femgenficathon

Title: Faces of Pride, Feelings of Fear
Autor:

catsintheattic
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Prompt: 35) We were all developing the same stubborn pride, behind which our frightened selves hid, pretending everything was all right. Esmeralda Santiago (born May 17, 1948), Puerto Rican author, co-founder of film and media production company Cantomedia, producer-writer of documentary and educational films, and activist on behalf of libraries, teens and battered women.
Summary: It has been a trying year for all of them. A series of vignettes.
Word count: 3,947
Author’s notes: I wish I could have done more of the women in the Harry Potter universe. I also had notes for Tonks and Fleur, for Luna and Ginny. But in the end, it came down to these eight: Petunia, Dolores, Hermione, Bella, Minerva, Pansy, Narcissa and Molly.
A huge thank you to

celta_diabolica for the ever excellent beta-reading and support!

Faces of Pride, Feelings of Fear

“Well – goodbye.”

Petunia looked around. The place was a mess in the middle of nowhere. A tiny living room with a sofa bed and a fireplace, an adjacent bedroom and a dingy kitchen with a wash basin in a corner. No bathroom, no shower. The toilet, they were told, was across the yard.

After Vernon had taken the car towards Berkshire for a good ten miles, the wizard had ordered him to leave the main road and park the car out of sight in a small wood. They had stood for a moment under the silent night sky, until the witch had ordered Dudley and Petunia to take her hands, while the wizard had done the same with Vernon and their luggage. A squeezing, mind-numbing sensation later, Petunia had found herself on her knees in front of a tiny house, vomiting up her last meal. Poor Dudders had been clutching his stomach but had managed to keep his food down.

The next fifteen minutes were spent in haste: explanations how they were not to be seen, how supplies would be brought to them once a week. Petunia sat in the armchair opposite the sofa, listening, trying to take it all in. Vernon’s face was pale instead of its usual rosy colour, and Didikins unwrapped a chocolate bar with shaking hands, then forgot all about munching it. When the wizard and witch finally were done explaining and disappeared with two booming cracks, both Dudley and Vernon left the living-room.

Petunia was still taking in the dismalness of the place, unable to command a single clear thought. Diddy’s chocolate lay on the table, bleeding from the wrapper onto the lacklustre polish of the wood. Sticky. Petunia’s nose wrinkled in disgust.

And above all, her mind insisted on replaying that eerie moment between Diddy and that unnatural boy, like an annoying repetition of a freakish news report. Diddykins shouldn’t have felt obliged to thank the freak. Her sweet boy ... he would have a hard time in the world if he always acted out of the goodness of his heart.

Vernon had finished inspecting the other rooms and placed himself on the sagging sofa. “This dump hasn’t even a television. How does their sort expect us to keep up with the news?”

How would her gardenias survive if no one was there to water them on a daily basis? And what would become of her beautiful home if these so-called Death Eaters were to attack the place? They wouldn’t simply knock and ask the neighbours where the Dursleys had gone. Petunia pressed her hands into her lap to prevent them from shaking. The rug in front of the sofa was crumpled from Vernon’s pacing. She straightened it with her foot.

No one had told them how long they would have to stay in hiding. But even if it was only a matter of days, she wouldn’t allow her son and her husband to live under such conditions.

She dabbed her eyes with the back of her hand and stood. In the kitchen, she found a collection of dusty but otherwise clean rags and a bucket. A closer inspection of the cupboards revealed two bars of soap.

It wasn’t much. But for now, it would have to do.

“There are few pure-blood families to whom I am not related.”

Dolores was coming to, and the first thing she noticed was the cold. She was still in the courtroom where she had been attacked, slumped down on the floor behind the balustrade that shielded the platform from the Dementors.

