Casting Shadows

Chapter 6

A Rescue

"What did you do to it, girl? Tell me!"

She awoke with a start, scrabbling backwards in a vain attempt to escape Pettigrew's grasp. Why had she let herself fall asleep! He held her by her upper arms and was shaking her. His beady, bloodshot eyes bored into her and there were traces of spittle on his lips. He was repulsive, and he hated him. She would make him pay for what he was doing to her.

"What did I do to what?" Persephone asked angrily, finally managing to shake him off.

"The blood, girl! What did you do to the blood? You must have done something, it should have worked!" He sat back on his haunches and nibbled anxiously at his yellowed nails, his eyes darting from side to side as he continued to mutter half under his breath.

She tried not to smirk. She had no idea what she had done, in fact she knew that she couldn't have done anything, but she was glad of his agitation. Perhaps it would buy her a little more time to practise her hexes; not too long, though, as the plateau was fraying more and more with every hour that passed, and she still had no idea what would happen to her.

Pettigrew withdrew a glass vial from the breast pocket of his tattered tweed jacket. It was filled with a viscous dark brownish liquid that looked to Persephone like reconstituted dried blood. He examined it carefully, shook it, and then looked at her speculatively. "I wonder..." he smiled slowly, revealing pointed yellow teeth.

"What's that?" she said, backing away.

"I drew it from my Master's corpse," he explained. "Your small sacrifice made a difference, oh yes...this is the result of my first effort, you see?"

"It doesn't look very good," she sneered. "You've failed him, haven't you?"

"No! No, no, not at all! This is just the first step, do you see?" he wheedled, cradling the vial in one hand while the other caressed it lovingly. "I think I know what I have to do..." he said, ferreting in his jacket pockets and pulling out a slim volume bound in something that looked suspiciously like human skin. The book fell open at a well-thumbed page and his eyes lit up. "Yes! Yes, of course, hah! You mustn't tell him, you know!" he said all at once, suddenly becoming fearful and dropping his voice almost to a whisper.

"Tell who what?"

"My Lord! You mustn't tell him, you must say that I knew at once what must be done! That our success was immediate!"

"What, you mean I have to tell a dead body that you aren't so stupid that you forgot the right way to do the spell?" she said derisively.

"Insolent girl!" he spat, thrusting the book back into his pocket. "I have been my master's most loyal and valued servant!"

"Well, that's alright then!"

"Give me your arm!"

Persephone struggled but he had her arm again and this time he was not about to let it go. "No! Leave me alone! Engorgio!"

She yelled out the curse at the top of her voice, hoping to throw him off balance for long enough to enable her to attempt an escape, but without a wand she could not aim and the spell's effect simply glanced off Pettigrew's leg, affecting only his left ankle which swelled alarmingly, causing to howl in surprise and then pain.

"You little - how did you do that? Come here! I haven't finished with you yet!"

He lunged at her before she had the chance to scramble to her feet, pressing his wand to the side of her calf and uttering a string of unintelligible words that stopped Persephone in her tracks.

More dark magic, but nothing that she had ever read before. Pettigrew had injected her with the tip of his wand and was busy pouring the contents of the vial into the wound.

"What are you doing to me? NO!" she screamed, but it was too late. Pettigrew stood up at last and stood over her excitedly.

"It needs to be mixed a bit more, girl. His blood intermingled with yours and returned to him. More of your purity, your life force. Yes, and then I will return him to the world to be more glorious than ever before!"

"You are so gross," she said in disgust even as she felt darkness begin to pour into her veins, roiling like the rainless storm clouds above her. She felt sick and turned on to her side, leaning over to spatter hot green bile on to the scrub grass before falling into a half-faint. No, I can't let this happen, she thought groggily as she forced herself up onto her elbows.

A greasy sheen of sweat broke out on her forehead and gooseflesh raced along her limbs and down her trunk, but these discomforts were nothing compared to the searing pain that stabbed her head. For a few moments the world shrank to a pinpoint of blinding, agonising light, and then it imploded into her, knocking the breath from her lungs and filling her with its perverse strength.

She was angry, angrier than she had ever been; and she was powerful too. She felt it welling up inside her, expanding exponentially until she felt as if she would burst with it. Was this what it would feel like, at the Dark Lord's side?

