Chapter 53

Well, hello everyone...I know it's been quite awhile since I've updated this story! When I was originally writing this chapter, I had the worst writer's block. I kept coming back to it and finding myself unable to finish it. After that, this story sort of just drifted out of my focus for awhile.

However, I've had some time off recently and have been thinking a lot about finishing this story. With the new Harry Potter HBO series coming up, I really want to finish it out. So, here is the next chapter! I suggest going back and reading up on the few chapters before this to remind yourself of what's happened up until this point if you need to.

Enjoy!

***

Zoe

The feeling is indescribable. I could search for the words to describe it for the rest of my life and I don't think I'd ever find them. 

It astounds me. It overpowers me. It makes me dazed and dreamy, as though my brain is stumbling through a sweet and drunken fog. It strips the breath from my lungs. 

Blaise said he loved me, and the breath on which these words traveled soaked the surface of my skin and settled into me like a warm light. If you cut me open, a shimmering golden glow would bleed out from beneath my skin. 

I'd forgotten feelings like this existed. Feelings of goodness, happiness. I've been estranged from them for several months now, after all. 

Goodness, happiness -- these words seem weak and spineless in the shadow of whatever it is I'm feeling. 

"You're smiling. Why are you smiling?" 

I stir for a moment, having forgotten where I am and the presence of the person beside me. "Uh -- yes?" 

I'm sitting outside with Mikey, on a patch of grass tucked far away from the castle. It looks like a dollhouse from here -- something hand-carved, each detail fashioned into existence by a set of meticulous fingers. Before us sits a large, flat rock, which Mikey has turned into a resting place for his homework. 

A corner of his mouth twitches. "I don't think I've seen you genuinely smile once since I've known you."

"I smile all the time." I dismiss him. He raises an eyebrow at me.

"Anyways. What are you working on?"

"Potions stuff." He says, gesturing at the pile of ingredients and tools scattered on the rock-table. "Supposed to be making an antidote, or something."

"Potions is my worst subject." I say vaguely. He picks up a paring knife, still gazing in my direction as he hacks through a pile of roots. "Never could get the hang of it. I mean, obviously it was my fir-"

A sharp intake of breath, the clatter of metal against stone, and somehow, I know what has happened even before I look. 

Mikey holds his right hand in his left, blood blossoming rapidly from the fresh slice in his finger.

"Damn. How deep is that?" I reach out for his injured hand. He jerks it away from me, wincing. 

I roll my eyes. "Give it here."

I take his hand in mine, just starting to scrutinize the cut when it begins to disappear. 

Slowly but surely, the wound shrinks, stitching itself together until nothing but fresh and unmarked skin stands in its place. 

I blink slowly, transfixed. Mikey wipes his finger against the grass to clear off the remaining blood. 

"The hell?" He says, leaning forward. His fingertip, openly bleeding mere moments ago, now looks as though it had never been touched. His skin is smoother than a wet stone. 

"What in the bloody hell was that?" He splutters.

I look up at him, swallowing. I can't answer his question -- not because I don't want to, but because I'm just as baffled as he is.

***

"Zoe, we don't have time for this -- we need to get on with the training regimen --"

Vaughn is fighting me tooth and nail, convinced that whatever I might have to show him is sure to be wasteful of the limited time we have to work on the "training regimen" he's developed for me. Unlike me, though, he wasn't there to witness what happened with Mikey's cut earlier today. 

"Enough about your training regimen." I cut across him. "Look at this, for two seconds. Just look."

We're standing at the edge of the Outskirt, just about to begin my next training session with him. A dead iris is cupped in my palms, its dry brown petals gently scraping against my skin. 

Vaughn sighs resolutely, throwing a hand into the air. I recognize this as my signal to get on with whatever it is I'm about to do. 

I stare at the flower's dead petals, concentrating on their dried and crispy edges, determined to recreate the effects I'd discovered upon touching Mikey's hand earlier today. 

