Archive of Our Own ^beta

She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear. 

She couldn’t even open her eyes. 

Everything I have, I’ve won for myself. Now, I’ve won you, too. 

She couldn’t feel a thing. Except that damned ring on her finger. His ring. 

Her chest shuddered. It was then she realized she was breathing, and she couldn’t be dead. 

You, the only witch worthy of standing by my side. The only one whose dreams mirror mine. The only one whose power mirrors mine. Raquel… Marry me. 

Her face was wet. 

Opening her eyes was a struggle. Her eyelids felt as though they were sealed together. 

She could remember everything. His cock, buried deep inside her, tearing her apart. Him pressing his ring onto her finger. 

Afterwards, he had Apparated out of the Ministry and carried her back home. Scourgified her naked body except between her legs. Laid her down in a bed with sheets of dark green silk. The sheets smelled like him, and so did the pillows. She even thought his scent lingered in the air. 

It was his bedroom. 

Curling her knees to her chest to hide her nudity, she had begged him to let her return to her home. He had refused. 

“Out of the question,” he’d told her, his eyes boring into her. “You’ll be my wife. You’ll stay here, with me.” 

“My mother—“

“—I’ve already sent a nurse to look after her,” he interrupted, his tone dismissive. “And I hired a Mind Healer from America, one of the best in the world. You can see her once a month, but your first concern should be our marriage.” 

Just like that, she was reduced to his property. She was but an object in his world. 

An object he could use whenever he wanted. Even while she slept, if that’s what he wanted. That must be why he had kept her in his room. 

Back in Hogwarts, Sergio had always kept to himself. Girls had wanted him, of course. He’s a Marquina,  her Pure-blood schoolmates had whispered. He’s got old blood . An inheritance to rival Draco Malfoy’s, or Theo Nott’s...

He had never once looked at any of those girls. 

“I've  had sex before, of course. But they were all meaningless encounters. Nothing like this. This… This has a purpose. What’s between us, it has meaning. Together, starting tomorrow, we’re going to change everything.”

He had her now. A woman to sate himself with. 

Had he jerked himself off onto her face as she’d slept? 

She didn’t realize her hands were shaking until her fingers jerked against her cheek. She could barely keep them steady. 

But there wasn’t any crust over her face. Her cheeks were wet, yes, but not with semen. 

She’d been crying in her sleep. 

Her eyes tore open. It sent pain flaring over her face—her eyes were swollen. She let out a whimper, gasping. 

She stared down at her wet fingers, her heart thundering. 

She looked down. A nightgown adorned her body. It shimmered with the light from the window. It was a dark forest green, the hem embroidered with silver thread. Slytherin colours. 

Sergio’s colours. 

She wanted nothing more than to rip it off. 

“Lady Marquina?”

Her heart jerked out of her chest. She’d thought she was alone. She sat up, hissing as her sudden movement caused an ache to flare awake in her hips. 

A house-elf was blinking at her, dressed in a black tea-towel. It straightened as Raquel met its eyes. 

“I’m not married to Sergio yet, so just call me Raquel,” she rasped. 

The house-elf looked at her blankly. 

Raquel’s lips thinned. “What’s your name?” 

“My name is Risley,” the house-elf squeaked, in a high, feminine voice. “The Master instructed me to look after anything Lady Marquina needs. And to prepare her for breakfast.” 

The presumptuous bastard. 

But she had no energy to protest. She would have to pick her battles carefully. 

“Tell your Master that I don’t wish to see him.” Raquel laid down on the bed, pulling the covers over her shoulders and turning her back on Risley. As she settled into bed, she felt a vicious sting between her thighs, and her eyes grew hot. “Not now, not ever. Leave me.” 

There was a crack as Risley Apparated out of her room. 

Raquel kept her eyes fixed on the wall opposite the bed. 

She didn’t want to think. It wasn’t easy, because all she wanted to do was weep. But numbness had taken all her senses, muddled her thoughts. She tried to affix herself in that mental zone, summoning her Occlumency barriers to block out all emotion. She allowed her fingers to splay apart and curl, her body to lie limp on the bed as if she really was dead. The dead had no need for thoughts, nor sorrow. 

It helped. 

She counted the seconds passing, trying to lose herself in numbers. She kept count, until an hour had passed, and then more. Inexplicably, she grew more and more tired. Her head weighed heavy on her pillow, but she didn’t want to sleep. 

She had to stay alert, in case Sergio attacked her again. 

But she found her eyes drooping shut more than once. Her mind heavy with exhaustion. 

No, no, don’t sleep, you cannot… 

At some point, a loud bang in the distance hit her ears like a hard blow to her skull. Her heart stuttered as she jolted out of her daze, only realising then that she had fallen asleep in the first place. She hadn’t been able to help it. She was too tired. Groggily, she dragged herself out of bed. There was a tray of sandwiches, biscuits and tea on her bedside table; she hadn’t even noticed. The tea had probably gone cold.

She didn’t care. Ignoring the food, she limped to the window, struggling to get a grip on the windowsill. Somewhere deep inside her, Sergio’s cock had left damage behind, and she could hardly even stand. 

What she saw at the window almost blinded her. It was a storm of fire, raging in the air—in the shape of snarling dragons the size of castles, blocking out the sun and the blue of the sky. 

It was Fiendfyre, she realized with a chill. The darkest of fires. The fire that had destroyed millions. That had swept up whole cities, empires. It was notoriously difficult to control. 

But the dragons moved in synchrony, never venturing further than the mansion’s grounds. It was controlled Fiendfyre. She’d never seen anything like this. 

Her eyes rested on Sergio, who stood on the grounds of Marquina Manor. His wand held steady in the air like mastering Fiendfyre was nothing at all to him. 

He was practising. With her own power, and his own. 

Envy reared up inside her, sick and bitter and raw, rooting itself in her throat and her heart until she could have choked on it and then spat it out into Sergio’s face. If she was anywhere else, anyone else, even a phantom from her youth, the intensity of the sickness inside her would have startled her. But as it was, she had no more care for propriety. How could she, when her birthright had been stolen from her?

She stared the Fiendyre with lust, with greed, her fingers clawing at the window latch. It wouldn’t open, and she screamed her rage, wrenching with all her might. 

“Thief,” she howled, wanting him to hear her. “Thief!”

Thief. Thief. Thief. To her it was the blackest of his sins. 

Those dragons were hers.   

As if summoned by her thoughts, the dragons turned to look directly at her. They threw back their heads, roaring in triumph and rage and a message. Magic crackled in the air like lightning, splitting the sky. It shattered the window and snapped in her ears, and then she was falling, falling. Her head hit the floor with a crack. 

The next time Raquel stirred awake, she was on her bed, and she couldn’t move her fingers. They were stiff, as though tightly wrapped in bandages. 

“Lady Marquina is awake,” she heard Risley’s squeaky voice. 

That’s not my name. 

She tried to sit up again, tilting her head to see the window. The sun was low in the sky, turning the sky orange. It was—it was already the evening.

Had she truly slept for so long?  

The sunset had been nowhere near as vibrant as her dragons. 

Her head throbbed. 

“Raquel? Raquel, can you hear me?”

It was Sergio’s voice. Her spine stiffened. He was here. He was here, and her stomach was burning with hunger. 

Thief, she wanted to spit at him. Filthy fucking thief. 

He had stolen her. He had stolen her magic. 

