopped, looked left and right, and then carried on up the Alley.
Even cloaked and hooded, from thirty feet above, Delilah would have known him anywhere.
He couldn’t have gone ten paces before she had pulled her jeans on, thrown off George’s shirt and tugged on her own, and she only spared half a second to throw a regretful glance at the unconscious bulk of George in the warm bed as she ran out of the room, buttoning her blouse as she went. She thumped down to the sitting room, shoved her feet into her trainers and grabbed her handbag, then sprinted down the stairs she’d climbed with George a few hours earlier and was out in the fresh chill of the morning within barely two minutes. She ran in the direction she’d seen him go, her unsocked feet falling heavily in her trainers on the cobbles, propelled by hard, wordless rage.
She came across him quite suddenly. She was running along the Alley when some instinct caused her to pause and look to her right, and she saw him up an unlit sidestreet, holding himself like a cat poised for an attack, but with his wand still by his side.
She raised her wand and slashed it at him with an incoherent snarl, and he turned his back, presenting a bowed shoulder; a ripping sound filled the air as his robes split, and blood splattered the wall beside him. Throbbing with rage and spurred by his instant deference, she strode towards him, slashing her wand again, and again, and again, until he turned to her, hands raised, head ducked, his wand resting limply between his thumb and index finger.
She stopped, and just stared at his cringing figure, pointing her trembling wand at his head.
‘Severus,’ she said lowly. ‘Look at me.’
He raised his head.
‘Did you curse my mother to forget me?’
His answer was barely audible, a single clipped syllable.
‘Yes.’
She raised her wand again with another yell of fury and slashed at the air; a huge gash opened on his cheek, and he winced, but made no move to retaliate. She took a few steps forward so they were within three feet of each other. The next question came almost without her consent; it came from a place of pain and fury and fear that was so deep, so dark, that she couldn’t possibly have known about it within herself, where it had been squirming poisonously since the previous night in the forest with Prenderghast as she determinedly ignored it, desperate not to acknowledge it, but now it unfurled and grew inexorably in size and she had no control over its actions. The words just came out.
‘And did you kill my father?’
He opened his mouth, but he said nothing.
The rage that exploded inside her just then was like nothing she had ever known. She slashed her wand again and again and again with wild, uncontrollable fury, and open wounds erupted on his hands, his scalp, his face, his chest; he bled with incredible extravagance but she felt hollow and unsatisfied, hissing and snarling as she inflicted wound upon wound, but he didn’t seem to pay any heed to his injuries. He limped towards her, and took her by the wrist of her wand arm, but not as he ever had before; this wasn’t a power play, but a plea. When she let her arm fall, he took her by the shoulders.
‘You have to understand,’ he said urgently, his words slightly indistinct with the blood that ran into his mouth. ‘I need you to understand. Let me show you.’
Delilah felt spent, her wand burning her fingertips.
‘I hate you,’ she said.
He cringed at the searing venom in the words.
‘I know,’ he said quietly, ‘but you need to understand. Let me show you.’
He touched her chin, and raised it so her defiant gaze met his properly. She had never seen his black eyes so open, so imploring, as he drew her face in to meet his, their eyes locked together, and once their noses were almost touching, she felt a strange “click” in her mind’s eye, as though her vision had slotted into a new perspective. His eyes morphed before her and her vision expanded, the Alley melted into a peripheral blur around them, and she found herself watching a scene playing out as though she were seeing it on a cinema screen.
*
They were in a dark, high-ceilinged, elegant chamber lit entirely by candles: floating taper candles like the ones that lit the Great Hall at Hogwarts, wall-mounted candelabras dripping lavishly with wax, and huge church candles, at least four feet tall, flanking the curved steps to a dais in the centre of the opposing wall, with pillar candles of various heights covering a long, narrow table draped in red velvet. To the right of the dais, a thick curtain of the same material hung from wall to wall, portioning off a section of the chamber, and to the left were four grand wooden chairs with high, carved backs and red velvet seats placed against the wall. Delilah’s perspective was from beside the doorway, and she now realised she was seeing the scene through Snape’s eyes, as he turned at the sound of footsteps entering the chamber. She recognised the long pale hair and haughty demeanour of Lucius Malfoy in profile as he stepped into the doorway.
