Harry Potter AU Quick Fic
The Lady In Purple
Quick Fic
Genre: Harry Potter/AU
Characters: Everyone gets a breif mention but this one is about an orginal character, a former death eater who in this world is Voldomort's foster daughter.
Synopsis: A woman comes to justice at last, tried and convicted by her own conscience.
I make my way through the shadowed corridors of the house quietly, not wishing to disturb the already troubled slumber of those within the chambers to my left and right. It feels like the whole world is asleep and I envy them that - the small comforts of sleep during these troubled times. I remember with minor desperation those times when I had known those comforts - but that was forever ago. Before my past came back to haunt me, before I came to understand the fear that Voldomort had placed within these people the first time. Before that one simple question began to beat its relentless rhythm against my brain as though trying to burn it’s accusation into the very matter of my cerebrum. “What have I done?”
Snape comes and goes from time to time, and I watch him wondering - does this question burn him the way it burns me? Does he see the fear in their eyes, these people he has come to call friend and realize that he had a finger in their pain and desperation now? He was a Death Eater - the same as I. Yet I know that isn’t quite fair - Snape was never a major player. He was at best a foot soldier in that war, not yet grown to the powerful man he has now become. I on the other hand was more then that - much more.
I still remember when I was a child, just barely into my first decade of life. My parents had died serving a young Tom Riddle, before he became Lord Voldomort. Even then it had been dangerous to be counted amongst the friends and allies of this ambitious young man. When my parents died, Riddle took me in and raised me as his own flesh and blood. I was suckled from the venomous hatred of the man who would someday become the darkest Wizard known in our history. And he taught me all I know of love, a terrifying concept I realize as I look back now, but then I had no real understanding of what those around me in this house would call love.
For just a moment in the whispered darkness of this night I dare to wish, wish that I had been raised by someone else; that when my parents had died I had been taken away to live with someone else - another family. Perhaps one much like the Weasleys. Perhaps then I would have had a chance to be something other then I became.
I allow myself just for a moment to wonder what might have been had I somehow become the daughter of Molly Weasley. I imagine the warmth of being tucked in at night, of a mother’s kiss on my forehead as I drifted off to sleep. I imagine the proud eyes of Arthur Weasley as I brought home my reports from school with honors.
But that was not my lot, instead I had been tucked in with bedtime stories of evil, told to me as though they were the sweetest of dreams. Told of the day that the Mudbloods and the Blood Traitors would be wiped off the face of the planet, and the Muggles would fall under our control like the chattel they were. My grades and achievements were taken into stride as being only fitting for a pure blood and the daughter of Lord Voldemort. I was shown how my achievements could be channeled to help with the eradication of those who opposed us and I worked my way up the ranks quickly. Becoming nearly as feared as my own father - and taking my place to his right hand as a proper daughter.
Every despicable act he committed, I had a hand in somewhere. The blood of a thousand wizards stains my hands with an ink that will never wash clean. It was my hands time and time again that acted for him - reaching out with an iron fist to squeeze the life out of any who dared oppose him. I was there when young Neville’s parents were cursed, and I was there the night that the Potters were murdered.
I have committed unspeakable acts of cruelty and evil upon my own kind - all in the name of a man I have come to despise. There is no justice in this world - if there was I would have been made to pay when my Lord fell. But instead I escaped, slipping through the fingers of Amelia Bones and even the great Dumbledore.
Desperate for a way to drop out of site, I sought a place where I might blend in well enough to go unnoticed and found it in a small town boarding school for witches. An all girls boarding school where I would teach potions. I hated it at first, keeping myself well away from the doddering old bat of a principal who so reminded me Dumbledore (anything but a compliment in my book) and from the young flying instructress who tried so hard to befriend me as well.
But as time wore on I found that despite my best efforts Mrs. Cackle was getting to me, that I had actually started to seek out her company. The more time I spent with her, the more I began to understand the hateful lies that I had been raised on, and the more my head began to turn to an understanding of the truth. It is the greatest gift that I have ever been given… and the greatest curse.
I was unknown to most of the wizarding world - my father had been careful to keep my part in his schemes a secret to outsiders, more a concession to protecting his weaknesses than to protecting me. Because of this I was able to stay with Mrs. Cackle for over a decade in peace. During which time I did what I could to make amends for what I had done.
Now he’s coming back - and Dumbledore has recalled the Order, the most powerful force in the wizarding world outside of the Death Eaters themselves. There will be a war, and more will die. I will have a chance to stand against him one last time - one final moment in which I may redeem my past sins. Or at least that’s what I had thought when I took my leave of Cackle’s school and came here to the very hearth of the Order seeking admittance.
