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The locket had immediately recognized who the most ideal target of the three was; Ron Weasley. It had felt it as soon as he touched it, but the words, “Can you feel it, though?” solidified it. They all could, now that he had mentioned it, but he was the first to notice and that truly meant something.
Harry would hardly be viable—the locket and him were the same. They both had part of the Dark Lord’s soul within them. Harry was also used to intrusions of his mind, with being a Horcrux and legilimency. He would know as soon as there was an intruder in his thoughts. Though the locket couldn’t completely conceal itself, it would be possible to not be as aggressive with Harry as he was with Ron.
Hermione, on the other hand, had turned out to be decent at hiding her emotions or at least ignoring them. The locket really could have chosen her first, but it had assumed it would be no fun. She was a Muggle-born, so she would probably be far too easy to invade.
Ron, however, had layers. There were multiple doubts and insecurities always brewing in his mind. Some of the ideas were about school, his family, and even his two best friends. With all of the source material easily given to the locket, it decided that Ron would not only be the most fun, but it would also be able to make up the most absurd things. Not only that, but he also gave the locket the most creative freedom, per se.
Within days, the locket was able to pick apart his mind. He was helplessly in love with Hermione (which was pathetic), he felt unloved by his mother who wanted nothing but a daughter (hilarious, in the locket’s opinion), and he believed he was second best to Harry Potter (wasn’t everybody?).
Hermione was the first one to discover that maybe the locket was causing the short tempers, but luckily Harry was too worried about losing it that they simply brushed it aside. They’d deal with the bubbling hatred toward each other as long as it meant they kept the locket safe and under a pair of their eyes at all times. The locket could see all of Ron when he was wearing it: his mind, his heart, and his soul. On Hermione it could only see her mind, Harry only revealed his soul. Ron was an open window to the locket, warm and inviting like it was just waiting to be explored.
When he left the two, the locket knew it had succeeded. The locket had realized that Hermione did love him back, just as equally. After Ron’s departure, her heart had become easier to look into, and it saw the same things that it saw within the boy. It would have begun to pick on Hermione, maybe even attempt to make her leave, but it did seem too predictable and she was already in shambles due to the lack of Ron. Harry had been, too. The locket had not expected it to all fall apart that easily.
It had also not been expected for Ron to come back. Nor did it anticipate for Harry to forgive him so quickly. It could hear them speak, but it all seemed muffled. It wasn’t made to be exactly waterproofed, it guessed. It heard numbers. A countdown. A hiss. A command.
For several moments, nothing happened but the Horcrux could hear its surroundings again. “Stab,” said Harry’s voice, but Ron didn’t do anything.
“ I have seen your heart, and it is mine, ” its voice echoes. It’s a warped version of Voldemort’s, it’s quiet at first, but it rises as it builds to a crescendo. “ I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible… ”
“Stab!” Harry yells out again, but it’s useless.
The locket searches for something to say, and quickly comes up with an idea, “ Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter… Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend… Second best, always, eternally overshadowed… ”
“Ron, stab it now!” Harry bellows. He could feel the locket shaking and twitching in his grasp, fearing what was coming. Unless Ron was able to stab it, there was no stopping what was coming. The locket thought that what it had planned was rather amusing, in a way.
The two eyes of Riddle’s transformed; it was now two figures. The figures of Harry and Hermione. The real Harry was shouting something, but it was useless as Riddle-Harry was talking over him in the voice of Voldemort himself.
“ Why return? We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence…. We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption— ”
“ Presumption! ” echoed the Riddle-Hermione, who was more beautiful and more terrible than the real Hermione. She was swaying and cackling in front of Ron who stood transfixed on her with the sword dangling in his hand. “ Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter? What have you even done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived? ”
Real Harry was screaming again, but Ron still had his eyes fixed on the two figures in front of him.
“ Your mother confessed, ” sneered Riddle-Harry, Riddle-Hermione still jeering beside him. “ that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange… ”
“ Who wouldn’t prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him, ” Riddle-Hermione crooned. She stretched around, almost like a snake, to wrap herself around Riddle-Harry. Their lips met, in an ugly, unrealistic, and passionate embrace.
