As Savage As Love, 1/?. NC-17.
Title: As Savage As Love
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17 for all kinds of bad and wrong and not for children.
Pairing: Katie Bell/Marcus Flint.
Disclaimer: They originally belonged to JKR. I nicked her toys without permission. I sincerely doubt she'd like what I'm doing with them anyway...
Spoilers/Warnings: This begins during DH (minus the Epilogue of Doom). It starts off slow and then rolls on downhill from there: Physical violence, sexual violence, all flavors of con (non con, dub con, coercion, actual con) and mindfuckery in general. It's unrepentant Death Eater!Marcus and captured spy!Katie. You have been duly warned...
Summary: Katie Bell thought sneaking back into England from exile would allow her to help the Resistance more easily. She never thought it would help her disappear into the very clutches of the enemy she wanted to fight.
As Savage As Love
We both know the power of pain,
We get back up and start it again...
Nothing can be as savage as love,
One taste is never enough.
"Dreaming" by BT
The Bells had left England shortly after Katie graduated from Hogwarts. They were officially on extended holiday, but Katie knew that she had been turned into an expatriate. Though her father had been an Auror, even he no longer felt welcome in Wizarding England. He had looked into the incident with the locket when Katie was first brought to St. Mungo's for spell damage, and had been blocked at every turn. When he pushed harder, one of his superiors idly commented that it would be a shame if Harold left his wife Clara a widow. The implication was clear, and he dropped his investigation. Still, it rankled. He was supposed to be enforcing the law, not helping the Death Eaters break it.
But Clara was a Muggleborn witch, and had been sorted into Hufflepuff when she was in school. She didn't have the temperament for double dealings in the atmosphere that starting to seep into the community. She still felt uneasy whenever she thought about the first war against the Dark Lord, the senseless violence and horrible things she had suffered when visiting her Muggle cousins one afternoon. Harold hadn't known about it until hours later, when St. Mungo's had seen fit to contact him as next of kin. The Aurors on the scene were too busy mopping up the scene with the Obliviators' help. Death Eaters had stormed the little Muggle village for sport, and Clara had been confused for one. While her cousins watched helplessly, she had been held aloft by spells, her unborn baby crudely cut from her swollen belly. The baby had only been six months along and hadn't been able to survive the damage. Katie would have had a younger brother if not for the attack, and Clara couldn't have any other children afterward. It had been her urging to leave England when the climate shifted; she couldn't tolerate the fear that something similar might happen to Katie if she stayed behind.
Harold caved to Clara's wishes; she had always seemed so fragile after that attack, and he had never wanted to stress her overmuch. Katie bristled against the move, but caved to her mother's wishes as well.
She lasted a month before she chafed under exile.
Katie felt like an utter heel as her mother began to sob. Harold understood the urge to return, to do something to help her friends. Something had to be done, and the Gryffindor in him was proud of the way she was going to stand up for her beliefs. The father in him wanted to pull her back, wanted to warn her against the dangers.
But she had been a casualty already, hovering between life and death for months before her return to Hogwarts. Harold understood how Katie needed to do something, that she needed to regain her sense of self and to help the cause. He wasn't willing to return himself; he had promised Clara he would stay with her, and he was going to honor that promise.
Katie owled the twins first; they had always been in the thick of it, practically Harry Potter's family. They would know where she was needed, how best she could help.
Floo to the Burrow, the twins had written. When Katie did so, she happily found herself surrounded by various Weasleys. "Oi, you're filthy!" said Fred with a grin. "Clean off before Mum gives you a wallop," George added for good measure.
Ignoring them both, Katie caught them both in great big hugs. "I've missed you lot. I didn't want to ask about Angie or Ali or the rest of them..."
"Too right," Fred replied, nodded. He brushed off his shirt and started to brush the ash from Katie's shoulders. "Now's a dangerous time."
"They're talking about changing laws that define Pureblood," George said, brushing off Katie's other shoulder. "If you haven't all four grandparents as wizardborn, you're not Pure anymore. Any less and you're a Half, and if you've none at all you're a Muggleborn."
"But that's ridiculous," Katie said, looking between the twins incredulously. "Half of the world would be Halfblood, then."
