Book 1: Of Thorns & Roses

26: To Hell & Back

"We must strike soon my lord," said a squealing voice, one that seemed to be laced with nothing but the dark visceral of evil.

Their shadows roamed the dead earth beneath my feet as the reality I was in seconds before had melted away like a helpless curtain.

A deep laugh came from one of the shadows, "My dear Bellatrix, you must learn to be patient... If we strike before the boy has completed his chore, it will have all been for nothing."

The ring that Draco had given me hummed softly against my finger as it pierced my skin like a shock of electricity. A gasp escaped my quivering lips.

They were gathered in a darkened room that had sprawling tendrils of portraits lining the black painted walls. My eyes ran over the vast expanse of paintings in the hopes that I would uncover where I was.

Those eyes. They looked real even in the shadows of a painting. Surrounding him was his mother and father.

Malfoy Manor.

A wicked cackle from Bellatrix eased me back into the scene before me.

"I heard that your boy has a certain golden haired witch at his side, and a filthy Hufflepuff at that." Lestrange then pretended to gag as the words left her mouth, which were directed at a shadowy figure who hovered beyond the moonlight that lit the area.

His voice boomed throughout the expansive space, "There is a purpose for that pairing," a sigh escaped Lucius Malfoy's thinned lips as he stepped out of the shadows. "She will be of good use in the near future."

A chill ran down my spine and a thin sheet of sweat layered my skin. No.

"Tell your boy that his time is running short," muttered the Dark Lord as he began to pace the perimeter of the room, "or there will be unwelcoming consequences."

Another dramatic, Malfoy sigh, "I understand my lord. I will see to it that the headmaster is dead before the end of the term."

Despite knowing the 'chore' that the group talked of, I couldn't contain the loss of breath that racked my shell of a body. It was all too much.

My mind buzzed at the possibility of Voldemort truly destroying the world for his own twisted agenda.

The Potters. The Longbottoms. Sirius Black. My mother. And countless others would have died in vain if Voldemort asserted the world under his lethal control. I could only imagine the pierce-less veil of darkness that would possess this land and beyond. I imagined the setting you would find in a horror fairytale story.

Bodies lying in the cobblestone streets decomposing with the intense stench of dead flesh and dried blood that turned the streets red. The tendrils of moving black a constant against the gloomy sky where the Death Eaters would claim the heavens that laid just beyond the sky as their own.

The flash of bright green becoming as normal as lightning in a storm. Women, children, and men alike killed, tortured, and beaten at the hands of Voldemort's cronies. Maybe one day I would find myself become a number and a lost soul.

I didn't dare think further of what the world as we know it would turn into.

Then that wretched voice swarmed my thoughts.

This may be your future.

Dread licked my soul and my heart crashed against my withered ribs.

"Do you smell that my lord?" Mumbled an intrigued Bellatrix.

Silence echoed. Torture ripped through my body. Blood spilled in effervescent swallows.

Screams racked my body in an alarming threshold between reality and another realm. I could hear my name screamed from one side of a far away reality and giggles of a murderous witch from the current one.

"Fancy seeing you here little Hufflepuff," screeched Bellatrix.

Before I could muster the strength to manage a retort, a blindingly excruciating pain whipped through my body. Ripples of cracking and breaking reverberated across me, obliterating my sense of reality. My mouth hung open in silent screams of pain and disillusion.

It felt as if my blood had boiled within my veins and knives punctured every area of my body. Each breath felt like acid that then seeped into my bones and broke them over and over again.

I knew this feeling. This spell. Flashes of my mother's bloodied body played in my head. 

Grier!

It felt like my nerve endings were slowly burning to embers with blinding pain. Silent screams racked me with each passing moment.

I felt the invisible hold of the Cruciatus Curse wrapping around my body like a cloak of barbed wire.

Grier!

"How sneaky of you to interrupt our meeting, girl." His voice slithered down my body and echoed throughout my soul. The curse had loosened its hold but still lingered in my organs, my bones, my skin.

His shadowy figure approached my limp body.

This was no longer a dream.

Blood slid from my nose and mouth, leaving a metallic essence through every sensation. His cold finger traced my hollow face. I fought every instinct to recoil at his touch, his glance, his next words.

"You will be mine."

****************

"Grier!" His soothing voice pierced through the muddled vail that distinguished between dream and reality.

An inhuman noise escaped my blood crusted lips.

Blood.

It had happened. All of it. Bellatrix had defiled my soul with that curse. Voldemort had touched my shivering body.

"Grier, please tell me you're okay?" His shaking voice lessened my reeling thoughts, but confusion and raw pain still pulsed through them.

"Voldemort..." my hoarse voice muttered the single name as gasps sounded in the hospital wing, which became more clear with each passing breath. This was reality.

"Was it another dream?" Urged Hermione's worried tone.

My eyes wandered the crowd around my bed. Draco. Ron. Harry. Hermione. Dumbledore. Snape. Hagrid. McGonagall. Madame Pomfrey.

"They did this," I mumbled as my quivering lips understood the validity of what had just happened. "Bellatrix, she casted the curse. V-Voldemort touched me. Malfoy Manor." I stumbled over the words that tumbled out of my mouth in shock.

"What?" Said a horrified Draco as his eyes did another once over my body.

"My dreams are injecting me into reality."

There was no explaining the horror on their faces.