Ron raised the sword, Harry encouraging him to finally end it. He ran at the locket, slashing the sword over it so hard that the wood under the metal split from the force. The locket screamed, but it was no use. The locket and its torment were over, for good this time as it and the piece of Voldemort within had been destroyed.
Greyback’s wand gave a half buzz before it died back down. Somebody had said his name but didn’t finish it, but they had said it was strong. If somebody were to say a name like that they meant it.
“Let’s go check it out,” he scratched his furry neck.
“But it didn’t even go all the way,” crossed his arms over his chest.
“We are going to go,” Greyback picked at a tooth. He looked back to other men, dragging along a lanky dark-skinned boy and some little goblin they’d found. “No tellin’ what we’ll find.”
They looked around at the other men who were too scared to deny Greyback what he wanted. When they landed from their apparation, a tent was in front of them but in a millisecond all the light inside went out, “Come out of there with your hands up!” his voice rang through the woodlands around them, “We know you’re in there! You’ve got half a dozen wands pointing at you and we don’t care who we curse!”
There was a bang and a bright light from inside the tent, and the six men entered.
“Get up, vermin,” one of the Snatchers taunted.
The black-headed boy who was face-first on the ground was yanked up with barely any fight. However, the other two were a different story. The boy and girl—or rather young man and woman—were fighting, and eventually began to yell.
“Get—off—her!” the redheaded adolescent shouted. Greyback hit him square on his cheekbone, and he grunted in his colleague’s arms from the first. The girl began to shout, “No! Leave him alone, leave him alone!”
“Your boyfriend’s going to have much worse than that done to him if he’s on my list,” a vicious smile across his face as he eyed her. “Delicious girl… what a treat… I do enjoy the softness of the skin…”
The girl looked sick to her stomach, which only made Greyback’s lip curl further up.
“Search the tent!” Scabior commanded.
Further investigation ensued, the others looked around the tent while Greyback stayed with the three people they had found. The black-haired boy claimed to have been stung and named Vernon Dudley. The ginger had claimed to be Stan Shunpike, but they’d known better so he finally admitted to being a Weasley. It was a bit hard to understand him with his busted face, but he hadn’t named himself the one that was close with Potter so it didn’t matter that much. The girl identified herself as Penelope Clearwater, believable enough as a half-blood, though Greyback wasn’t that familiar with the surname.
“The ‘ole lot of ‘em look like they could still be Hogwarts age—”
“We’b lebt,” the Weasley mumbles through a mouthful of blood.
“Left, ‘ave you, ginger?” Scabior continued to tease him. “And you decided to go camping? And you thought, just for a laugh, you’d use the Dark Lord’s name?”
“Nod a laugh,” he shook his head. “Aggiden.”
“Accident?” the group downright cackled at him. How would someone accidentally say his name?
“You know who used to like using the Dark Lord’s name, Weasley?” growled Greyback. “The Order of the Phoenix. Mean anything to you?”
“Doh,” he shakes his head to attempt a no.
“Well, they don’t show the Dark Lord proper respect, so the name’s been Tabooed. A few Order members have been tracked that way. We’ll see. Bind them up with the other two prisoners!”
Some of the Snatchers worked on tying them together while others worked on reading through the lists of names.
“Not a bad haul for one night,” Greyback spoke as he inspected some of the things the Snatchers had collected from around the tent. “A Mudblood, a goblin, and these truants. Have you found their names yet, Scabior?”
“Yeah. There’s no Vernon Dudley un ‘ere, Greyback.”
“Interesting,” the werewolf turned back to his prisoners. “That’s interesting.”
After some intimidation, Vernon admits his father works at the ministry and luckily for him, Scabior recognizes the name.
“Hey!” a voice shouts from inside the tent. “Look at this, Greyback.”
The figure emerges from the tent but there’s something in his hand: a sword. A beautiful one, at that.
“Ve–e–ery nice,” said Greyback appreciatively, taking it from his companion. “Oh, very nice indeed. Looks goblin-made, that. Where did you get something like this?”
