Lucky

Bend or Break

Morgana had to go straight from work to a Death Eater meeting. She had been dreading it all day long, and when she met up with Abraxas and saw his pale, grim face, she knew he had been as well. They apparated together to the Shafiq estate, where the others had already begun to gather up. Violeta Avery and Jasper Shafiq glared at them with equal fury, while Ivy tried not to look at them. Rosier leered at Morgana as she walked past, smirking widely.

She and Abraxas took two chairs near the back of the room, but Lestrange looked straight at Morgana and shook his head, gesturing to the seat beside him. Swallowing hard, she glanced apologetically to Abraxas, and took up the seat at the front. "Good evening, Morgana," Lestrange grinned menacingly. She flinched away as he reached out to take hold of her hand, and he tutted. "Now now. Let's see that arm of yours."

He drew back her sleeve and his cruel smile widened as he examined the dark mark blazing into her skin. He met her eyes with a look that made her feel sick. "It suits you."

Morgana tried to suppress a shudder. "It will make things much more difficult. At the Ministry and so on - people will get suspicious. This is proof that I am a Death Eater." She felt even more ill saying the words.

"Precisely," he hissed. "This will make people fear you, Morgana. Yes, you may have to keep your head down at the Ministry for now, but soon that mark will be the sign of the victors. Nothing will stop you displaying it proudly - least of all the Ministry."

Morgana's brain ticked. "You have plans for the Ministry?" She did her best to affect a disinterested tone. It wasn't enough to convince Lestrange.

"Ah, not yet!" He laughed. "You've got to prove yourself a bit more before you can know any of our plans."

          She returned his dangerous smile. "And how do I go about doing that?"

         Lestrange thought for a moment, then clapped his hands together loudly. "How about a duel?" He announced to the room.

       The other Death Eaters yelled and cheered, while Abraxas stared imploringly at Morgana.

        "Rosier, my boy," Lestrange smirked. "Why don't you come up here and face Miss Black. Politely, now. You know the rules."

           Rosier grinned widely, rolling up his sleeves and taking out the wand that didn't belong to him. Beating him wouldn't be difficult, Morgana knew that. But this wasn't a test of skill. This was a test of cruelty. Lestrange wanted to see just how dark she would go.

          They faced each other in the middle of the floor. "You may begin," Lestrange ordered, sitting back in his chair to enjoy the show.

       Morgana debated bowing, doing her paces, like how she'd been taught to duel, but that felt a little foolish here. Rosier answered her question with a sudden swish of his wand. A jolt of white light hit her like a punch to the jaw, and she staggered back, tasting blood in her mouth. Ok. They were playing dirty. Morgana took a deep breath and buried her morals as well as she could. Lestrange wanted proof? She'd give him proof. She'd be as dark as he wanted. Dark as her name.

        "Confringo!" She yelled with a jab of her wand. Rosier only barely avoided the explosion. "Locomotor mortis!" In his distraction, she hit Rosier squarely with the leg-locker curse, and he keeled over onto the floor.

        "Little bitch," he hissed under his breath as he grabbed for his wand. "Finite." He staggered back up, but Morgana hit him with a knee-reversal hex and he stumbled again.

"Impedimenta!" Rosier cried, slowing her down while he broke the hex. "Levicorpus!"

Morgana let out a scream as she was hoisted into the air by her ankle, clutching her wand tightly. Rosier was hitting her with stinging hexes and disorientation jinxes, over and over. She heard the distorted voice of Abraxas Malfoy yelling at him to stop, thought she saw a blur of him dashing across the room. She blinked harshly, feeling the blood dripping down her face, and tried to regain her senses. She forced all her energy into lifting her wand just..enough...