She had agreed to be Head Auror, believing it would protect her. She had agreed to dance with Sergio at the ball only yesterday, thinking he could help her. But she had been wrong. It had been a facade. A lie. 

He was just like all the rest. 

But that, too, was a lie. To pretend that Sergio was average, that his will or his magic could be easily overpowered, would only lead to her downfall. She couldn’t afford to underestimate him even in her contempt. 

But she hated him, she hated him, she hated him worse than she had ever hated Alberto. Somewhere, in a distant corner of her mind, she acknowledged that while Alberto had beaten her, sent her falling to the ground, she had surely loathed him just as fiercely. 

But time had numbed the old pain, and grief, the grief of losing both her husband and unborn child in a day. Fresh pain—inflicted by Sergio—flayed her skin and body and soul anew. 

For all his attempts, Alberto had never succeeded in beating the magic out of her. It was hers to keep and it was safe inside her. But here she was now, helpless—drained of magic, her magic. 

Sergio had ripped everything from her. 

She wanted to die. 

She wanted him to die. 

“Raquel, can you see me?”

If she could have, she would have ripped his eyes out. She tried to scream at him, but her mouth felt like it was full of cotton. 

The ache in her head flared, enveloping her whole, and before she knew it, she was slipping back into unconsciousness. 

There was something broad and firm in Raquel’s hair. She gave a low croak of protest, and it moved, long digits dragging over her scalp—fingers, she realized, pulling insistently at her hair. A chill swept through her, goosebumps prickling her skin. 

Her shoulder blades ached, the surface under her back hard and unyielding. When her fingers twitched, she could feel prickly little blades of something smooth and slightly damp against her skin. 

Grass. 

She wasn’t in bed. She was outside the Manor. She could feel the cool night air in her nostrils, so frosty it pierced into the meat inside her skull. 

Why was she outside?

Her eyes flew open. That was her mistake. 

Sergio was bent over her, his stare unblinking, his hands solid in her hair to hold her head still. He had been waiting for her to look at him. The moment she did, he dived into her mind, the thickness of his mind blotting out her thoughts. She didn’t even have the presence of mind to scream or struggle or pull up her Occlumency barriers. Frozen with horror, she could only watch as he flipped through her memories as carelessly as if he was breezing through a magazine, pages flying in the air. 

Flashes of light, of spells and curses shooting through the air—her last operation as an Auror. The echo of a slap against her flesh—Alberto. Dim lighting, glasses clinking, Alicia chattering in her ear while the barman leered—one of her outings to a wizarding pub in her youth. 

He dug deeper, further back, into her teenage years. She tried to throw up a wall, to summon a wrathful ocean and toss him out, or even just a mist to distract him, but nothing at all happened. Her throat closed in tight, and she struggled to breathe. Her magic was depleted, her abilities as an Occlumens hopeless now. She was as helpless as any Muggle. He could wipe her mind or take her memories or plant in compulsions to force her into compliance and she couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop him. 

No. No no no, she tried to tell him, and she knew he could hear her, so deep in her mind as he was. But he only acknowledged her words with a small movement: one of his hands moved away from her hair. His fingers were like a vise around her jaw. 

She shook her head, attempting to break his control. He didn’t relent, his fingers gripping her jaw, and a sharp pain flared behind her eyes as he shoved his way in more aggressively, as if in punishment. She could only lie there and take it. He seemed to be burrowing further and further back in time, but she didn’t understand what he was looking for, nor why. 

She could feel his restlessness, his hunger, his focused search. His hunt. Because he was hunting; looking for something specific. Only she couldn’t fight back, she couldn’t use magic to deflect him. 

An ache was already throbbing in her temples in time to her own pulse.

Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. 

Her mother’s voice crooned over the sound of her heartbeat. For some reason, it stirred Sergio’s attention; she could feel him pause, listening. 

A sudden fury snapped her alert. He couldn’t touch her mother. Not those memories. She screamed at him, shook her head again, but she was magically depleted and physically weak and starving, and his grip on her face was mercilessly tight, his fingers pressing so deep into the hollow of her cheek she was certain her skin would bruise. 

She had always bruised easily. 

He drew up her memory, and she could feel his wary surprise as a sudden bright light flared between them, blinding their vision. A heartbeat, and two, then it faded, little white sparks floating in the air like fairy lights. They burned in the air, so hot she could feel their heat. The strongest of fires. And beyond them, a little infant girl with brown hair and brown eyes with her fingers splayed in the air and a bright smile on her face. 

She couldn’t have been any older than two years old. 

It was her first display of magic. She knew it because her mother had told her this tale many times. As a child, she had been terrified of the dark, and loved to make her own light. Mariví had been woken by those lights the first time she had tried it. 

Something swelled in her mind. It felt like awe. Sergio’s. His quiet surprise climbed as he watched the lights burn brightly in the air, gentle and soft. He moved closer, into the memory, turning his stare past the lights onto the baby lying in her crib, and it was then that she felt his greed, his longing to own those lights, the baby who had made them. It was so large so hungry so perverse and wrong that she wanted, more anything else, to take that baby into her own arms and protect her. 

But she could do nothing but watch. 

Her mother burst into the room, gaping at the lights. 

“Raquel!” her mother cried, admiration and terror in her voice. She leaned down to take the infant Raquel’s hand, and in the present, Raquel felt a hollow ache piece her chest. “You talented little thing, my powerful witch. Don’t set fire to anything, I’ll cry a river if you burn yourself, my sweet baby…” The infant in Mariví’s arms babbled with concern as her mother began to cry, not with sorrow but joy, because it was every magical parent’s dream to know their child had magic, their proudest and happiest and most profound moment—and Raquel crumbled as the lights winked out one by one by one, the memory fading away at the edges, and the vision of herself wrapped up in her mother’s arms was pulled further and further away until she could no longer reach it, even when she tried her fingers burned at the tips—

“No,” she rasped aloud. Distantly, she registered the feeling of something wet trickling from her nostrils, tickling her upper lip. It slid to her open lips, seeping in, and there she tasted salt on her tongue. The salt of her blood.

The flow of blood didn’t stop. It only seemed to flow with more urgency as he left her mind, taking her memory of her first bout of magic with him. 

And he broke away. She realized she was trembling like a leaf on the grass, staring up at the night sky, a bright half-moon hung up high in the sky. And stars. Stars. So bright they twinkled in the sky, so numerous she should have been awed, but instead broken cries heaved themselves from her chest, and she could only feel sorrow, because—because she couldn’t remember. 

She couldn’t remember. 

She couldn’t remember her first magic. Abstractly, she knew that surely her mother had told her what it was, that she had been told what she had done, and she knew that Sergio had taken it, but she couldn’t remember what it was. She couldn’t remember when it had happened or how, and all she could feel was the twist of violation in her mind, the crack where he had ripped through years and years of memories and taken away everything even tangentially related to her first demonstration of magic. 

It was the kind of story a parent told again and again, to anyone who would listen, so surely there had to be more. But there was nothing. No pride. No joy. No happiness. 

Nothing. 

Sobbing, she twisted around, and there—Sergio was kneeling at her side, threads of precious white mist held in his palm. Her memories. 

Desperation shot through her, white-hot. 

“Mine,” she gasped through her tears, “that’s mine,” and her shaking hands shot out to take it back, but with her magical core strained, her hand swept through the mist and nothing happened. “Protego!” she screamed, trying desperately to splay her hands and push Sergio away, but nothing happened except a deep strain in her magic and her nerves. She gritted her teeth and tried again, “Bombarda!” but nothing happened. She stared at her quivering hands in betrayal. 