“It’s my father’s,” Vernon said, sounding a bit panicked. “We borrowed it to cut firewood—”
“’Ang on a minute, Greyback! Look at this, in the Prophet!”
He looks at the newspaper. Well , he thought before speaking, how exciting.
“ ‘ermione Granger, ” Scabior read off. “ the Mudblood who is known to be traveling with ‘arry Potter, ” his eyes wander to her. “You know what, li’tle girly? This picture looks a ‘ell uv a lot like you.
“It isn’t! It isn’t me!” she cries, but she’s made it obvious now.
“… known to be traveling with Harry Potter ,” Greyback repeated. His eyes fell over to the brunette boy, the redhead, now knowing the two were Harry Potter and the youngest Weasley boy. “Well, this changed things, didn’t it?” he sauntered over to Harry. “What’s on your forehead, Vernon?”
“Don’t touch it!”
“I thought you wore glasses, Potter?” He breathes slowly over the boy.
“I’ve found glasses!” a Snatcher yells from deeper in the tent. “There were glasses in the tent—”
Greyback snatches the pair of glasses from the other’s hands and shoves them onto his face. An expression of glee breaks across his face, “We’ve caught Potter!”
There was a bit of jubilation, though none of them knew what would happen next. He looked at the other two, a Mudblood and the blood traitor who was in love with her. They argued as if they forgot Greyback was in charge. Taking them to Malfoy Manor where the Dark Lord was basing most of his work would be the quickest way to get to him. It was obvious that they all knew he’d want to deal with Potter himself.
“What is this? What’s happened, Cissy?” she beckons to her younger sister. Bellatrix entered the room and circled the five prisoners tied up before her. She passes Potter, knowing she can’t touch him for that was to be saved for her Lord, her eyes fall on the copper-toned girl on his side. “But surely, this is the Mudblood girl? This is Granger?”
“Yes, yes, it’s Granger!” cried Lucius, “And beside her, we think, Potter! Potter and his friends, caught at last!”
“Potter?” shrieked Bellatrix, and she backed away, to better take in Harry. “Are you sure? Well then, the Dark Lord must be informed at once!”
As Bellatrix pulled back her sleeve, Lucius interrupted, placing his hands over hers, “I was about to call him,” he looked at her with great resentment. “ I shall summon him, Bella. Potter has been brought to my house, and therefore it is upon my authority—”
“Your authority!” Bellatrix looks back at him with disgust. “You lost your authority when you lost your wand, Lucius! How dare you! Take your hands off me!”
“This is nothing to do with you, you did not capture the boy—“
“Begging your pardon, Mr. Malfoy,” interjected Greyback, “but it’s us that caught Potter, and it’s us that’ll be claiming the gold—
“Gold!” laughed Bellatrix, still attempting to throw off her brother-in-law, her free hand groping in her pocket for her wand. “Take your gold, filthy scavenger, what do I want with gold? I seek only the honor of his—of—”
Bellatrix stopped her fight with Lucius as her eyes fixated on something else, staring at one of the Snatchers and what was in his hands.
“Stop!” shrieks Bellatrix. “Do not touch it, we shall all perish if the Dark Lord comes now!”
Lucius froze, his index finger hovering over his own Mark. She strode out closer to the one holding the object of her liking.
“What is that?” he heard her say.
“Sword,” grunted a Snatcher.
“Give it to me.”
“It’s not yours, missus, it’s mine, I reckon I found it.”
There was a bang and a flash of red light; Harry knew that the Snatcher had been Stunned. There was a roar of anger from his fellows: Scabior drew his wand.
“What d’you think you’re playing at, woman?”
“ Stupefy !” she screamed, “ Stupefy !”
The four Snatchers were no risk for her, within moments the only one left standing was Greyback.
“Where did you get this sword?” she whispered to Greyback as she pulled his wand out of his unresisting grip.
“How dare you?” he snarled, his mouth the only thing that could move as he was forced to gaze up at her. He bared his pointed teeth. “Release me, woman!”