Her forehead was pulsing with pain, and when she gingerly put her right hand to it, her fingers came away bloody. Judging from the stickiness of her face, blood seemed to have also trickled down into her hair and into the collar of her blouse. Dolores grabbed the banister and slowly pulled herself into a sitting position. Her arms trembled from the effort, but also from the terrible cold in the room. She could see her breath as white puffs in the air.

Her thoughts raced. This was bad, very bad. She had had it all under control until mere moments ago. What now? What would the Minister for Magic say when he heard that she, Dolores Umbridge, had been stunned by one of the dregs of the wizarding world? What would he think about a witch who had allowed a group of Muggle-borns to outwit them and escape?

Fear gripped her heart with fingers of ice. Only, it wasn’t fear. It was–

Dolores grabbed her wand and jumped to her feet in one smooth motion. Mafalda Hopkirk was nowhere to be seen. As the one who was easiest to manhandle, she’d probably been taken hostage by the prisoners. Two Dementors were floating in the air above a slumped figure in richly embroidered robes that could only be Yaxley. What a fool. Dolores felt her upper lip curl into a snarl.

A third and fourth Dementor turned their faces towards her, sniffing the air. Dolores suppressed a shudder and straightened her back. She had to focus on self-defence, even save Yaxley from being Kissed. Maybe she could put the blame on him. One Dementor had forced Yaxley’s head backwards, making itself ready to place the hole of its mouth over Yaxley’s face. Those creatures were the next to be extinguished, once the new regime no longer needed them. They were, after all, nothing but another threat to wizard-kind.

There would be a new commission for the regulation of dangerous magical creatures. Not such a bleeding-heart lot as the current one, oh no! It would be led by the Senior Undersecretary and Head of the Muggle-born Registration Commission. Warmth spread in Dolores’s chest, despite the cold radiating from the Dementors, and she felt her lips broaden into a wide smile. She could see Yaxley struggling weakly in the Dementor’s grip.

Dolores raised her wand. “Expecto patronum!”

Her trusted silver cat leapt forward, and she directed it straight against the nearest Dementor.

“Yes – yes, I’m staying.”

Dawn was greying the outlines of the beds and chairs in their tent. Hermione lay curled up in her sleeping bag. She had spent the night crying until her eyes had been so swollen that all she could do was stare into the darkness, too wound up to sleep.

She should have seen it coming. The cleverest witch of her age – what a joke! Hermione stifled another sob. She’d tried, she’d tried so hard. To keep Ron calm, to stop him having a go at Harry. But she couldn’t do it all on her own, she couldn’t do all the magic, all the cooking, all the peace-making. They were used to her being the clever one, the one who was level-headed and who used her brains. But the weeks and weeks of living on scraps, of freezing in the wilderness and not knowing what to do had worn her out and she hadn’t been able to calm them down.

She couldn’t have left Harry. She had sworn to stay, and the thought of leaving him would have never crossed her mind, no matter how depressing the situation, or how ungrateful his attitude towards his friends. She couldn’t have left Harry. She couldn’t have left Ron, either.

But Ron had done it. And now he was gone, and she had no idea how to bring him back. His loss hurt in several places at once. They had always been together, three friends who had sworn to protect each other no matter what. Their union was broken and to repair it, they would first have to find Ron. Where could he have gone? And how would he fare without her and Harry at his side? Harry would want to move on, which they would have to do soon; they shouldn’t dawdle. And once they moved, Ron wouldn’t be able to find his way back to their tent, not with all the protections on it. She wished him back just to be able to hit him over the head, because missing him hurt so much that she couldn’t think any more.

And how could she talk to Harry, after everything he’d heard from Ron last night? Ron’s accusations – they stood not just between him and Harry, but between her and Harry as well. Harry was loyal, but fierce when he felt cornered or betrayed. He would ponder Ron’s words and sulk. And it would be Hermione – again – who would have to do the peace-making, when all she wanted to do was shout at Harry in anger and frustration.

Stupid, stupid boys! And stupid Hermione for believing she could have let her attention waver, of confirming her doubts to Ron so that he could use them against Harry.