‘Where is he?’ Malfoy asked.
‘The Dark Lord? On his way, I assume. He asked me, Dolohov and Lestrange to meet him here.’
‘What’s going on? Wormtail won’t tell me anything, he’s had people in and out of here all day, wouldn’t even let me come downstairs at one point, and I could swear I saw Colwyn Cleaver arrive this afternoon. What’s he doing here?’
‘If Wormtail won’t tell you anything it’s because the Dark Lord has forbidden him to.’
Malfoy looked mutinous.
‘Is everyone forgetting this is my fucking house?’ he said archly. ‘I’d have thought…’
‘What? That if the Dark Lord was using your house as his base, you’d receive automatic promotion, and be party to all of His plans?’ Snape gave a mirthless, sarcastic laugh.
‘Well, it’d be polite to at least tell me what’s going on, since I’ve been banned from using my own parlour.’
‘Oh dear,’ came a silky voice from the corner. Malfoy jumped and almost fell over his feet turning in the direction of the voice, as Snape did also. Delilah’s stomach squeezed, and she felt like she’d just stepped into an ice bath when Voldemort came gliding slowly from behind the red velvet curtain. ‘Have you gone off the idea of giving us use of your home, Lucius?’
‘No my Lord,’ Malfoy stammered. Voldemort fixed him with an unblinking gaze, like a crocodile watching a rabbit trapped on a rock.
‘My apologies if it’s become an inconvenience. The last thing we wish to be is… impolite.’
‘No, no, my Lord,’ Malfoy said again in a terrified rush. ‘It’s an honour and a privilege to…’
‘Good. Now leave. As you say, you have been forbidden from entering this room.’
For a moment Lucius looked like he was about to object, but then he turned on his heel and swept from the room, almost colliding as he did with Bellatrix Lestrange and Antonin Dolohov, being shepherded by a diminutive man with thinning hair.
‘Close the door on your way out, Lucius,’ Voldemort drawled. ‘And Wormtail, show our friends to their seats and pour the wine.’ He vanished behind the curtain again as the short man indicated the wooden chairs, and Snape strode over to occupy the one furthest from the door. Lestrange sat beside him and Dolohov beside her, and Wormtail shambled over with a heavy golden tray that trembled slightly in his grasp, making a faint, tinny ringing noise as it vibrated against his right hand, which appeared to be made of silver. From the tray he poured a dark red wine from a decanter into three heavy, jewel-studded goblets; Snape received his and turned it around in his hands, using a white fingertip to trace the Malfoy family crest embossed in the goblet’s rim. Wormtail slouched to stand glumly beside the closed door, like a reluctant sentry, leaving the fourth chair unoccupied. For several moments, the only noise was the flickering wicks and occasional sputtering from the candles.
Eventually, Voldemort swept out from behind the curtain.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said in his strange, half-hissing voice. ‘I have brought you here tonight to assist me with the execution of an exciting project, which I began work on some three decades ago. As you know, I had many projects in progress when my work was so unfortunately stymied, and I have wasted no time in resuming my energies these last months, now that I am back to full strength and have once again my loyal Death Eaters to assist me. This project occupied my thoughts almost more than any other in the dark years when I existed as a mere shadow, and I have selected you, my three best and most trusted allies, to aid me in bringing it to fruition. I am at last ready to share with you my latest triumph, and have chosen you for the honour of partaking in my achievement of a new level of greatness.’
Voldemort was, Delilah couldn’t help recognising, an extraordinary speaker. Even in this small gathering he held his audience on a tightrope. The atmosphere in the intimate chamber, with its low, reverent light, the austere but beautiful furnishings, and the ominous concealment of the red curtain, was sharp and electric; every muscle in Delilah’s body was tense, and she found herself hanging onto his every word. Even Lestrange in the neighbouring chair was clutching her goblet on the armrest, holding herself as taut as a violin string, looking ready to catapult herself off her seat or slit her own throat at a word from her master.
