Mortem . Sirius Black

chapter sixty-seven

September 13th - Undisclosed Location 

Nephera was thirsty, and hungry, and tired. But it didn't matter, because whatever she was feeling, she couldn't show it. She had to appear impassive, strong, as though she didn't care. She couldn't let them know they had gotten to her. 

It certainly wasn't healthy, not allowing herself to cry, not allowing herself to acknowledge the situation, but did she really have a choice? No, she didn't. 

The Slytherin was slowly and steadily losing her fight, and she didn't know how much longer she could hold out. 

Fernir burst into the room, grabbing her arm and dragging her up. The open wounds in her back, inflicted by Bellatrix a few minutes ago, strained, and more blood trickled out of it, but she didn't say anything in response. 

Walking into the room where the Death Eaters had their meetings, she saw Voldemort sitting at the head of the table surrounded by seven masked figures. 

And a woman and a child on the floor, trembling. 

She blocked out the screams, as usual. 

She blocked out the pleads, as usual. 

She blocked out the image of the woman shaking under the cruciatus curse, as usual. 

She blocked out the child's crying, as usual. 

She blocked out Voldemort when he tried to get into her head, thinking that he had eventually managed to weaken her Occlumency, as usual. 

She blocked out the green light, and the sound of the bodies falling on the floor, as usual. 

She had the same, dull, void expression on her face throughout the meeting. No one would be coming to help her, because no one knew she was missing. 

She was alone, and she'd die there too. 

The thought wasn't as scary as it should've been. 

Over at Hogwarts, Nephera's friends had come up with a plan: act normal, try and figure out what's wrong. 

The marauders had done a number on the Slytherins, although the boys clad in green swore they knew nothing about what was wrong. That fact didn't matter, especially not to Sirius, who had decided to take out his own guilt and frustrations on Lestrange's face. 

They had obliviated them afterward, for they knew that if word got to Voldemort that they were suspecting something was wrong, Nephera would probably be killed during the next Hogsmead trip. 

But there was one problem: they hadn't yet gotten to the bottom of it. And so, they slept in their beds each night, knowing that even though something was wrong with Nephera, at least she was safe at Hogwarts. 

Of course, there were some issues with the theory they had, which was that the girl was under the imperius curse. 

First of all, it didn't explain the memory loss. They had to consistently remind her of things that she already knew, such as the existence of the one-eyed witch passage. 

Secondly, it didn't explain the fact that they could never find her on the map. It was as though she had taken her name off of it. Of course, they didn't want to risk her telling anyone about the existence of the map, so they could only check it when she was walking away from them. But even then, they couldn't find her name on it. 

Thirdly, it didn't explain the fact that she never used magic anymore. They hadn't seen her do so much as levitate a quill, wandless or with her wand.