They allowed me in after I had disclosed my secrets. Dumbledore of course made promises of full pardon if I would join with them now, offering what information and skills I had against my Father. I would have done this without that kindness, and the senile old coot knows it - so why he chose to offer me mercy is beyond my understanding. Nonetheless, I am grateful.
The others look at me as though I were a monstrosity - as though my father’s taint was clear for them to see just by looking at me. The so called “Trio” and company avoids me, McGonagall despises me and takes every opportunity to let me know. And so it is with all of them. I understand and accept this; it is my due for the slaughter of those they loved. It is no less then I deserve.
And so I came here, and I came to know these survivors of the first war. Those left behind to carry the scars of a brutal war that I helped bring against them without mercy. I came to love them as though they were my own family, and more than any other I came to love Molly.
And thus my thoughts make their long trek back to the night when this wretched thought first found purchase in my mind. “What have I done?” After all that has happened, all that I have learned this question never once haunted me the way it does now. Not until the night I found myself standing outside of Molly’s door listening to her restless thrashing as the talons of a nightmare clutched her in its icy grip. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to reach out to help her but I knew that my help would not be welcomed and so I turned away. But not before I heard her begging my father not to take her children. Not before I heard her whimpered pleas and cries about the lady in purple.
The Lady in Purple had been the only name anyone outside of my father’s inner circle had for me; the name that was given to me by countless victims across time. The words rang in my ears - followed closely by that thought “What have I done?”
She has the nightmares every night, and I make the silent journey here to her door every night. This is my punishment for my crimes, this is the price I pay for the things I have done. To know that a woman who could have been my salvation will forever be marked by my evil is a punishment worse then anything done to those who were captured after the fall. Here in this space at last justice has its reward. Her cries exact from me the cruelest kind of agony and I lean against the walls to keep from being driven to my knees.
It is everywhere I turn now, in every eye I see the deep marks of loss. Loss that I created by stealing those things most precious to these people. Not just their family and friends but their ability to feel safe, to know peace.
This then is at long last the punishment I thought to have evaded all these years - all summed up in those four simple words “What have I done?”
Quick Fic
Genre: Harry Potter/AU
Characters: Everyone gets a breif mention but this one is about an orginal character, a former death eater who in this world is Voldomort's foster daughter.
Synopsis: A woman comes to justice at last, tried and convicted by her own conscience.
I make my way through the shadowed corridors of the house quietly, not wishing to disturb the already troubled slumber of those within the chambers to my left and right. It feels like the whole world is asleep and I envy them that - the small comforts of sleep during these troubled times. I remember with minor desperation those times when I had known those comforts - but that was forever ago. Before my past came back to haunt me, before I came to understand the fear that Voldomort had placed within these people the first time. Before that one simple question began to beat its relentless rhythm against my brain as though trying to burn it’s accusation into the very matter of my cerebrum. “What have I done?”
Snape comes and goes from time to time, and I watch him wondering - does this question burn him the way it burns me? Does he see the fear in their eyes, these people he has come to call friend and realize that he had a finger in their pain and desperation now? He was a Death Eater - the same as I. Yet I know that isn’t quite fair - Snape was never a major player. He was at best a foot soldier in that war, not yet grown to the powerful man he has now become. I on the other hand was more then that - much more.
I still remember when I was a child, just barely into my first decade of life. My parents had died serving a young Tom Riddle, before he became Lord Voldomort. Even then it had been dangerous to be counted amongst the friends and allies of this ambitious young man. When my parents died, Riddle took me in and raised me as his own flesh and blood. I was suckled from the venomous hatred of the man who would someday become the darkest Wizard known in our history. And he taught me all I know of love, a terrifying concept I realize as I look back now, but then I had no real understanding of what those around me in this house would call love.
For just a moment in the whispered darkness of this night I dare to wish, wish that I had been raised by someone else; that when my parents had died I had been taken away to live with someone else - another family. Perhaps one much like the Weasleys. Perhaps then I would have had a chance to be something other then I became.
I allow myself just for a moment to wonder what might have been had I somehow become the daughter of Molly Weasley. I imagine the warmth of being tucked in at night, of a mother’s kiss on my forehead as I drifted off to sleep. I imagine the proud eyes of Arthur Weasley as I brought home my reports from school with honors.