A vision of herself, standing at the Dark Lord's side, her soft warm hand clasped between scaly suppurating fingers, cold red eyes burning ice into her soul, branding her, owning her, controlling her, granting her small favours and exacting his reward...

NO!

Her brother, grinning impishly over his shoulder as he runs from her, chasing him into the garden and tackling him, rolling in the sweet-smelling grass, attacking him without mercy until laughter leaves him gasping for breath; her mother, calling to them with music in her voice and later an embrace so soft and welcoming, falling asleep in her arms; and her father, oh, her father, tall and proud and so stern, with fire in his eyes and such strength.

Pettigrew was standing a short distance away, bobbing up and down manically as he watched her battle with the dark power that flooded her veins. "What does it feel like, girl?" he asked excitedly. "Tell me!"

"It feels like nothing you have ever known," she said in a low voice. "And like nothing you ever will!" She took a deep breath and imagined her father's hand over hers, the solid warmth of his body against her back and the comfort his rich baritone gave to her. "Expelliarmus!"

Pettigrew's wand flew from his grasp straight into Persephone's hand and before he had the chance to do anything other than gape at the empty space where it had been, she had shouted out "Petrificus Totalis!"

She had never cast with a wand before. Her father had expressly forbidden that she touch either her mother's wand or his own. Consequently, it was not altogether surprising that the spell fell short of a complete success. Nevertheless, it worked well enough. Pettigrew's legs were completely immobilised and he fell to the ground, scrabbling futilely with his arms and shouting out words that Persephone had only ever heard late at night when the wind blew a certain way, when the Hog's Head tipped out its straggling customers into what remained of the night.

"You horrid little man!" she shouted, righteous anger swelling in her chest once more as she advanced on him. "I'll show you what it's like, shall I? To be powerless and scared? Then we'll see what a pathetic little nobody you really are!"

"Persephone!"

She turned to see her father springing to his feet and coming towards her at a run.

"Daddy! Oh, Daddy!" she sobbed, Pettigrew's wand slipping from her fingers as she crumpled to the ground with relief. Snape took one look at the cowering form of Pettigrew a short distance away and flicked his wand, muttering a curse that bound the man's arms to his sides and sewed together his lips. Taking his daughter in his arms he crushed her to his chest, feeling her heart pounding wildly and her hands scrabbling for purchase on his robes.

"Are you unharmed?" he asked carefully, his voice cracking.

"Yes. No! I - I don't know, he did something to me..."

He drew back, holding her shoulders so that he could look into her eyes. "What did he do to you?"

"He took my blood, for Voldemort, and then, just now, he gave it back to me, mixed in with...with his."

"The Dark Lord's?"

"Yes."

Snape paled visibly. "We have to get you home."

"How, Father? I was going to try and make a Portkey, I've been using magic - please don't be cross - but I don't know if it will work, this is such a strange place!"

"I know, child. Calm yourself. I have been here before, and I have a Portkey. Remus and Tonks are waiting for us."

Snape held his daughter close and thought that he would never be able to let go. She was so small and fragile, how could he ever have thought she was growing up too quickly? She was his little girl, vulnerable and defenceless and he would protect and keep her and never let harm befall her again.

On the other hand, by the time he had arrived she had managed to immobilise Wormtail and take his wand and, unless he was very much mistaken about the look on her face, she had been about to attempt some very dark curses on him. Wormtail was an inadequate little toad, it was true, but for an inexperienced eleven year old girl to best him was an amazing achievement. Perhaps she had grown up even more quickly than he had feared. Perhaps she was his little girl no more.

He hefted her into his arms and she buried her face in his neck, snuffling loudly and wrapping her arms around his neck in a vice-like grip.

"I was so frightened, Daddy!" Ah, it had been a long time since she had called him such. "I want Mummy! Didn't Mummy come too?"

"You mother is at home, with Celsus," he replied. "Don't worry, you shall see her soon."

He carried her over to where Pettigrew lay immobilised, and squatted down, taking rough hold of the other man's collar before activating the Portkey. He felt the familiar tugging in his stomach and they all fell backwards away from the plateau and out of the carpetbag.

Landing on the rocky ground of the headland, Snape cushioned Persephone's fall and released her reluctantly, watching with grim satisfaction as she rolled off him and on to her knees, clutching long blades of grass between her fingers and pulling it up to her nose to inhale its scent.

