Help-Haiti Fic for vegablack62 2
Title: 100 Moments in Millicent Bulstrode's Life
Rating: High PG-13
Characters: Adrian Pucey, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, Alexander Bulstrode, Lucien Bulstrode, Marcus Flint, and Millicent Bulstrode
Pairings: Adrian Pucey/Millicent Bulstrode, Blaise Zabini/Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott/Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott/Daphne Greengrass, Marcus Flint/Katie Bell
Era: 1980-1998
Word Count: 10,000
Story Summary: Millicent's life, from the beginning, to an end, and to another beginning.
She doesn’t care the Draco Malfoy received the Dark Mark, it just seems horribly twisted. She knows that Theodore and Malfoy would’ve gotten along well, had Malfoy not tried to be just like his father while Theodore tried to be the exact opposite of his. She hates how Theodore reminds her of the sun while Draco’s impersonation of the moon is too good to be called acting. She hates how both of them shine in their own right, even when thrown into the shadows of their fathers. She hates how the War will claim them both, equally, despite their differences.
:::
She receives eight OWLs. An Outstanding in Potions and five Exceeds Expectations, in Herbology, Transfiguration, Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, and Charms. Her two Acceptables were in History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts, so her father didn’t beat her much, as he’s never cared about either of those “useless” subjects. She takes NEWT level classes in Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, and Care of Magical Creatures and decides she’s going to work with dragons, if she outlives the war. She’d like to fly around with Horntails and bring baby Ridgebacks into the world; she’s always been fascinated by birth.
:::
Sometimes when Blaise hugs her or Theodore buys her chocolate, she can almost believe that the world is as it should be. But then Daphne gets a letter from home, telling her that there’s still no news from her mother; or Pansy makes another snide remark regarding muggleborns; and her world comes crashing down around her like splintered glass.
In December, she throws a mirror across the room. Pansy tells her it’s a terribly muggle thing to do and ends up with a gash torn down her left cheek. Millicent knows it’s the only thing to do, given the circumstances.
:::
Marcus visits the school in April. Millicent has a feeling he’s there for reasons other than visiting her, but he sits with her during the Quidditch game (Hufflepuff versus Slytherin) and tells her about the Falcons. She notices his gaze keeps floating towards a certain blonde Gryffindor seventh year, but she keeps her mouth shut. If there’s one trait Marcus and the rest of the Flints share, it’s their need to be perceived as mysterious. Millicent’s glad she’s stayed true to her father’s Bulstrode heritage. With her, everything’s clear and out in the open. Except for when it can’t be.
:::
She realizes what’s going on two minutes too late, and by the time she tries to get Malfoy to change his mind, the plan’s already in motion. When the Death Eaters arrive, she ducks her head and disappears into the shadows, looking for a way out without being noticed. “Millicent,” a voice calls out from behind a statue, and she’s only partially surprised to see Pucey, dressed in a Hitwizard uniform.
“Time for me to play damsel in distress again?” she asks. He pulls her down a passageway and out to safety, and she runs until she cannot run anymore.
:::
She ends up in an old muggle house and tells the inhabitants that she’s running away from an abusive father. If need be, she can obliviate them in the morning. The old, grandmotherly woman offers Millicent some chicken stew and a hot cup of cider. The food is comforting, even if unnecessary, and Millicent wolfs it down, securing the image of a starved and abused daughter. She stays with the muggles until the day after Dumbledore’s funeral, and almost remains there through the summer, except she knows she needs to return, as someone needs to keep her family in line.
:::
She arrives at her house just as June gives way to July, and while she is expecting her father to react with rage, he barely seems to have noticed her absence. The house smells like rotten flesh, and it takes Millicent three weeks to scrub it from top to bottom. In those three weeks, she finds five prisoners scattered throughout the house, all of them people who went to school with her at one point. She tries to remain impartial, but when she finds Katie Bell in the guest bathroom, bruised and broken, she can’t refrain from healing the cuts.
:::
“She’s there, isn’t she?” Marcus asks as they take a seat at the Leaky Cauldron. Her father’s stopped monitoring her movements; now all of his attention is devoted to torturing the captives, testing products on Perseus, or making sure Lucien upholds the Bulstrode family name. So Millicent can sneak out for lunch with Marcus every three weeks, and she does, if only for the sole purpose of staying up to date with the war.
“Yes,” she replies, not bothering to spare his feelings, “I’m trying my best to keep her alive.”
“You shouldn’t,” Marcus counters, “Let her die with dignity.”
:::
There’s silence for half of their meal, but then Millicent can’t take it any longer. “I know she’s a Gryffindor, and I know that you love her, but she’s the type of girl who can survive this.” She pleads the last part, like it’s her life she’s begging for. Marcus gives her an appraising look before putting down his Butterbeer.
“She’s not like us, Millicent. For her, surviving will never be enough. She’s the type of person who needs the right to live.”
Millicent shrugs, “I’m giving her a chance, in this world, that’s the best anyone will get.”
:::
“Let me die,” Katie whispers, as August begins to face. “You have to go back to school, and I don’t want to starve to death.” She sounds weak, broken, and Millicent wants to shake her. She doesn’t, though, as she’s afraid the sudden force would kill the pile of flesh and bones that Katie has become.
“You’re supposed to be better than us,” Millicent whispers her, like she’s confessing her sins, “You’re supposed to cling to life even when it’s easier to die. You’re a Gryffindor, you’re supposed to be stronger than this.”
The words aren’t kind, but they help.
:::
They smuggle her out in the middle of the night, the struggling sounds of Millicent pushing a full grown woman through a window are drowned out by the howling winds and the inhuman screams coming from Perseus’ room. Marcus ignores them as he grabs Katie’s wrists, as thin as the bones gnawed by stray dogs. He hoists her out into freedom and smiles at his cousin. Millicent watches as they hide beneath the borrowed invisibility cloak and bites back the bile rising in her throat. More than anything, she wants to run with them, she longs for the unattainable: freedom.
:::
She is beaten for Katie’s escape, although she is not blamed for it. Her father slices into her skin with magic so old it cannot be healed and the scars stay with her long after he’s stopped screaming at her. “You’re worthless,” he finally spits at her, the words delving beneath her skin even if the saliva barely dampens her robes. She tries not to be affected by the words, but at the end of the day, he’s still her father. She nods her head and squeezes her hands into tight fists, leaving crescent-shaped marks that refuse to go away.