But that was not my lot, instead I had been tucked in with bedtime stories of evil, told to me as though they were the sweetest of dreams. Told of the day that the Mudbloods and the Blood Traitors would be wiped off the face of the planet, and the Muggles would fall under our control like the chattel they were. My grades and achievements were taken into stride as being only fitting for a pure blood and the daughter of Lord Voldemort. I was shown how my achievements could be channeled to help with the eradication of those who opposed us and I worked my way up the ranks quickly. Becoming nearly as feared as my own father - and taking my place to his right hand as a proper daughter.
Every despicable act he committed, I had a hand in somewhere. The blood of a thousand wizards stains my hands with an ink that will never wash clean. It was my hands time and time again that acted for him - reaching out with an iron fist to squeeze the life out of any who dared oppose him. I was there when young Neville’s parents were cursed, and I was there the night that the Potters were murdered.
I have committed unspeakable acts of cruelty and evil upon my own kind - all in the name of a man I have come to despise. There is no justice in this world - if there was I would have been made to pay when my Lord fell. But instead I escaped, slipping through the fingers of Amelia Bones and even the great Dumbledore.
Desperate for a way to drop out of site, I sought a place where I might blend in well enough to go unnoticed and found it in a small town boarding school for witches. An all girls boarding school where I would teach potions. I hated it at first, keeping myself well away from the doddering old bat of a principal who so reminded me Dumbledore (anything but a compliment in my book) and from the young flying instructress who tried so hard to befriend me as well.
But as time wore on I found that despite my best efforts Mrs. Cackle was getting to me, that I had actually started to seek out her company. The more time I spent with her, the more I began to understand the hateful lies that I had been raised on, and the more my head began to turn to an understanding of the truth. It is the greatest gift that I have ever been given… and the greatest curse.
I was unknown to most of the wizarding world - my father had been careful to keep my part in his schemes a secret to outsiders, more a concession to protecting his weaknesses than to protecting me. Because of this I was able to stay with Mrs. Cackle for over a decade in peace. During which time I did what I could to make amends for what I had done.
Now he’s coming back - and Dumbledore has recalled the Order, the most powerful force in the wizarding world outside of the Death Eaters themselves. There will be a war, and more will die. I will have a chance to stand against him one last time - one final moment in which I may redeem my past sins. Or at least that’s what I had thought when I took my leave of Cackle’s school and came here to the very hearth of the Order seeking admittance.
They allowed me in after I had disclosed my secrets. Dumbledore of course made promises of full pardon if I would join with them now, offering what information and skills I had against my Father. I would have done this without that kindness, and the senile old coot knows it - so why he chose to offer me mercy is beyond my understanding. Nonetheless, I am grateful.
The others look at me as though I were a monstrosity - as though my father’s taint was clear for them to see just by looking at me. The so called “Trio” and company avoids me, McGonagall despises me and takes every opportunity to let me know. And so it is with all of them. I understand and accept this; it is my due for the slaughter of those they loved. It is no less then I deserve.
And so I came here, and I came to know these survivors of the first war. Those left behind to carry the scars of a brutal war that I helped bring against them without mercy. I came to love them as though they were my own family, and more than any other I came to love Molly.
And thus my thoughts make their long trek back to the night when this wretched thought first found purchase in my mind. “What have I done?” After all that has happened, all that I have learned this question never once haunted me the way it does now. Not until the night I found myself standing outside of Molly’s door listening to her restless thrashing as the talons of a nightmare clutched her in its icy grip. I wanted to go to her. I wanted to reach out to help her but I knew that my help would not be welcomed and so I turned away. But not before I heard her begging my father not to take her children. Not before I heard her whimpered pleas and cries about the lady in purple.
The Lady in Purple had been the only name anyone outside of my father’s inner circle had for me; the name that was given to me by countless victims across time. The words rang in my ears - followed closely by that thought “What have I done?”
She has the nightmares every night, and I make the silent journey here to her door every night. This is my punishment for my crimes, this is the price I pay for the things I have done. To know that a woman who could have been my salvation will forever be marked by my evil is a punishment worse then anything done to those who were captured after the fall. Here in this space at last justice has its reward. Her cries exact from me the cruelest kind of agony and I lean against the walls to keep from being driven to my knees.
It is everywhere I turn now, in every eye I see the deep marks of loss. Loss that I created by stealing those things most precious to these people. Not just their family and friends but their ability to feel safe, to know peace.
This then is at long last the punishment I thought to have evaded all these years - all summed up in those four simple words “What have I done?”