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Message in a Bottle	By : sarcastrow Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 1304 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Message in a Bottle

Chapter 6

B.L. H.G. 03/23/98

“Are you sure?”

Hugo was uncharacteristically shaking a little as he held the vial. “Y… Yes, yes, I am.”

“I won’t be joining you. I promised Dad, and I will keep that promise.”

“No problem, Scor. I’ll keep what I see to myself.” He looked contemplatively at the white mist in the vial. “Did he ever talk about it?”

“Only once… when we were very, very drunk. He actually cried.” Scorpius shook his head and a tear ran down his cheek. “He was sorry, Hugo, more sorry for that than… well, you’ll see.”

“What did he say?”

“That his Aunt was crazy, crazy in a lot of sick fucking ways. That she made him do things that he would never have dreamed of doing if she hadn’t made him.” Tears were running fast down Scorpius’ face now. “You’ve seen what she was.”

“Yeah, I guess I have.” Hugo said as he held the vial over the pensieve. “Okay,” he looked at Scorpius as he poured the memory into the basin. “I love you,” he said and plunged his head into the pensieve.

“Except… Except for the Mudblood.”

Bellatrix was standing next to a group of people bound together by thick ropes. She was dressed in her Death Eater robes and she had that crazed look in her eyes. Her hair was an unruly mess of black curls, and her voice was thick with hate. They were all standing in the great room just down the hall from where he currently was in Scorpius’ study.

“No!” a man shouted, “You can have me, keep me!” Hugo looked back at the prisoners and immediately recognized his father, mother, Uncle Harry, and their friend Dean Thomas. His heart swelled with pride as his father struggled to get free of the ropes. It was no use. His mother was right, they were so young.

Bellatrix was speaking again. “If she dies under questioning, I’ll take you next. Blood traitor is next to Mudblood in my book.” She gave orders for the rest of the prisoners to be taken to the basement as she cut his mother free of the ropes. The evil woman dragged his mother across the floor by her hair to the center of the room while his father and uncle were pulled, struggling, to the hallway door. His father was looking at his mother with an expression of abject terror as he was forced from the room.

“Now, Miss Mudblood,” Bellatrix was speaking again, and Hugo had to turn and focus on her. He was beginning to regret this. “Crucio! ” His mother screamed. Hugo leapt at Bellatrix and passed completely through her. He turned, and for the first time noticed the other people in the room. Scorpius’ father, grandmother, and grandfather were standing in a huddle near the door to the kitchen. The werewolf, Greyback, skulked in a corner. Draco did not look well. It was obviously several months since the episode with Luna and Pansy. He actually looked sick: his skin had an almost yellow cast, his cheeks were hollow, and he was also trembling. Draco’s father was looking on in what was obviously an alcoholic haze, and Narcissa was glaring daggers at her sister.

A voice floated up from the basement, “Hermione!” No one in the room seemed to have heard it.

When Bellatrix released the curse, Hugo’s mother sunk to the floor, weeping. “I don’t like torturing people,” Bellatrix lied silkily. “They just expect it,” she said, indicating the watching Malfoys.

“Hermione!” Hugo’s father was still shouting.

“Now, where did you get this sword?”

Hugo was staring at his mother. She was so thin, so pale. She spat a bit of foamy blood from her mouth and tried to answer. “I… we…”

“Crucio!” shouted Bellatrix.

His mother was screaming again, and so was his father, and so was he. “STOP! STOP! STOP!” Hugo shouted over and over, but he couldn’t make it stop. It had all happened forty years earlier, and all he could do was watch and weep.

“I’m going to ask you again! Where did you get this sword? Where?” Bellatrix shouted. She pulled Hugo’s mother upright by her hair and pressed her wand to his mother’s throat.

“We found it—we found it—PLEASE!”

Bellatrix bent down and whispered in his mother’s ear. “Liar.” Then the evil woman shoved her wand against that same ear. “Crucio!”

It was horrible. He could do nothing but watch as his mother experienced the agony of the curse. “You’re lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at Gringotts! Tell the truth, tell the truth!” Bellatrix placed her wand tip against his mother’s sex. “Crucio!”

