✔️ 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐆𝐎 → ℎ. 𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑡𝑤𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦

32 | I N C E R T I T U D E

and if love is real,
maybe I’m just too bad                         
to remember how good it feels.

             my heart is still.

   "EMBER KNEW IT. She knew about this link between Voldemort and me. Nevertheless, she did let me go ... She came with me."

   Sitting in the loneliness of the common room with Ron and Hermione, Harry had just finished telling his best friends what Dumbledore said about the prophecy. He'd tried to spare the talk about his sister for a long while; he didn't even want to talk about it at all. But coming to the frightening fact that Voldemort could so easily enter Harry's mind and manipulate him, there was no chance in not mentioning Ember in this part.

   "Dumbledore — he is sure that Ember got blackmailed into this. I am sure she was." Harry stared down at his hands, an image of pitch black eyes flashing through his thoughts. "Lucius acted like this wasn't the first time they met. Voldemort was talking about Ember disobeying him. They had used her. They knew about — about her powers, and they used her."

   "Umbrakinesis is a rare gift, Harry", Dumbledore had explained to him. "A dangerous one as well. It is hard to gain control. Most wizrds and witches ended up being controlled, for the shadows will constantly demand winning the upper hand. For what I saw, and what you told me, Ember is on her best way to succeed this kind of control about her darkness."

   "How? Why her?", Harry had asked, his voice cracking. But Dumbledore didn't have had an answer to this.

   Harry knew his sister was still alive. He felt a pain from time to time, the same pain he had felt, when Ember had been tortured in the Ministry, and his heart shattered every time, knowing what they did to her, knowing there was nothing he could do to protect her.

   But the gaps between the times this pain overwhelmed him grew larger. Harry was sure, if he could feel his torture, he would feel her dying as well; a thought so frightening as it was soothing.

   "But they'll try to save her?", Ron asked, his face vivid. "They will search for her, won't they? They'll get her out of this!"

   "Of course."

   The lump in Harry's throat caused his voice to sound like breaking glass, and he swallowed hard, staring into the flames of the fireplace, where once Sirius head had popped up, warning him about Karkaroff, and not so long ago almost had been caught by thick, short-fingered hands, and he felt a tiredness, he knew a thousand years of sleep couldn't alleviate.

   "She will be fine, Harry", Hermione whispered. "Everything will be fine."

   And as hard as he wished he could trust in her words, Harry couldn't. He just couldn't.

·

   Pale, cold fingers brushed Ember's, and for the second it lasted, there was the shadow of a comfort rushing through her body.

   Now they both stood in the dimmed light of the saloon, green furniture reflecting the warm light of the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, turning it into cold colours that spread on Draco Malfoy's skin, having him look like he's carrying a deathly disease, and Ember knew, that she herself didn't look any different.

   "Repeat it for me, Ember", lipless mouth spoke, while red eyes burned into the blackness of her own. "One last time."

   "It is his fault", the now sixteen year old girl spoke with a firm voice that had the blonde boy next to her shiver. "His fault they're dead. His fault, if there'll be dying more."

   "Where does your loyalty lay, Ember?"

   "With you, my Lord."

   It was September the first, close to ten o'clock. Trunks and a cage with a bubbly little screech owl were already waiting in the hallway.

   "And yours, Draco?", Lord Voldemort asked, turning his head to the boy, who could barely surpress his trembling.

   "With you, my Lord", Draco whispered, a burning sensation seeming to inflame his left arm.

   "I won't accept failures. Disobey me, and the both of you will pay a price higher than with your own lives." Voldemort was raising from his chair, his bare feet making no sound on the dark wooden floor, as he came closer, stopping right in front of the two students. "Narcissa will bring you to the station now. Severus will frequently inform me about your progress." He looked from Ember to Draco. "Repeat for me once more. What are you going to do?"

   "Kill Albus Dumbledore", Draco whispered, his voice trembling.

   With a much different voice, strong and firm, shadows dancing over her features, darkness caressing her skin, Ember spoke in a deathly tone, "And bring you Harry Potter."

—

end of act two