:::
September arrives unbidden, and Millicent is reluctant to leave even though she is dying to breathe fresh air and remember what it’s like outside her house of dying and death. She isn’t sure if it’s Stockholm Syndrome, but it bloody well feels that way. She knows she’s being held captive by her father and her brother, but she’s reluctant to leave them to their own devices. Her father barely remembers to cook dinner, and Salazar knows Lucien’s useless in the kitchen. She leaves, anyway, because she doesn’t have a choice. (And because part of her knows she wants to go.)
:::
It’s frightening, how many people aren’t in school now. She finds Blaise without any problems, standing against a compartment door with Theodore and Daphne at either side of him. “Why aren’t we going in?” she asks, unable to see through the glass windows, as obviously they’ve been enchanted.
“Pansy’s in there,” Blaise explains, not really explaining anything, “Malfoy’s come back.”
“No? Really?” Millicent asks, the sarcasm rolling off her tongue like snake venom. “He’s a Malfoy, remember?” the question is obviously redundant. She looks towards the compartment, “The royalty of the Slytherin House. Malfoys always, always come out on top.”
:::
Except for maybe this time, as Malfoy doesn’t look like he’s “on top” at all. He’s sullen most of the time, much like he was the last two years, and she’s almost afraid to talk to him when he issues a very cordial “Hello” to her at breakfast the next morning. They’re the only two up, which is normal, as he’s the only seventh year Slytherin to wake up before seven and she’s never been one to sleep much.
“You look like hell,” she returns, never having been one for niceties, “Not sleeping won’t protect you, Malfoy, nothing really will.”
:::
Astoria approaches her three weeks into term. Her long blonde hair is pulled into a tight, elaborate bun, and Millicent is struck by how completely different the two Greengrass sisters are. Daphne’s hair, visible from across the common room, lies limp and knotted on her face, untouched since she brushed it this morning. “Millicent?” the younger girl asks, all shy smiles and insecurity. “Millicent, what we are doing is wrong.”
Millicent slaps the girl without a second thought, and when she catches Daphne’s eye from across the room, she’s not surprised to see there’s acceptance in her friend’s blue eyes.
:::
She thinks, maybe, that it’s loyalty. But then she reminds herself she isn’t a blood Hufflepuff and decides maybe it’s more than that. Either way, when Adrian Pucey writes to her after silence of over a year, she writes back immediately, expressing her condolences for the Pritchard deaths. She can’t help, of course, as she can’t leave school, but he tells her to be ready, because the end will come with Potter.
The letters between them aren’t searched, as Pucey’s posing as a devoted Hitwizard for Voldemort’s regime. Through them, she knows Marcus is safe. Somehow, that makes everything okay.
:::
Christmas comes and goes, with Millicent remaining at school all the while, as her father is entertaining prisoners and doesn’t have room for her. Do not come home. House full. Is all that he writes to her, but Lucien’s letter is a little longer, and explains that Voldemort is using the Bulstrode estate as a prison for those he doesn’t want sent to Azkaban. He sounds desperate in the letter, so she doesn’t write back. The last thing she wants to do is call her brother out on his weaknesses, especially at a time when he needs to stay strong.
:::
Luna Lovegood doesn’t come back after Christmas, and Millicent doesn’t eat for three days. The smell of food makes her vomit automatically, and she can’t help but dry heave late at night, when the thoughts of what they could be doing to the younger blonde girl refuse to leave her head. Taking pity on her, Daphne forces sleeping draught down her throat and refuses to let Millicent spit it up. She sleeps through the night for the first time in three years and is able to eat some bread in the morning. She still can’t go a day without vomiting.
:::
“Do you think they’ll kill her?” Millicent asks Daphne one night, as they sit before the hissing fire.
“Lovegood?” Daphne clarifies, a question to which Millicent only nods. “No,” and even though it sounds honest, with a Slytherin you can never be too sure. The blonde turns to her, “She’s bait, isn’t she? Potter used to traipse around with her. They’ll keep her alive until they kill him off, at the very least.”
“In that case, I hope she lives forever.” The words are whispered, barely heard by Daphne, which is a good thing, as they say all too much.
:::
She crosses the line once, throughout the entirety of the Carrow administration. It isn’t anything major, but it’s enough to be on the receiving end of Malfoy’s wand, the word “Crucio” echoing in her ears right before the pain hits. She remains standing, even after her legs have gone numb and the pain is pulsing against her skull. She knows it’s not half as strong as it could be, and she wonders if The Bitch can tell Draco’s holding back. It’s a fleeting thought, but she clings to it, as it means Malfoy may actually have a heart, after all.
:::
“Why’d you spare me?” she asks later. It takes three hours for her to regain feeling in her legs, and she knows the pain won’t go away until at least tomorrow morning. She’s sitting in the common room with Blaise and Malfoy. Daphne and Theodore are asleep in the corner, curled up like lovers.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he tells her, his voice unnaturally steady, “Aurelia Smith’s just a kid. And her brother wasn’t doing anything. Someone had to defend her.” It almost sounds like he admires her, but Millicent isn’t going to read that far in to it.
:::
At Easter, Lucien sends her a letter, telling her Perseus has died. He warns her not to return home, as their father’s regressed to something much less than human. “I don’t know who’s worse, now,” Millicent tells Malfoy a few nights later, “Your father or mine.” For a second, Malfoy looks like he’s going to defend the man he fears the most, but then a look of resignation comes over him, and she knows the fight has gone.
“Does it matter?” he asks, not meeting her eyes, “They’re both animals, and they both serve the worst animal of them all.”
:::
Weaslette doesn’t come back, and for some reason this means that every person in Hogwarts is terrified. Malfoy hides in his dorm most of the time, unable to face the rest of the world and show them what he has become. Blaise has shagged every girl in sixth and seventh year, besides Pansy, who’s decided this means he has no taste. Millicent decides maybe sex is the answer.
So one night, when Blaise starts flirting with her, she lets it escalate. She follows him to bed and lets him have his way, and it works, but only for a moment.