“Where did you find this sword?” she repeated, brandishing it in his face, “Snape sent it to my vault in Gringotts!”
“It was in their tent,” rasped Greyback. “Release me, I say!”
When he was released, Draco was commanded to take his companions outside. Her nephew did as told but returned within moments without any words. They couldn’t call Voldemort now, as if he saw the sword of Gryffindor they’d all be dead within moments. She isn’t too sure of what to do, but she does know she needs to keep Potter safe until the Dark Lord does arrive.
“Take these prisoners down to the cellar, Greyback.”
“Wait,” said Bellatrix sharply. “All except… except for the Mudblood.”
Greyback gave a grunt of pleasure.
“No!” shouted the Weasley boy. “You can have me, keep me!”
Bellatrix hit him across the face: the blow echoed around the room, “If she dies under questioning, I’ll take you next,” she said. “Blood Traitor is next to Mudblood in my book. Take them downstairs, Greyback, and make sure they are secure but do nothing more to them—yet.”
She cut the girl loose from the bondage she was in, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the room as her friends were taken down to the cellar.
“A bit cute, yeah, how willing he is to give himself up for you?” she smiles deviously. “Pathetic, too. A true blood traitor.”
The Mudblood doesn’t move. Not an inch, not a centimeter. It didn’t even look like she was breathing. The cellar door slammed shut from below them, and steps began up the flight.
“ Crucio ,” Bellatrix mutters slowly. She’s so used to casting the spell that she needs not to even put much power behind her words.
Her body hits the floor with a scream—a voice echoes her name from below them, twice. She knew what this was; love. She was going to use it to her advantage as much as she could. Before she spoke, her wand pointed at the girl again as she was hit with another Cruciatus curse.
“He can scream all he wants, it’ll only wear his voice out,” cackles Bellatrix, standing over Hermione who is panting on the floor with a tear-streaked face. “Maybe he’ll be nice and quiet by the time I get to him after I finish you off.”
“Please, please ,” she yells. Her body is heaving on the floor, still half-bound.
The same voice came from below, saying the same name. She thinks to herself about the opportunity of making him watch that she had missed—something that she had done to Frank and Alice Longbottom so many years ago.
“I’m going to ask you again! Where did you get this sword? Where ?” Bellatrix says after remembering the entire point of why she had the girl in front of her. She doesn’t cast a curse, but her wand is pointing and threatening like the wand itself wants to curse her.
“We found it—we found it—PLEASE!” Hermione screamed again.
Bellatrix didn’t believe it; and even if she did she was having too much fun to end it.
“You’re lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been inside my vault at Gringotts! Tell the truth, tell the truth !” this time Bellatrix follows it with the curse, sending her thrashing and screaming again. Another cry of her name.
Before asking another question, she casts the curse again, for her indulgences. Watching anybody writhe under her wand satisfied her—but Granger being a Mudblood made it all the better.
“What else did you take, what else? ANSWER ME! CRUCIO !” Bellatrix bellows. She screams, ear piercingly loud. The shrill sound echoes off the walls around them but it’s like music to Bellatrix’s ears. There’s a moment where the girl isn’t screaming, but just sobbing on the ground where she can hear something coming from below, in a low voice, she continues, “Do you hear that? He’s banging around on the walls for you… how useless that is.”
She rolls her head back and forth on the laminate flooring beneath her as if trying to shake her head no. The noises below her were something she couldn’t deny, though. With another flick of Bellatrix’s wand, she’s screaming and shaking again, and her screams are worse than ever. The voice below them was now becoming a bit annoying to Bellatrix, but he would pay for it when he walked up to see his friend—maybe girlfriend?—dead.
“How did you get into my vault?” they heard Bellatrix scream. “Did that dirty little goblin in the cellar help you?”
“We only met him tonight!” Hermione sobbed. “We’ve never been inside your vault…. It isn’t the real sword! It’s a copy, just a copy!”
“A copy?” screeched Bellatrix. “Oh, a likely story!”
“But we can find out easily!” came Lucius’s voice. “Draco, fetch the goblin, he can tell us whether the sword is real or not!”
