𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐃𝐀𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐄𝐑 ~ (𝐣.𝐩)

xli

IT was hard to decipher the boys features in the dark light. He was slowly getting to his knees from the curled up position he was in. Cat took a moment to look around at the dungeon. Rock walls, rock floors, steel bars. She checked her pockets for her wand. Gone. The men that drug her down here must've disposed of it, maybe cracked it.

Cat heard a grungy sound from the boys cage, like he was trying to get her attention. With her eyes adjusted, Cat could make out some features of the boy. Dark hair, Hogwarts robes, dark circles under his eyes. One eye was puffier than the other, like he had been punched. "What are you....doing....down here?" he tried again, voice raspy from lack of speaking.

"I got caught spying for the order," Cat told him. She seemed it was unnecessary to hold back the secret of the order if she was stuck down here. "What about you?"

"I..tried to stop Voldemort from rising to power." The more the boy talked, the more clear his voice had gotten. The more Cat felt like she knew him.

The boy shifted in his cell. The dim light outside perfectly hit the Hogwarts symbol on his robes; Slytherin. "Are you sure? You're a Slytherin. How do I know you're not here to get more information out of me."

The boy thought for a moment. "Do you really think they'd lock me down here, starve me, then even let you step foot near him to get information?" There was a pause. "Don't answer that, of course they would. Do you really think I'd go along with that? I've been here for weeks, away from my friends. I was trying to impress my brother by destroying the dark side only to get thrown into a dingy cell next to someone who thinks I'm here by choice." The boy was short tempered, probably from being here for weeks. But that long speech mixed with his description led Cat to know just who he was.

"Regulus?" The boy didn't say anything. "Regulus Black, right?"

"How do you know? Who are you?"

"Catriona. Friends with Sirius. You were really trying to help the order?"

"Same as you," Regulus told her.

"We're getting out of here."

❏❏❏

OCTOBER 30th 1978

There was no sunshine to tell Cat the time of day, but she was woken by the sound of the cell door opening. When she opened her eyes, there were three figures standing in front of the open gate. I could run. Their wands were pointed at Cat. "Why are you here?" One asked.

"You put me here," she responded. It wasn't smart, to say the least. But Cat was exhausted and annoyed.

Two of the wizards looked at each other before all three started blasting unknown spells at Cat. Not too long after, she lost consciousness.

❏❏❏

NOVEMBER 1st 1978

Cat didn't know how long she was out. The only thing that told her it was long was the loud grumbling of her stomach. There was a bowl of an unknown substance that Cat immediately ate, wether or not it was food.

There was a scraping on the ground. Cat jerked her head towards the' cell next to her. Regulus was pushing his bowl of food towards Cat. "What are you doing?" she asked. "That's yours, you need it."

"You need it more. You've been out for about two days with no food. I can practically hear your stomach." He was right, she was famished and her stomach showed it. "And anyways, if either of us is getting out, it's you."

"Why would it be me? You will get out too."

"I've been here for quite awhile with no one coming to help. If they haven't come yet, they aren't coming at all. You, on the other hand, have loved ones. James, for example, is probably pacing the floor wondering where you are."

Sadly, he was right. The whole time she was there, Cat couldn't stop thinking about James and what he might be doing right now.

❏❏❏

NOVEMBER ??, 1978

An unknown amount of days had passed. Regulus has only been eating twice every three times food came. The only reason he had eaten was Cat practically forced him to. It was quite obvious he had given up, but Cat hadn't. "You never told me what you were doing to stop Voldemort," Cat pointed out one day (night? morning? afternoon?). She was laying on the ground with her head by the gate separating her and Regulus' cages.

Regulus was sitting against the bars, looking up at the rock ceiling. "Destroying Horcruxes," he said.

"Horcruxes?" Cat asked. She sat up to face him while he explained.

"When Voldemort rose to power, he separated his soul into six special items. Rumor was he was about to find a seventh thing. If he did, he would've been practically immortal. I found out what they all were, and destroyed them."

"If you destroyed them," Cat said, "shouldn't he be dead by now?"

"Well, most of them. I could never get close enough to that bloody snake of his. That's the last one. After killing the snake, a simple killing curse will rid this world of his power."

They stay in silence for a little while. Cat broke it by saying, "When we get out of here." Regulus made a dismissive noise. "When we get out of here, we will kill that snake and then him. We'll be the saviors of the wizarding world."

It was nice to dream big.

❏❏❏

??? ??, 1978

Was it November still? December maybe? Had the new year begun? Neither Cat nor Regulus knew. They were both growing weaker. The three wizards from October had been back a numerous amount of times, casting numerous amount of painful curses at Cat, Regulus was never touched.

Cat regained consciousness for a second when the three walked in. This time, she caught a glimpse of one of their faces. Peter.

❏❏❏

??? ??, ????

Cat lost count of when it was. She didn't know if she was here for days, weeks, months, or even years. The torturing wizards, including Peter, left merely hours ago. They were bound to come back soon.

Cat couldn't take much more of this torture, mentally and physically. She was fighting it and fighting it wasn't going to last very much longer. She was ready. Well, she wasn't ready. No one was really ready to die, not really. People come to terms with death. And that's what she did. Cat was going to die in this rock cell, next to one of her best friends brothers. Killed by one of her ex-best friends. She was some-what ready.

When the cell door swung open right on time, Cat didn't bother getting up or facing death head-on. Instead, she laid on the ground, staring at the ceiling. Regulus was unconscious, had been for days. Not dead, just knocked out. She was dying alone. Finally, after an unknown amount of days, she let herself cry. The tears rolled out of the corner of her eyes, soaking into the cold, stone ground.

The three footsteps sounded more like one today, but she couldn't be sure. "Cat?" James.

❏❏❏

[AHHHHHHHHHH. i'll admit i did cry writing those last two paragraphs lmao. oh...btw....two chapters left :(]