Three Hallows, Two Weasleys and One Broken Girl

Chapter 38: Smell the Roses

I'm amused by all the comments on rescues the last chapter elicited. It will take a lot more than some maiming and a handful of locked doors to turn Delphi Lovegood into a helpless damsel.

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The blood on her cheek was dry.
It must have cooled as it did but it still felt more like a brand, melting her skin too thin and weak to contain all she felt and knew.

There was a black hole within her where her heart had been, and it was all consuming.
Her love, her forgiveness, her understanding, her patience.
She was not sure how much of her was left for anyone else to take.

She listened carefully to the echoing stone as Narcissa walked away having vowed to protect Harry Potter should she ever find herself in a position to do so, in exchange for confirmation that Draco Malfoy would survive the coming conflict.
The woman didn't seem to understand that Luna dying wasn't the point. Delphi knew she lived, she's seen her sister standing proud years from now and although small shifts have taken place, nothing as substantial as premature deaths to knock her confidence in her visions of the future.

Delphi has just lost the last of her faith in human kind. And she is furious.
The black hole is her and she will bring all she can in this forsaken place to nothingness.
Sight or no.

Over the few days since the event she's been left alone. Acted like Tom's trick broke her mind, easy enough since she isn't quite sure he didn't.
Rock backward and forward, mutter in broken Irish, sing offkey muggle songs occasionally; it was fairly easy and weirdly comforting.

As such her body had healed quite a bit, the guarding outside is half hearted at best and she's had time to get used to blindness. As much as she can at least.

Her hearing has gotten sharper, and she thinks her short term future sight has too, preventing her tripping or walking into walls like she's sure she should be.
They delivered her meal already, and she knows tomorrow Riddle will visit so this is her opportunity.

Ever since she was imprisoned here she's kept her hair in a bun. Partly to keep the lanky blood caked strands out of the way, but primarily because all her hair being yanked feels substantially less painful than a handful of hair, the age old muggle adage of pressure equals force divided by area. More area, less pressure.

But on that day, she had been in the process of rinsing the strands using puddle water before falling asleep, and it had been a thick, bushy, half matted mess when Luna had woken her with lies of escape.
She had never been more grateful than when, during their last embrace, she had felt Luna run her fingers over it, and carefully, cleverly, weave between the knots, her wand.

Though the sisters did not share cores, hers of dragon heart string and Luna's unicorn, they did share wand wood from the same rowan tree, and it was far easier to use than any wand other than her own.
She had a wand, she had her mind more or less, and she had a fury in her that had festered and fermented into something monstrous enough even Tom Riddle might recognise it as kin.

The door was no obstacle with a wand, and she listened to her intuition, fate damn well owed her some help after she quite literally sat through her sister's torture to keep the deity's secrets.
Her gut led her down stone steps instead of up them, and a vision of Bellatrix Lestrange and Rudolphus had her ducking sideways into an alcove whose walls were damp with unknowable substances that made her stomach roil.

There was a shrill moan from 50 feet or so away and a playful growl. Feet, unsteady from exercises Delphi wished she couldn't visualise stumbled loudly in the dungeon level.
"Silly Dolly! Mmn, we have work to be doing!"
"Ooh but Trixie, I can still taste that beautiful iron on my tongue!"
Iron like blood, like ironing board, like a torture impliment unknown? Delphi unwillingly found herself wondering, but Bellatrix only giggled brightly.
"Later pet, our Lord does not like slackers."
The man grunted dismissively as they passed Delphi's hiding spot, and she assumed he'd done something as Bellatrix let out a nauseating squeal.
"Dolly!"
"What did I say about mentioning him at times like this Trixie?"
Delphi heard the eye roll as the couple turned the corner. "Not to refer to anyone else but you by that title!"
She'd deliberately spoken loudly and Delphi could hear Rudolphus trying to silence her in more panicked tones as they moved away, it was time for her to move though.

She nearly tripped over a box on her exit, at a prod of intuition she felt within, finding a cloak made of thick expensive fabric inside. Considering the manor's occupants, it was a safe bet the hooded cloak was black, and even if not, any colour would be stealthier than her white head of hair and she needed warmer clothing.
Who knew how long it would take her to get out of there, and far enough from the house to escape the anti-apparition wards?

She pulled it on, judging from the weave which side was inside and which out. She did not cover her head however, knowing it would muffle sounds too much where every second of warning and every hint of direction and distance counted.

Moving further down the corridor, as quietly as she could, she heard the faint ticking of a clock to her left, and smelt the place Bellatrix and Rudolphus had...enjoyed themselves on her right. She kept moving.
A rat made her panic, but her future sight hadn't warned her so she knew it couldn't be Pettigrew. They passed each other in the dark, wretched creatures both.

Sixty paces in she reached a door that smelt of fresh air, but also of wards. A wall to her left, more passageway to her right. If her absence was discovered she'd risk unlocking that door, but if she could find a way out without alarms, she would take it.

It was warmer here, though she couldn't guess why, the air cleaner in her tired lungs, the walls smoother beneath her finger tips.
The taste of nectar and growing things got stronger, a hint of spice on her tongue and faint rustling that could never be construed as fabric.
Greenhouses.
To her knowledge no Malfoys or Blacks gave two shits for Herbology, or really Potions, but their pride clearly wouldn't allow them to lack such a traditional component of a wizarding household.

She rather wished she'd spent more time interacting with Neville as she entered through a glass door into a humid room whose echoes confirmed its size in comparison to the passage she was leaving behind.
Practical greenhouses always kept the most dangerous plants in the corners, that way if any attempted attack or combined efforts of rebellion, safety could be found in the middle of the room.
This was not good news for Delphi who had no idea of the full lay out of the place, and whose only hope of finding a door into the garden was tracing along a wall.
Just because she was guaranteed to find dangerous plants at the edges, also didn't mean there weren't hazardous ones in the centre. Their reduced mobility meant little when you wandered about hands first.

A couple days spent blind hardly led to a mastery of echolocation, loud repeated noises would probably draw human attention too as what was a giant glass house but a rudimentary echo chamber.

Delphi sat on the floor and felt the ground.
Then thanked the gods for the existence of pretentious gits.
The tiling of the green house was elaborate, but it was clear how it forked into three paths. The centre one would logically be the safest, and if she got to the other side and there wasn't a garden door, she could rethink.

Cue bum shuffling.

The plants were mostly potted and set up on benches from what she could cautiously feel, so sitting on the floor should keep her out of range of any more tactile ones. And feet first meant her head was last to enter any potential danger zones.
Indeed, although she got a couple fronds to the face, and a flower that felt so disturbingly like fingers she nearly screamed, she reached the other side within ten terrifying minutes, physically unharmed.
Flitwick would be so proud of her.
A Gryffindor could never.

And even better, when she scooted forward and reached out with her left hand, (if a hand had to be injured, best not her dominant one), there stood an unwarded door.

Her grin wasn't pretty, it wasn't innocent, or pure, or happy, but it was triumphant.
She rose to her feet, rested her hand on the cool iron of the latch, and purred 'Alohomora!'

And that was when the door at the other end of the green house opened, and a childish voice simpered;
"Oh, there you are!"