She balled her fists. But the thought of waking Harry and having to face his gloomy silence helped suppress the overwhelming impulse to pound the mattress. She still needed a bit more time before she felt up to starting with the peace-making. Without a sound, she unzipped her sleeping bag, swung her feet out of bed and walked over to the kitchen to make a pot of tea.

“Well? Is it the true sword?”

Bella stood, looking down at the sword in her hand, examining its hilt. Her thoughts raced like a herd of panicked Hippogryffs.

Madness. This was madness. The sword should be safe in her vault, and yet it was here. Cissy didn’t understand the gravity of the situation they were in, and neither did her useless husband. Lucius was so transparent. He had only one goal: to get back in the Dark Lord’s good graces. Couldn’t he see that no one was closer to the Dark Lord than Bella?

But now was not the time for thinking about where she belonged – the sword was gone from her vault, and if the Dark Lord ... if he found out that Bella’s promises of safety had been worthless – she didn’t even dare complete that thought.

If Potter and his disgusting friends had taken not only the sword, but the cup as well – but they couldn’t have, they couldn’t! Her vault was safe; no one stole from Gringotts, and certainly not from the oldest vaults like Bella’s.

And yet the sword was here, touched by the filthy hands of blood traitors and a Mudblood. That they would dare to break into her vault, to steal from one of the purest families of the wizarding world – it was an abomination!

Bella pressed her left thumb into the blade until she drew blood, using the slight sting to regain her focus. She couldn’t afford to panic, not now, when she was the only one who knew what was at stake, the only one who would be able to sort out this horrible mess.

She would have to make them talk. It shouldn’t be difficult. They were Gryffindors, like her no-good former cousin.

Sirius: so willing to sacrifice family for his so-called friends. Friends who claimed to trust him, until they were ready to let him rot in Azkaban, tricked by the Dark Lord’s ingenious plans. Maybe Sirius’s friends had believed in the old saying Once a screwt, always a screwt? Once a traitor...

No – they themselves had been nothing but a bunch of blood traitors, Muggle-lovers and Mudbloods. They had had no honour. And just like they had given up on Sirius, Potter and his friends would give up on each other, too.

“Take them down to the cellar.” On Narcissa’s command, Greyback began to usher the prisoners out the door.

Bella eyed them closely. Potter could not be harmed, the Dark Lord wanted to dispose of the boy himself. But the blood traitor and the Mudblood were Bella’s to do with as she pleased. The solution was so easy that she almost felt like smiling. She would make them talk. And at the same time, she would be able to show them where they belonged and punish this filth for overstepping their boundaries. What would hurt a Gryffindor more than hurting them personally? You had to hurt someone they cared for.

“Wait,” said Bella. “All except ... except for the Mudblood.”

“Very gallant – but ...”

Carrow’s spittle was running down her cheek. Minerva almost didn’t feel it, but the knowledge was enough – crystal-clear and vicious. Potter stood over Carrow’s twitching body until, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed him into the front of a bookcase, silencing the howls of pain.

Minerva felt like screaming, too. The look on Potter’s face was one of absolute satisfaction, the face of a man at the height of orgasmic bliss. Some got it in the bedroom, others on the battlefield. She’d seen it on too many faces in the first war.

It was shocking to see the expression on the face of one of her students. Of course, Minerva knew that they harboured romantic infatuations and dreams of glory; it was part of growing up, after all. But to see Potter’s face distorted from the bliss of torturing someone, even if it was a Death Eater, made her want to sit down for the first time in years.

“Potter,” she wanted to shout, but found that she only had enough voice for a faint whisper. If he, of all of her students, resorted to means worthy of Bellatrix Lestrange, she had failed him in more ways than one. She should see to her task as his teacher and give him a dressing down, recall his sense of honour and humanity.