Nothing, nothing at all. In her madness, she thought she could hear faint cries of a woman sobbing, a baby giggling. 

Sergio’s wand lifted in the air, drawing the memories out of his palm. Her eyes were fixed on his wand. Mine mine mine. 

“A sacrifice for success,” he said, his voice breathy with anticipation, then murmured a spell. Her memories curled around the tip of his wand. Under his direction, they shot out towards the ground, and Raquel choked out a panicked cry as they formed a circle around her, then sank deep into the soil. White light flared for an instant, blinding her, the unknown woman’s cries swelling in her ears, and then it all winked out. 

As if it had never happened at all. She was left staring into the darkness, her eyes wide, her face streaked with tears. 

When her nightgown vanished, cool air wafting over naked skin, she didn’t fight at first because—she didn’t understand. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t understand. Did he want to take everything from her? Did her suffering please him so much?  

“Why?” she choked out, her voice broken. She lay in shock, shivering with the cold. Beyond Sergio, she could see the grass she lay on, the trees, and the high gate far beyond them; the night sky above her; and when she looked the other way, the Manor in the distance, grand and intimidating even as it loomed in the dark. She twisted her head back to look at Sergio. “Why?” 

“You saw me here today. Casting Fiendfyre. It was magnificent. Intoxicating. I couldn’t even sleep.” His gaze swept down her body. She cringed back at the hungry greed she found in his face, an expression of blatant want. “I want more of it. Of your power. I want to bind it to me. Immutably.” 

For a while, she couldn’t answer. She didn’t understand. Her mouth was dry and her throat was scratchy and clogged with the ache within her. There were, she remembered, certain rituals which needed to be performed outdoors. But surely he didn’t intend to force more magic from her. She was already drained to her limit.

“Risley tells me that you refuse to answer to the title of Lady Marquina.” He leaned closer. “It’s yours. We could do great things together. If only you could see the futility of denying it.” 

His eyes glittered. Then he did something she didn’t expect: he vanished his own clothes, so he was stark naked before her for the very first time. He set his wand onto his palm, then jerked the tip over his skin. His palm split open, and he allowed droplets of blood fall over her body. She flinched as they made contact, sliding over her breasts. 

What was this?

He tilted his face up to the sky. Her blood roared in her ears. 

“With my life’s blood”—his blood warmed her skin, and she twitched her head down to see drops coming together to pool between her breasts—”I bind my life to hers.” 

A Binding ritual, it seemed—an ancient one. No, fuck you, fuck you fuck you no no no, she tried to scream, but she realized that he’d Silenced her. Whatever variation of the ritual he used, it seemed that it was so ancient and patriarchal in nature that he didn’t need her to vow herself to him. She opened her mouth and not even a sound escaped. She tried to move, but found herself stuck to the ground. In her distraught, she hadn’t seen him cast a Sticking charm. 

She would not submit to this, but she—he had given her no choice—

Then he looked down at her again, but not at her face. With a jerky movement of his wand, Sergio sliced into the skin above her left breast. Her flesh split open, and she opened her mouth to scream, only nothing came out, and her voice was gone. Hot tears pooled in her eyes. She tried to hold them back, desperate for some semblance of control, but without her permission, her tears poured from her eyes, leaking into her hair.

I failed. Failed failed failed failed. 

“With her life’s blood,” he chanted as he pressed his bloody palm to her breast, “I bind her life to mine.” He continued his chant, but her brain was buzzing, and when she looked up, she saw the blazing light of a half-moon, so unnaturally bright and warm that the night air felt hot against her skin, so much so that her insides felt warm. Sergio still held her by her breast, and she looked down at herself, finding her skin flushed and bloody, and she realized her blood was warming with the moon, with Sergio’s blood. 

She could not kill him without losing her life with his. 

His wand dragged up her chest, her neck, and she pressed her head back against the ground, shuddering with pain. He pressed his wand to her cheek, gathering her tears, and bright light shuddered around them. He pressed his thumb to her clit, making her jerk with shock. He rubbed with gentle circles. With a sickening burst of horror, she realized she was getting wet. 

He swiped his thumb down over her slit, gathering her juices, and then he brought it to his cock, already hard and leaking pre-come. She turned her face away as he stroked himself, but the slick sounds of her own slick against his cock was impossible to escape from. The insides of her mouth felt vile. She could not bear it. 

Then the sounds stopped. 

“With her desire, and mine,” he breathed, his voice heavy with want, “I take all her children as mine, to inherit this land.” 

Her head whipped back towards him to find his hand in the air, his fingers splayed wide open. Bright white light flared, blinding her, and it shot towards her, and to Sergio too, sinking into their chests. It struck deep and low, forcing her breath from her. She cried out, and heard Sergio echo her; she threw her head back against the ground, gasping for breath. 

In the aftermath, there was silence, and complete stillness in the air. A shiver rippled down her spine, making her body seize briefly. It was then she realized that the warmth of the ritual had faded quickly, leaving cool night air, behind, and she was here, naked, with Sergio. 

Against every instinct, she made herself glance at him. She blanched. 

He was staring right at her face, his eyes completely black. And she realized she could feel it between them, their bond: almost like a living thing. 

A piece of Sergio with her. Immutably with her. 

“No,” she whispered. She tore her gaze away. 

“Yes.” He climbed atop her, moving between her legs, his eyes fixed on her face. Unable to look at him, she turned her face to the side. He leaned over her with his heavy weight, and her hands flew up. She had meant to push him away, but instead her arms stayed tucked over her chest protectively, and all she could do was cringe from him as far as his Sticking charm would let her go. 

He lowered himself over her body, and his cock prodded at her folds. She wondered if she was still wet, and felt a burst of shame. “You’re my wife now, Raquel.” 

“Your wife?” she spat, tears flooding her eyes again. “Is your brother watching from the window? Am I his too?” 

“He won’t touch you,” Sergio growled. “And he’s not here. He’s with one of his whores tonight.” 

He pushed into her, hissing as he split her open. Pain ripped through her cunt. Whatever lubrication he’d coerced her to produce from the binding was far from enough. Her first cry was torn out of her, high-pitched with torment, and he paused, but just for a moment. Then he drove himself inside her harder, as though chasing the sound. 

She whimpered, then shut her eyes as he looked down at her. She felt his fingers knotting themselves in her hair, drawing into a fist. He pushed her head against the ground, forcing her neck at an uncomfortable angle and groaning as he used her roughly. 

“I was scrying, Raquel,” he whispered. “Seeing the world. The future and the past. All the possibilities there are. All the things we could do. All the ways there are to kill and chase and beat to get what we want.” 

With my magic, she thought. Her fingers drew into claws on her chest, her nails scratching against her own skin. The pain cleared her mind a little. She hated him. She might not have been able to fight back, but she would never accept his claim over her. Not when he had cracked open her mind with his and created a wound which gaped, hollow and aching deep inside. 

“Only I didn’t get far, because I started getting tired,” he continued, his words punctuated with breathless pants. “It was the Fiendfyre. You are powerful, so powerful, your magic is magnificent, but everything has its limits, and I was using up the last of your reserves. So I took a break. I thought of what I saw. And then I read something, a spell… A binding spell.” 

Her eyes flew open. She looked at the sky above her, so open and limitless. There were so many stars glittering in the sky, burning bright and white. Those stars… They held her attention. They were more free than she would ever be. In that moment, she longed to be hung up in the sky just like that, beyond the reach of anyone. Then, when it was time, to vanish. 