‘First, let me explain my project. As you know, I was born and raised in ignominious circumstances: born out of wedlock to a weak, arrogant Muggle and a penniless witch who abandoned me at birth, and raised as a worthless orphan in an institution. I was regarded by nobody, worthless to everybody, destined to live a short, inconsequential life, achieving nothing.’
‘No!’ Lestrange cried, apparently involuntarily, perched on the edge of her seat, clutching the arms of her chair with passion. ‘My Lord has always been extraordinary! Always!’
‘Thank you, Bellatrix,’ Voldemort said in almost avuncular tones. ‘I confess I agreed with you myself. I knew I would outgrow that orphanage, would live to have my name known in every household, even if nobody else could see it. I knew I was different, was special, and my faith was confirmed when I found out I was of magical blood, and left the wretched orphanage for my new life at Hogwarts School.
‘It would not be possible for me to explain the significance that Hogwarts held for me to someone who grew up surrounded by wealth, privilege, and magic. Hogwarts was the beginning of my destiny, and although I was glad to leave when I had completed my education, so that I could pursue the ambitions that would take me far beyond the castle, I knew that I had not finished with it. Being a student there – even being the most famous student the school had ever seen – was not enough for me. I could have become a teacher there, probably quite soon become the headmaster, but that didn’t satisfy me. No, I wanted the castle to be mine. A headmaster is a custodian, he has a brief period of some authority, but he ultimately defers to the higher power that governs the castle.
‘Well. I wish to be that higher power.’
Voldemort let that sentence ring in the air for a moment, and Delilah heard Lestrange give a devout whimper of impatience for him to continue.
‘I assume you all can guess to what higher power I refer. The magic which organises the castle is centuries old and unfathomably complex, but it originates with the four witches and wizards who instigated that magic: Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Godric Gryffindor. They set the wheels in motion, created an institution which would be virtually impenetrable to any outside influence, and which would self-regulate in order to ensure that any headmaster whose intentions might contravene their own would be ejected. In short, the castle was designed to be more powerful than the efforts of any one individual to influence it. They arranged things to prevent just such a project as mine from succeeding.’
Here he fixed the group with a wide, reptilian smile.
‘And yet, I have brought you here tonight to witness my success. I have done it. Tonight we will begin the process which will make me the supreme power which governs Hogwarts; and once we have completed our project, every witch and wizard forever more will be shaped from their childhood by our efforts. This is an historic day for wizardkind, and you three will ever be remembered as the people who changed the face of the wizarding world. Your names will go down in history.’
Lestrange gave a deep, orgasmic sigh, and applauded rapturously. Dolohov covered his eyes with one hand, overcome with emotion, then stood and gave a deep bow to Lord Voldemort, before collapsing back into his chair. Snape merely bowed his head, and briefly raised his goblet before taking a sip of wine.
‘How have I achieved this? I hear you wonder. Well, in a way the answer came, as it so often seems to, from my old friend Harry Potter. It was an unfortunate oversight of mine – they happen to the best of us,’ he added, raising a humble hand, when Lestrange made an objecting noise – ‘to have at first failed to take into consideration the implications of his mother’s sacrifice when I killed her. I should have realised his blood would run with the magic of her sacrifice, and I was nearly defeated again by that lapse. But, like all great inventors, I turned my mistake to an advantage: not only have I now weaponised that sacrifice, used it to reinforce my own armour, but it forced me to consider as never before the incomparable power of blood magic.
‘If the four founders of the school created an unassailable magical frontier using their combined powers, which could never be confounded by a single wizard, then I had to become four wizards: I had to absorb into my own body the ancestral power of those founders’ blood. And that is what we will do tonight.’