But then ... he’d refused her advice and help ever since the day Albus had died. He wouldn’t accept any critique from her now.

Minerva shook herself, trying to get rid of the trance that threatened to steal her decisiveness.

“Potter – you’re here. What–? How–?”

At least her voice was back, though obviously not her command of speech.

Potter widened his stance and put his feet firmly on the ground. He reminded Minerva of a duellist getting ready for the fight.

Maybe, no matter how much she still wanted to be his teacher, her role in this battle had changed, and she had to help Potter in whatever he decided. Regardless of his advanced skills, he needed her support. This was not the time for planting doubts about himself in his mind. Her lecture on torture and Unforgivable curses would have to wait.

But a weak protest not to corrupt him further remained. “Potter, that was foolish!”

He shook his head. “He spat at you.”

She felt oddly touched by his simple wish to revenge the violation of her dignity. In some ways, he was still a boy, after all.

“That was very – very gallant – but don’t you realise?”

He said he did. And something about Voldemort being on his way.

Determination and destruction were radiating from him in waves, each one stronger and more powerful than the one before. Potter’s year on the run had forced him to grown up more than his age or youthful sense of honour implied.

Minerva only wished that he could have been spared, like she had wanted to spare him at the Triwizard Tournament, when Albus had so easily accepted Potter’s role as bait. It wasn’t just Potter’s last year – all his life he had been forced to act older than his age, fulfil tasks most adults wouldn’t dare risk. And yet he had managed all of them, unscathed.

But what would save him this time, after all other means of defence were gone?

Minerva straightened her back to her full height.

Maybe being a saviour wasn’t about finally being old enough to be tainted. Maybe being a saviour meant that, in the end, you couldn’t be saved, that you had to sacrifice your innocence and happiness for the sake of others, that you were marked for slaughter right from the start. And being the teacher of a saviour meant that there came a point when protecting him was no longer an option, when you stepped aside and let him do whatever he had to do, consequences be damned. When you, too, had to sacrifice everything to protect the one thing that still mattered, because survival meant nothing if it meant living a nightmare.

She saw the truth in Potter’s eyes. Tonight, if anyone tried to sabotage their resistance, they would duel to kill.

“But he’s there! Potter’s there!”

Pansy couldn’t believe her eyes. The Great Hall, their last safe place, was full of terrified students. Well, at least they had been terrified moments ago. But then, she had spotted Potter, and called out, and now all the eager faces were turned towards her like a wall of dismissal.

Pansy walked first in the line of her Slytherin friends, her head held high in spite of her fear of going out into the night. She didn’t know who would claim them – or attack – once they’d left the Hogwarts grounds. McGonagall, the old cow, glared at her like she hoped to see Pansy drop dead on the spot. Did she know nothing?

How could it be that no one else had pointed out Potter? Ah, right ... they were afraid. Pansy was afraid, too. But, she realised, the fear of the Ravenclaws and of the Hufflepuffs, and the Gryffindors’ fear in particular was something far different than hers.

They were afraid of doing the one thing that would save them all. Afraid of doing what was uncomfortable, not nice. Why did it always have to come down to Slytherin House to do the dirty work? The others hated them, all right; she had no illusions about her House ever winning a popularity contest. But couldn’t they at least acknowledge the fact that Slytherins were good at planning ahead, at not walking blindly into danger?

Let the Dark Lord have Potter, and then everyone would see who was the better wizard. If Potter was what everyone claimed he was, it would be an easy game for him. He’d come out of all his claimed encounters with the Dark Lord unharmed, hadn’t he? Not that they’d given her a chance to explain that. And if the Dark Lord finished Potter off, it was better to be among those who’d handed him over.

Pansy couldn’t make them see reason. And Professor Slughorn wasn’t going to help – he wouldn’t risk his position to argue Pansy’s point. She felt her nails digging deep into her palms. The footfalls of her friends marching out of the Great Hall echoed all around her. Many of them would be expected to go straight to the Dark Lord to fight for his side. It was almost certain that some of them wouldn’t survive this night.