"It'll probably pass," Fred began. "But come on, Mum will want to feed you. She always said you were a skinny thing, all knees and elbows."
Katie threw an elbow in question into a twin's side. George yelped and ducked out of the way, yelling "That's sharp, Bell! No fair hurting our side!"
It was rather nice to be folded into the Weasley household. It was mid July, and they were trying to plan something nice to do for Harry's birthday, as well as Bill and Fleur's wedding. Being an only child, Katie thought having such a large family would be a wonderful thing. Her time at Hogwarts was the closest she had come to having such a large family. Katie didn't know much about Harry's family, but apparently they were shite at parties and knew nothing about how to keep him safe past his seventeenth birthday. Even the "rescue" from that household was so hush-hush that Katie didn't even know the particulars about it.
"Well, if you're busy doing this, there's bound to be something to do to help the Order. Are there any other DA members helping out?" Katie insisted.
"Well, there's a couple here and there starting to spy on Ministry officials," George began in a low tone.
"All the ones suspected of being Death Eaters and sympathizers, of course," Fred added. "And there's a taboo on saying You Know Who's name."
"What do you mean?"
"Word is, that's how people are getting tracked down." Fred and George pulled Katie into the backyard. "We've been using our tricks to listen in on meetings they thought we should stay out of," Fred began.
"And you know us, always got to listen," George added. Katie nodded at them, indicating that she was following along.
"Well, they wanted to lock us out of a meeting just two weeks ago, now."
"Some good people have been killed already," George continued, finishing Fred's thought. "And that includes top Aurors and Ministry workers that we know believed Harry."
Katie's father had been one of them, and her face blanched. "So if Dad hadn't left..."
"You're all listed as expats now," Fred said with a nod. "No one knows you're back."
"But us, of course. Probably best that way, or you'd be brought in for questioning and you don't ever get to return."
"But..."
"Some from our year have already gone missing," George told her, voice dropping. "Ali's fine, she's a Pure from a long line of Pures and is smart enough to keep her mouth shut. She's doing some ordinary, boring work besides. Safe enough."
"Angie's a Half," Fred told Katie tightly. "We've had our goodbyes, and she went the expat route, too. I don't think she's coming back, not until this is safer."
That didn't sound like Angelina Johnson, but Katie suspected that there was more to the story, just as there was more to her own story if someone asked. "I'm sorry," she whispered at them, shaking her head. She had been gone a month. How could this have happened so quickly?
"All it takes is for good people to bowl over and do nothing," Fred said, wisely guessing at Katie's thoughts. It had been why the group of them always flew so well together. The twins as beaters knew all three Chasers, and they flew as a unit.
George tugged on the dark brown hair that Katie had put up into a ponytail. "Come on, then. No looking down when Mum sees you. We'll figure out tonight what we can probably do."
"If no one knows I'm here," Katie began, following them back into the house, "then the best way to use me is to put me where no one would think to look."
"Spying, you mean?" George asked.
"Of course," Katie replied just as Fred nodded and said "What else could she mean?"
George exchanged a conspiratorial grin with Fred and Katie. "Rather like sneaking a look at Slytherin plays on the pitch?"
"No one looks twice at the petite girl going by the field," Katie said with a laugh.
"We've always liked how you think, Katie," Fred began. "We'll figure it out after dinner."
There were three primary targets that the twins wanted to keep an eye out for. The Malfoys, the Flints and the Montagues were among the most prominent supporters for You Know Who, and always had been. Other Slytherins were more cautious with how they displayed their support, but the Montagues had been quick to rally around their son's accident with the Vanishing Cabinet as a reason why the populace had to be looked after. Magic run amok could do terrible things, they reasoned, and their poor son remained injured after all this time.
"Bollocks," Katie said, shaking her head. "Neither of you would ever have done anything truly harmful. He probably just needed a good excuse to skive off school."
The twins looked at each other but remained silent. They hadn't intended for there to be long term spell damage, sure. But the fact of the matter was that he wouldn't have splinched himself so terribly if they hadn't hexed him first. Fred was sorriest about that move, and George still liked to say that Montague deserved it.
"Anyway, I'll head off to -"
"Don't tell us," Fred said abruptly. "Report back to any of the Order members if you see them."
