Gone Twisted

“Do you think he killed her?” Bill asked them after enduring a long silence. They had just buried Dobby, and the grieve was still great.

“Who?” Ron asked sulking next to Hermione. He stared at the bandages around her arm in hurt.

“Ash...” Bill said quietly. He knew it was a hard topic, it was hard for him as well, but he just couldn’t get himself to wish her death for what she’s done, she was his baby cousin after all...

Harry looked up at the group of them. He had been sitting in front of the fireplace just watching the fire grizzle and flicker, eating away the wood and spending them a bit of comfort. He could see the hurt in his best friends eyes when Bill had said her name, and saw how Hermione, still quiet and tired placed her hand over his. Fleur did the same for Bill, knowing how hard it was for him to think about his missing cousin.

“No, he didn’t,” Harry answered emotionless.

“How do you know?” Ron asked.

“I saw it.”

“Saw what?”

“His rage at the death eaters we left behind... The torture he made them go through as a punishment...” Harry’s eyes were distant, "He's still at it."

All that time he had been to focused on the grieve for Dobby to really notice much of what had been going on in front of Voldemort’s eyes, but now he couldn’t help himself but let some of the images that rushed to him from Voldemorts minds. The contorted faces of pain and the screams that nearly made his eardrums burst. Most of the rage had been directed at Ash. Curse after curse hitting her heavily.

“And she’s still alive?” Hermione asked softly.

“Yes, he's making sure he won’t kill her,” Harry answered, trying to block out the green eyes that were filled with pain and sorrow.

Silence fell once again.

From one of the bunks Luna looked over at Harry, sorrow in her eyes. “You know, she isn’t really at fault for her behaviour...” she said in her fleeting voice.

Ron jumped up in rage. “How can you say that! She chose to be a Death Eater! She was the one that had Hermione tortured and hurt! She was the one that had you captured!” he screamed at her.

“No, Luna is right Ron,” Hermione whispered softly.

Ron turned and looked at her perplex. He had expected Hermione to agree with him.

“She lost her memories. All of them. They told her some weird things about us, about her...”

“But she knew us when we went to see her! That couldn’t have been fake!”

“And do you still remember what she did? She help us escape!” Hermione argued. Ron stayed quiet, listening to what the others had to say. “Something happened between then and now, something that made her loose her memories... Something that made her forget herself...”

“Maybe she’s under the Imperus Curse!” Fleur offered.

Luna shook her head, “No, she’s under no curse. From what I gathered when I met her and from the other prisoners told, she lost her memories shortly after Halloween. They told her that you guys had done something to her that made her loose her memories, but that Draco saved her. Now she isn’t one of His most loyal follower, but actually his second-in-command, his protégé, even his daughter.”

Everyone stared at Luna as if she had grown two heads, but then they remembered what they had seen and heard.


"All of you be quiet! This whole household falls under my authority. I am the rank highest here as long as my father, your master, is gone!" Ash shouted loudly. The bickering adults immediately shut up and looked at her, both hanging their heads in annoyance and shame. Like children that had been disciplined by their mother.

-

They watched Bellatrix storm across the room, bellowing orders, but no one moved. All of them glanced at the strawberry blond girl in their middle who was following the event from the spot she had been standing on all the time, next to Draco. When Bellatrix gave her orders to Draco, all she needed to do was touch his arm with a soft stroke to make him stop in his tracks. Without a word, the girl ripped out her wand and pointed it at the older women. A blue flame erupted from the tip of her wand and Bella fell onto the floor with a loud unnerving screech.

"Bella, never ignore me," Ash hissed in a soft voice that was barely audioable over the others screams.

-

Ash inhaled sharply at whatever she had seen in the other womens head and set into motion. "Draco, please bring the snatchers out of here and give them their reward for the prisoners," she said still staring at Bella, "Lucius help him." Next her gaze wandered over to the group of prisoners, "Fenrir, bring the prisoners into the cellar, first cell you encounter."

"We have to find out-!" Bella started, but stopped short at one glance of Ash.

"Bella, we'll keep the Mudblood here for questioning," Ash decided with a nod and signalled the older women to get the girl. Without a second to loose, Bella sprung to her feet and got a knife from a pocket hidden in her dress and followed the order of the 18 year old teenager.