It was the worst scream yet. When Bellatrix release the curse his mother fell to the floor, barely conscious. Hugo looked up at the Malfoy family. Draco’s father was looking on with the same expression one would have watching a particularly engaging sporting event. Draco… Draco had tears, unshed tears in his eyes, and Mrs. Malfoy was looking anywhere but at his mother. He turned back to the two on the floor.

“What else did you take?” Bellatrix shouted as she pulled a small silver dagger from her robes. “What else have you got? Tell me the truth or I swear I shall run you through with this knife!” Bellatrix pulled up his mother’s shirt and ran the flat side of the blade across her stomach. “Shall I open you?” she asked in a whisper, “Take out your womb so you’ll never bear the blood traitor a child?” She pressed the point against his mother’s abdomen and she howled again in fear.

“Tell her!” Hugo shouted.

Bellatrix stood and pointed her wand at his mother’s head. “What else did you take, what else? ANSWER ME! CRUCIO!”

Hugo thought his head would burst from the scream. “Stop, no, please stop,” he sobbed. He could hear his father yelling her name over and over in the basement. “Please, Dad, please get here soon,” he sobbed again.

“Crucio!” It was happening again. Hugo knew now, he knew why his parents got that look, he knew why they wouldn’t, couldn’t tell. In the memory he fell to his knees. “Please, Dad, please,” he wept.

Bellatrix bent and pulled his mother up by her hair again. “How did you get into my vault? Did that dirty little goblin in the cellar help you?” she asked.

“We only met him tonight! We’ve never been inside your vault. . . . It isn’t the real sword! It’s a copy, just a copy!” his mother sobbed hysterically. He was amazed at her ability to lie so convincingly in the midst of the torture, a Gryffindor to her very soul. He felt the stirrings of pride in her starting to overcome his horror and distress.

“A copy?” Bellatrix yelled and threw her to the floor. “Oh, a likely story!”

“But we can find out easily!” Mr. Malfoy said in a drunken slur. He turned to his son. “Draco, fetch the goblin, he can tell us whether the sword is real or not!”

Draco practically ran from the room. Narcissa crossed to Hugo’s mother and knelt beside her. “She’s still alive, Bella. Perhaps we should leave her that way until The Dark Lord arrives.”

“She’s mine, my toy,” Bellatrix said with an insane grin, “I’ll kill her when I like.”

Just then Draco appeared in the doorway with the goblin. He walked the goblin to Bellatrix, and held it while his aunt interrogated it. When she finished she turned back to his mother. “Crucio!”

NOOOO! Not again! Hugo thought. Dad, where are you?

A loud crack of apparition sounded in the basement. Hugo heaved a sigh of relief. It was nearly over. That’s Madam Scamander, Mr. Ollivander and Mr. Thomas escaping. Come on, Dad. Come on.

Lucius Malfoy looked up from Hugo’s mother into his wife’s eyes. “What was that?” He slurred loudly. “Did you hear that? What was that noise in the cellar?” He turned to his son. “Draco—no, call Wormtail! Make him go and check!” Draco left the room for no more than a few seconds, then returned.

“He’s checking on them now,” he said in a flat, soft voice.

Everyone in the room was silent, listening for anything more from the basement. The only sound in the room was a soft moaning from the crumpled shape on the floor. He heard Wormtail command the occupants of the cellar to stand away from the door, and then the soft sounds of the life and death struggle Hugo knew was taking place a few feet below them.

Lucius Malfoy looked a little troubled. “What is it, Wormtail?” he asked loudly to the floor.

“Nothing, all fine,” a raspy voice yelled back. Hugo stopped crying. Come on, Dad. Hurry up.

Bellatrix turned back to the goblin and Hugo’s mother. She asked the goblin if it was the true sword in her hand, and the goblin, Griphook, lied for them. His reward was a slash across the face.

Bellatrix turned to the werewolf skulking by the door, the same one who had made Headmistress Brown what she was. “And I think we can dispose of the Mudblood. Greyback, take her if you want her.”

And then at last his father and uncle were there.

“NOOOOOO!” his father shouted as he charged into the room.