“A marriage bond,” he groaned, oblivious to her inner turmoil. “An old enchantment. A tie. Of our lives, together.” All of a sudden, his grip on her hair tightened, wrenching against her scalp. Her mouth popped open, and tears welled up in her eyes, but she couldn’t speak. “The life tie… It deepens with every fuck we have.” His breaths were ragged now. “Gets its claws deep into our souls. You see, even if I take off your ring, you can’t kill me,” he hissed, triumphant, “because then you’ll die. And who will take care of your mother?”  

Fury snapped her out of her pained daze. Her mother. The woman behind the voice that had wept from the long-gone threads of her own memory. “Don’t speak of my mother!” 

“There you are,” he purred. “I knew you were in there somewhere.” His hand slid up her chest, over her breast, then he took her throat in his hand, firmly holding her, restricting her breathing just enough to make his threat clear. “I realized,” he said, “that to bind you to me using a ring is insufficient. To only borrow your power is insufficient. There is only one way to secure you.” 

She shut her eyes, her chest heaving as she struggled with her tears. 

He lowered his mouth to her ear. The taste of bile was thick in the back of her throat, stifling her. “You will give me a son. Everything I’ve ever wanted, you will deliver to me.” 

She didn’t try to respond, and there was little point. His thrusts grew uncoordinated as he drew closer to his peak. He let out a harsh breath as he came, warmth pooling inside her, and she suppressed the animal whine rising in her throat as he pulled out. He removed the Sticking charm keeping her pinned to the grass with a wave of his hand. Before she had time to turn away, he tugged her up by her arm, wrenching her off the ground and against his body. 

Thinking he meant to kiss her, slap her, or something worse, she tucked her legs together and tried to turn away from him. But he wouldn’t let her. He pinned her against him with a hand to her waist, tapping his wand to her chest. She looked down, watching the edges of the wound over her breast close, leaving not even a scar behind. 

He twisted on his heel, and with a loud crack of Apparition, they were in her bedroom. 

She pulled her arm free, stumbling to bed and quickly yanking the blankets over her naked body. Curling onto a tight ball, she shivered alone. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of him summoning his robes. Its fabric swished as he pulled it up and over his shoulders. The sound was awfully loud in the silence between them, and she pulled her legs closer against her bare breasts, desperately wanting him to leave. 

“I had St Mungo’s Hospital declare that you were sick with Black Cat Flu, so Potter is standing in for you,” Sergio said to her back. “It takes up to a month to recover from it. Of course, no one wants the whole Auror department to go through a case of bad luck.” 

Her eyes trailed to the window. She wondered what it would feel like to unleash Fiendfyre on Sergio. On him and the manor and the grounds. Everything. 

“I’ll use your magic sparingly for one week. Use that time to rest.” 

How merciful. With her face turned to the wall, she sneered, biting back her words. 

But he seemed to sense the contempt in her silence; his parting words were sharp. “Come to terms with your fate, wife.” 

The door opened and closed. She closed her eyes, but sleep did not come. 

For one whole week, Raquel’s routine was simple. 

Sergio didn’t come to see her during the daytime. The most she saw of him was through the windows, where he seemed to stay on the grounds of the estate, testing his magic. Most of the time, he experimented alone, and sometimes, Andres was with him. 

But every night, Sergio came to her bed. Every night, she would put up a feeble kind of fight—she was still weakened from him exerting her magic—and then he would force her down easily and take what he wanted and she would try to forget what was happening, to send her mind far, far away, into the night sky where stars hung free. 

She supposed he was already trying to get her with child. The very idea of it made her sick, so she tried not to think about it. There was no point in torturing herself if she didn’t have her wand to cast a contraceptive spell. 

At least he was quick and perfunctory. Their nightly encounters were painful, and they made her jumpy and afraid, but they lasted only a few minutes at most. 

She could barely eat as it was. She only nibbled. She had trouble keeping food down. She could barely even move, even to the window. 

It wasn’t that she wasn’t hungry—for food, for air, for freedom. She was hungry. She was so hungry that she was entirely certain she could have puked from how hungry she was. She was so hungry she longed to run and to feed and to remember. 

But everything about this room made her feel ill. The bed smelled of Sergio. When she lay in it, she was forced to smell him; his scent filling her nose, her mind. It made her want to throw herself from the window to stop herself from remembering or thinking at all. It made her want to curl up beneath her blankets and weep. 

When Risley opened the window, she could only snap at the elf and order her to close it. Because the taste of fresh cold air reminded her of the night Sergio had cracked open her mind and bound her to him. 

When food was brought to her, all she could think of was that Sergio was eating the same thing. Or she would think that he had surely ordered specific dishes to be brought to her, so he would commandeer every single thing that went into her body, down to the number of glasses of water she drank every day. 

Or she would wonder if he was lacing her food with fertility Potions. 

After that, shovelling food down her mouth felt like swallowing her own vomit. But it was necessary. With every disgusting bite she took, she felt her magic returning to her, and she felt herself growing stronger. Stronger and stronger, and on the morning of the second day, she managed to reconstruct her torn Occlumency barriers. Then her calm returned to her, because Occlumency helped her box her fear away, allowing her anger to rise to the surface. 

She needed it. She needed it. 

Because he was a thief. A thief. It was one thing to rape her—to force her to become his thrall, to share her magic with him. But to take her memories, to bind their very souls, to own her life this way, to refuse her even death—

No. 

As her magic returned to her, she tried to delve deeper into the crack he’d left behind in her mind, hoping beyond hope that traces had been left behind. Something, anything. 

But she couldn’t even remember the sound of her mother’s voice. She could remember what her mother looked like, what her embrace had felt like, so warm and soothing, but she couldn’t remember her voice. 

She couldn’t remember what her mother looked like when she was proud of her. 

And she couldn’t remember her first magic. 

Her magic. The most precious thing she had. Her entire soul. What made her her . The one thing she believed no one could ever take from her. 

After Alberto, her magic was the only thing she had left. And she still had it, she tried to tell herself on the nights she stared at the ceiling in the blackness of the night. She couldn’t get back the memory of her first magic back. But her magic—it wasn’t really gone. It felt gone, and it was owned, yes—by Sergio—but it was still inside her. Somewhere deep inside. Resting. Growing again. 

She could feel it. She could feel it returning slowly. Her magic grew stronger and she wanted to feed it. Knowing what it meant for Sergio to drain her magic from her and take what he wanted filled her with an all-consuming desperation to keep as much of her magic as she could. To hoard it from him. 

It was the only thing that gave her the will to force herself to eat or get out of bed. 

On the third day, she managed to Scourgify Sergio’s scent from the bed wandlessly. It was only a temporary relief, because he came to her every night and she would just have to cast it over and over again, but it was a precious, momentary freedom. It gave her the strength of mind to think. It gave her her days back. 

The closet was full of clothes he’d bought her, clothes he’d chosen for her to wear to work, as his wife, and she couldn’t look at them without remembering what he had taken from her. She didn’t even have her wand to Transfigure the clothes into something she liked. 

What was a witch without her wand? Without her magic? Even when she tried to perform Wandless magic, she was still so weak that a simple Lumos only conjured a measly, flickering spark of light. It was nothing compared to the bright white ball her Lumos had used to be. 

The curtains were black. When she pulled them apart to look out of the window, she saw nothing but green fields for miles. Was she still in Britain? Or was she somewhere in Scotland, closer to Hogwarts? 