Here Voldemort turned away from the group, slowly pushed up the sleeves of his robes with a leisurely, theatrical move, and flourished his wand with a slow, balletic movement, as though conducting the string section of an orchestra into a keening overture. As he did so, the red curtains which divided the room parted in the middle and slowly opened, and the most horrifying sight Delilah had ever seen unfolded from between them.
Three large, water-filled tanks were installed, each with their own spotlight illuminating them from above. Beside them was an enormous, golden chair with red cushions at the seat and back. In each tank, a body was suspended: a youngish man with sandy blonde hair, a woman of about the same age, and between them in the central tank, a teenage girl of about Delilah’s age. They were all naked, and wide awake in their tanks, thin bubbles of air escaping from their mouths, wearing matching expressions of desperate, mortal terror. They each peered through the water at the faces before them, and the man started gesturing wildly when he saw them. Delilah realised with a lurch to her stomach that he was hoping they were about to be saved. She knew instantly who they were.
‘This is the Meles family,’ Voldemort said, indicating the tanks with a regal wave of his hand. ‘Sylvan Meles, his wife Azkonarra, and their daughter Morgane. They are the last remaining ancestors of Helga Hufflepuff. Say hello to our… distinguished guests.’
Sylvan Meles gestured desperately again in his tank, and Lestrange gave a shriek of laughter, smacking her thigh and screaming with mirth. Dolohov roared along with her and raised his glass, bellowing “Bravo!” Sylvan peered short-sightedly from one face to the next – Delilah gathered he couldn’t see very clearly through the water and the glass, and could probably hear nothing – and he sagged visibly when he saw their laughter. He turned in his tank and pressed his face against the side, trying to catch the attention of Morgane in the tank beside his, but she just hung there with her head bowed, utterly defeated, and didn’t look up to see her father trying to catch her attention.
‘When I began to consider the power of blood magic,’ Voldemort resumed, striding back and forth before the tanks, ‘it occurred to me to begin research into the ancient rituals of bloodletting. As I’m sure you all know, I am the last surviving ancestor of Salazar Slytherin; but what if I could become the last surviving ancestor of all of the Hogwarts founders? If I can counter the magic Potter’s mother left in his blood by taking it into my own body, why can’t I do the same with the Hogwarts founders? Reunite them in myself and become one combined repository of their power?
‘Unfortunately in this case it turns out not to be as simple as taking a tiny sample of their blood into mine; it wasn’t easy to find any resources on this subject, but after much arduous research, I learned that blood magic works by power of majority. It is a complex branch of magic, but crude in its execution: the power of a particular bloodline is conferred automatically on the person with the highest volume of that blood. For now, that honour belongs equally to Mr and Miss Meles. Soon it shall be mine.’
‘So, my Lord,’ Dolohov put in falteringly, ‘you propose to… absorb the blood of these three people?’
‘A good question, Dolohov,’ Voldemort smiled. ‘Not all three. I need the blood of the last member of the bloodline to run in my veins. Mrs Meles is ancestrally useless to me. The others I shall kill. Mrs Meles’ blood is of course useless to me in any case.’
‘So why…?’
‘Why have I preserved all three of them?’ Voldemort prompted. ‘Insurance, Dolohov. Insurance.’
‘My Lord,’ Bellatrix sighed in admiration.
‘All I needed once I understood what I was to achieve,’ Voldemort went on, ‘was an expert in bloodletting. Antonin,’ he shot suddenly at Dolohov, ‘do you know why barber shops’ poles are red and white striped?’
‘Barber shops…?’ Dolohov stammered, utterly blindsided by the question. ‘No, my Lord.’
‘I bet you do though, Severus,’ Voldemort said, casting a shrewd glance at Snape.
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Snape’s voice rumbled. ‘Barber shops used to perform bloodletting services. The red represents the blood; the white the dressings used once the treatment was complete.’
‘Quite right. Ten points to Slytherin.’ Lestrange and Dolohov guffawed appreciatively. ‘And so who better to assist me than the most distinguished barber in the wizarding world, descended from twelve generations in his trade? Wormtail, please admit our guest Mr Cleaver.’