"What are you on about?" she asked, looking between the twins.
"Things are getting dangerous," George said, shooting a look at his twin in annoyance. "We're pretty well known as a friend of Harry's, yeah?"
Katie nodded. "Of course. And Ron's his best friend..."
"So we just want to make sure you report back to someone that's less likely to be impersonated by a Death Eater."
Katie looked at them with wide eyes. "Is that how they're getting them?"
"I think so," Fred murmured.
"No proof, of course, but there wouldn't be any," George said grimly.
"Well, how will I know that they're for real, then?" Katie asked.
"See? Didn't I tell you she's a smart one?" Fred told George with a grin.
"That, you did." George turned his grin to Katie. "Still got your DA coin?"
Katie dug it out of her pocket. "Right here."
"It'll stay just as it is if you're with a proper Order member. Anyone questionable, and it'll turn blue or green. It depends if they've got the Mark or not."
"Brilliant," Katie said, grinning at them as she returned it to her pocket. She would have to figure out something to do with it later, to keep it visible but unobtrusive.
"Hermione's been working on a lot of things, the swot," Fred said fondly.
"Good thing she's with us and not them," George added.
"Well, I should probably change and be off, then," Katie told the twins. "I could get this whole plan started, and be back before you go off to get Harry."
"That's what we love about you, Katie. You're always ready to go along with our plans," Fred told her, bumping shoulders playfully with her.
"Stay safe, you," George warned. "No dramatic heroics."
"Nothing we wouldn't do, anyway," Fred amended.
Laughing, Katie headed up to the room Hermione and Ginny were sharing. She had stowed her bag there soon after she arrived, since there wasn't much room in the Burrow. The two other girls were in the backyard, likely making more sarcastic comments about Fleur. She plaited her hair, then changed into black clothing. She caught sight of her charm bracelet, her graduation gift from her mother. Shrinking her DA galleon, she attached it to the bracelet as another charm. She should be able to see the thing change color, and it wasn't so obvious to an outside observer.
She'd heard of Lucius Malfoy's escape from Azkaban while abroad, and didn't think that Malfoy Manor would be easy to get to. Montague's house was likely already under observation by Order members, and there was no point to getting information they already had. That left Flint Manor. She wasn't entirely sure of the location; it was possibly somewhere near Salisbury, given what little she knew of the family. Most Pureblood households had the Wizarding Directory, so Katie looked at the Weasley's copy while no one was looking. It had a listing of all wizards and witches in England, as well as the known apparition coordinates and registered floo connections listed. She memorized the apparition coordinates for Flint Manor, then left the Burrow. If she was caught right at the apparition point, there was no sense in leaving any trace to the Burrow. The Weasleys were already known sympathizers for Harry's cause, and she didn't want to send any further doubt onto them.
It was dark when she arrived at the public apparition point for Flint Manor. It turned out to be on a hill several hundred yards away from the actual Manor gates. Well, she had kept up running and exercises while away. It was quick work to jog toward the gates and start looking for a way through them onto the grounds. She was surprised that there weren't any barrier wards near the gates, but supposed that they were too confident to have them. She vaguely remembered Marcus Flint from school. He had always been a solid wall of muscle and sinew, with chiseled features that hadn't sit quite right together. He'd been called a troll by more than one member of the Gryffindor team, and at the time Katie hadn't thought it to be more than teasing. He had a vicious temper, she remembered. If the rest of his family was the same way, it was more than likely that no one would trespass willingly onto the grounds.
Katie was petite and slim. It wasn't difficult to slip between the bars of the wrought iron fence near dense shrubbery. She could see lights on in various Manor rooms. Many of them didn't even have the curtains drawn, and she could see that there were people moving about in them. She wished she had a broom of some kind, to hover nearby and still have a getaway plan. But she didn't have one and the Weasleys wouldn't have been able to spare one. Katie crept closer to the Manor windows and risked a glance through the glass.