:::
After the sex, she realizes that she needs another way out. Drugs and sex are too fleeting, and it’s not like anyone’s actually teaching anything in their classes, so it’s not like she can lose herself in her studies. She contemplates pain, but only for a moment, as she knows that there’s enough suffering in the world. Eventually, all that is left is flying.
Flying after hours is probably as risky as joining the DA, but she needs it like some people need oxygen. By the third night, Malfoy joins her, and she finally starts referring to him as “Draco.”
:::
“Astoria joined the DA,” Daphne tells Millicent this after she gets back from flying one night. There’s a dark, bruising mark at the base of her neck, left from where Draco bit into her skin as he came. It’s only the second time they’ve shagged, but Millicent’s almost certain it’ll happen again. It’s not love or desire that drives them into each other’s arms, it’s animalistic need. Millicent knows that Draco offers the only real escape from the War, and Draco knows Millicent can handle whatever he puts her through.
The bruise aches as she replies, “The lines are drawn.”
:::
She’s pulling on her cloak when she hears the first curse thrown. It’s an echo of an echo of an echo, and for a moment, she doesn’t believe it’s real. She stares at Daphne, who stares blankly back, and they hurry into the Great Hall. There, the other students are seated according to House. Millicent tries not to let it break her heart when she sees how little the number of Gryffindors has become. Millicent slides in between Blaise and Theodore, and Daphne sits at the end. She doesn’t see Draco, and the fact that she’s worried makes her nauseous.
:::
When everyone else leaves, she knows she has to go back. She’s standing in the middle of Hog’s Head, looking around, and she knows that even if she goes alone, she can’t die without being in the War. Lucien will be there, her father will be there, and Marcus and Adrian will definitely show up. She can’t sit this one out, because she’s afraid she’ll never see any of them again.
“Are you going back?” Daphne and Theodore ask her, as they move towards Slughorn. All she can do is nod her head numbly.
Blaise is nowhere to be found.
::
“I’m going with you,” Millicent declares when Slughorn gives her a questioning look.
“For what side?” he asks skeptically, as if the answer will make a difference to him. Slughorn respects anyone loyal enough to their cause to return to a battle, regardless of where their loyalties may lie.
She shrugs, fingers her wand, faces him, and says, “I don’t know yet.” The answer doesn’t appease either of them, but Slughorn allows her to enter the frame and make her way back to the Battle.
She’s not sure if she’s facing death or disownment.
She’s not sure which is worse.
:::
She sees her father first. He’s standing there, throwing illegal spells at a wizard half his age, and Millicent reacts before she knows what she is doing. It’s another power trip for her father, but it’s going to cost the kid his life. She throws a paralyzing charm at the eldest Bulstrode before she fully thinks of the consequences. When his body hits the ground, the kid throws a spell at her father, one she’s never heard, and he dies almost instantly.
She’s not ashamed that she watched the kid kill her father, she’s sorry she didn’t do it herself.
:::
The battle ends without her knowing which side she’s really on. She throws a few random spells at Yaxley, because she never could stand that woman, and Amycus Carrow gets a taste of what her killing curse tastes like. It’s weird, to kill a man as easily as she does, but if anyone deserves it, Amycus does. He starts the duel with her, after all, and when it comes down to it, she’s not about to lose her life to a man not competent enough to lace his own boots in the morning. She watches him fall, then keeps moving.
:::
She reaches Lucien just as Voldemort falls. He’s bleeding profusely, from both the neck and the sternum, and she covers him with as many healing spells as she knows. Luckily, healing was the one thing she was always quite good at, and she’s able to stop the bleeding before an Auror comes over to take her brother away. When she realizes it’s Adrian Pucey, she blanches. She isn’t about to let her brother be led away by someone he went to school with. She struggles tiredly to her feet and stands between the two, defiant, refusing to be pulled away.
:::
“Millicent,” Pucey’s voice is desperately, unnaturally soothing. He stands before her, still staunchly Slytherin despite the Gryffindor blood in him. “You have to let him go, or I’m going to have to take you too.” He pulls her towards him, but as he does, she hears Marcus’ voice.
It’s been months since she’s seen the only man she loves unconditionally, and when Marcus walks over to them and takes Lucien’s arms, she cannot help but feel betrayed.
“It’s for the best,” Marcus promises. She tries not to think about how many times she’s heard that phrase used the wrong way.
:::
She cries for the first time in her life as she watches her brother be put into magical chains. Lucien, who always held such fire in his eyes, looks broken. She can’t help rushing towards him, only to be thrown back like a dog. “Someone check her,” a Hitwizard calls out, to which Adrian nods. He rolls up her tattered sleeve with practice ease, an ease that makes her cringe.
“How many of your friends have you locked up today?” she asks him, her voice cracking.
He looks at her with hate in his eyes. “Not enough,” he says, sincerely.
:::
“Do you think it will matter?” she asks Adrian, as they help to transport the corpses littering Hogwarts’ regal floors.
He turns to look at her, the anger from earlier now quiet beneath the sea of green in his eyes. “Cleaning up the bodies? It’ll keep infections down.” He says this while throwing another Death Eater into a pile. She wonders, fleetingly, if Pucey even cares that the corpse once had a name.
“I meant the War,” she elaborates. “And us winning.”
“Us?” he asks, his voice laced with mockery and curiosity, “Still don’t know which side you’re on, Millicent?”
:::
She lets the question sink in before answering it, pausing to pull an arm from a bush. She wonders if they’ll find the person the arm belongs to, and whether its own is male or female, young or old. It doesn’t really matter, in the long run, as either way they’re dead.
“I killed Amycus Carrow,” she tells him. It’s an evasive way to answer a question she doesn’t know the answer to, and she disposes of the arm before meeting his eyes. “I guess that means I chose a side.”
He gives her a sideways glance. “You’re still crying.”
:::
Around midnight of the following day, she’s administering potions to the patients that are still in a coma. She reaches the bed of a boy by the name of Creevey, Dennis, and she cringes when he stirs, as she knows she’ll have to be the one to tell him that his brother is gone. “Did we win?” the young voice asks, certain that whoever is helping him cannot possibly be from the other side.
Millicent stills, hoping to dodge the brother bullet. “Yes,” she answers, bringing the vial of potion up, close to his lips, “Yes, I guess we did.”