Wormtail jumped to attention and pulled open the door, whence a thin, dark-haired man was cowering in the corridor beyond. He was wearing a crisp, starched white buttonless shirt and pressed trousers, but he looked otherwise gaunt and unkempt, as though he’d just left a long stay in a hospital.
‘Mr Colwyn Cleaver,’ Wormtail announced, like a butler at a ball.
‘Come in, Mr Cleaver,’ Voldemort said courteously. ‘Wormtail, show Mr Cleaver to his seat, give him a drink…’ Cleaver was shoved into the fourth wooden chair, and a hastily-poured goblet thrust into his hand. He looked like he was going to be sick.
‘Now, Mr Cleaver,’ Voldemort said, ‘Would you like to enlighten your ignorant friends on the principles of bloodletting?’
Cleaver, having barely sat down, stumbled straight back out of his chair and stood facing Voldemort and the Death Eaters.
‘Bloodletting is the process of draining blood from a live body,’ he said automatically, as though quoting from a long-memorised script. ‘It is usually performed for medicinal purposes, to extract harmful substances from the bloodstream, although it has fallen out of favour since the nineteenth century.’
Having finished this speech he looked fretfully around for a cue, and, receiving none, fell back into his chair.
‘Indeed,’ Voldemort said. ‘Bloodletting is an ancient practice, the wisdom of which has long since been discounted. Even more ancient, and even less well-understood in the magical world, is the art of transfusion. I have found in my research that Muggles still use this procedure frequently, in their feeble attempts to survive basic injuries, and so Mr Cleaver has consented to spend some weeks shadowing Muggle doctors to master any techniques or wisdom from them that might help us. Haven’t you Colwyn?’
Cleaver nodded mutely.
‘And so now, at last, we have our bodies, our equipment and our expertise, and are ready to undertake the process ourselves. So,’ Voldemort said, pausing and turning to face them, ‘shall we begin?’
All three Death Eaters stood respectfully at once.
Voldemort turned and pointed his wand at the tank where Morgane was suspended. He made a complicated movement with his wrist and the top of the tank opened with a hiss; he raised his arm slowly, and from inside it, the entire contents, liquid and all, lifted out like a jelly from a mould. Once all of the liquid was out, with Morgane still suspended at the centre, he slashed his wand upwards so that all of the water rushed back into the tank, splashing over the sides and flooding the floor, and the wriggling form of Morgane crashed with a heavy slap to the cold stone floor, gasping for breath and looking wildly around her like a newborn amphibian.
‘Welcome, Morgane Meles,’ Voldemort said smoothly.
‘Where am I?’ the girl whimpered. She looked up and saw her father suspended in the tank beside her, his eyes wide, his hands frantically gesturing. She crawled across the floor and pressed her palms against the glass alongside his. Then she crawled over to her mother’s tank, pressing herself up against it, but Azkonarrra just stared sadly out at her, not responding at all.
‘Nice arse,’ Dolohov hooted, and Bellatrix laughed appreciatively.
‘Morgane, you are here to fulfil a very noble purpose. You are going to change the future of the wizarding world. Aren’t you proud?’
‘Let them go,’ Morgane said bravely, turning to face Voldemort. ‘Let my mum and dad go, please.’
Delilah’s heart thumped for her courage, pleading so calmly for her family’s lives even naked, imprisoned, humiliated and at the point of death.
‘What do we think, friends?’ Voldemort said, turning to the Death Eaters. ‘What do we make of Miss Meles’ request?’
‘Nice tits!’ shouted Dolohov, and Bellatrix collapsed into jeering laughter.
‘Wormtail,’ Voldemort said lazily, ‘restrain her.’
Wormtail flourished his wand, and ropes flew out of the end of it, flying to Morgane’s wrists and ankles and binding them so that she fell heavily to the floor again, this time managing a twisted seated position. Her eyes were so wide and terrified that Delilah wished she could turn away. Voldemort walked to the golden chair and settled himself into it, resting his head back and adjusting himself, resting his milk-white forearms on the arm rests, his hands facing up like he expected to receive a blessing.
