Rejected

"I can not believe you did that to me!" I screamed across the room at Dumbledore and Snape, who was smirking in the corner. "You think I got caught on purpose? Me? Me? My father's daughter get caught on purpose! We had a plan. Then you came along and ruined it by rescuing me. What on earth did you do that for?"

I sank back onto a chair and shook my head, tears coming too easily. "I don't have anything left now. At least I used to have something. Now even my family is after my blood."

"We'll be your new family, Anna," Dumbledore replied, "And we'll be far better than your old one."

I looked up at him in disgust. "You? Be my family? You are the people who placed me in purgatory as a child! I wasn't even allowed to come to Hogwarts, though I was far more magical than most who went in my year. You made me suffer for something that I couldn't help." I was laughing now, a mixture of disbelief and sheer terror at what life held for me in the future, "And then you offer to be my family? No thank you, Sir. I'm out of here."

I got up and made for my cloak, which had been discarded on the floor. Dumbledore held me back gently.

"I can not apologise enough for what I put you through, and I have learned," he whispered, "But I would like to make amends. Consider, Anna, not even your father will want you back now. He would as soon kill you as look at you. I know it is hard to accept this, but you must, or face being destroyed by your un-willingness to believe what is true."

"If you hadn't come barging into the trial, he would never have needed to know!" I snapped, making an un-successful grab for my cloak. Snape walked casually over to it and picked it up, holding it just out of my reach. I turned on him next,

"And you! You slimy traitor! You deserve to be drowned in your own gel!"

"Tut tut, Anna," Snape replied, his smirk widening, "You're a traitor too, remember. We're the same now."

"We'll..." I began, but at that moment the door opened, and the one person who I wanted to see hurried in. "Albus, when I heard...thank God she's safe...Anna..."

And as Sirius gave me the most bone-breaking bear hug, I found myself beginning to cry. For all the life I had taken, and all the life that had been taken from me.

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"Annabelle Maria Riddle," came the voice of Barty Crouch. The voices echoed round the vicious stone walls, reaching spindly fingers into corners, making sure everyone heard of my downfall. "Annabelle Maria Riddle, you have been charged with sixteen counts of muggle torture, seven counts of murder, violating the wizarding secrecy statute, breaking the law on Experimental Breeding, and two counts of contempt of court."

"You forgot interrupting a considerably important meeting between the Minister for Magic and the Ambassador for Magic from Japan," I pointed out.

"Make that three counts of contempt of court," added Crouch coolly.

I grinned. It was just too fun winding up Barty Crouch. He wouldn't be so calm when he discovered that his own son was a Death Eater. The courtroom was packed and intensely stuffy. The expression on every person's face was greedy and malicious. Even the jury were set against me, well, all but one. Mulciber was a Death Eater- undiscovered as yet- and the look on his face told me that he would try to secure my freedom, even though all the evidence was against me. Failing that, I always had the Ring with me. Its cold presence against my skin reassured me. Just before my capture I had put it on a silver chain around my neck so that no one would notice it. After all, no one dared to come too close to Voldemort's daughter, and very wise it was of them too.

Crouch summarised, "We have heard the evidence against Annabelle Riddle, and it seems beyond doubt, considering her background, that she was indeed responsible for the charges laid against her. It is now up to the jury to decide her guilt, or not," he added sneeringly, "I now ask the jury to step outside and decide the fate of this ... girl."

There was upheaval as one row of people rose from their bench, stretched blood back into their numb limbs, and left through a large forbidding door set into the high wall. The humidity from such a stuffed room decreased. The audience began to mutter to each other, some craning to catch a glimpse of me, others to turn to their neighbours and chat. I rested my head against the high-backed chair (if you could call it a chair- throne is perhaps a better description) and thought things over. What would happen if Mulciber didn't get me off? I supposed I would be thrown to the dementors, and into Azkaban. I had never been to that place, but father had introduced me to dementors when he came into power, when I was six. They hadn't bothered me at first, but later, later I couldn't stand to be anywhere near them. I moved my arms slightly, and the steel chains gripping them magically tightened, mistaking my movement for struggling.

The jury had been gone some time now- well over half an hour I estimated. Then echoing footsteps were heard coming from the door they had gone out of. Everyone strained to see what the commotion was, and then a woman with dyed blonde hair clattered in, her face full of excitement. "Mulciber!" she shouted, her face contorted with animation, and my stomach dropped like a stone, "Mulciber has been arrested for protecting the defendant!" A communal gasp filled the room, and then Crouch stood up,

"Now, Mrs Skeeter, there really isn't any need to get so worked up. Everyone sit down PLEASE." He turned to a stocky man standing behind him, who immediately apparated over to the other side of the room, next to Rita. I now saw who she was- she must have dyed her hair again. Rita Skeeter was talking rapidly to Crouch's bodyguard. Briefly I wondered why they didn't set anti-apparition boundaries around the courtroom, but then I realised- there were so many people there the whole time it would be next to impossible to rescue someone when there were so many guards around the place. The next moment the short man had apparated back to his original place, and was apparently relating what Skeeter had told him to his superior. Crouch nodded curtly and signalled for the doors to be opened.

Mulciber was standing between two hooded dementors, each with a rotting hand around his arms. As he was led away to the solitary room where I had been placed the night before, he gave me a look I will never forget. It spoke volumes to me, although he never uttered a word. "I tried to save you Anna. I tried. That's true friendship. What have we done, Anna?" it said, "And for all the glory promised to us, look where we are now. Was it worth it, do you think?"

I turned away from him, facing towards the crowd, my eyes closed. I strained to take hold of the chain around my neck, where the Ring lay, but those binding my wrists contracted so much that they cut into the flesh. I bit my lip, to keep from crying out.

The verdict was being given; "Guilty... guilty... guilty..." The crowd were cheering. Their claps were resounding in my ears. I longed to just shout at them all to stop. To tell them that they were the people who had brought me up like this, that they were the ones who had forced me to take my bitterness out on others. The shackles that had bound my arms were loosening now, and I quickly drew my hands out to stem the blood that was flowing freely from the wounds. But then my arms were wrenched apart again, and an icy dread swept over me. I glanced across and saw what I most feared- the dementor's hood was slightly crooked, so that from where I was crouching I could see it's empty eye-sockets, and the green-tinged skin drawn tightly over its skull. For a moment he reminded me of my father as I had last seen him. The crowd were jeering at me now, shouting things I was glad I couldn't hear. Then the stench of the dementors overcame me, and I fainted.