Bellatrix looked at the two blond men in front of her, acknowledging the benefits of having a goblin below them. She circled the Mudblood before holstering her wand for a moment, until the goblin was in her sight, at least.
Draco came up, and the goblin wearily followed behind him. He stopped at the threshold of the flight of stairs and looked straight at Bellatrix.
“The sword,” she says simply. “Is it the real one? Is it mine?”
“May I have a look?” the goblin asks politely enough. Bellatrix picks it up and hands it to him. She eyes him precariously as he inspects the sword. He runs his stubby fingers along it, brings it close to his eyes, and takes a sigh. “I have full confidence that this is a fake, madam.”
“What was that?” shouts Lucius. He had been as intently focused on the goblin before the snap of noise below them. “Did you hear that? What was that noise in the cellar?”
Griphook, Bellatrix, Draco, Narcissa, and Lucius looked around at each other as if any of them had an answer.
“Draco—no, call Wormtail! Make him and go check!”
Draco fetched the servant, who willingly went down to the cellar.
“So, you believe it’s a fake?” Bellatrix gets back on track with the conversation.
“Yes ma’am,” he swallows.
“Good!” she says simply. At the same moment, she grabs her silver dagger and slices it across his cheek. She turns back to the girl on the floor, half unconscious. “And now, we call the Dark Lord!”
Her index finger pressed against the skull on her forearm, a warm sense of power flowing through her body. Euphoria. It took her a moment to let it sink in, lathering in it.
“And I think,” she says precariously. “We can dispose of the Mudblood. Greyback, take her if you want.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The redheaded boy had burst into the drawing-room, wand in hand. By the time she had turned around, she had been disarmed. Potter came out beside him. Before she knew it all duels ensued around her.
Bellatrix, however, was not left defenseless. She grabbed the girl on the floor, which didn’t take much force. She was now unconscious and her body was limp in her grasp. She stood with her, and pulled her out her knife, pressing it to her throat and digging in just the smallest bit.
“STOP OR SHE DIES!” Everybody obliged. “Drop your wands! Drop them, or we’ll see exactly how dirty her blood is!”
Everybody around her still held their wands in their hands, ready to fight. “I said, drop them!” She pressed the knife into the girl’s throat so she could feel it sink into her flesh.
“All right!” Potter shouted.
“Good!” she praises. “Draco, pick them up! The Dark Lord is coming, Harry Potter! Your death approaches!” Harry Potter and his friends were all going to die. They were going to die and at least his friends would do so painfully, at her hand if she were lucky. “Now,” said Bellatrix softly, as Draco hurried back to her with the wands. “Cissy, I think we ought to tie these little heroes up again, while Greyback takes care of Miss Mudblood. I am sure the Dark Lord will not begrudge you the girl, Greyback, after what you have done tonight.”
A grinding noise came from above.
Everybody in the room looked up. The chandelier above them trembled, shaking above them as the glass crystals jingled. It began to fall from the ceiling, Bellatrix dropping the girl’s unconscious body as she dove out of the way.
By the time Bellatrix had recovered from her dramatic dive, she saw the ginger boy pulling her body from the wreckage. It seemed like a death wish, on his part. Her eyes fixate on the scene around her, and everything seems to be still.
“Dobby!” she screamed and even Bellatrix froze. “You! You dropped the chandelier—?”
The tiny elf trotted into the room, his shaking finger pointing at his old mistress.
“You must not hurt Harry Potter,” he squeaked.
“Kill him, Cissy!” shrieked Bellatrix, but there was another loud crack, and Narcissa’s wand too flew into the air and landed on the other side of the room.
“You dirty little monkey!” bawled Bellatrix. “How dare you take a witch’s wand, how dare you defy your masters?”
“Dobby has no master!” squealed the elf. “Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!”
“Ron, catch—and GO!” Potter yelled, throwing one of the wands to the other young man; he then bent down to tug Griphook out from under the chandelier.
They were disapparting away before anybody could react, except for Bellatrix. She threw the silver knife, still streaked with the blood of the girl. Maybe with a stroke of luck, it would stab one of the escaped prisoners.