‘Cleaver,’ he said in a quiet, carrying voice. Cleaver jumped, and dashed behind the tanks, then emerged a moment later pushing a gurney. Wormtail slashed his wand and Morgane flew into the air, then slammed down onto the gurney with a thump. She tried to sit upright, struggling against the restraints, casting her eyes around in terror. Cleaver vanished again and reappeared pushing a silver tray of metal instruments, the sight of which made Delilah shiver in horror; poor Morgane clearly felt the same, as she completely lost her mind at the sight of them, screamed and struggled in panic against her restraints, struggling so much she threw herself entirely off the gurney, and landed with a sickening crack on the stone floor with a fresh scream of pain. Behind her, Sylvan started thrashing in the water so hard that it swirled and foamed around him, obscuring him from view.
‘Shut UP,’ Wormtail snapped, using his wand to lift her back onto the gurney. He took a filthy handkerchief from is pocket and shoved it into her protesting mouth.
‘Well, Cleaver,’ Voldemort said calmly, as though nothing had happened, ‘shall we?’
Cleaver took a small cannula and, hands shaking, inserted it swiftly into the crook of Voldemort’s elbow. Then he did the same in his other arm; then into the back of each hand; then into each knee, and then each foot. Morgane craned her neck to look at her father; Delilah saw their eyes meet, and stay locked until Cleaver grabbed her roughly by the hair at the nape of her neck and sat her upright. He took a large blade from the trolley.
‘Brace yourself,’ he said grimly, and rammed it abruptly into her neck. She gave a weak cry as an enormous spurt of blood jumped from her neck, but Cleaver caught it deftly in a huge metal funnel-necked beaker, the size of a bucket. He pointed at Dolohov and beckoned; Dolohov approached cautiously, and, at Cleaver’s direction, held the beaker to Morgane’s neck, where a thick, dark river of blood gushed into its chamber.
‘Hold it steady,’ Cleaver ordered, when Dolohov let the beaker waver. ‘You,’ he said to Lestrange, ‘come.’ Bellatrix, who would never normally have taken that order, threw a look at Voldemort, who lay in repose in his golden throne, and approached obediently. ‘Hold her upright,’ Cleaver said. ‘She’ll pass out in a minute, we mustn’t lose any blood.’ Bellatrix propped Morgane up, holding her neck in one hand and her head in the other.
‘Right,’ Cleaver said. ‘We’re ready.’
Into the bottom of the beaker, he screwed the end of a long plastic tube, the other end of which he plugged into the cannula on Voldemort’s left arm. He then turned the screw on the beaker so that it clicked, and a stream of dark blood began to gush through the tube, into Voldemort’s arm.
Then he took another tube, and plugged it into another opening in the bottom of the beaker, and plugged that one into Voldemort’s other arm. The blood continued to gush out of Morgane, and her face drained to a hideous shade of grey.
‘Don’t drop her,’ Cleaver instructed, as he moved to Morgane’s bound wrists. He produced another beaker which he propped beside her and shoved her hands into. His knife glinted again as he stabbed her swiftly three or four times in each wrist to create another river of blood, and attached two more tubes from the bottom of the beaker to Voldemort’s hands.
Morgane gave a deep, terrible moan of pain. Sylvan slammed his hands impotently against the glass of his tank.
The scene dissolved briefly before Delilah’s eyes, and when it came back into focus, Morgane was suspended upside down from a meat hook attached to a chain on the ceiling, with the funnel in a metal holder underneath her; she was still alive, her breath coming out in horrible, laboured wheezes. Cleaver’s shirt was covered in smears of blood where he’d wiped his hands on it, and Lestrange and Dolohov were reaching up and squeezing systematically at the flabby, plasticky skin of her grey feet. Blood was dripping with rhythmic, sonorous thuds into the metal bucket beneath her.
‘Keep going,’ Cleaver was saying. ‘You have to get every drop.’