:::
Marcus finds her a little after three and hands her a bottle of Firewhiskey. It’s only after the first swallow that she realizes she hasn’t slept in almost two days. A yawn escapes her lips as she pulls the bottle away from them, and Marcus smiles at her in a way that makes her choke on the burning liquid.
“You know, none of them ever smiled at me like that,” she says, like he’s going to know what she’s talking about.
He catches on faster than expected. “I always have,” he tells her, holding out his hand. “Always will, Millicent.”
:::
She goes home with Marcus, and only partly because there is no one else to go home with. Blaise isn’t there, and Daphne takes Theodore with her, as he has no one else. She sees Astoria limping towards the Greengrasses some time before she and Marcus leaves, so at least one Slytherin family has been left intact after all of this.
A part of her, the honest, cynical part, thinks that maybe they’re the only ones. A part of her thinks the rest of the world has died, and only those she’s seen in the last two days are left.
:::
She collapses onto the guest bedroom in the Flint Mansion long before her grandmother wakes up to see that she’s survived. When she wakes up, thirty hours later, there’s dinner on the table and a smile on her grandmother’s face.
“Why in the name of Salazar are you smiling, Oma?” Millicent asks, unable to watch her language due to fatigue, “Most of your family just died.”
“Of course, Liebling,” the old German woman replies, “Now we get to start again, fresh, and maybe we’ll make the Flint name proud.”
It’s betraying her father to agree, but Millicent does so, anyway.
:::
“It’s her house,” Adrian’s voice carries through the house in a tone that would be yelling, if it were not for the fact that he and Marcus never fight. Marcus says it’s because they’re always fighting the rest of the world, they need to know they have each other’s backs. Millicent thinks they’re both just too afraid of losing the only real friend they have in the world.
“I know that, but I don’t want her going back in there.” Marcus’ reply is said at the same level, and she cringes. She didn’t think anyone would ever fight over her.
:::
“If she doesn’t go back in there, Lucien’s going to die,” Adrian says the words with such finality, that she knows she doesn’t have a choice. She walks into the room, without any pretense or denial of the fact that she was eavesdropping, and sits down between the two men.
“I’ll go back,” she tells Marcus, her eyes focused on his, “I can’t just leave Lucien out there to die.”
“Are you sure you can handle it?” Marcus asks her, honestly.
It’s her words that follow, but it’s Adrian that says them. “This is far from the worst of it.”
:::
“I thought Marcus was taking me?” Millicent asks the following day, when she finds Adrian sitting at the kitchen table. He hands her a cup of coffee and some toast. It’s early and she’s cranky, so she accepts both willingly.
Adrian shrugs his shoulders, and Millicent takes that to mean that Marcus wasn’t sure he could handle seeing the house Katie Bell had been kept captive in again. Millicent really hopes it works out between the two of them, because this obsession Marcus has with the blonde is bordering on pathetic.
“Okay,” she says, after swallowing the coffee, “I’m ready.”
:::
The Mansion is silent when they make their way towards it. She can smell the odor of decaying flesh as she opens the door, and while a part of her wants to vomit, she knows if she turns around now she’ll never be able to face it again. It’s a good thing Adrian is here instead of Marcus, maybe his Gryffindor blood will make this easier for them.
Perseus’ corpse is decaying in the basement and other bones litter the lower rooms. She takes what she needs and leaves, unable to believe that her family brought this nightmare upon themselves.
:::
“Give me my wand,” Millicent says, as the reach the outer gates of the Bulstrode estate. Adrian falters for a moment, unwilling to give her the power to hurt herself after what she’s seen. The Bulstrode Mansion, once so regal and dark and deathly, is now just a skeleton of a house shrouded in death. There’s a determination in her eyes that he’s never seen in Slytherins, though, so he hands it over.
She drops the old artifacts and dark magic and sends them back near the house. Then, without stuttering or hesitation, she sets the entire estate on fire.
:::
For a moment, they both stand there frozen by the flames. They dance a macabre waltz across the last remnants of her childhood. The paralysis dies the moment Millicent hears glass shatter, and then she’s in Adrian’s arms, crying something awful. He’s never seen her cry before, and so his paralysis lasts a moment longer. Then he’s holding her like he’s nothing else to hold on to in the world, and they’re clinging to each other as they watch her world burn to the ground. Millicent feels a part of herself die, while another part feels like it’s coming alive.
:::
“Was it the right thing to do?” Millicent asks Adrian later that night, while they listen to music as Marcus and Oma make dinner. “It feels like it was right, but for some reason it feels like I’m hiding something too. I’m not…” she bites off the ending of the sentence, afraid that the next words might be a lie. “I’m not ashamed of my family,” it’s the first time she’s ever said those words, and the truth of them scares her. “Maybe I should be, but I’m not.”
Adrian shakes his head. “You don’t have to be,” he promises.
:::
It takes three weeks for Lucien to have a trial. Millicent attends the hearing alone, as Adrian’s required to bear witness and Marcus and Oma didn’t want to go. She sits as close to her brother as she can and cringes as he’s brought out to a hostile crowd. It’s human nature, to want to see a man reduced to an animal, but seeing Lucien like this breaks her heart. They find him guilty, but he only gets life imprisonment, thanks to Adrian’s quick thinking. Lucien meets her eyes as they lead him away, and she feels her heart shatter.
:::
“Do you think he’ll forgive me?” Millicent asks afterwards, as she and Adrian make their way out of the Ministry. He’s taken the rest of the day off, so that he can buy her lunch and keep an eye on her. “He looked so angry in the courtroom.”
“I think he’ll have a lot of time to realize that it wasn’t your fault,” Adrian promises, reaching out to grab her hand. She looks down at the fingers, interlaced, and realizes it’s the safest she’s felt in years. It’s an odd development, but she’s beginning to think it’s for the best.
:::
It’s August the first time Adrian kisses her, soft and slow, hesitant and unsure. She melts into it, something she didn’t think was possible. With Draco, Blaise, and Theodore, there was hardly any emotion other than desperation in their kisses or their shags, and she was beginning to doubt such a thing as romance existed.
When the kiss ends, he pulls away and smiles, and she shyly smiles back. After all the death and loss and endings, she can feel herself being reborn from the ash, flying towards a new beginning in a life she can finally call her own.
