dursley [h. g.]

••dursley•• || patience

tw: brief  but detailed descriptions of torture

Kendra was not alone with her thoughts for long before a stout blonde, and altogether far too snotty man appeared at the cellar door. His silver hand glinted at his side in the light of the stairway.

"Stay back," he ordered, though Kendra recognized the voice as the one from earlier, the one who had sounded so incredibly desperate for Voldemort's approval. He still sounded as though he had too much phlegm in his throat, but Kendra didn't let this stop her from taking a step back all the same. With a wave of his wand, the door swung open. "Follow me."

Kendra obeyed. Though she wasn't exactly the most enthusiastic follower of authority anymore, she knew when she could and couldn't break the rules. This man, though she probably could have tackled him without magic (and he might have let her), was still working for Voldemort, who wouldn't hesitate to kill her. So she followed the man, who lead her straight into the drawing-room, where it seemed Voldemort always was when he was in Malfoy Manor.

"Bellatrix is rather unhappy with you," he stated as she entered the room. "I do believe she begged me to let her kill you slowly and painfully."

"You won't," Kendra leveled. "Not yet, at least, I don't expect you to hold that promise forever. You don't seem like the type."

He stared at her, a non-existent eyebrow raising slightly. "And why exactly is that? There is nothing about you that deserves to be kept at my mercy. Without that little helper of yours, you are nothing but a mudblood."

Kendra's fist clenched beneath the table at the mention of the word. The words scarred into her arms seemed to burn at the forefront of her mind, the echo of pain from when they had first been carved into her skin gasoline to the flame. But Kendra, whatever she was, was at the very least smart. She knew Voldemort was looking for a rise out of her, and she knew how to play the game he was playing. It was chess, but the pieces were people and the consequence for falling into a gambit was death rather than the wrong end of a firm handshake. "Oh, I know," she said pleasantly, smiling. "Still, I'm a mudblood that you would very much like to have on your side, don't you think?"

He was silent for a moment, watching her and contemplating his next move, which piece he was going to pick up, to defend or to attack, to retreat or to advance. "And what would you offer me alive, rather than dead?" he finally said. "Not loyalty, surely. Deny it all you want, but you would never kill Harry Potter if I asked you to."

"You would never ask, though," Kendra replied. It was not bravery but cowardice that inspired her argument. Submission meant death, and Kendra, though she had always been hyper-aware of it steadily closing in on her, was afraid of dying. 

"What did the wandmaker tell you, when you paid him a visit?" Voldemort asked, smoothly changing topics. Despite his gruesome looks, Kendra could tell how well-practiced in the arts of charisma and manipulation he was. 

"Lie," Morgana instructed suddenly. "Tell him Ollivander talked about twin cores of wands."

"He spoke about wands with twin cores," Kendra replied, as nonchalantly as she could. Inside, anxiety was stewing in her stomach, threatening to overflow. "They always repel each other, did you know that--"

Lord Voldemort didn't even have to say the word to send an all too familiar jet of red light towards Kendra, knocking her cleanly to the ground. Suddenly, the air was fire and she was choking on each breath, each one she gasped for setting her throat alight. Her guts twisted in an all too familiar pain, as though her organs were burrowing through her skin with claws in an attempt to escape her flesh prison. Every pain she had ever felt, all of it at the fullest intensity she had ever experienced, all of it at once.