It was a ballroom of some kind, and many of the elite Purebloods in society were there. She caught sight of the Malfoys, easily recognizing Draco's drawn, pinched face. It looked as though he wasn't sleeping well, and she hoped he was feeling guilty for his part in what happened at the school. She recognized a few other faces from the Prophet, though she couldn't understand what everyone seemed to be waiting for. They looked expectantly toward the massive doors leading to the ballroom, at the two men standing in front of them. One looked like Marcus Flint, and one was an older version of him. His father, then. His father nodded at Marcus rather imperiously, and Marcus inclined his head ever so slightly. He opened the doors, stepping through them and then disappearing from sight.
And Voldemort strode into the room, a large coiled snake beside him.
Katie gasped and stepped away from the window, then ducked down beside the stone wall. She had to move somewhere it would be more difficult to find her. She dimly remembered the whispers in Gryffindor Tower about Harry's visions. The whispers told of large snakes, of horrid deaths and utter destruction.
Katie raced along the edge of the building. Maybe there was a way in, a way to figure out what was going on. The Order knew who the Death Eaters were. That wouldn't be helpful. If she could figure out what was going on, why they were all gathered, that had to be important.
She couldn't seem to find an entrance into the Manor other than the locked servants' entrance in the back. She couldn't exactly go in through the front door and ask what was going on. No one had the stones for that, not even Harry Potter.
She was crouched beside shrubs, and the faint moonlight made it hard to see. But her DA coin hanging from her bracelet had been green for quite some time. She had no warning for anyone behind her before she was placed in a full body bind.
Fuck, she thought, and wanted to kick herself. She should have gotten away when she could. She should have been happy enough with the guest list. Maybe the Order didn't know for certain who was a Death Eater.
Katie couldn't even cry out in pain when a vicious kick landed on her ribs, turning her over onto her back. She stared up into the starry sky, hoping she would live. There have been rumors of people going missing, of never returning. The deaths that the twins had mentioned out of their parents' hearing...
Marcus Flint stood over her, his gaze impassive as he contemplated her. For a moment, Katie wondered if he recognized her from the Quidditch pitch at school. She had been younger then, all skinny, knobby knees and elbows and covered in her Quidditch kit. Would it be better or worse if he recognized her from school?
"I should have realized no Gryffindor would have the good sense to stay away," he muttered, shaking his head. He then picked her up. He slung her body over his shoulder and headed into the Manor.
***
***
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17 for all kinds of bad and wrong and not for children.
Pairing: Katie Bell/Marcus Flint.
Disclaimer: They originally belonged to JKR. I nicked her toys without permission. I sincerely doubt she'd like what I'm doing with them anyway...
Spoilers/Warnings: This begins during DH (minus the Epilogue of Doom). It starts off slow and then rolls on downhill from there: Physical violence, sexual violence, all flavors of con (non con, dub con, coercion, actual con) and mindfuckery in general. It's unrepentant Death Eater!Marcus and captured spy!Katie. You have been duly warned...
Summary: Katie Bell thought sneaking back into England from exile would allow her to help the Resistance more easily. She never thought it would help her disappear into the very clutches of the enemy she wanted to fight.
As Savage As Love
We both know the power of pain,
We get back up and start it again...
Nothing can be as savage as love,
One taste is never enough.
"Dreaming" by BT
The Bells had left England shortly after Katie graduated from Hogwarts. They were officially on extended holiday, but Katie knew that she had been turned into an expatriate. Though her father had been an Auror, even he no longer felt welcome in Wizarding England. He had looked into the incident with the locket when Katie was first brought to St. Mungo's for spell damage, and had been blocked at every turn. When he pushed harder, one of his superiors idly commented that it would be a shame if Harold left his wife Clara a widow. The implication was clear, and he dropped his investigation. Still, it rankled. He was supposed to be enforcing the law, not helping the Death Eaters break it.
But Clara was a Muggleborn witch, and had been sorted into Hufflepuff when she was in school. She didn't have the temperament for double dealings in the atmosphere that starting to seep into the community. She still felt uneasy whenever she thought about the first war against the Dark Lord, the senseless violence and horrible things she had suffered when visiting her Muggle cousins one afternoon. Harold hadn't known about it until hours later, when St. Mungo's had seen fit to contact him as next of kin. The Aurors on the scene were too busy mopping up the scene with the Obliviators' help. Death Eaters had stormed the little Muggle village for sport, and Clara had been confused for one. While her cousins watched helplessly, she had been held aloft by spells, her unborn baby crudely cut from her swollen belly. The baby had only been six months along and hadn't been able to survive the damage. Katie would have had a younger brother if not for the attack, and Clara couldn't have any other children afterward. It had been her urging to leave England when the climate shifted; she couldn't tolerate the fear that something similar might happen to Katie if she stayed behind.