“His daughter?” it was Bill who spoke, he hadn’t seen her in action.

Harry, Ron and Hermione nodded her head, “She did call him father instead of his usual names,” Harry muttered softly.

Suddenly they heard a grunt form their left. The women they had found in the cell with them was finally waking up.

Fleur stood up gracefully and swayed to the cot they had put her down on. “Hello,” she said smoothly, a smile gracing her beautiful lips.

“Am...am I dead?” the girl asked, staring up at the the part veela in awe.

Fleur gave a short angelic laugh, “No, you’re quiet alive,” she said with a smile. “We rescued you from the Death Eaters,” she added. Suddenly the girl face scrunched up and she held her head as if something was forcing herself out of her mind. Frantically the girl looked around until her eyes landed on Harry and his scarred forehead.

“Did she send for you?” the still very dirty girl asked, a glimmer of hope in her eyes and a smile spreading across her features.

“Who?”

“That Death Eater girl, Ash Weasley was her name! Did she send for you? You are Harry Potter, right? One of her friends?”

All of them looked at her in utter disbelieve, “You know Ash?”

“Yes, she captured me once when I was about to run away... on Halloween. If it hadn’t been for her I think I’d have died that night,” she said her mind wandering off.

“You never told us that,” Luna said quietly, a bit confused at what the other was saying.

“I didn’t remember until now. She supressed my memories,” the girl explained.

“What exactly did she tell you?” Hermione asked intrigued.

The girl looked at her, then sighed and began to think. “She was devastated. She told me that this whole evening had been one living hell for her, that nothing was going for her any more and that the best thing to do for her was to kill her right then and there... You must understand I had taken her wand from her when she told me this.”

“She wanted you to kill her?”

“Yes, like I said she was pretty beat up. She told me that this boy and girl... Um... Blaise and Tracy had been there and had been upset with her and that you guys also came. But she couldn’t go with any of you because she had a mission to complete.”

“A mission?”

“Well, yes. She said she joined up with one of the other Death Eaters...”

“What exactly did she tell you?” Bill asked, moving towards her looking at her pleadingly.

The girl looked at him and nodded, “She said she had been kidnapped five months ago then. She had been thrown into the Dungeons and left there for about a months time. At first she took the food they offered her hoping you would soon come for her, but after about two weeks she stopped eating all together, hoping to die before the Dark Lord decided to have time for her. They tortured her for a long time without her revealing anything, until they threatened someone... Ummm... Her ex-boyfriend? I think she was still in love with him by the sounds of it, because even though she knew it was stupid, she gave into their demands and became a Death Eater to save him.”

Ron stood up from his chair abruptly and started stalking up and down the floor, muttering something along the lines of how stupid she was and that he told her so.

Watching him carefully, the girl continued talking. “Soon after that another Death Eater came to her and and asked her to fight Vol-” Everyone jumped up and held the mouth of the girl shut.

“Don’t say that name!” Hermione hissed, “They put an taboo on the name.”

“Oh... Ok...Ummm... Well this other Death Eater came and asked her to destroy Him from the inside with her. She of course accepted. They gathered information, intercepted orders and tried to direct the path into a more peaceful way of solving conflicts.

“She couldn’t tell you for some reason... So she tried to save you by making you believe that she had turned.”

“And she told you all of that?” Harry asked, suspicious of her words.

The girl looked up at him and nodded.

Once again silence filled that room, until the old wand maker Olivander, the normally so peaceful and nice man began to talk. “Well, I honestly do not care what made her accept that stupid mark in first place. All I know for sure is that even if she started out her career with good intentions, she is now the daughter of the most ruthless wizard of all times. I have spend a lot of time with her in my time at that place. We had many conversations. Whatever she was before her memory loss, she isn’t any more. She is a Death Eater through and through now and that is how you all should treat that despicable girl.” With that the old man turned around and tried to get a bit more sleep in order to regain some of his energy.

The others just looked at each other for a second before looking at the floor once more, knowing that what the old man had said was true. The old Ash had been lost with her memories, now there was a Death Eater residing in her body.