Rating: High PG-13
Characters: Adrian Pucey, Theodore Nott, Blaise Zabini, Daphne Greengrass, Alexander Bulstrode, Lucien Bulstrode, Marcus Flint, and Millicent Bulstrode
Pairings: Adrian Pucey/Millicent Bulstrode, Blaise Zabini/Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott/Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott/Daphne Greengrass, Marcus Flint/Katie Bell
Era: 1980-1998
Word Count: 10,000
Story Summary: Millicent's life, from the beginning, to an end, and to another beginning.
She doesn’t care the Draco Malfoy received the Dark Mark, it just seems horribly twisted. She knows that Theodore and Malfoy would’ve gotten along well, had Malfoy not tried to be just like his father while Theodore tried to be the exact opposite of his. She hates how Theodore reminds her of the sun while Draco’s impersonation of the moon is too good to be called acting. She hates how both of them shine in their own right, even when thrown into the shadows of their fathers. She hates how the War will claim them both, equally, despite their differences.
:::
She receives eight OWLs. An Outstanding in Potions and five Exceeds Expectations, in Herbology, Transfiguration, Astronomy, Care of Magical Creatures, and Charms. Her two Acceptables were in History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts, so her father didn’t beat her much, as he’s never cared about either of those “useless” subjects. She takes NEWT level classes in Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, and Care of Magical Creatures and decides she’s going to work with dragons, if she outlives the war. She’d like to fly around with Horntails and bring baby Ridgebacks into the world; she’s always been fascinated by birth.
:::
Sometimes when Blaise hugs her or Theodore buys her chocolate, she can almost believe that the world is as it should be. But then Daphne gets a letter from home, telling her that there’s still no news from her mother; or Pansy makes another snide remark regarding muggleborns; and her world comes crashing down around her like splintered glass.
In December, she throws a mirror across the room. Pansy tells her it’s a terribly muggle thing to do and ends up with a gash torn down her left cheek. Millicent knows it’s the only thing to do, given the circumstances.
:::
Marcus visits the school in April. Millicent has a feeling he’s there for reasons other than visiting her, but he sits with her during the Quidditch game (Hufflepuff versus Slytherin) and tells her about the Falcons. She notices his gaze keeps floating towards a certain blonde Gryffindor seventh year, but she keeps her mouth shut. If there’s one trait Marcus and the rest of the Flints share, it’s their need to be perceived as mysterious. Millicent’s glad she’s stayed true to her father’s Bulstrode heritage. With her, everything’s clear and out in the open. Except for when it can’t be.
:::
She realizes what’s going on two minutes too late, and by the time she tries to get Malfoy to change his mind, the plan’s already in motion. When the Death Eaters arrive, she ducks her head and disappears into the shadows, looking for a way out without being noticed. “Millicent,” a voice calls out from behind a statue, and she’s only partially surprised to see Pucey, dressed in a Hitwizard uniform.
“Time for me to play damsel in distress again?” she asks. He pulls her down a passageway and out to safety, and she runs until she cannot run anymore.
:::
She ends up in an old muggle house and tells the inhabitants that she’s running away from an abusive father. If need be, she can obliviate them in the morning. The old, grandmotherly woman offers Millicent some chicken stew and a hot cup of cider. The food is comforting, even if unnecessary, and Millicent wolfs it down, securing the image of a starved and abused daughter. She stays with the muggles until the day after Dumbledore’s funeral, and almost remains there through the summer, except she knows she needs to return, as someone needs to keep her family in line.
:::
She arrives at her house just as June gives way to July, and while she is expecting her father to react with rage, he barely seems to have noticed her absence. The house smells like rotten flesh, and it takes Millicent three weeks to scrub it from top to bottom. In those three weeks, she finds five prisoners scattered throughout the house, all of them people who went to school with her at one point. She tries to remain impartial, but when she finds Katie Bell in the guest bathroom, bruised and broken, she can’t refrain from healing the cuts.
:::
“She’s there, isn’t she?” Marcus asks as they take a seat at the Leaky Cauldron. Her father’s stopped monitoring her movements; now all of his attention is devoted to torturing the captives, testing products on Perseus, or making sure Lucien upholds the Bulstrode family name. So Millicent can sneak out for lunch with Marcus every three weeks, and she does, if only for the sole purpose of staying up to date with the war.
“Yes,” she replies, not bothering to spare his feelings, “I’m trying my best to keep her alive.”
“You shouldn’t,” Marcus counters, “Let her die with dignity.”
:::
There’s silence for half of their meal, but then Millicent can’t take it any longer. “I know she’s a Gryffindor, and I know that you love her, but she’s the type of girl who can survive this.” She pleads the last part, like it’s her life she’s begging for. Marcus gives her an appraising look before putting down his Butterbeer.
“She’s not like us, Millicent. For her, surviving will never be enough. She’s the type of person who needs the right to live.”
Millicent shrugs, “I’m giving her a chance, in this world, that’s the best anyone will get.”
:::
“Let me die,” Katie whispers, as August begins to face. “You have to go back to school, and I don’t want to starve to death.” She sounds weak, broken, and Millicent wants to shake her. She doesn’t, though, as she’s afraid the sudden force would kill the pile of flesh and bones that Katie has become.
“You’re supposed to be better than us,” Millicent whispers her, like she’s confessing her sins, “You’re supposed to cling to life even when it’s easier to die. You’re a Gryffindor, you’re supposed to be stronger than this.”
The words aren’t kind, but they help.
:::
They smuggle her out in the middle of the night, the struggling sounds of Millicent pushing a full grown woman through a window are drowned out by the howling winds and the inhuman screams coming from Perseus’ room. Marcus ignores them as he grabs Katie’s wrists, as thin as the bones gnawed by stray dogs. He hoists her out into freedom and smiles at his cousin. Millicent watches as they hide beneath the borrowed invisibility cloak and bites back the bile rising in her throat. More than anything, she wants to run with them, she longs for the unattainable: freedom.
:::
She is beaten for Katie’s escape, although she is not blamed for it. Her father slices into her skin with magic so old it cannot be healed and the scars stay with her long after he’s stopped screaming at her. “You’re worthless,” he finally spits at her, the words delving beneath her skin even if the saliva barely dampens her robes. She tries not to be affected by the words, but at the end of the day, he’s still her father. She nods her head and squeezes her hands into tight fists, leaving crescent-shaped marks that refuse to go away.