Harold caved to Clara's wishes; she had always seemed so fragile after that attack, and he had never wanted to stress her overmuch. Katie bristled against the move, but caved to her mother's wishes as well.
She lasted a month before she chafed under exile.
Katie felt like an utter heel as her mother began to sob. Harold understood the urge to return, to do something to help her friends. Something had to be done, and the Gryffindor in him was proud of the way she was going to stand up for her beliefs. The father in him wanted to pull her back, wanted to warn her against the dangers.
But she had been a casualty already, hovering between life and death for months before her return to Hogwarts. Harold understood how Katie needed to do something, that she needed to regain her sense of self and to help the cause. He wasn't willing to return himself; he had promised Clara he would stay with her, and he was going to honor that promise.
Katie owled the twins first; they had always been in the thick of it, practically Harry Potter's family. They would know where she was needed, how best she could help.
Floo to the Burrow, the twins had written. When Katie did so, she happily found herself surrounded by various Weasleys. "Oi, you're filthy!" said Fred with a grin. "Clean off before Mum gives you a wallop," George added for good measure.
Ignoring them both, Katie caught them both in great big hugs. "I've missed you lot. I didn't want to ask about Angie or Ali or the rest of them..."
"Too right," Fred replied, nodded. He brushed off his shirt and started to brush the ash from Katie's shoulders. "Now's a dangerous time."
"They're talking about changing laws that define Pureblood," George said, brushing off Katie's other shoulder. "If you haven't all four grandparents as wizardborn, you're not Pure anymore. Any less and you're a Half, and if you've none at all you're a Muggleborn."
"But that's ridiculous," Katie said, looking between the twins incredulously. "Half of the world would be Halfblood, then."
"It'll probably pass," Fred began. "But come on, Mum will want to feed you. She always said you were a skinny thing, all knees and elbows."
Katie threw an elbow in question into a twin's side. George yelped and ducked out of the way, yelling "That's sharp, Bell! No fair hurting our side!"
It was rather nice to be folded into the Weasley household. It was mid July, and they were trying to plan something nice to do for Harry's birthday, as well as Bill and Fleur's wedding. Being an only child, Katie thought having such a large family would be a wonderful thing. Her time at Hogwarts was the closest she had come to having such a large family. Katie didn't know much about Harry's family, but apparently they were shite at parties and knew nothing about how to keep him safe past his seventeenth birthday. Even the "rescue" from that household was so hush-hush that Katie didn't even know the particulars about it.
"Well, if you're busy doing this, there's bound to be something to do to help the Order. Are there any other DA members helping out?" Katie insisted.
"Well, there's a couple here and there starting to spy on Ministry officials," George began in a low tone.
"All the ones suspected of being Death Eaters and sympathizers, of course," Fred added. "And there's a taboo on saying You Know Who's name."
"What do you mean?"
"Word is, that's how people are getting tracked down." Fred and George pulled Katie into the backyard. "We've been using our tricks to listen in on meetings they thought we should stay out of," Fred began.
"And you know us, always got to listen," George added. Katie nodded at them, indicating that she was following along.
"Well, they wanted to lock us out of a meeting just two weeks ago, now."
"Some good people have been killed already," George continued, finishing Fred's thought. "And that includes top Aurors and Ministry workers that we know believed Harry."
Katie's father had been one of them, and her face blanched. "So if Dad hadn't left..."
"You're all listed as expats now," Fred said with a nod. "No one knows you're back."
"But us, of course. Probably best that way, or you'd be brought in for questioning and you don't ever get to return."
"But..."
"Some from our year have already gone missing," George told her, voice dropping. "Ali's fine, she's a Pure from a long line of Pures and is smart enough to keep her mouth shut. She's doing some ordinary, boring work besides. Safe enough."
"Angie's a Half," Fred told Katie tightly. "We've had our goodbyes, and she went the expat route, too. I don't think she's coming back, not until this is safer."