This part had been written about by a hundred authors chronicling the war. They got it mostly right. His father relieved Bellatrix of her wand, his uncle stupefied Lucius Malfoy, and then Bellatrix had the knife to his mother’s throat, giving her the scar she still carried. Draco collected the wands from Hugo’s father and uncle, and now Bellatrix was gloating, telling them that Riddle was on his way. The chandelier fell and it was pandemonium again. His father ran directly to his mother and pulled her from the wreckage of the chandelier, while his uncle punched Draco in the face and easily took the wands plus Draco’s own from him.

Then a curious thing happened that no one had written about. “Get out of here,” Draco whispered. “Come on, Weasel, Potter. Get her out of here now!”

The free elf, Dobby, arrived and magic-ed Narcissa’s wand from her. His uncle threw a wand to his father, and his father and mother vanished. His uncle grabbed the goblin and the elf, and then he too Apparated away, but not before Bellatrix threw the knife that ended the hero Dobby’s life.

No one had written much of what happened next at the manor. Most of the stories followed his mother, father, and uncle to his Uncle Bill’s house on the north coast of the Firth of Forth. Hugo now saw what Draco did after the fight in the drawing room.

Draco wrenched his hand from his mother’s and dashed from the room. He pounded up the stairs to his own room and flung the door open. Pansy was cowering on the bed with the covers drawn up around her.

“What the fuck was going on down there, Draco? Who was screaming?”

“Granger. Aunt Bella was torturing her. She, the Weasel, and Potter just escaped, now it’s our turn. You’ve got a wand, and the Dark Lord is on his way right now. We need to get the fuck out of here.” He was shaking with fear. “He’s probably going to kill everyone here when he finds out. Come on.” He wrenched her out of the bed none too gently.

“Where will we go, Draco?”

“Hogwarts. Snape, Snape will take us in, protect us… I hope. Apparate us to Hogsmeade.”

Pansy paused in mid spin. “What about Luna?”

“She’s a survivor, Pan. She’ll be all right, just get us out of here, NOW!”

He grabbed Pansy’s hand and they Apparated away.

Hugo fell back on his arse in the study, took one deep breath, and collapsed into hysterical, heaving sobs. Scorpius picked him up by the shoulders and helped him to a chair, while Pansy sat on the desk watching. Beside her was a tray with a glass of milk and some chocolate pieces in a small bowl. Scorpius rubbed Hugo’s back and spoke quietly to him, telling him it was long ago, that they had survived and thrived, and that he loved him. Pansy waited for Hugo’s anguish to subside before she spoke.

“Now that you know,” she said when Hugo’s sobs had stopped, “Was it worth it?”

Hugo looked up at her from his chair. “I don’t know, I think so.”

He was in danger of slipping back into uncontrollable weeping. Pansy could tell, she knew from personal experience. She lifted the bowl and glass from the tray and carried them to Hugo. “Chocolate, Hugo.” She jiggled the bowl. “Here, eat some, it really does work.”

He took a piece and nibbled.

“Why? Why?” Pansy asked. “I still don’t understand why you needed to see that.”

He sighed heavily. “Scorpius could tell you. I have a need. I have this need to know. I can’t just accept things as is.” He waved his hand in a small circle. “‘That’s just the way it is,’ or some such. Or, ‘You’ll have to accept it.’ I DON’T!” he said forcefully. “It’s what makes me so good at my job. I just have to know.”

Scorpius sat on the arm of Hugo’s chair and kissed the top of his head. “That’s my Ravenclaw. He just can’t take ‘Fuck off’ for an answer.”

Pansy smirked and Hugo let out a strained chuckle. “One thing I know,” he said, “It just made me love Mum and Dad even more.” He shook his head from side to side. They suffered so much for us… for all of us.” He looked at Pansy. “You’ve seen the scars on Dad’s arms?”

She nodded. “Yes, and I know how he got them. He still has the nightmares?”

“Not anymore. Mum does, though.” He looked at Pansy sadly. “She suffered so much, so young. This, the curse at the ministry battle, petrified, attac…” he stopped dead, his mouth hanging open. He stared into nothingness for a full minute.

“Uh-oh,” Scorpius said, “I’ve seen that one before.” He smirked knowingly at Pansy. “He just had a brain wave.”

Hugo whispered, “I think I know how it was done. “ He looked at Scorpius. “I need to talk to Madam Scamander.”
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Message in a Bottle