LUCY:

"Rennervate!"

My eyelids shot open.

A cave. A dark cave.

Several beams of wandlight, all pointed at me.

"Thought you were clever, didn't you?"

I blinked, squinted, swiveled my head to face the voice. But with my hands tied behind my back and my legs bent awkwardly beneath me, I lost my balance and landed hard on my shoulder, my cheek scraping against a sharp protrusion of rock on the way down.

Rough hands grabbed me by the collar and pulled me back to an upright position.

I was too weak, too dazed, too confused to fight back.

How did I end up here?

"I said," the voice repeated, "thought you were clever, didn't you?"

"I don't know what you mean," I managed.

A figure stepped into the middle of the circle of wandlight. I couldn't see his face because of the way he was only lit from behind, but I could see what he was holding out in front of him like a trophy. It was a wand — mine, I realized half a second later.

"Nice hiding place for this you had. Bet you thought you were clever." He spun the wand on his fingers a couple of times. "As kind as it is for the Dark Lord to even consider you for his ranks," the voice continued, "you're going to need a proper wand before you're able to do his bidding. Unicorn hair is the hardest to persuade. Am I correct in assuming that is your core?"

"And what if you are?" I asked. I don't know what was faster, my heart pounding in my chest or the thoughts racing in my mind. "And what do you mean, the Dark Lord? What would Voldemort ever want to do with me? What makes you think I want anything to do with him? What's this about his bidding?"

"It's quite simple, really, or at least as simple as such a lofty goal as the Dark Lord's can be." The voice was maddeningly calm, maddeningly silky. Maddeningly familiar. "He wants you to join us. You're not just any Mudblood. It is not entirely filthy Muggle blood in your veins, after all. You have Fenrir Greyback to thank for that."

Muggle blood? Fenrir Greyback? They know?

I struggled against the ropes, panic rising in my again.

If I can just get my wand-

"Hold her back."

The ropes tightened around my wrists, and hands grabbed my upper arms. I strained, but it was no use. I was small, I was weak, I was exhausted.

My only hope was my wand.

"Yes, Lucy Diggory, we know about everything. Your mother was a cautious one, yes, but not cautious enough."

He said was. Mum is dead. They killed her.

I absorbed his words in shocked silence. I stopped resisting the hands holding me back.

If not even Mum could survive, I stand no chance.

"I know what you did to her," I said, voice shaking, breath coming even faster. "And I reckon you did the same to Dad. But what do you want with me, why didn't you kill me?"

"In all fairness, that many stunning spells could very well have killed a typical Mudblood. It was more of a test, really, to make sure you were in fact a werewolf. We needed to take you quietly, and we doubted you would go without a fight."

"Damn right! Just a couple seconds longer, and I would have-"

"Would have what? Disarmed ten of us at once? Suddenly learned how to apparate? Sent your patronus after us?"

The cave echoed with harsh laughter.

"I would have tried!" I said loudly once the laughter died down. I strained forward again, trying to get to my wand. I knew it was pointless, but he was right. I wasn't going without a fight.

"And you would have failed," the voice replied with the same maddeningly calm tone. He paused a couple of seconds before declaring, "You are helpless without your wand."

I watched with horror as he snapped my wand in half.

"No!" I cried, unable to help myself.

Cedric had gone with me to get my wand. That wand had chosen me, right away. The right wand on the first try. It was something of a miracle.

I had been so afraid I didn't really belong in the wizarding world. I had been so afraid no wand would choose me. I had been so afraid that I was destined to be an outcast, destined to never belong, destined to never find a place in the world I had fought so hard to love even though the world seemed to want nothing to do with me.

But my fears had vanished when I first held my wand in my hand, when I first felt magic light and exhilarating and powerful all at once coursing through me.

I had told the Sorting Hat that my wand might have been everything I had ever wanted in life. I had told the Sorting Hat that it was a channel for the power entrusted to me, a way to keep everyone I loved safe. I realized in that moment, when I saw my wand in two pieces, that it had been so much more.

"Your choices are simple," the voice said, throwing the wand halves at me. A single strand of unicorn hair connected the two. I knew it wouldn't be enough to ever produce magic again. "Join us, or die."

"No," I said again, eyes fixed upon the broken wand in front of me.

"There are no other options. Do you really think the wizarding world cares about you? Your brother was only enough to make headlines when your mother blackmailed the Minister himself into letting her publish the article that sealed her fate. If he was worth no more than that, what makes you think you're any more worthy of being remembered than he is?"

I sagged forward, no longer straining, and the hands released me. I found it nearly impossible to coax air into my lungs. It was as if his words had dealt a physical blow.

He's right. I'm nothing compared to Cedric.

"Do you really think the wizarding world cares about werewolves?"

Another blow.

"You've fought your entire life to keep your secret. Why? Because you've seen firsthand the way wizards feel about people like you."

I closed my eyes, my pain beyond the point of tears.

"Lord Voldemort sees your plight and has decided to take pity. He is willing to take you in, to let you join in the fight to reform the wizarding world into a more perfect society. Even a Mudblood such as yourself will be able to have a place in it, if you cooperate. If not, you will die. So again..."

A footstep closer to me.

"Join us, or die."

I straightened up and set my jaw in a hard line. "Kill me, then."

I waited for the sight of Cedric's face before me again. I braced for the green flash of light, the incantation I'd heard in my nightmares too many times in the past month, but nothing of the sort happened. Harsh laughter once again filled the cave, and a finger was jabbed into my forehead.

"The Dark Lord will not so easily give up on you. You would be a most valuable asset if you agreed. Think on it tonight. Perhaps if you are still unconvinced come morning, we will think of something to bring you to reason."

Why do my knees have to hurt now, of all times?

I knew it was growing pains. They had started shortly after returning home for the summer, and there were nights that they kept me awake for hours on end. It was no surprise that my knees were hurting in that moment, but it was surprising that of all the different pains I could have noticed...

My knees ached with too-familiar growing pains. My wrists were raw from the now-familiar feel of rough ropes. My cheek stung from where I had scraped it on the rock. The damp frigidity of the cave's air was uncomfortable against the exposed skin from where my robes had been torn open.

"Do you have a better answer?" a different voice asked.

"I would sooner die than join forces with the person who killed my brother," I replied, venom dripping from every word. "You're bloody insane, all of you, to think I would consider it for a second."

"In that case, perhaps this will get you to consider the generous offer. Crucio!"

The scream that tore from my throat was far worse than any I had ever produced. Pain like I had never known coursed through my entire body. It might have been ten seconds or ten days, I would never have known, but every moment that passed allowed the fire to spread, allowed the knives to dig deeper, allowed the pain to consume me more and more.

Suddenly, it stopped.

"Someone heard her!" a new voice shouted. "Take her and go!"

With a jolt and a crack, I was lifted from the floor of the cave only to be dropped onto the floor of another one.

The suddenness with which I had been apparated was too much for me, and I slipped into unconsciousness.