That didn't sound like Angelina Johnson, but Katie suspected that there was more to the story, just as there was more to her own story if someone asked. "I'm sorry," she whispered at them, shaking her head. She had been gone a month. How could this have happened so quickly?
"All it takes is for good people to bowl over and do nothing," Fred said, wisely guessing at Katie's thoughts. It had been why the group of them always flew so well together. The twins as beaters knew all three Chasers, and they flew as a unit.
George tugged on the dark brown hair that Katie had put up into a ponytail. "Come on, then. No looking down when Mum sees you. We'll figure out tonight what we can probably do."
"If no one knows I'm here," Katie began, following them back into the house, "then the best way to use me is to put me where no one would think to look."
"Spying, you mean?" George asked.
"Of course," Katie replied just as Fred nodded and said "What else could she mean?"
George exchanged a conspiratorial grin with Fred and Katie. "Rather like sneaking a look at Slytherin plays on the pitch?"
"No one looks twice at the petite girl going by the field," Katie said with a laugh.
"We've always liked how you think, Katie," Fred began. "We'll figure it out after dinner."
There were three primary targets that the twins wanted to keep an eye out for. The Malfoys, the Flints and the Montagues were among the most prominent supporters for You Know Who, and always had been. Other Slytherins were more cautious with how they displayed their support, but the Montagues had been quick to rally around their son's accident with the Vanishing Cabinet as a reason why the populace had to be looked after. Magic run amok could do terrible things, they reasoned, and their poor son remained injured after all this time.
"Bollocks," Katie said, shaking her head. "Neither of you would ever have done anything truly harmful. He probably just needed a good excuse to skive off school."
The twins looked at each other but remained silent. They hadn't intended for there to be long term spell damage, sure. But the fact of the matter was that he wouldn't have splinched himself so terribly if they hadn't hexed him first. Fred was sorriest about that move, and George still liked to say that Montague deserved it.
"Anyway, I'll head off to -"
"Don't tell us," Fred said abruptly. "Report back to any of the Order members if you see them."
"What are you on about?" she asked, looking between the twins.
"Things are getting dangerous," George said, shooting a look at his twin in annoyance. "We're pretty well known as a friend of Harry's, yeah?"
Katie nodded. "Of course. And Ron's his best friend..."
"So we just want to make sure you report back to someone that's less likely to be impersonated by a Death Eater."
Katie looked at them with wide eyes. "Is that how they're getting them?"
"I think so," Fred murmured.
"No proof, of course, but there wouldn't be any," George said grimly.
"Well, how will I know that they're for real, then?" Katie asked.
"See? Didn't I tell you she's a smart one?" Fred told George with a grin.
"That, you did." George turned his grin to Katie. "Still got your DA coin?"
Katie dug it out of her pocket. "Right here."
"It'll stay just as it is if you're with a proper Order member. Anyone questionable, and it'll turn blue or green. It depends if they've got the Mark or not."
"Brilliant," Katie said, grinning at them as she returned it to her pocket. She would have to figure out something to do with it later, to keep it visible but unobtrusive.
"Hermione's been working on a lot of things, the swot," Fred said fondly.
"Good thing she's with us and not them," George added.
"Well, I should probably change and be off, then," Katie told the twins. "I could get this whole plan started, and be back before you go off to get Harry."
"That's what we love about you, Katie. You're always ready to go along with our plans," Fred told her, bumping shoulders playfully with her.
"Stay safe, you," George warned. "No dramatic heroics."
"Nothing we wouldn't do, anyway," Fred amended.
Laughing, Katie headed up to the room Hermione and Ginny were sharing. She had stowed her bag there soon after she arrived, since there wasn't much room in the Burrow. The two other girls were in the backyard, likely making more sarcastic comments about Fleur. She plaited her hair, then changed into black clothing. She caught sight of her charm bracelet, her graduation gift from her mother. Shrinking her DA galleon, she attached it to the bracelet as another charm. She should be able to see the thing change color, and it wasn't so obvious to an outside observer.
