-Rosalind Gryffindor-

Her wand twirling in her frizzy hair, Bellatrix's lips twitched quick into an unpleasant state.

"Don't they have anything with them?"

"We sent a man to search for their tent. He should be back soon," Fenrir Greyback replied, his eyes staring cold into hers. Werewolves didn't like to be bossed around, and Bellatrix's sole presence was just doing that.

"Good. Because you know what happens when I get impatient," she chirped, her motif embroidered knife pressed against his cheekbone.

"Get that off. Now," he grunted. 

"What if I don't, wolfie?" She beamed. "Incarcerous!"  With that spell, ropes wrapped around Greyback's wrists and ankles, stretching him in the air. He was about to say something but with the voice of someone's feet stepping on the ground, he turned his head in the direction of the new arrival: Gryffindor's sword. 

Shit, they had found it. 

Bellatrix shot one last look to Greyback. "I'll deal with you later, sweetie." And she left him hanging there, we unwillingly followed her into the manor. I heard him mutter "Bitch." but Bellatrix didn't even flinch.

The steel door was shut hard behind us.

"Now... who wants to confess how they stole the sword from my vault?" Her voice was sweet but deadly. It was one of those rare times I went back to being Ava Wilkins, exactly when I ordered myself not to. The lunatic woman could possess my thoughts. However, the little orphan girl hiding behind the daring, tough image of Rosalind Gryffindor was all I could think of. It was like a much hated alter ego, something I could not embrace, someone only seen by Harry the night of the Yule Ball.

"Why do you avoid the ferret?" He had asked, giving me a confused look.

"I-I..." I couldn't look in his eyes. He couldn't know about it. Not yet.

"Nevermind. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he said, tenderly caressing my cheek. I had let him. He had been the only one I let my guard down to ever since I switched to being Rosalind Gryffindor. It was much easier this way, I could fake being brave till I was brave. Houses sorted us into what we valued, after all.

"No one?" She asked dryly. "Then I'll start with you, princess." Her gaze was fixed onto me. Why the fuck did I think of the past in front of a legilimency master?

She dragged me to drawing room before instructing Scabior to take my friends down. "And," she added, "Ask Draco if he knows the swollen face." 

Draco was here. Of course he would be here. I wished the ruthlessly emotionless owner of those stormy eyes would stay silent for a good cause this time. 

"Sweetie, we'll be playing a game now. You'll tell me how you got in my vault. If you won't be cooperative, I'll make you. Bellatrix Lestrange doesn't lose games."

"I don't-"

"Wrong answer! Crucio!"

I screamed at the top of my lungs, later drowning in my own cries. "We didn't get in your vault!"

"Liar! Tell me the truth before I rip you into pieces! What else did you take?"

My only response was my muffled cries and my trembling body. She pinned me hard on the floor once again. "Crucio!"

I inhaled deeply. I could surely resist, at least a little, if two Longbottoms held on until they went insane. Only if I knew a bit of Occlumency. Bellatrix reached out for her knife.

"I'll mark you like the bitchy little traitor you are." 

And my piercing cries echoed once more, this time to be responded by my friends. They were shouting my name, but my senses soon went away with the agonizing pain of the knife running through my skin, forming letters. I begged this would stop. Instead she grabbed the bunch of my messed up hair, pulling it into extreme lengths, for I was again eye-to-eye with Draco now, and replied coldly, "It's only the beginning, darling."

Draco's slim figure stood in front of me, watching me come in the border of passing out from the torture. Impassive. As always.

Bellatrix dumped my head back to the floor. I saw the word traitor carved on my forearm prior to my eyelids closing for a mere second. 

The witch slapped me so hard my teeth crushed. "Who said you could sleep?" 

I stammered to make an attempt to deny the accusations, deep down knowing it would do no good. "P-please. I didn't steal anything from you."

She stared into me for a few moments in which I thought she was searching for something deeper. My thoughts. I tried my best to put in a blank wall, I needn't have her know we found the sword from a lake.

"You know what, we'll find out what a pathetic piece of shit you are. Draco, get the goblin. Oh- is the swollen faced boy Harry Potter?"

"I don't know."

"You need to. This could save your family. Or well, if you were wrong, imagine the Dark Lord coming here for nothing, his wrath burning down your home, what would be left of you?"

"I'll try," he gulped and went. 

I was set to rest for a few minutes which I was grateful for, until the goblin showed up. 

"Tell me, is this the real sword of the Gryffindor?" She hissed. The goblin's front creased as his eyes focused on the glowing sword. 

"No," he lied. 

"Are you sure? Look closer, this is crucial." She slipped the jeweled handle to the little creature's hand. He quickly observed it once more. 

"This is a replica of the genuine sword, which still is in your vault for sure."

"In- Hey! What are you doing there? Avada-" 

"Bombarda!"

Bellatrix rapidly jumped off me and I had barely a second to move away. Antecedently, I limped sideways. Then, a part of the ceiling collapsed. 

"Lucius! Cissy! Draco!" she groaned before she pulled me to her side from my ankle. I tried to hit her face back but I just couldn't find the energy necessary for a strike. It was too late now. Her knife was pressed against my throat, and a few drops of blood could be seen now. And the rest of the Malfoy family had just arrived.

"Drop your wands or I will kill her!" She pressed the edge harder, it was almost as if she could tear it. Still, that was not the problem. I was letting my friends lose. I looked up to see Harry's face, transformed back to normal. We looked at each other hopelessly a brief instant, until Draco got in between, pulling Harry's wand from him. Effortlessly. Because of me.

"Well well well..." she gasped.  "Look who's here... We should summon him!"

Ensuing hesitant glances exchanged between Lucius and Draco, Lucius pulled plucked his sleeve, showing off the Dark Mark. Yet, his index finger stopped in the air when all of us were clearly disturbed by a squeaking voice. It was coming from above. I raised my head alongside with the knife that was about to pass the fatal border, and saw Dobby, unfastening the chains holding the chandelier. Bellatrix shrieked and inched away, I did the same for myself in the last nanosecond thanks to my reflexes.

Harry pulled me to their side as the dust combined with rust in the drawing room. In the chaos, Hermione ran to Draco and gripped their wands, he had given them almost... willingly. Lucius tried to shot back but she defused him with a simple stupefy.

Now the only one we needed to run away was Dobby. Where was he?

Soon as he thrust out his scrawny little hand, we heard Bellatrix's cries in horror. "You could have killed me!"

Dobby turned to reply with a not so innocent grin on his face. "Dobby didn't mean to kill. Dobby only meant to maim or seriously injure." I tried not to laugh hard. On the other hand, Narcissa Malfoy was not so amused. She rose her wand as well but Dobby made it fall with a click of it's hand.

"How dare you take a witch's wand? How dare you defy your masters?" Screeched Bellatrix.

"Dobby has no master. Dobby is a free elf and Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends." He walked back. We all held his hand, we were ready to go. But Bellatrix wasn't going to let this slip off easily. I glimpsed at her to see her knife flying to us. 

The knife, which could be hardly distinguished in the amidst of an apparation, hit Dobby the free elf straight in the heart.