"I'm free, I'm free!" he heard her whisper, and he knew what she meant. The plateau was a sterile place with neither scent nor breeze, night or day. At least in a prison like Azkaban, one would know that one lived, even if death was preferable.

"It's over now, sweetie!" said Tonks, squatting beside her and placing an arm around her shoulders. "Now come on, over there...Remus and I need to get rid of this awful bag!"

Several containment spells and an Incendio later, all that remained of the carpetbag was a smouldering pile of ashes. Remus gathered these into a hastily transfigured beaker and sealed it tight, and Tonks put it in her deepest pocket and then Disapparated with Pettigrew to the Ministry, while Remus accompanied Snape and Persephone home.

***

The reunion between mother and child was too much for Snape to bear. He delivered Persephone into Ella's arms, his heart twisting with emotion as Ella struggled not to break down into hysteria in front of her traumatised daughter, and then he withdrew to the kitchen where Remus was undergoing a thorough interrogation by Hermione. The woman's talents were, in a sense, wasted in her chosen field of research, he mused. Far better that she should work for the Ministry as Chief Inquisitor.

He raised an enquiring eyebrow at Caius, who was lounging against the worktop nursing a large mug of coffee, and the younger man produced a similarly steaming mug for Snape.

"You alright?" Caius asked quietly. Snape nodded curtly.

"Persephone is home, thank the Fates."

"What did they do to her, Sev?"

At last, Hermione noticed that a far more likely fount of information had entered the room, and she turned from Remus, ready to question him. Raising a warning hand to her, he sighed and frowned.

"It was all Pettigrew. I still don't know who the other two were and I dare say they'll escape scot free...which is galling. But she's been - contaminated. By the Dark Lord's dessicated blood. I need to call Poppy Pomfrey down here to examine her. I can only guess at what's flowing through Persephone's veins at the moment."

He knew how serious her condition could be. He did not need the collective gasps of his friends to confirm it.

***

All Ella could see was Persephone. The cold, aching hollow of her heart had filled with such force that it was painful. She could not breathe and so she could not think; all she knew was that her daughter, her firstborn, had been returned to her against all the odds.

When breath finally found its way back into her burning lungs it was in great rasping sobs, their sound muffled in Persephone's hair as Ella clasped her to her.

Later, when both had recovered enough for Ella to wipe away her daughter's tears through the veil of her own, they curled up together on the sofa and as Ella stroked Persephone's hair, unable to keep from touching her, the girl told of her experiences.

"I remember that place," Ella said softly. "I was taken there twice. It was - terrifying. Empty and cold."

"It looked normal, sort of," Persephone said. "Like the moors. But when I looked closer, it was all blurry round the edges and nothing seemed real. It's like, the grass had a shape, but it didn't feel like it or smell like it. And it made me feel so...lost."

"Like you'd never be happy again?"

"No, not really. I felt too cross to think like that," she replied prosaically. "I just felt like I didn't know if I'd ever get out, and I really wanted to go to Hogwarts. Oh! Has my letter come?"

"Yes, love, your letter came the day you - on your birthday."

"Oh, good. Anyway, I felt a bit better once I'd started to practise the spells."

"You practised spells? Without a wand?"

"Yeah. I did really well, too! I know there's a law against underage magic, but I didn't think it would matter there."

"No, Seffie, I don't think normal rules apply there," Ella agreed, hugging her and planting a fervent kiss on the top of her head.

They sat in silence for a while, until Persephone lifted her head and said, "Mummy, what was it like for you? How did you get through it, and how did you get out?"

Ella smiled and smoothed Persephone's hair back from her face. "The first time, I had someone else to worry about. I had to be strong for Hermione...although it wasn't easy. We were both injured, you see, and we had to face Voldemort himself."

Persephone shivered and snuggled closer to her mother.

"He was a terrible, terrible man Seffie. No, not even a man. A monster. He showed us...awful things. As for getting out, well... your father saved me."

She remembered, eyes flashing, wand flaring, the fearsome beauty of him, the controlled potency of his rage. How she had clung to him afterwards. How fiercely she had loved him. How fiercely she loved him still.

"Was he really powerful? More powerful than Voldemort?" Persephone asked hopefully.