Then, miraculously, it happens: the flower, which had been surely, undoubtedly dead, begins to move. It's as though a breath of life has blown into it: the petals rustle against each other as they turn from stale brown to vibrant purple, thickening up to the full volume they once were. In no more than a few seconds, a fresh lilac at the height of its bloom sits where the decaying one had just been. 

I look up at Vaughn, grinning proudly. 

He's staring down at my flower, wearing an undiscernable expression. "Okay...you're showing me this why?" 

I can actually feel my face fall. "Did you not just see that?" 

"I saw it. You brought a flower back to life. So are you planning to grow a garden for Lord Voldemort?"

I throw the freshly-bloomed lilac at him. It bounces lamely off his chest. "Dickhead."

"Okay -- maybe that wasn't the best thing for me to say there. I'm sorry."

"It's quite okay." I grumble, still refusing to look at him. 

"But tell me exactly how that's going to help you beat your horcrux of a twin brother in a fight to the death." 

"I don't know," I snap, "isn't it your job to figure that out?"

"Part of it, yes." He reasons. "But it's also my job to help you uncover and develop your offensive magical abilities -- in other words, powers that enable you to attack and kill. This doesn't seem like it'd help you defeat a house elf in battle, much less Julian."

I throw my hands in the air and let them drop lamely to my sides again. "Well, this is the only power I've got right now." 

A moment of tense silence settles between us. 

My heart swells with the desire to convince him that this new power of mine is something useful, perhaps even a sign of a greater power yet to come. It's my first shining beacon of hope in the tidal wave of darkness that's been my life recently, and I'm determined to cling to it until he shreds away each and every one of my defenses. 

"Look, I know it might not seem like much, but I think this could really be something to work with." I say, my voice teeming with desperation. "And it's more than just making plants re-bloom -- earlier today, Mikey accidentally cut his hand with a dagger, and I healed it in seconds just by touching him. It was like the cut had never even been there. That's how I discovered I can do this. Don't you think that means something? That it could be a place for us to start, at the very least?" 

Vaughn closes his eyes for a long moment. I can practically see his mind scrambling to come up with the kindest words to let me down. 

"I do think it's something." Vaughn's voice is gentle and sincere when his gaze meets mine again. "But I don't think it's enough. Zoe, your life is at risk here, and if you don't find a way to -- "

Whether he stops speaking or my ears have simply refused to continue listening, I'm not sure. 

What I do know is that I don't need a lecture on the dark forces currently threatening my life -- as if I don't think about that every moment of the day already. 

If I fail to take down Julian, it's not just my life that's at risk -- it's the safety of the entire world as we know it. The immeasurable pressure imposed upon me by this reality is not something I need reminding of. 

As I stride rapidly away from Vaughn, leaving the unfinished conversation hanging in the air between us, I refuse to allow the small glimmer of hope sparked by the recent appearance of my powers to be extinguished. 

***

Blaise's POV:

"I need to know you understand how important this is, Blaise." Ingrid says. Opposite to her icy appearance is her voice, which is urgent yet oddly comforting to me. 

"Of course I understand." I snap. "Zoe's life is at stake. The information my mother has about the prophecy -- information that only she knows -- could save it. So yes, I understand. And yeah, I'm going to do everything in my power to get her to talk." 

I'm aggravated by the fact that, yet again, my grasp on the crucial nature of my task is being questioned. 

Ingrid nods approvingly. "Then I don't have to tell you how critical it is for you to control your emotions when you speak with her today."

"No, you don't."

I'm in Ingrid's office again -- the room with glass walls beyond which dark and murky water lies. Strange-looking creatures drift just beyond the glass's transparent surface, and their presence doesn't do much to calm my spiked nerves. 

The time has come for me to make another attempt at convincing my mother to let me in on information about the prophecy; the prophecy that she created, the same one which foretells of a brutal fight between Zoe and Julian that at least one of them won't survive. My mother has kept certain information about the prophecy to herself for years, and the task of getting her to share it falls on my shoulders. 

"You know what you need to do, right?" Ingrid's voice cuts through my distant train of thought, pulling me back into the present. 

"Yes." I lie. 

