Fear of a Name

Chapter Thirty-Two: Fear and Pain

I looked at my mother standing in front of the closed door, her hair as crazy as the grin on her face.
"I wanted to spend some time with you over the holidays, honey," she said in a sickly sweet voice. "Come on."
Without waiting for a reply, she took hold of my arm and apparated with me to Malfoy Manor.
Did we just apparate from within Hogwarts?! That's not supposed to be possible!
"Your father made some arrangements to get us back here," she said, answering my unspoken question.

I looked down at the floor, unsure of what to do.
"Aaaawh, is my poor lil daughter shy?" she mocked, her voice like the one you might use when talking to a baby. "Such a shame you can't hide it... you know we don't like it when you show weakness, honey."
She suddenly grabbed my face with one hand, her nails painfully digging into my cheeks.
"My poor little daughter," she continued, grinning wickedly. "Severus told me what he made you cut into your hand."

I closed my eyes in fear, then quickly opened them again when I realised that I was just giving my mother the perfect opportunity to hurt me.
"What was that, Ivory?" she said, a crazy look in her eyes as she let go of my face. "Was that... fear?!" Her maniacal laughter made a cold shiver of fear run down my spine. "Weakness... I wonder how you became such a disappointment. Maybe it's because you're too good, too weak." She slapped me suddenly in the face, causing me to flinch. "There will be no weakness in a child related to me," she said, her voice soft and threatening. "There will be no weakness in this family. Not now, not ever. Do you hear me, young lady? DO YOU HEAR ME?!"

"Y-yes, Mother," I said in a quiet voice, scared of how quickly and frequently her demeanour was changing.
"What? No other words for your poor, lonely mother? You leave me here so you can go to Hogwarts, never visit me, and the only thing you can say is 'y-yes, Mother'," she said, imitating my voice.
I stayed silent and looked down at the floor.

"Still nothing else to say? Not even one tiny word?" Her voice was suddenly childish and innocent, and it scared me more than when she was yelling at me. "Well, I guess we'll have to do it the other way then. Crucio!"
I fell to the floor, screaming; my body felt as if it were on fire. I hadn't experienced pain like it for a couple of months, and it seemed to be worse now than it was before.

"Now now, Bella, isn't that quite enough?" my father said as he entered the room. "For now," he added, smiling at my pain.
Mother stopped the curse and bowed, then went and stood beside him.
"Ivory dear, you truly look terrible," he said with a cold, cruel laugh.
I stayed silent, still lying on the floor.
"STAND UP!" he suddenly yelled, using a spell to raise me from the floor and push me hard against the wall.

I whimpered quietly, terrified of what might happen.
"Haven't you learned how to greet your father?" he hissed at me, his red eyes glinting. "Bella, how have you raised our daughter?"
"With pain, and with discipline. But it seems she needs another lesson," Mother replied, looking gleeful at the prospect.
"Wait a minute Bella, give her a last chance to greet me properly," Father said, looking at me again.

I couldn't move from fear.

"Bella? Will you do the honours?"
"Of course, My Lord," my mother replied, pointing her wand at me, an evil smirk playing on her lips. "One." She took a step towards me. "Two." She took another step. "Three." She took one final step, then— "Crucio!"
I fell to the floor again, screaming.
"Come on Ivory, no need for screams, just a simple greeting would do," my father said in a calm voice, indicating for Mother to stop the curse again.
This time it was the pain that was stopping me from fulfilling his wish.

"Bella here seems to be enjoying this, and I imagine that she can continue all night if needed," he said, glancing at my mother before looking back at me. "All you need to do is to greet me like you should greet the Dark Lord!"
After a few seconds of silence, he said, "Bella, I'll leave you to it. Try not to kill her."

Mother gave me a wicked smile as Father left the room.
"Well it seems like you and I are going to have some more fun," she cooed.
I whimpered quietly from the floor.
"Honey, I want you to stand up," she said, still using her sweet voice. "Please? For mummy?"
I couldn't move.
"Oh honey, please, I need you to stand up, or else you'll disappoint mummy," she said, and though her words would've been relatively calming if said by any normal mother, in this context they terrified me right to my core. "You don't want to disappoint mummy, do you?"
I tried to stand up, or even to move, but I still couldn't.

"That's a shame," she said, playing with her wand a little as she walked towards me. "I hoped you were... stronger." She grabbed my face again like she had when we first got to the Manor and pulled me half to my feet. "You know what this means, don't you honey?"
I started shaking and looked into my mother's eyes with fear as she dug her nails into my face.
"I'm sorry love, you know I can't stop it, it's just—" she let go of my face so I fell to the floor again "—it's so much fun to hear you scream," she hissed.

"Mother, p-please..."
"Well, I suppose—"
She slowly moved her wand away from me, then pointed it at me again lightning fast, and — in her sweet, childish voice — said, "Crucio."
I screamed again, the pain getting worse every second as she kept increasing the power going into the curse.

I kept screaming until my mother finally stopped a few minutes later. I lay on the floor, twitching, as she started to walk extremely slowly in circles around me, taking out her knife and starting to play with it as she did so.
"You know, honey, when I was little, your grandmother gave this to me," she said. "I always kept it with me, I was proud of it. It was my own artefact of the family vault." She paused for a second. "Then your grandparents died. Oh, how heartbroken I was, but at least I still had the knife — a piece of my family."
I curled up into a ball on the floor, utterly terrified, as she kept slowly walking in circles around me, making them smaller and smaller.

"When you were born, I was happy. A girl I could pass it to, to make the family proud! But now I realise. You're not worthy to have my blood, or the blood from any other witch or wizard, in your body."
She reached forward suddenly and grabbed me by my hair, pinning me to the wall.
"Let's have some fun, sweetie."