Fear of a Name

Chapter Thirty Three: Trapped

"Afraid, honey?" Mother whispered into my ear, a wicked grin on her face.
I didn't say anything, not trusting myself to speak.
She gave a crazy laugh, then said, "Not going to answer me, are you honey? Afraid that your voice will crack, that you'll show how terrified you are; well I'll tell you something..." Her voice dropped to a whisper once more. "The only thing I need to see how scared you are are your eyes."

I felt the blade of the knife cutting into my stomach, and looked at my mother with complete and total fear.
Laughing psychopathically, she continued the cut on my stomach before slowly sliding the knife up my left side and over my collarbones to my right arm.
"Tell me, does it hurt?" she whispered.
I didn't need to say anything for her to know the answer, of course. It was all written in my eyes.

She spun me around suddenly so I had my back to her, then started to cut a word into it, laughing at my screams, which died down to whimpers as she stopped using the knife.
"Oh, please continue," she said, her voice dangerously low. "I love the sound of people screaming."
I just kept whimpering quietly, leaning against the wall to stop myself falling over.
"Well then we'll just have to do it the hard way, won't we, honey," she whispered into my ear.
There was a moment's pause, then I started screaming again as she began to cut a new word into my back, this one significantly longer than the last.
"That's exactly what I wanted," she said through the screams, pressing a little harder with the knife.

My screams went back to whimpers again when she finally finished cutting the word into me and spun me back around to face her.
"No more screams for mummy?" she asked in a sweet voice. "Do you think you've had enough punishment now, honey?"
I stayed silent, not knowing how to answer to stop myself being hurt any more.
"ANSWER ME!"
I flinched, then nodded my head a fractional amount.
"You think you've had enough?" she said, going back to using her sweet voice.
I nodded again, scared of what might happen if that was the wrong answer.

"Well, maybe you have had enough... maybe I should stop now." She paused for a second, then continued. "After all, we don't want you to die, do we honey? When you die I have no one to keep me company with the most beautiful sound in the world: screams."
I didn't say anything, still wincing slightly at the pain in my back as blood trickled down it from the cuts.
"Quiet? Again?" Mother said in a sweet voice. "We both know how that ended for you last time."
"S-sorry, Mother," I whispered.

We stood in silence for about a minute, then Mother grabbed my arm and pulled me roughly down the stairs to the dungeons.
"Let me tell you something, honey," she said in a dangerous voice as she threw me into my 'room'. "There will be no more Hogwarts for you. There will be no more feasts, or comfy beds, or warm fires, no more talking and laughing with your little friends. The only lessons you'll be getting from now on are lessons in what happens if you disobey your father."

She smiled wickedly at me, then slammed the heavy iron door with a bang.
"No," I whispered to myself, my voice shaking a little. "No, this can't be happening. It — it's just a dream. There's no way this is real."
I pinched my right wrist and winced.
"It's not a dream... oh Merlin, what am I going to do?!"
I went to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked, as I'd expected. I pointed my hand at the lock.
Alohomora.

Nothing happened. There hadn't even been any sign that the spell had actually been done.

Panicking a little now, I pointed my hand into the room and tried to conjure up my Patronus, but to no avail.
Why isn't it working?!
I quickly pulled out my wand, pointed it at a stone outside, and muttered, "Wingardium leviosa," waving my wand with a swish and a flick.
The stone stayed still and unmoving.

"Why can't I do magic?!" I asked the empty space around me, a note of panic creeping into my voice as I realised what this meant. Without magic, it was going to be impossible for me to escape. Without magic, there was no way to tell anyone where I was. My only hope was that Harry, Ron, and Hermione would notice I was missing and tell a teacher, though I had to remind myself that it was the holidays; they'd probably just think I'd changed my mind at the last minute about staying at school.
"I guess I'll have to wait until term starts again then," I murmured, sitting down in the corner of the small cell they called my room.

I leant against the wall, wincing as I accidentally put pressure on the words my mother had cut into my back. They were still bleeding, and my (now torn) top was sticking to them. I thought for a minute about what they might say; knowing my mother, it could be basically anything.
I need a blood-replenishing potion.
I put my hand into my pocket, only to find that my purse wasn't there.
"No, don't say that on the one day I really need it, I left it by my bed..." I said, groaning quietly.
I shifted slightly, wincing again.

"Merlin, this is much more boring than I remember," I said after a while. "Though of course, normally I'd have all my books and everything."
I tried to remember some of the books I'd memorised, pulling the information from the depths of my mind.
Though no cure has been found for lycanthropy, recent discoveries in potion-making have made the transformation more bearable. The Wolfsbane potion allows the inflicted person to keep their mind after they have transformed, meaning they are only as dangerous as they would normally be.

This set me off on a new train of thought. If Lupin was a werewolf, which he was, how did he go to Hogwarts? Surely that must've been really dangerous, come the full moon — he could've so easily bitten someone.

I thought about this for couple of minutes, before coming to the conclusion that Dumbledore had probably come up with some weird way of physically isolating Lupin from other people when he transformed so nobody would be in any danger.
"Term better hurry up and start," I muttered to myself. "I'm bored already."
I put my head on my knees, thinking. Would anyone find me when the holidays ended? Would they even bother to try? I sighed quietly.

"I guess only time will tell."