The truth is, I have no clue what I need to do. 

Despite thinking it over for hours and hours, examining the situation from every which angle, I have no idea what will get my mother to talk about the prophecy. The woman is calculated, manipulative, and sharp as a whip -- she knows how to anticipate your every move. How can I outsmart someone like that?

"Well, then," Ingrid says, I'll be waiting for you here when you get back. Be safe, Blaise." 

I give her a firm nod, my heart pounding with what feels like rib-shattering force as I turn on the spot and apparate. 

***

I find my mother in the back garden of Zabini Manor. She's tending to a tangle of vines and tendrils that lurk beneath the shade of a Weeping Willow. Immediately, I recognize the plant to be devil's snare. 

I approach her from the opposite side of the garden, my steps slow and stiff. With her back to me, she resembles an overgrown spider tending to its web. 

In spite of my efforts to move quietly, my mother seems to sense my presence before she even sees me. 

"Did I not say the last time we met that I thought I'd see you again soon?" She sings in a sinister tone. "And so I was right -- you've come to call on me again." 

When my mother turns to face me, the sight of her icy smile makes the blood in my veins run cold. Her eyes are lifeless, like a doll's. 

"What brings you to visit me this time?" 

"I'm here for the same reason as last time." I say, my voice stiff. 

"You never did tell me what that was, you know." 

She takes several steps forward, looking almost as though she's gliding weightlessly across the grass. The urge to back away from her, to put more distance between the two of us, rises up within me like bile. I swallow it down, forcing myself to stay put. 

For some odd reason, it's at that moment that the puzzle pieces fall into place in my head, creating a clear image of exactly what I need to do to get her to talk. 

I almost laugh -- with the solution now spotlighted at the front of my mind, it now seems painfully obvious. 

At the same time, oily dread begins to pool in my stomach. The thought of what's now certain to come sickens me. 

"I know about the prophecy." I blurt. "The one you made about the twins born to those death eaters, Arro and Heracate Tines." 

It's the first time that I've ever caught my mother off guard. 

I can see it in the look that mars her sharp features -- her shock is subtle, but it is there. The knowledge that I've said something she couldn't predict fills me with an electric sense of power. 

"And I know that, because of the prophecy, at least one of them will end up dead. I also know that you did this because the Tines killed your daughter. My sister, that is." 

My mother's eyes narrow into beads as she scrutinizes me. I can almost see her mind whirring, calculating her next move as if this is a game of wizard's chess. 

"How did you learn of this?" She says. 

"That's none of your concern." I retort. "And that's not everything I know. Remember when we last spoke, and you told me that because I hadn't been coming home, you'd started using others in your experiments in my place? Muggles and muggleborns, I think you said. Well, you shouldn't have told me that. 

The thing is, you need me. You can't keep using muggles and muggle-borns. Like you said, they die quickly from the things you do to them. How can you know the results of your work are reliable if you keep using such weak subjects? You can't. And if you keep it up, it's only a matter of time before you start attracting the ministry's attention. With this many muggles and muggleborns having gone missing in the same area, they're bound to start investigating soon. 

Your twisted experiments, your work -- you can't do any of it without me. Like you said, I'm the only subject that's durable enough to handle it without dying. Even better, I won't report to anyone what you're doing to me. I won't call for help. I'm the perfect subject -- and I'm your only option." 

For a moment, both of us are silent. A cold wind sweeps the garden, and it seems to transverse the surface of my skin, settling into my body and bristling against my bones. 

My mother's lips stretch across the tight canvas of her face, forming a thin smile. 

"You're right, of course. But why do you tell me this? Might it have something to do with whatever it is that you desperately want from me?" 

"It has everything to do with that." I say. "What I want is for you to tell me about the prophecy -- and not just anything about it. I know you've kept certain information about the prophecy secret -- things you haven't shared with anything else. Those are the things I want to know." 

"And tell me, why would I be inclined to share any of that with you?"

This time, I'm the one to smile. 