:::
September arrives unbidden, and Millicent is reluctant to leave even though she is dying to breathe fresh air and remember what it’s like outside her house of dying and death. She isn’t sure if it’s Stockholm Syndrome, but it bloody well feels that way. She knows she’s being held captive by her father and her brother, but she’s reluctant to leave them to their own devices. Her father barely remembers to cook dinner, and Salazar knows Lucien’s useless in the kitchen. She leaves, anyway, because she doesn’t have a choice. (And because part of her knows she wants to go.)
:::
It’s frightening, how many people aren’t in school now. She finds Blaise without any problems, standing against a compartment door with Theodore and Daphne at either side of him. “Why aren’t we going in?” she asks, unable to see through the glass windows, as obviously they’ve been enchanted.
“Pansy’s in there,” Blaise explains, not really explaining anything, “Malfoy’s come back.”
“No? Really?” Millicent asks, the sarcasm rolling off her tongue like snake venom. “He’s a Malfoy, remember?” the question is obviously redundant. She looks towards the compartment, “The royalty of the Slytherin House. Malfoys always, always come out on top.”
:::
Except for maybe this time, as Malfoy doesn’t look like he’s “on top” at all. He’s sullen most of the time, much like he was the last two years, and she’s almost afraid to talk to him when he issues a very cordial “Hello” to her at breakfast the next morning. They’re the only two up, which is normal, as he’s the only seventh year Slytherin to wake up before seven and she’s never been one to sleep much.
“You look like hell,” she returns, never having been one for niceties, “Not sleeping won’t protect you, Malfoy, nothing really will.”
:::
Astoria approaches her three weeks into term. Her long blonde hair is pulled into a tight, elaborate bun, and Millicent is struck by how completely different the two Greengrass sisters are. Daphne’s hair, visible from across the common room, lies limp and knotted on her face, untouched since she brushed it this morning. “Millicent?” the younger girl asks, all shy smiles and insecurity. “Millicent, what we are doing is wrong.”
Millicent slaps the girl without a second thought, and when she catches Daphne’s eye from across the room, she’s not surprised to see there’s acceptance in her friend’s blue eyes.
:::
She thinks, maybe, that it’s loyalty. But then she reminds herself she isn’t a blood Hufflepuff and decides maybe it’s more than that. Either way, when Adrian Pucey writes to her after silence of over a year, she writes back immediately, expressing her condolences for the Pritchard deaths. She can’t help, of course, as she can’t leave school, but he tells her to be ready, because the end will come with Potter.
The letters between them aren’t searched, as Pucey’s posing as a devoted Hitwizard for Voldemort’s regime. Through them, she knows Marcus is safe. Somehow, that makes everything okay.
:::
Christmas comes and goes, with Millicent remaining at school all the while, as her father is entertaining prisoners and doesn’t have room for her. Do not come home. House full. Is all that he writes to her, but Lucien’s letter is a little longer, and explains that Voldemort is using the Bulstrode estate as a prison for those he doesn’t want sent to Azkaban. He sounds desperate in the letter, so she doesn’t write back. The last thing she wants to do is call her brother out on his weaknesses, especially at a time when he needs to stay strong.
:::
Luna Lovegood doesn’t come back after Christmas, and Millicent doesn’t eat for three days. The smell of food makes her vomit automatically, and she can’t help but dry heave late at night, when the thoughts of what they could be doing to the younger blonde girl refuse to leave her head. Taking pity on her, Daphne forces sleeping draught down her throat and refuses to let Millicent spit it up. She sleeps through the night for the first time in three years and is able to eat some bread in the morning. She still can’t go a day without vomiting.
:::
“Do you think they’ll kill her?” Millicent asks Daphne one night, as they sit before the hissing fire.
“Lovegood?” Daphne clarifies, a question to which Millicent only nods. “No,” and even though it sounds honest, with a Slytherin you can never be too sure. The blonde turns to her, “She’s bait, isn’t she? Potter used to traipse around with her. They’ll keep her alive until they kill him off, at the very least.”
“In that case, I hope she lives forever.” The words are whispered, barely heard by Daphne, which is a good thing, as they say all too much.
:::
She crosses the line once, throughout the entirety of the Carrow administration. It isn’t anything major, but it’s enough to be on the receiving end of Malfoy’s wand, the word “Crucio” echoing in her ears right before the pain hits. She remains standing, even after her legs have gone numb and the pain is pulsing against her skull. She knows it’s not half as strong as it could be, and she wonders if The Bitch can tell Draco’s holding back. It’s a fleeting thought, but she clings to it, as it means Malfoy may actually have a heart, after all.
:::
“Why’d you spare me?” she asks later. It takes three hours for her to regain feeling in her legs, and she knows the pain won’t go away until at least tomorrow morning. She’s sitting in the common room with Blaise and Malfoy. Daphne and Theodore are asleep in the corner, curled up like lovers.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he tells her, his voice unnaturally steady, “Aurelia Smith’s just a kid. And her brother wasn’t doing anything. Someone had to defend her.” It almost sounds like he admires her, but Millicent isn’t going to read that far in to it.
:::
At Easter, Lucien sends her a letter, telling her Perseus has died. He warns her not to return home, as their father’s regressed to something much less than human. “I don’t know who’s worse, now,” Millicent tells Malfoy a few nights later, “Your father or mine.” For a second, Malfoy looks like he’s going to defend the man he fears the most, but then a look of resignation comes over him, and she knows the fight has gone.
“Does it matter?” he asks, not meeting her eyes, “They’re both animals, and they both serve the worst animal of them all.”
:::
Weaslette doesn’t come back, and for some reason this means that every person in Hogwarts is terrified. Malfoy hides in his dorm most of the time, unable to face the rest of the world and show them what he has become. Blaise has shagged every girl in sixth and seventh year, besides Pansy, who’s decided this means he has no taste. Millicent decides maybe sex is the answer.
So one night, when Blaise starts flirting with her, she lets it escalate. She follows him to bed and lets him have his way, and it works, but only for a moment.
