The Epitome of an Enigma

I woke up in a cold sweat, sighing when I realized that it was just a memory of the night I’d been taken the month before. The memory of the expression that had unfolded upon the canvas that was Draco’s face, the reflection of the emotions I never wanted him to feel or show again. I stared up at the dark above me, shivering slightly but soon controlling myself and sitting up stiffly. I heard the snores of my companions in captivity, and hung my head between my knees.

“Why me?” I asked myself quietly with a small twinge of desperation. Then I mentally berated myself for the question and answered myself softly with, “It’s me because I drew attention to myself. I wanted it to be me, so it wouldn’t be anyone else.”

Sure, I could answer myself, but it was hard to make myself understand my reasoning even though I knew it was true. Sitting in a cold basement on a hard floor for a month can do that to a person. Alter their senses, their logic, until it could, perhaps, drive them completely insane. And the torture I went through would definitely be a contributing factor to the confusion roiling in my mind.

The feeling of not knowing what to do, why I was here, and sometimes even who I was could be suffocating, to the point that I wanted so desperately to break. It was in times like these that I realized I couldn’t let myself crumble under the pressure, under the pain. I was doing this to help others, I constantly reminded myself. To save others was well worth everything that I had endured and would endure, times a hundred. To keep any small child from feeling what I’d felt, from dealing with all that I had dealt with, would be worth dying multiple times over. No one deserved to go through what I had gone through. Losing my mother to the Death Eaters at such an early age, being branded unwillingly with a Dark Mark, all of it.

Every time I remembered my reasons for my actions, I felt better suddenly. As if all the wounds and aches and pains were suddenly washed away under the light of a better cause.

There was an upside to the torture sessions, I recalled suddenly in the dark space in which I was confined. Whenever I was taken out to be “punished”, they would tell me things about Hogwarts. How Ginny, Luna, and Neville kept fighting back, and sometimes even in my name. Causing trouble for the Death Eaters in control of Hogwarts and drawing the attention to themselves and keeping it from the younger kids as much as they could. Neville was taking the brunt of the beatings and punishments. I didn’t want him to take my place, but I reluctantly would admit that it was better that it was Neville than one of the smaller students.

“It should be almost morning,” I mused to myself, tapping my watch, which had been broken in my struggle in the Great Hall. I sighed again, and leaned my head back against the wall. Closing my eyes, I wondered if I would be able to catch a few moments of sleep, then shook my head. Even if I could fall back asleep, if it really was almost morning then it was also almost time for my next few hours of punishment. I wouldn’t get much sleep at all, and even then whatever sleep I was able to procure would be wasted.

Massaging my temple, where a headache threatened, I groaned to myself, but then shook my head to shake off the negative atmosphere. Thinking dark thoughts wouldn’t help me here, and it wouldn’t comfort my companions in the least. I’d rather they felt some sense of optimism than just all the foreboding thoughts that had been contemplated time and time again by all of us.

I stood slowly, my muscles aching from the night of inactivity and from sleeping on the hard floor. Anything soft we had, like the one raggedy blanket, I gave up to the goblin and Mr. Ollivander. I was younger than they were, so I could handle more discomfort than they could without causing harm to my health. Though in the mornings that I was taken out for my sessions, when I was brought back I would be forced to rest on the homemade pallet for a while. It was becoming habit, although it was something that never should have become such. There was no help for it in a time like this, and I dealt with it as well as any could.

I was determined that my spirit would not be broken.

Slowly, I leaned my weight back against the wall and just rested that way, crossing my arms in front of me. I felt completely lost without a wand in my hand, but it was only natural that they had taken it first thing. That was a feeling that I could never get used to, no matter how long I went without one.

After about fifteen minutes, there was a stirring nearby, but I didn’t pay any attention until a voice asked, “Are you awake, Ami?”

“Yeah,” I replied to Mr. Ollivander’s softly spoken inquiry.

“Did you get much sleep?”

“Enough,” I said. I tended to keep words to a minimum in our captivity. Perhaps I was being unfair to Griphook and Mr. Ollivander, but I was afraid that if I showed my outspoken nature, I would bring the wrath of those who were in charge of my ‘punishments’ down upon them. After all, the tormentors this time weren’t the easily fooled and provoked Amycus and Alecto Carrow, but more even tempered and cruel Death Eaters. The ones in charge of me tended to vary from time to time, the worst being when it was Bellatrix Lestrange, or even Lucius Malfoy, although he’d already lost some of the Dark Lord’s favor. His were particularly brutal because the mark on my neck was clear as day, and he recalled the day he’d given it. Bellatrix’s were just horrible because that’s how the woman was.

“I wish you would accept the blanket sometimes, Ami,” Ollivander’s voice came as a sigh. “It makes me feel cruel to have a young girl like you always sleeping on the cold, hard floor.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” I said, stretching in the darkness. “Better me than you.”

Again, my words were met with a sigh. He didn’t like when I said things like that, but he’d become resigned to them. As for what Griphook thought, I might never know. He could like seeing me pretending that I wasn’t in pain, or maybe he just liked that I was selfless when it came to comfort in this place. Maybe he didn’t even like me in the least because I was a witch, one who took everything from his kind - or so he’d said on a few occasions. But I would still rather let him be comfortable, and cover for him so he would be safe, than let him be harmed.

It was then that the footsteps I had been expecting sounded on the stairs, and I stood up straighter, ready to face the new day.