Ella shook her head slowly. "No, my love. Only Professor Dumbledore was as strong as Voldemort - but he was there too, and Remus and Sirius. And Harry. Without them...well, I don't know what would have happened."

"How did you get away the second time? Did Daddy save you then?"

"No, but he was waiting for me when I came back. I got out the second time because I wore the emerald he gave me and because I loved him, and you, so very much."

"What did he do when you came back? Did he fight a duel?"

"Yes, he did. He caught Rita Skeeter and made sure she went to prison."

"Oh." Silence. And then, "Daddy, Remus and Tonks destroyed the bag today. Why didn't Daddy destroy it back then? Then all of this wouldn't have happened, would it?"

Her voice held a note of reproach and Ella could tell that she was close to tears.

"Oh, sweetie! We can't always get things right, and that time, the bag just disappeared! There was nothing your father or anyone else could do to stop it! When the Ministry of Magic eventually found it, they thought they could keep it safe. They're the ones that should have destroyed it."

"I know," Persephone said in a small voice, "I suppose it's just that...well, when I was a little girl," - Ella's heart swelled with love and she fought to suppress a smile - "I used to think that Daddy could save me from manticores and dragons and lethifolds and three headed dogs and everything. And he can't, can he?"

The half-smile froze on Ella's face and she stared unseeing into the fire.

***

Persephone opened the door to her bedroom and stood with her hand on the doorknob, on the threshold. It looked exactly as it had before, rationally she knew that, and yet it seemed different.

She was different. She had learned that much from Madam Pomfrey's worried conversation with her parents just now. They had all thought she had gone to bed after the examination, but she had lingered at the top of the stairs, leaning over the balustrade so that she could just see a small patch of carpet through the library door and, intermittently, her father's boots as he paced the room. Madam Pomfrey's voice was indistinct and Persephone supposed that she must be at the far side of the room, beside the window. It was far easier for her to distinguish the more familiar tones and cadences of her parents, and so it was their side of the conversation on which she concentrated.

Her father was furious, his anger icy cold and calm. That was always bad. Her mother's voice, on the other hand, was deceptively reasonable, as if she was trying to convince herself that everything was fine. Persephone knew that tone well, for it was the one she had used to calm her husband when his brother, Persephone's Uncle Caius, had gone missing in the Himalayas.

That they were talking about her did not surprise her in the least. Madam Pomfrey had just subjected her to a thorough examination, taking samples of her blood and mixing them with a series of potions procured from her father's laboratory and tutting over the strange colours and noxious fumes they produced.

Afterwards, they had turned to Persephone with strained smiles, telling her that it was all finished and that she should go to bed now, for she must be exhausted. Persephone had raised her eyebrows and asked her mother whether she would accompany her, just for a little while...but Ella had simply embraced her a little too tightly and told her that she would follow her shortly. Her father had looked solemn, taking her shoulders in his hands and pressing his lips to her forehead, while Madam Pomfrey had turned away, fussing over the various vials that now cluttered the desk.

And so she had climbed the stairs thoughtfully, reaching the top and loath to go any further without listening out for what they might say. She almost wished she hadn't, now. She would almost rather not know about the maleficent cells that churned relentlessly in her blood as it coursed through her body. That they had no idea what could be done to rid her of Voldemort's poison was mystifying, for she had always thought her parents, in particular her father, to be capable of putting right any wrong that ever befell her.

On the other hand, the tingling in her fingertips and the raw surges of power that crackled though her from time to time were intriguing and filled her with a delicious frisson of excitement. If she had to live with a monster's blood in her, then maybe she could make the most of it and even capitalise on it. Her eyes narrowed as she looked across at the large cupboard in the corner of her room, where her little brother, her test subject, often hid. It might not be so bad.

She stifled a yawn and let her hand fall to her side as she walked slowly across to her bed, allowing the door to swing shut behind her. The counterpane looked warm and inviting and she threw herself forwards on to it, feeling the ribbed chenille rub against her cheek, releasing the light floral scent with which her mother imbued all of their bed linen.

Home. The scent and texture of home. She wriggled over on to her back and stared up at the ceiling rose, counting the flowers that surrounded the pendant light. There were still thirty two. Thus comforted, she let her eyes drift shut, and when Ella stole in several minutes later, she was fast asleep.