:::
After the sex, she realizes that she needs another way out. Drugs and sex are too fleeting, and it’s not like anyone’s actually teaching anything in their classes, so it’s not like she can lose herself in her studies. She contemplates pain, but only for a moment, as she knows that there’s enough suffering in the world. Eventually, all that is left is flying.
Flying after hours is probably as risky as joining the DA, but she needs it like some people need oxygen. By the third night, Malfoy joins her, and she finally starts referring to him as “Draco.”
:::
“Astoria joined the DA,” Daphne tells Millicent this after she gets back from flying one night. There’s a dark, bruising mark at the base of her neck, left from where Draco bit into her skin as he came. It’s only the second time they’ve shagged, but Millicent’s almost certain it’ll happen again. It’s not love or desire that drives them into each other’s arms, it’s animalistic need. Millicent knows that Draco offers the only real escape from the War, and Draco knows Millicent can handle whatever he puts her through.
The bruise aches as she replies, “The lines are drawn.”
:::
She’s pulling on her cloak when she hears the first curse thrown. It’s an echo of an echo of an echo, and for a moment, she doesn’t believe it’s real. She stares at Daphne, who stares blankly back, and they hurry into the Great Hall. There, the other students are seated according to House. Millicent tries not to let it break her heart when she sees how little the number of Gryffindors has become. Millicent slides in between Blaise and Theodore, and Daphne sits at the end. She doesn’t see Draco, and the fact that she’s worried makes her nauseous.
:::
When everyone else leaves, she knows she has to go back. She’s standing in the middle of Hog’s Head, looking around, and she knows that even if she goes alone, she can’t die without being in the War. Lucien will be there, her father will be there, and Marcus and Adrian will definitely show up. She can’t sit this one out, because she’s afraid she’ll never see any of them again.
“Are you going back?” Daphne and Theodore ask her, as they move towards Slughorn. All she can do is nod her head numbly.
Blaise is nowhere to be found.
::
“I’m going with you,” Millicent declares when Slughorn gives her a questioning look.
“For what side?” he asks skeptically, as if the answer will make a difference to him. Slughorn respects anyone loyal enough to their cause to return to a battle, regardless of where their loyalties may lie.
She shrugs, fingers her wand, faces him, and says, “I don’t know yet.” The answer doesn’t appease either of them, but Slughorn allows her to enter the frame and make her way back to the Battle.
She’s not sure if she’s facing death or disownment.
She’s not sure which is worse.
:::
She sees her father first. He’s standing there, throwing illegal spells at a wizard half his age, and Millicent reacts before she knows what she is doing. It’s another power trip for her father, but it’s going to cost the kid his life. She throws a paralyzing charm at the eldest Bulstrode before she fully thinks of the consequences. When his body hits the ground, the kid throws a spell at her father, one she’s never heard, and he dies almost instantly.
She’s not ashamed that she watched the kid kill her father, she’s sorry she didn’t do it herself.
:::
The battle ends without her knowing which side she’s really on. She throws a few random spells at Yaxley, because she never could stand that woman, and Amycus Carrow gets a taste of what her killing curse tastes like. It’s weird, to kill a man as easily as she does, but if anyone deserves it, Amycus does. He starts the duel with her, after all, and when it comes down to it, she’s not about to lose her life to a man not competent enough to lace his own boots in the morning. She watches him fall, then keeps moving.
:::
She reaches Lucien just as Voldemort falls. He’s bleeding profusely, from both the neck and the sternum, and she covers him with as many healing spells as she knows. Luckily, healing was the one thing she was always quite good at, and she’s able to stop the bleeding before an Auror comes over to take her brother away. When she realizes it’s Adrian Pucey, she blanches. She isn’t about to let her brother be led away by someone he went to school with. She struggles tiredly to her feet and stands between the two, defiant, refusing to be pulled away.
:::
“Millicent,” Pucey’s voice is desperately, unnaturally soothing. He stands before her, still staunchly Slytherin despite the Gryffindor blood in him. “You have to let him go, or I’m going to have to take you too.” He pulls her towards him, but as he does, she hears Marcus’ voice.
It’s been months since she’s seen the only man she loves unconditionally, and when Marcus walks over to them and takes Lucien’s arms, she cannot help but feel betrayed.
“It’s for the best,” Marcus promises. She tries not to think about how many times she’s heard that phrase used the wrong way.
:::
She cries for the first time in her life as she watches her brother be put into magical chains. Lucien, who always held such fire in his eyes, looks broken. She can’t help rushing towards him, only to be thrown back like a dog. “Someone check her,” a Hitwizard calls out, to which Adrian nods. He rolls up her tattered sleeve with practice ease, an ease that makes her cringe.
“How many of your friends have you locked up today?” she asks him, her voice cracking.
He looks at her with hate in his eyes. “Not enough,” he says, sincerely.
:::
“Do you think it will matter?” she asks Adrian, as they help to transport the corpses littering Hogwarts’ regal floors.
He turns to look at her, the anger from earlier now quiet beneath the sea of green in his eyes. “Cleaning up the bodies? It’ll keep infections down.” He says this while throwing another Death Eater into a pile. She wonders, fleetingly, if Pucey even cares that the corpse once had a name.
“I meant the War,” she elaborates. “And us winning.”
“Us?” he asks, his voice laced with mockery and curiosity, “Still don’t know which side you’re on, Millicent?”
:::
She lets the question sink in before answering it, pausing to pull an arm from a bush. She wonders if they’ll find the person the arm belongs to, and whether its own is male or female, young or old. It doesn’t really matter, in the long run, as either way they’re dead.
“I killed Amycus Carrow,” she tells him. It’s an evasive way to answer a question she doesn’t know the answer to, and she disposes of the arm before meeting his eyes. “I guess that means I chose a side.”
He gives her a sideways glance. “You’re still crying.”
:::
Around midnight of the following day, she’s administering potions to the patients that are still in a coma. She reaches the bed of a boy by the name of Creevey, Dennis, and she cringes when he stirs, as she knows she’ll have to be the one to tell him that his brother is gone. “Did we win?” the young voice asks, certain that whoever is helping him cannot possibly be from the other side.
Millicent stills, hoping to dodge the brother bullet. “Yes,” she answers, bringing the vial of potion up, close to his lips, “Yes, I guess we did.”
