𝗽𝗼𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗵 | 𝗷. 𝗽𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿

𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶 𝗳𝗲𝗹𝘁

Cherry wakes with a start, her eyes darting around the gleaming white walls of the isolation ward of the Hospital Wing before landing on her headmaster — whose own eyes were distinctly lacking their usual twinkle.

"H— Headmaster Dumbledore," Cherry breathes. "D— Did Kreacher tell you? Where's Regulus? Wh— Where's the Horcrux!" Cherry shrieks, working herself into a panic as she slowly recollects what happened in the cave.

"Mr Black is in the Hospital Wing, same as you, Ms Parkinson, and he is making a full recovery," he says, his eyes hardening into something impossibly sterner when he speaks next. "However, I do find myself wondering why two of my students who seemed to have nothing to do with each other disappeared for a night, only to return with a house elf, a Dark Artefact and injuries caused by exposure to some of the darkest magic imaginable."

Cherry's eyes widen, and to her horror, they fill with unshed tears. "I— I'm sorry, Headmaster, I'm so sorry. . ." she manages, sniffling. She covers her face with her hands, recognizing her efforts to hold back her tears are futile.

No, Cherry, you don't get to fucking cry about it now. Don't act like a crybaby when you're already a disgrace.

Cherry shudders, takes a few gasping breaths to calm herself and meets the Headmaster's gaze again. Bracing herself for judgment, she tells the story. She tells the Headmaster how she hated Lily from her first year (though she kept her schoolgirl crush to herself), how Regulus and Evan noticed and approached her in her fifth year, and how slowly but surely, they recruited her. She told him how she convinced herself to crucio Muggles, captured them, and set them up to be killed, even if she never did the killing herself. She told him how she was assigned a mission for her sixth year, how she was supposed to recruit from the Gryffindors, how she kept doubting and didn't do anything until her parents were killed—until he threatened to kill her himself.

Cherry told him how she went through the motions and acted as usual, but couldn't stop her friends from worrying. How the thought of Regulus having a mission for her almost filled her with relief, until she realised it was to betray the Dark Lord. She told him of Kreacher's story, of following him and Regulus to the cave, of Regulus giving his blood and then volunteering to drink poison. She told him of the Inferi, of Regulus almost dying, of how she thought she would die (because Cherry was weak like that—couldn't hold her fears in, even if she knew the Headmaster wouldn't give a damn), and then finally, arriving here.

"Tell me, Ms Parkinson," Headmaster Dumbledore says lightly. "Why shouldn't I hand you, Mr Black, and Mr Rosier to the DMLE?"

Cherry swallows and looks down at her hands. "You should, Headmaster," she says, voice hoarse, shaky. It seems that Cherry is still weak, still struggling to hold back tears. "We'd deserve it. I deserve Azkaban for all I've done."

There are so many people I've tortured. People I've gotten killed. Because I'm stupid enough to join a lunatic my best friend warned me off of, just for acceptance from people who want me to be just like them. Parents or not. Family friends or not. Muggles and mu— muggle-borns can be just like the rest of us, as Dorcas and Professor Sprout say, or they can be nothing more than animals, like Mother always said, but . . . they still have feelings.

No one deserves to die because of something out of their control. I— I should have remembered that much. To be part of a group that hurts people for their own sense of superiority — because that's what the Death Eaters are no matter how much I've tried to convince myself otherwise — that's utterly despisable. Azkaban is the least of what I deserve.