She had no idea where she was. 

She tried to ask Risley, but the house-elf had just looked down at the floor. “I’m sorry, Lady Marquina”—Raquel had tried to oppose the use of thataccursed title, but Risley ignored her—”I’m not at liberty to say. You can try to ask Lord Marquina.” 

Lord Marquina educated his house-elves well. She’d never heard a house-elf speak with such precise enunciation. 

Risley was nothing but Sergio’s puppet, so Raquel kept her conversations with the house-elf short to a point. It wasn’t difficult; Risley came instantly when she was called, and she was consistently punctual in delivering her meals or clean laundry. But it was still hard. Risley was the closest semblance to friendly company she had at all. 

She felt so alone. She hadn’t seen her mother in over a week. 

She felt as if she had ceased to exist at all. That the only person who knew she really existed was Sergio. 

Sergio, who had raped her. Sergio, who kept her trapped here. Sergio, who would force his child upon her. 

In the absence of real company, on days when her exhaustion didn’t keep her in bed, she explored the manor. Sergio seemed to have given her the east wing, which she supposed had belonged to his Muggle-born mother, judging from the television she found in one room, and the light baby-toned cream and pink on most of the walls, shades of colour she felt had been chosen by a woman. On every floor of the wing, there were paintings of flowers—roses, chrysanthemums, bluebells, and many more. The paintings, so focused on non-human objects, usually sat still, and she would have thought them to be Muggle paintings if not for the way the flowers sometimes blew faintly with invisible wind. And if she looked closely at the painting, she could see little human figures in the distance, far behind the flowers. They were usually occupied with turning the pages of a book or gathering fruit, and they would stop moving whenever she was present. 

They were watching her. They didn’t even try to hide it. They would stare at her blatantly. 

She didn’t restrict herself to her wing. She spent time roaming the Marquina estate and the grounds. The mansion was huge, easily more than ten times the size of her own little house, with four wings sprawled over the grounds. 

As she roamed, the eyes of the portraits on the walls on every wing, floor and room surveyed her—some faces were utterly impenetrable, and some wore disapproving frowns for reasons she didn’t care to ask about. They were, in all likelihood, disapproving of her Half-blood status, though on occasion she was tempted to ask them how they felt about having a Half-blood as their Master, lording over them and the rest of the estate. There was little point: none of portraits seemed to dare address her, and should she attempt to speak to them, she doubted they would reply. 

Or perhaps he simply hated the portraits, and they had all been spelled silent. It seemed like something he would do. 

She avoided the west wing, where Sergio lived; and the third floor of the Manor, which she was fairly sure housed Andres, based on the faint tinkling of feminine laughter she sometimes heard when she used the stairs and climbed past the third floor. 

The library, which occupied two floors in the main section of the estate, was as large as any ballroom. At first, she had worried that the books had been cursed against the touch of anyone who was not Pure-blood—but Sergio, like her, was also Half-blood. And he apparently had no interest in restricting her access to his books, for even the books detailing the darkest of lore and magics did not sear her skin. So she found herself spending hours exploring the aisles. She took the books that intrigued her from his shelves, using the little magic she had to wandlessly levitate them to her room. 

She tried to learn about Binding rituals, but the ritual he had was straightforward. As he had described: it bound their lives together. If she tried hard enough, she would be able to feel his emotions, though she rarely tried. Feeling his side of the bond with her magic frightened her. 

According to the book, she could not feel his physical pain, nor him hers, not unless they slipped too deeply into the bond and overreached, but if one of them died, so would the other. It had been as he described in their vows, in English, which seemed to have been so she could understand the ritual without the book, and he could rub their bond in her face. 

She turned her attention to the magic he had used in the Ministry, when he had raped her for the first time, allowed him access to her magical core. She found it described in Secrets of the Darkest Art, a book which seemed to vibrate with malevolence when she touched it. It held instructions she had never seen before, including how to create a Horcrux—she had blanched on turning onto that page—and how to create Inferi, animated corpses which were forever hungry for human flesh. It also described the curse he had used the first time he had raped her. It had been created to enslave witches, and the book warned that with frequent sexual intercourse, a strong witch might be able to force the one-way connection to go both ways, allowing her to draw on his magic as well as him on hers. 

It was good news, without a doubt, but it left her puzzled. It seemed risky for Sergio to have chosen such a curse, although when she flipped through the book, and all the other books in his repertoire on Binding and enslavement rituals, she could find no other spells which had any failsafes for a thrall retaliating against their binder. 

Regardless, she had believed taking unnecessary risks was against Sergio’s nature, so she struggled to understand why he had done it. 

Or was it truly so unnatural for him? No man could ever gain as much control as he had without taking any risk at all. Perhaps he even got off on the risk; prided himself on the knowledge that he could master any odds. She pursed her lips, looking down at her hand, where his ring still sat, the diamond shining with the light. He expected the ring to constrain her ability, and he was right. 

For as long as he remained on his guard, he could make her bend to his will. This knowledge made her so restless that she had trouble sleeping at night, even long after Sergio had left her bed. On one such night, she paced her room like a caged animal and found a dead spider in a corner, its hairy legs crooked and stiff in the air. 

She knelt on the floor to take a closer look at it. It looked frail. She wondered how old it was, if it was male or female, and how it had died. Most of all, she wondered if she looked like that, when she was trapped underneath Sergio. So helpless and dead. 

What would it take to breathe life back into it? It was impossible, that was what it was. A violation of nature. But knowing that made her writhe, and she wanted to take the spider in hand and say: ‘Isn’t it unfair, that we are so dead? Is there a God like the Muggles say, or is He dead too?’

What would Sergio have to say? Power, he would tell her, is for those who are strong enough to take it. 

To steal it. 

She stood to take Secrets of the Darkest Art in her hands again, then returned to the floor by the spider. Sitting there, she flipped to the page on the Inferi, and she wandlessly conjured up her weak Lumos to read through the instructions. 

The ritual of creating an Inferius required complex wandwork. It would be impossible for her to complete the process without a wand. Still, memorizing the instructions made her her nervous tension bleed from her muscles, leaving her focused in a way she had not felt since—since before Sergio had taken her. She poised her fingers in the air, practising, imagining what it would take to a creature that was dead and gone into a form that hungered constantly. 

On her tenth time practising, she thought she saw one of the spider’s legs twitch. But it might have been her exhaustion, or a trick of the moonlight. 

The next morning, the spider was gone, and whatever energy she had with it. 

So she ate, then curled up in bed, tucking her hand underneath her cheek. She closed her eyes, and in her mind, she felt along the hollow fissure that forever lived within her. She eased along it, bringing forth everything Sergio had ever said to her. She would tie everything to that empty cleft, she would fill it with everything she needed to propel her onward. 

Images flashed behind her closed eyelids: her on Sergio’s arm, dressed in ceremonial robes as white and lovely as a dove’s feathers, arriving at their formal marriage ceremony. Her carrying their child, delivering a babe whom Sergio would mould to walk and talk as he pleased. Her climbing the ranks of the Ministry, rising to the position of Minister, limited by the ring on her finger and the bond she shared with Sergio, aproving statutes which first needed Sergio’s permission to be passed. 

Transforming the British Wizarding World into a sphere so much more elitist and insular than it already was. Muggle Studies at Hogwarts eliminated, perhaps; Muggle-borns forced to integrate or give up their customs. 

All part of a future where she was under Sergio’s thumb. 