:::
Marcus finds her a little after three and hands her a bottle of Firewhiskey. It’s only after the first swallow that she realizes she hasn’t slept in almost two days. A yawn escapes her lips as she pulls the bottle away from them, and Marcus smiles at her in a way that makes her choke on the burning liquid.
“You know, none of them ever smiled at me like that,” she says, like he’s going to know what she’s talking about.
He catches on faster than expected. “I always have,” he tells her, holding out his hand. “Always will, Millicent.”
:::
She goes home with Marcus, and only partly because there is no one else to go home with. Blaise isn’t there, and Daphne takes Theodore with her, as he has no one else. She sees Astoria limping towards the Greengrasses some time before she and Marcus leaves, so at least one Slytherin family has been left intact after all of this.
A part of her, the honest, cynical part, thinks that maybe they’re the only ones. A part of her thinks the rest of the world has died, and only those she’s seen in the last two days are left.
:::
She collapses onto the guest bedroom in the Flint Mansion long before her grandmother wakes up to see that she’s survived. When she wakes up, thirty hours later, there’s dinner on the table and a smile on her grandmother’s face.
“Why in the name of Salazar are you smiling, Oma?” Millicent asks, unable to watch her language due to fatigue, “Most of your family just died.”
“Of course, Liebling,” the old German woman replies, “Now we get to start again, fresh, and maybe we’ll make the Flint name proud.”
It’s betraying her father to agree, but Millicent does so, anyway.
:::
“It’s her house,” Adrian’s voice carries through the house in a tone that would be yelling, if it were not for the fact that he and Marcus never fight. Marcus says it’s because they’re always fighting the rest of the world, they need to know they have each other’s backs. Millicent thinks they’re both just too afraid of losing the only real friend they have in the world.
“I know that, but I don’t want her going back in there.” Marcus’ reply is said at the same level, and she cringes. She didn’t think anyone would ever fight over her.
:::
“If she doesn’t go back in there, Lucien’s going to die,” Adrian says the words with such finality, that she knows she doesn’t have a choice. She walks into the room, without any pretense or denial of the fact that she was eavesdropping, and sits down between the two men.
“I’ll go back,” she tells Marcus, her eyes focused on his, “I can’t just leave Lucien out there to die.”
“Are you sure you can handle it?” Marcus asks her, honestly.
It’s her words that follow, but it’s Adrian that says them. “This is far from the worst of it.”
:::
“I thought Marcus was taking me?” Millicent asks the following day, when she finds Adrian sitting at the kitchen table. He hands her a cup of coffee and some toast. It’s early and she’s cranky, so she accepts both willingly.
Adrian shrugs his shoulders, and Millicent takes that to mean that Marcus wasn’t sure he could handle seeing the house Katie Bell had been kept captive in again. Millicent really hopes it works out between the two of them, because this obsession Marcus has with the blonde is bordering on pathetic.
“Okay,” she says, after swallowing the coffee, “I’m ready.”
:::
The Mansion is silent when they make their way towards it. She can smell the odor of decaying flesh as she opens the door, and while a part of her wants to vomit, she knows if she turns around now she’ll never be able to face it again. It’s a good thing Adrian is here instead of Marcus, maybe his Gryffindor blood will make this easier for them.
Perseus’ corpse is decaying in the basement and other bones litter the lower rooms. She takes what she needs and leaves, unable to believe that her family brought this nightmare upon themselves.
:::
“Give me my wand,” Millicent says, as the reach the outer gates of the Bulstrode estate. Adrian falters for a moment, unwilling to give her the power to hurt herself after what she’s seen. The Bulstrode Mansion, once so regal and dark and deathly, is now just a skeleton of a house shrouded in death. There’s a determination in her eyes that he’s never seen in Slytherins, though, so he hands it over.
She drops the old artifacts and dark magic and sends them back near the house. Then, without stuttering or hesitation, she sets the entire estate on fire.
:::
For a moment, they both stand there frozen by the flames. They dance a macabre waltz across the last remnants of her childhood. The paralysis dies the moment Millicent hears glass shatter, and then she’s in Adrian’s arms, crying something awful. He’s never seen her cry before, and so his paralysis lasts a moment longer. Then he’s holding her like he’s nothing else to hold on to in the world, and they’re clinging to each other as they watch her world burn to the ground. Millicent feels a part of herself die, while another part feels like it’s coming alive.
:::
“Was it the right thing to do?” Millicent asks Adrian later that night, while they listen to music as Marcus and Oma make dinner. “It feels like it was right, but for some reason it feels like I’m hiding something too. I’m not…” she bites off the ending of the sentence, afraid that the next words might be a lie. “I’m not ashamed of my family,” it’s the first time she’s ever said those words, and the truth of them scares her. “Maybe I should be, but I’m not.”
Adrian shakes his head. “You don’t have to be,” he promises.
:::
It takes three weeks for Lucien to have a trial. Millicent attends the hearing alone, as Adrian’s required to bear witness and Marcus and Oma didn’t want to go. She sits as close to her brother as she can and cringes as he’s brought out to a hostile crowd. It’s human nature, to want to see a man reduced to an animal, but seeing Lucien like this breaks her heart. They find him guilty, but he only gets life imprisonment, thanks to Adrian’s quick thinking. Lucien meets her eyes as they lead him away, and she feels her heart shatter.
:::
“Do you think he’ll forgive me?” Millicent asks afterwards, as she and Adrian make their way out of the Ministry. He’s taken the rest of the day off, so that he can buy her lunch and keep an eye on her. “He looked so angry in the courtroom.”
“I think he’ll have a lot of time to realize that it wasn’t your fault,” Adrian promises, reaching out to grab her hand. She looks down at the fingers, interlaced, and realizes it’s the safest she’s felt in years. It’s an odd development, but she’s beginning to think it’s for the best.
:::
It’s August the first time Adrian kisses her, soft and slow, hesitant and unsure. She melts into it, something she didn’t think was possible. With Draco, Blaise, and Theodore, there was hardly any emotion other than desperation in their kisses or their shags, and she was beginning to doubt such a thing as romance existed.
When the kiss ends, he pulls away and smiles, and she shyly smiles back. After all the death and loss and endings, she can feel herself being reborn from the ash, flying towards a new beginning in a life she can finally call her own.