McGonagall’s hard eyes bored into hers. Did she really believe she was sending the Slytherins out for their own protection? She should have taken equal care of all of them, even if she was too blind to see the value of some.

Pansy lifted her chin even higher. Take that, McGonagall. Take that guilt to your grave.

“Is Draco alive?”

Narcissa knelt beside Potter and began to examine him. She touched his face, pulled back an eyelid. His eyes stared back at her, watering a little. His shirt was wide at the neck, and her hands found easy entrance beneath it. She let them wander down to his chest. The steady beat of his heart was unmistakable under her fingertips.

She crouched lower, bringing her face above Potter’s, shielding them both from the onlookers. Her mouth only inches from his ear, her ear hovering above his mouth, she pretended to listen for signs of faint breathing.

Potter smelled of the rank odour of unwashed boy. A scent she certainly hadn’t smelled much on Draco. She’d got used to Draco’s too-long hair and too-thin wrists, his body spindly where it should be gangly and pointy where it should be lean. But in all his distress, Draco still maintained his hygiene. Well, she had to admit that grooming was certainly easier in a house than on the run, and Potter had been running for almost a year.

She still couldn’t believe the cold calm with which he had walked into his death. In the final moments before the Dark Lord attacked him, Potter hadn’t even tried to go for his wand. What had he been thinking? Had he known that he would survive the Killing Curse again? Had it all been part of a greater plan? It wasn’t important, she reminded herself. All that mattered was if she believed that Potter could win, if she still needed him to win.

Her breath was flying fast, and with the next outlet, she let the words flow from her unmoving lips. “Is Draco alive? Is he in the castle?”

Her heart was drumming against her ribs, much faster than Potter’s heart, the beats ringing in her ears, loud enough that Bella, at the Dark Lord’s side, would certainly hear them. Loud enough to almost drown the faint whisper of Potter’s answer.

Yes.

Narcissa’s hand curled into a fist, her nails digging into Potter’s skin. Draco was alive and in the castle. Reason enough for wishing that Potter would end this nightmare. So much could go wrong. But she had to risk it, because the alternative was even worse. She couldn’t let the monster have her son.

She pushed herself up, removing her hand from Potter’s chest, and chose hope. The faint smile on her face would be easy to read.

“He is dead!” she called to the watchers.

Narcissa’s knees trembled as she stood and watched the celebration all around her. She had handed Potter another chance to end the war. He had survived this long, outsmarting the Dark Lord and his followers again and again. He could do it once more.

And if he won, her family would finally be on the side of mercy.

“She is mine!”

All of her life as a mother, Molly had been in fear of losing one of her children. Now, that fear was gone, replaced by the deadly force of revenge. This was the woman who had brought so much misery upon her family, upon Harry, upon the people Molly loved and cared about.

All of her life as a mother, Molly had never been afraid of doing what had to be done. She knew her household spells and her healing hexes; she could mend bones and fix concussions. She had learned that, with six boys, quick thinking and acting could decide between a stupid mistake and a life-long injury.

All her life as a mother, Molly had been trained for battle. She saw it now. All she had needed was something to tip her over, to push her intentions from protecting to attacking. The loss was so deep it was eating her heart, but she would deal with it later. Lockhart’s book of household pests was clear on this: if you couldn’t chase it away, you had to get rid of it.

With the violent deaths of her brothers, she had always thought she would be afraid to kill, that she would aim to disarm or immobilise, but not to cause death. But now, she realised, fighting to kill was easy. All she had to do was think about her children. Ginny ... Ron ... Hermione ... Harry...

When her curse hit Lestrange squarely in the chest, the triumph Molly felt did not transform her. She had killed, but she wasn’t a killer. She was still Molly, mother of the Weasley clan, and protecting her children was what she did.

The End