The most obvious way to get out of her situation, she supposed, was to play the long game, as he had done for years to seize power over the Ministry. To suffer his touch every night. To bow her head to him and bear him children and obey. And one day, hope for the one chance in a million that she would get the better of him, and throw him in Azkaban. 

The thought of staying with him, playing at being his wife, and him fathering her children was repellent. It meant giving over what would be the rest of her life. 

She had already given away so many years of her life to Alberto.

She didn’t want to do it anymore. She was tired. And she was alone in this. Unless she could escape, she would always be alone, with nobody to confide in. 

There was a noose over Raquel’s neck. Tightening minute by minute. A trapped witch fated for death, that's what she was. But how far was oblivion? 

Closing her eyes, she scratched her thumb over the sharper edges of the diamond on Sergio’s ring until felt pain prick her fingers, warm blood making the ring slick and slippery. 

As she was—wandless, broken, useless—the future stretched before her, bleak and endless. 

What was it like for Sergio, but power personified? Jealousy seethed within her whenever she saw him in the distance, and she wondered if he could feel the green-eyed, green-tongued, green-tinged snake inside her. It hissed and longed to bite, to tear his throat out. 

It was an image she held close to her heart as she watched him cast spells with their magic, not just his but hers, drawing the power from her. With their bond, she could feel it now: how their magic was intertwined, their life forces intrinsically bound. If she focused hard enough, she thought she could feel the faint hum of his pleasure, his enjoyment of magic and his addiction to the thrill. Then there was the frothing violence in his frustration at wanting to cast spells that were more powerful still; yet restraining himself from overreaching and ripping her apart. 

She wondered if he could feel what she felt. But she didn't think he would care to even try to reach to her. He had no heart. He only sought to use her. 

She would have thought he would spend more time reading, as she did, to plan and to plot. But instead, despite his promise, the more time he spent with her magic, the more he seemed addicted to it. Day by day, he moved closer to her wing as he practised outside, as if drawn to her physical presence. As if he believed proximity would allow him to draw more power. 

He wasn’t entirely wrong. It was their bond. She knew, from the book on Binding rituals she had borrowed, that the bond compelled them to stay close, to fuck and to feed it. Its pull was difficult to ignore. 

He was losing control to it. 

Narrowing her eyes, she watched him slash his wand in the air, slicing an old, grand tree from the earth. The roots of the tree shrieked as it was lifted into the air. When Sergio released it from his hold, it fell, the roots wailing until he sliced them off. A bed of writhing black snakes slithered out from underneath a nearby bush, clearly disturbed by the impact. Under Sergio’s eye, they were flayed open and dead. Raquel stared numbly as he collected their entrails. 

Needless brutality. Sergio had been characterised by purpose for so long. Calculated decisions. 

His lusts had grown with her magic. He had waited for so long to attain this strength, and now that he has stolen it, he still wanted more. 

She couldn’t yet say that he had lost control. The reminder of his control encircled her finger, refusing to budge from her skin when she tried to peel it off. 

But one day… One day soon, he might grow careless. 

And she would be there to catch him. 

So let him believe he had cowed her, she thought, thumbing her finger over the bedsheets, so soft they must have been magically woven by experts. She wouldn't fight against him that night. 

He fed off her vulnerability. It was a drug for him. So she could use it. Let him think she was giving into it. And she was. She was drained. He had taken everything from her. Was there a point in hiding it? He had already been inside her mind. He knew her inside and out. Completely and utterly. 

Let him believe he owned her. For as long as he had her wand, he did. 

Her pride stung, but she needed her wand back. If he believed she was cowed, maybe she would get it back. 

Late in the week, she found her eyes drooping as she read. She liked to make use of the time she had away from Sergio, so she did not nap on principle, but she was so tired she could not help laying her head down to close her eyes for a minute. 

She didn’t mean to nap, and she only realized that she had slid into slumber when she woke, her nerves on edge. 

She knew why when she opened her eyes. 

Sergio was reading at her bedside. Frozen with surprise where she lay in bed, she squinted her eyes, her blood turning cold when she saw the title. Secrets of the Darkest Art. 

The aura of magic thrummed in the air between them, nearly audible. As she breathed, her lungs felt tight, and her insides hollow, and she knew, instinctively, that he had been stretching the limits of her magical core yet again. 

The pang of betrayal in her chest stung her more deeply than it had any right to. 

He had promised her one week. 

This felt like a taunt. It surely was one. What else could it be? 

He had seen her reading—perhaps he had even knew about her fruitless attempts to turn the dead spider into an Inferius. He wanted to keep her in check. 

What was he playing at? 

He must have felt her eyes on him, sensed that she was awake. But he didn’t look at her. As he continued to read, though, he idly flicked his wand in the air, and in the space between them, a small ball of white fire sparked into being. It pulsed under her gaze, then flared larger, and larger, until it was so close she could feel its heat warming the air before her face, and she couldn’t even see Sergio anymore, because the light was blinding her, forcing her eyes to narrow into slits. But it was beautiful. So beautiful.

So completely enraptured was she by the sight of it, she didn’t even realize she had lifted her hand to touch it until pain abruptly singed her fingertips, and she yelped, tears springing to her eyes as she wrenched her hand back. Agonized, on her belly on the bed, she watched as the flames winked out. Her heart plunged down to her stomach, a heavy weight of despair she didn’t understand. 

The light was gone, leaving only Sergio. He had looked up from his book and he was watching her. The intensity of his stare made her remember the night in his office, when he had backed her up against his table and won control over her will. Shrinking away on the bed, she lowered her eyes to the ground. 

In the silence, in the dark, she was forced to reckon with the ever-present, hollow pain under her breastbone. A cavernous sense of knowing that something had been taken from her. And deeper inside it, she felt Sergio himself, all his focus on her. Greedy for her magic. Suspicious that she would rebel. Intent that she would only die when he had achieved his goal and used her until her very end. 

He had been watching her all this time. 

As he stared at her, she knew—she knew there was no way he didn’t know what she had done at night. Practising spells, attempting to make an Inferius from a tiny, frail spider. 

She had thought that she was hiding herself from him. But there was no hiding. Not from him. 

She couldn’t hide anywhere. There was no point in pretending otherwise. He could see through her facade, and she felt exposed. Naked, although her blankets still covered her. 

Her tears slid down her cheeks. Before she knew it, a violent sob had choked its way out of her chest. 

She clapped a hand over her mouth, struggling to hold back her tears. 

She shut her eyes, but she could feel him staring at her. Watching her dispassionately. 

He kept silent. 

There was no point in holding onto her pride. Not when he’d seen through her. Into her mind. 

No one else would ever bear witness to her sorrow except him. And he didn’t care. She was all alone. 

The thought was harrowing. As her grief climbed up her belly to her throat, she let the last of her Occlumency barriers down, trembling. And then great, wracking sobs pulled themselves her body, and she fisted her hands in the sheets and rocked herself against the bed. The more her loneliness seeped into her pores, the more she wept. She couldn’t stop. 

It was all raw emotion and grief. Surely he could feel it in their bond too. 

He had it all. All of her. 

He remained quiet while she wept. Eventually, her cries died down to quieter whimpers, and she fell asleep, exhausted. 

When he came to her bedchamber that night, she didn’t put up a fight. He didn’t waste his time as he climbed into the bed, rolling her over and onto her belly. Closing her eyes, she felt him settle between her open legs and draw up the hem of her nightgown to her waist. When he saw that she was without underwear, he paused, his thumbs resting on her bare thighs. 