Snape turned his back briefly to pick up a fresh towel from a pile on the edge of the dais. He turned back to Lord Voldemort, and Delilah nearly vomited at the sight of him; bright red, his skin bursting at the seams, with tubes running into his arms, legs, hands and feet. Snape dipped the towel in a basin of iced water and ran it across Voldemort’s waxy forehead.
‘Cleaver,’ Voldemort said in a diminished voice. ‘I don’t think my body can absorb much more of her blood. I think I must take the rest orally.’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Cleaver said automatically, and from the bottom of his trolley he took a narrow chute with a long, ridged tube attached. He put the chute carefully in Voldemort’s mouth.
‘Is that secure, my Lord?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ came Voldemort’s muffled reply, and Cleaver turned back to the Death Eaters.
‘We now need to consolidate,’ he said brusquely. He vanished back behind the tanks, and returned with what could only be described as a barrel on wheels; at the very bottom was a port into which he plugged the tube which connected to Voldemort’s mouth. He pointed his wand at the chain from which Morgane was suspended, and it lifted her another foot or so into the air, then he positioned the barrel directly underneath her.
‘Disconnect all the tubes,’ he commanded, and Bellatrix and Dolohov complied, yanking the tubes from her so roughly that they tore her skin. Cleaver disappeared again and came back with a slim stepladder, which he slotted into position beside Morgane’s suspended body. He climbed the ladder, businesslike, like a window cleaner or a builder, and even though she knew it was coming a second before it did, Delilah screamed out loud when he pulled a butcher’s knife from his pocket and slashed her from the groin to the neck, so that what blood was left in her gushed into the barrel beneath; Morgane gave a thin, ragged howl of pain, and when Delilah looked over at Voldemort, livid and scarlet and swollen, suckling ecstatically on the tube in his mouth, his teeth stained with her blood, drinking it down like it were milk, she recoiled so violently from the sight that she left Snape’s mind altogether and the Alley hoved back into view around her.
She staggered over to the wall and leaned against it, breathing through enormous waves of nausea. Acid rose in her throat, but she managed to keep herself from throwing up. As the world slowly stopped spinning, she stood upright again, and allowed Snape to catch her arm to stop her from falling.
‘You see,’ he said. ‘That’s what they would have done to them. That is what he had planned for the Blackthorns. Your sister and your father; you now that they know about you; and probably your mother for good measure.’
‘What happened to them?’ she managed through her burning throat. ‘Sylvan and Azkonarra?’
‘What do you think? Murdered. He let them watch their daughter be tortured and drained, then let them out. Bellatrix played with them like a cat with a pair of captive mice, then killed them. Eventually.’
Delilah straightened, and looked off into the Alley. The sun was rising properly now.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Thanks for telling me. I’m going to go now.’
‘Delilah,’ came his urgent voice from behind her. She turned reluctantly.
‘Yes?’
‘Delilah, won’t you…?’ he trailed off. She just stared at him, slashed to ribbons from her attack, looking hopelessly defeated in the early morning light. ‘You do see, don’t you? You see that I had to? That I had to? That it was for the best?’
She just looked at him for several seconds more, and then turned to leave; and she would have left, left forever, into the clotted cream sunrise of Diagon Alley on a spring morning, leaving the wasted, bloodied figure of Severus Snape in the shadowed side street, if it were not for the whiplash crack of a new arrival, the pounding footsteps and raised voice which cornered her, and even with her wand aloft, she knew it was hopeless when he yelled “Fucking hell we’ve got her! Snape’s cornered her!” and she found herself submitting quite calmly to the ropes which snaked around her, and the hands that lifted her from the ground, wrenching her wand from her hand. She found she didn’t even really care, couldn’t even conceive that any of it was real: none of it was really real except Snape’s cowed, shifty head as he was congratulated by the Death Eaters who flooded in like pigeons, slapping his shoulder and mocking him for having been so badly harmed by a little girl; and the vicious, burning, searing hot hatred she felt for him.