"Because, like I've already said, you need me. If you tell me whatever it is about the prophecy that you've kept secret all these years, I'll let you do whatever you want to me. Any experiments, spells, potions that you can dream of -- you can use them all on me."

Her thin eyebrows raise, but only just so. As always, her features barely betray a hint of emotion.  

"You're much braver than you used to be." She says, her voice silky and dangerous. "But why do you volunteer yourself for such a job, I wonder? Why is it that you desire information about my prophecy, so much so that you'd be willing to undergo the pain of my experimentation?" 

"That," I assert, "is none of your concern, either. But I can assure you that I'm not trying to help the Tines or their son. I've no interest in making Voldemort more powerful than he already is. I've been a plaything of the dark arts all my life because of you -- that's only ensured I hate them more than anything else."

I'm careful not to mention anything about Zoe, who constitutes the second of the Tines' two children, and therefore the other half of the prophecy. I don't want my mother to know that I'm connected to her in any way. If she did, Zoe would quickly become a tool for my mother to use against me. This is how she's treated anything and anyone I've ever cared for, and I simply won't allow Zoe to become a piece in her games.  

"Well," my mother says after a careful moment of quiet, "I'll accept your proposition for now. I have to admit that you've surprised me today -- I never would've foreseen that you might attempt to manipulate me. So daring of you. 

I suppose I'll let you in on one of my treasured secrets about the prophecy now -- why delay it? There's no time for action quite like the present. 

I'll allow you to know this: on the night that it happens -- and by it, I am referring to the deadly battle between the Tines' two children -- I will be far away, hiding in a remote location, the whereabouts of which I will not reveal to you. I will be nowhere near the place of the battle. In fact, I will be nowhere near anyone or anything. I've planned this measure carefully to ensure my own safety at the time the prophecy comes to a head. It will be impossible for you or for anyone else to find me." 

My mind reels as I try to translate her every word into solid, durable memory. 

Hiding in a remote location...to ensure my own safety...impossible to find me...

Was there some secret message or hidden meaning between those details that I didn't pick up on? 

Furthermore, how can I even trust that what she's saying is the truth? That she didn't just craft up some false information to feed me, to distract me, to lead me astray?

"What I've told you is the truth, Blaise." She says loftily. It's as if she's read my mind. "I respect that you've managed to surprise me. Apart from that, I haven't yet told you anything of great importance to me -- no secrets that you could possibly use against me. If those are the details you're after, you'll have to work hard to earn them."  

I know she's referring to the agony I will soon endure at her hands when I allow her to continue practicing dark magic on me. 

"I don't want your respect." I spit.

"You shouldn't act so repulsed by me, Blaise. You're more like me than you'd prefer to think. You've proved that tonight." 

A poisonous mixture of fury and fear blossom in the pit of my stomach. Somewhere within my body, a dim but warm light is snuffed out. 

You're more like me than you'd prefer to think.

It's not true -- it can't be. I despise my mother. I've spent my life trying desperately to separate myself from her. 

But in the back of my mind, a second and more quiet voice floats up: 

Maybe she's right. Your idea of blackmailing her tonight came to you with frighteningly natural ease. You found it easy, even satisfying, to manipulate her in the same way she's always manipulated you. 

Is it possible that I've grown to be like my mother, even after everything I've done to avoid it? Is there a part of her within me that I simply can't escape -- some shard of her DNA that I just can't rid myself of?  

I can't bring myself to look at my mother. Part of me is afraid that if I did, I would see myself staring back at me from out of her eyes. 

"You should go." My mother says suddenly. "I will expect you back here no later than a fortnight from now. At that time, we can resume my experimentation on you. Be sure that you're prepared, both physically and mentally -- we have a great deal of lost time to make up for."

I swallow down the lump in my throat, unable to speak as I turn to apparate back to Beauxbatons. 

But her silky voice sounds again from behind me, this time threaded with venom. 

"You should know, Blaise, that if you fail to return to me as you've promised, or otherwise betray your word to me in any way, I will make sure that you regret it." 

Unable to spend another second in her stifling presence, I pivot on the spot and step into nothingness. 

***