There was a tense silence, awareness drawing her skin taut. She kept her eyes closed. He didn’t say a word, not even to taunt her, although he must have been pleased. 

She wondered if he thought she was already broken. 

He smoothed his broad hands down her inner thighs, a jarringly intimate touch. It made an involuntary shiver rock through her. He continued, every stroke of his fingers making fear climb within her, clogging her throat. She had no idea what he was thinking. 

She closed her eyes. With a dull flare of shame, she realized she was wet. 

When he stopped, her fear only climbed, tears welling up in her eyes. She smothered a whine against her pillow. She knew what would come next. He leaned down over her back, pressing his chest against her, so close it made her feel ill. Her shoulders tightened, tensing up defensively, but she couldn’t help her instinct to shield herself, however hopeless it was. He pushed one of his hands up underneath her nightgown, sliding it between her body and the mattress, grasping her left breast. His hand was large enough to envelope it in his palm. A chill slipped down her spine, making her freeze up. He could rip her chest open and tear out her heart and she would be able to do nothing.

Maybe that was his point. Maybe he wanted to feel the fearful thundering of her heartbeat.  

The slide of his cock inside her was smoother than usual, but her insides still clenched tight around him as he thrust, making him grunt and her gasp. There was little pain, but she still anticipated it, had grown to expect cruelty from him, and it made her body remain tense. Try as she might, she couldn’t relax, let alone make her body go pliant. It was hard enough to control the small instinctive flinches in her limbs when his hips slapped against her, pushing her down into the mattress. 

Sergio was mostly quiet as he pumped inside her, only his heavy pants of breath betraying him, his fingers squeezing her breast. When he came, he collapsed over her back, crushing her breath from her. She pressed her face against her pillow, shuddering as the magic of their bond washed over her, settling deep in the pit of her belly. 

Instead of withdrawing like he usually did, he rested atop her for several long minutes, laying his cheek against her hair, and she didn’t buck back against him. She clamped her jaw shut and didn’t say a word, even though the weight of his body pressing down on her back was oppressively heavy, completely impossible to ignore, and he was still holding her breast in a firm grip, and she wanted nothing more than to wail and twist away from him and flee. 

She lay still, praying he wouldn’t fall asleep and stay with her all night. But his breathing stayed quick, his chest expanding against her back in an uneven rhythm. He was awake. 

This was a test. 

He owned her, he did. It was a fact. There was little point in fighting him here. It was a waste of her energy. 

She might have been falling. But she would bring him down with her. 

The next morning, desperately hungry, she curled up in bed, fighting back the urge to ask for Risley to bring her food early. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday’s lunch. But Risley was no friend. She reported to Sergio. So Raquel refused to show weakness. Not in this. 

Her hand bumped into something hard. She froze, her eyes wide, and sat up. 

She immediately forgot her hunger. 

Her wand was positioned at her side on the bed. Pale cream and wooden, long enough to fit comfortably in her hand. 

It seemed Sergio had seen fit to reward her for her compliance last night. 

Aspen wands are most suited for duellists, for adventurers and revolutionaries, Ollivander had whispered to her, while she’d first received her wand at eleven years old, watching in awe as sparks flared from its end. You’ll do great things with this wand, child. 

Swallowing, she picked up her wand, laying it in her palm. It thrummed faintly, recognising her touch immediately. She breathed, allowing a small smile to curve her lips, and her wand almost purred against her palm, pleased to be reunited. She paused for a moment to savour it, looking down at the hilt, inscribed with runes. 

In fourth year, as an assignment for Ancient Runes, their Professor had allowed them to choose runes to inscribe onto their wands. It had been one of the most exciting activities she’d ever done, and she spent weeks pouring over Wand and Runic Magics. 

In the end, she had decided on four Runes. Four, a magical number only dominated by the power of seven, but seven Runes were far too many for her own wand, and unnecessary at that. Four was powerful, and it was enough. Four—for the four building blocks of the world, fire and water and air and earth; for the four wizards who had founded the Ministry for Magic; for the four Founders of Hogwarts. 

The first rune she chose was dagaz—for transformation, to adapt,  for she knew even then that she wanted to become an Auror, one who could duel proficiently, and the best asset of any duellistwas to adapt to changing conditions and strategies. The second fine she inscribed was algiz—for protection. Of herself as well as those she loved, and anyone under her care.

Next she chose uruz—for power,  and jeera—for taking action,  two runes which Dumbledore was said to have inscribed on his first wand, the wand he had used before acquiring the Deathstick, the wand Lord Voldemort had acquired. Magical power was a gift, and it should never be allowed to go to waste. 

She wrapped her fingers around her wand, a spell on the tip of her tongue. Her wand seemed to curl into her palm, greedily seeking her magic, her use. A glittery shine caught her eye, and she looked down to see her ring. 

Her smile faded. 

It didn’t matter that she had her wand back, the only semblance of a friend she had in this mansion. It didn’t matter because Sergio had already cuffed her powers with that ring. 

She couldn’t hurt him, and her wand couldn’t help. 

He knew it. She knew it. It was why he had given her back her wand in the first place. 

She felt rage gathering in the pit of her belly. Abruptly, she threw her wand across the room with a snarl. 

It clattered to the floor. She stared at it hatefully. Her own wand was caged. Like the witch who wielded it, it was nothing but a tool. 

Unexpectedly, the door opened. Raquel’s fingers clenched into fists as Sergio strode into the room. She hadn’t meant for him to catch her moment of weakness, of defiance. What if he took her wand away again? 

He looked at her. Then he glanced across the room, to her discarded wand. 

“Wands must be taken care of. You misplace your anger.” 

“You disarmed me,” she hissed out from between gritted teeth. “Nearly thirty years I’ve had my wand, and you disarm me with nothing but a ring. I’ll place my anger wherever I wish.” 

He was silent for a while. Then he said, “I want you to come down for breakfast. Present yourself to Andres. Your week is over, and you can’t continue to make yourself look weak.”

A scoff escaped her. “I’m not having breakfast with your bastard brother, let alone you.” 

His eyes cooled. “I expect you downstairs in thirty minutes.” His tone brooked no argument. 

The door shut on his exit. She glared at it, then slid out of bed. She refused to look at her wand before getting into the bathroom to wash up. What was the point? 

Throwing open her closet, she gritted her teeth. The robes within the closet glittered when they caught the light, and she was acutely aware that they were all far too expensive for her to ever hope to afford with her own savings. 

It made her feel like an object owned and branded, to be paraded around in clothes not of her choosing. The only good thing about her closet was that the robes were in line with her tastes; not obscene nor too prudish, and the fabrics were spelled light and soft. She snatched a set of black dress robes, pulling them on over her head. 

Before she left, she looked down at the floor, where her wand lay. As a child, she had always thought it was a mighty wand, and she’d wanted to prove herself worthy of it. Now it looked small, abandoned against the wall. 

She was a witch. She couldn’t allow Sergio or Andres to forget it. She turned back to the wardrobe, finding a holster she could strap onto her arm, and then she picked up her wand. It stung faintly on contact, as though in reprimand, and she fought back a smile. Licking her lips, she tucked her wand underneath her sleeve. The weight of it was familiar, and if reassured her, made her feel a little less alone. 

She descended the stairs and made it to the dining hall. The entrance door was thrown open, and she could hear Sergio and Andres’ voices, still too faint for her to make out the words. Both men were seated on opposite ends of the table. 