She'd heard of Lucius Malfoy's escape from Azkaban while abroad, and didn't think that Malfoy Manor would be easy to get to. Montague's house was likely already under observation by Order members, and there was no point to getting information they already had. That left Flint Manor. She wasn't entirely sure of the location; it was possibly somewhere near Salisbury, given what little she knew of the family. Most Pureblood households had the Wizarding Directory, so Katie looked at the Weasley's copy while no one was looking. It had a listing of all wizards and witches in England, as well as the known apparition coordinates and registered floo connections listed. She memorized the apparition coordinates for Flint Manor, then left the Burrow. If she was caught right at the apparition point, there was no sense in leaving any trace to the Burrow. The Weasleys were already known sympathizers for Harry's cause, and she didn't want to send any further doubt onto them.
It was dark when she arrived at the public apparition point for Flint Manor. It turned out to be on a hill several hundred yards away from the actual Manor gates. Well, she had kept up running and exercises while away. It was quick work to jog toward the gates and start looking for a way through them onto the grounds. She was surprised that there weren't any barrier wards near the gates, but supposed that they were too confident to have them. She vaguely remembered Marcus Flint from school. He had always been a solid wall of muscle and sinew, with chiseled features that hadn't sit quite right together. He'd been called a troll by more than one member of the Gryffindor team, and at the time Katie hadn't thought it to be more than teasing. He had a vicious temper, she remembered. If the rest of his family was the same way, it was more than likely that no one would trespass willingly onto the grounds.
Katie was petite and slim. It wasn't difficult to slip between the bars of the wrought iron fence near dense shrubbery. She could see lights on in various Manor rooms. Many of them didn't even have the curtains drawn, and she could see that there were people moving about in them. She wished she had a broom of some kind, to hover nearby and still have a getaway plan. But she didn't have one and the Weasleys wouldn't have been able to spare one. Katie crept closer to the Manor windows and risked a glance through the glass.
It was a ballroom of some kind, and many of the elite Purebloods in society were there. She caught sight of the Malfoys, easily recognizing Draco's drawn, pinched face. It looked as though he wasn't sleeping well, and she hoped he was feeling guilty for his part in what happened at the school. She recognized a few other faces from the Prophet, though she couldn't understand what everyone seemed to be waiting for. They looked expectantly toward the massive doors leading to the ballroom, at the two men standing in front of them. One looked like Marcus Flint, and one was an older version of him. His father, then. His father nodded at Marcus rather imperiously, and Marcus inclined his head ever so slightly. He opened the doors, stepping through them and then disappearing from sight.
And Voldemort strode into the room, a large coiled snake beside him.
Katie gasped and stepped away from the window, then ducked down beside the stone wall. She had to move somewhere it would be more difficult to find her. She dimly remembered the whispers in Gryffindor Tower about Harry's visions. The whispers told of large snakes, of horrid deaths and utter destruction.
Katie raced along the edge of the building. Maybe there was a way in, a way to figure out what was going on. The Order knew who the Death Eaters were. That wouldn't be helpful. If she could figure out what was going on, why they were all gathered, that had to be important.
She couldn't seem to find an entrance into the Manor other than the locked servants' entrance in the back. She couldn't exactly go in through the front door and ask what was going on. No one had the stones for that, not even Harry Potter.
She was crouched beside shrubs, and the faint moonlight made it hard to see. But her DA coin hanging from her bracelet had been green for quite some time. She had no warning for anyone behind her before she was placed in a full body bind.
Fuck, she thought, and wanted to kick herself. She should have gotten away when she could. She should have been happy enough with the guest list. Maybe the Order didn't know for certain who was a Death Eater.
Katie couldn't even cry out in pain when a vicious kick landed on her ribs, turning her over onto her back. She stared up into the starry sky, hoping she would live. There have been rumors of people going missing, of never returning. The deaths that the twins had mentioned out of their parents' hearing...
Marcus Flint stood over her, his gaze impassive as he contemplated her. For a moment, Katie wondered if he recognized her from the Quidditch pitch at school. She had been younger then, all skinny, knobby knees and elbows and covered in her Quidditch kit. Would it be better or worse if he recognized her from school?
"I should have realized no Gryffindor would have the good sense to stay away," he muttered, shaking his head. He then picked her up. He slung her body over his shoulder and headed into the Manor.
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