Youngblood: Retrieval {Year 5, Book 3}

= Chapter 22 =

"...Where'd you go?" Aspen whispered under her breath, squatting down to the ground to identify a muddy footprint.

Her eyes darted around cautiously as she spotted a trail of the prints. Biting her lip, she followed the prints to a figure lurking in the shadows . From the corner of her eye, she squinted, turning around to face the unknown, but when she held her wand closer, it was identified as a cloak hanging on one of the shelfs.

"Hello, daughter." She heard a voice behind her.

"...Father?"

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"Stupify!" Lillian shouted at the closest Death Eater, wishing Aspen was here to face this nightmare with her.

"Lillian! Behind you!" Hermione shouted as Lillian whirled around, a second too slow.

"Flipendo!" Dove came crashing in and blocked the charm, leaving Lillian and Hermione in awe. "Where's the rest?"

"We split up." Lillian sighed.

"How'd you get here?" Hermione asked.

"Aspen isn't the only one who knows how to ride a hippogriff." Dove smirked before racing off with the group of girls.

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"You... you're working with him?" Aspen stammered, her eyes shot with fear and shock.

"Surprise!" Her father chuckled darkly.

"Phantasma!" She shouted as a flash of white blinded him for a second so she could bring her wand to his neck threateningly. "...How could you!? You know who killed my mother, don't you?"

"Why don't you lower that, dear, and we can talk." His gaze darted from her face, to the wand held at his neck.

"Why don't you talk and I won't blast your head off." She shot back, exposing her bravest expression.

"You wouldn't do that to your old man, now would you?" He asked in his sweetest voice.

He was her father... did she really need to threaten him. She lowered her wand, not taking her eyes off him for a second. 

"You naive girl." He smirked, raising his wand to her neck.

With the tip of the coarse, wood wand to her neck, he forced her to back up until she hit the shelf behind her with her back. He stood much taller than her, smiling grimly.

"You really want to know about your dim-witted mother, now do you?" He asked.

"Don't you dare say that about her!" She tried to struggle, but her father held her wrist tightly.

"I don't think you're in the right place to make threats right now." His smile faded as he released her but grabbed her wand, turning from her.

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"Crucio!" They yelled, her mother's screams filled the air.

"She's useless. She won't talk." One Death Eater said.

"Then you know what the Dark Lord would want us to do." The other said, though Aspen could've sworn he looked up at her on the stairs.

"Avada Kedavra!"

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The memories flooded back to her as she stared at her father, who had turned his back to her. She gasped and her eyes began to stream with tears.

"It was you... wasn't it... You killed my mother!" Her voice was stained with anger and rage as she glared at her wand in his grasp.

"It was my mission from the Dark Lord, to prove my loyalty to him. I was supposed to rid my soul of everything I loved. I was... I was supposed to kill you as well." He looked back at her with tears in his eyes, but she felt no pity.

"Then why didn't you?" Aspen asked, surprised that her voice hadn't given out.

"Because you're my daughter, Aspen, you're my blood. So I made a deal with the Dark Lord." His glare hardened as she grimaced.

"What kind of deal?" She said in between gritted teeth.

"The kind of deal that promised you'd become a Death Eater once you'd turned the proper age." He glanced at her and grinned.

"I would never join him! He killed my mother!"

"You don't have a choice now." He lunged and grasped her wrist as she yelped, trying desperately to struggle.

"No! No! Ah!" She screamed, fidgeting around madly as tears continued to fall down her face.

"Stop it!" He demanded, but she wouldn't. "Trust me, this will hurt me more than it hurts you."

He held her wand to her wrist, expecting the dark mark to embed itself in her arm. Only when it didn't he tried again, almost digging the wand into her wrist.

"Why isn't it working!?" He shouted in frustration as Aspen smirked.

"Because that isn't really a wand." She looked up at him cleverly as he stared down at her in confusion. "But this is."

She took her real wand out of her pocket and jabbed him in the eye with the tip, causing his eye to spring from the socket and her father to fall back in pain, releasing her.

"A hallucination!" He shouted, grabbing his wand from his pocket and pointing it back at her.

She began to run, stoked at what she'd just learned and what just happened. All of a sudden, an ear-splitting noise was heard behind her, a searing pain on her back, and then darkness.