As she drew closer, Andres saw her first. He jerked his head, and Sergio turned around, his eyes settling on her. 

She entered, fighting back the urge to swallow. After a pause, Sergio stood from his seat and grasped the back of the chair next to his, pulling it away from the table. He looked up at her, his eyes expectant. Reluctantly, she approached and sat, leaving Sergio standing behind her chair. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled with an awful awareness. 

“Lady Marquina,” Andres drawled. “How lovely to see you. It’s always a pleasure to have a beautiful lady in the manor.” 

She bared her teeth. “I can’t say the same.”

Displeasure rippled over Andres’ expression. Sergio laughed, the sound deep and rich. 

“She’s got a mouth on her. I knew it from the start.” Andres sneered. “You couldn’t have picked a meeker bride?” 

“I’ll have no common witch.” Her fingers clenched in her lap as she listened to Sergio drawl as though she wasn’t even there. “Her respect has to be earned.” 

Andres appeared unamused. “If she truly respected you, then she would be more courteous towards me.” 

“You tell me, Raquel.” Sergio took her chin, turning her head and tilting her face up. Andres’ eyes were heavy on them as Sergio held her jaw, staring down at her. “Do you respect me? Don't pretend. Not like last night.” 

She fixed her eyes on his collar, which peeked above his robes. She was unwilling to look at him. She wanted to slap him, to insult him, but that might provoke him to take her wand again. Yet she couldn’t lie. “I fear you.” 

He seemed to consider that for a moment. Then he said, “That will do.” 

He leaned down, and she let him kiss her mouth, the press of his lips firm and unyielding. She closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see Andres watching them. 

A long heartbeat, and then he let her go, taking a seat at her side. She folded her hands over her lap neatly, fixing her eyes on her empty plate. Sergio snapped his fingers, and in an instant, their food appeared: toast and jam, omelettes and pancakes and tea. Her mouth watered, and a deep, sharp pain radiated from her stomach, but she refused to allow herself to look too eager as the men dug in. She kept her composure as she reached for her knife and fork, spearing one of the pancakes and cutting it in smaller pieces. 

“Sergio, you wouldn’t believe the news.”

She barely heard Andres; she had forked up a piece of her pancake and lifted it to her mouth, taking it between her teeth. The sweet taste burst over her tongue, and she savoured it. 

Sergio shifted at her side. “What news?”

“Draco Malfoy sold all his shares and resigned as the Head of Malfoy Industries just this morning. I hear the company is disbanding.” 

Raquel tried not to let her surprise show as she ate, digging into her pancakes. Malfoy Industries was the richest company in Great Britain, Muggle and Wizarding spheres combined. For generations, they had dominated, and under Draco Malfoy’s direction, they only expanded, having their finger in every pie: apothecaries, associations of Potions and Charms masters, defensive gear and wand-making, Curse Breaking, banking, Quidditch and broom production, and even Hogwarts itself. Impressive feats for a man only in his fifties who also worked tirelessly as a Curse Breaker for the Ministry. 

Sergio himself was just forty. As was she. She wondered when they would die; how long he had left to plunder the world, and her with it. Until he was a hundred and twenty? A hundred and fifty? 

Sergio settled his fork down on his plate. When Raquel glanced sideways at him, she saw he was frowning. “Why are we hearing of this only now? Don’t we have a man on the inside?”  

“I trade in secrets, dear brother,” Andres drawled. “And my only clients in the company are those lower down on the corporate ladder. You know of the background checks Malfoy performs. He runs a tight ship and keeps his secrets close.” Raquel glanced up mid-swallow to see Andres set his elbows on the table and lean in, subtle thrill in his expression. “He’sconcerned about Granger.” 

Sergio cocked his head. “He sold his shares to pay for her treatment?” A slow smile stretched his lips. “How foolish of him. Didn’t he nearly drive himself to bankruptcy paying for his ex-wife’s exorbitant treatments for her blood curse?” 

“All hopeless.” Andres threw his head back and laughed. 

“Imagine,” Sergio set his fork down, speaking quickly, “Malfoy Industries gone. Do you know what this means for us?" 

“They’ve been a thorn in our side for years.” Andres’ eyes flickered to her, as if seeing her for the first time. His stare was flinty. She held her ground, lifting her chin. “Is it wise to discuss this here?” 

“The Lady Marquina has sworn to take my secrets to her grave.” Sergio didn’t look at her. His eyes were fervid and bright with excitement. “We will take advantage. Our companies must move in to take the gap. I will go to the Ministry today.” 

“You’re on leave.” 

Sergio waved his hand, dismissive. “I must get a handle over Curse Breaking.” He turned his head to Raquel as she ate. She jerked her head and glared, instinctively defensive, but he didn’t seem to be truly looking at her. His eyes were distant with thought. “When you return to your position as Head Auror, you will also take charge of some of the companies I hold specialising in duelling gear. One of them is Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes.” He pursed his lips. “You’ll start with something simple. Have them change their name. It’s hardly respectable.” 

She took her time to swallow down the last of her pancakes. She had just gotten her wand back, and he was already giving her orders. “You want me to be your pawn.” 

His gaze sharpened, closely scrutinising her. She leaned back in her chair. “A mind of your calibre needs to be occupied, and this is your area of specialty. You will, of course, have a say in all your movements, and you can take initiative as you wish.” 

“But not without your approval.” She was no fool. His promises of power and autonomy were empty bribes. “All my efforts will be focused on satisfying your whims.” 

Andres scoffed. She turned her head to glower at him. “You’re on thin ice, Raquel.” 

“I thought you preferred Lady Marquina,” she shot back. “George Weasley will never agree to change the name of his shop. After all these years, he still grieves his twin. Attempt to rip away the last piece of his brother he has and he will retaliate.” 

Andres’ lip curled. “We have more ammunition than he does. He’s impotent.” 

“You underestimate him, you blind fool. There’s a ruthlessness beneath his cheer.” 

Andres glared at her, his jaw tense. His very stare infuriated her. She wanted to peel his skin from his skull and lay the dirt in his skull bare. 

A sharp knocking sound cut through the silence. Sergio had rapped his knuckles on the wooden table, his expression snappish. 

“Public perception,” Sergio said, “is everything. It makes or breaks deals. Raquel, it’s hardly a mere whim to change the name of the shop. European companies refuse to collaborate with them simply because they find it infantile.” 

She could not deny that was true. She pursed her lips. 

“They do dabble in childish inventions, but they’re also the foremasters in defensive techniques today. I hear Ron Weasley intends to set up a training centre.” His eyes flickered down to her wand. “You know how to negotiate the impossible. Use it. Or use your power to see it through. You’ll have restricted access to the Marquina accounts when you return to work.” 

That angered her. “Resort to threats of violence and filthy bribes? Reduce myself to your methods?” 

“It matters not to me how you do it.” Sergio leaned in. This close, she could see the vivid intent in his eyes, the flecks of grey in his dark beard. “Get it done, and you will be rewarded with my trust.” 

“You‘ll never trust me. This ring cements it.” She jerked her left hand on the table. “But unless you want me to wander around under your Imperiusall day, I won’t blindly obey. What do you want to do with the shop?” 

His eyes cooling, he sat back. “Why don’t you take a guess?” 

She stared at him. “You want the company to take international ventures. Collaborate with defensive Ministries. Maybe to export weakened products. In the long-term, it opens up an avenue for you to manipulate their defensive walls to your own benefit.” 

He wanted to conquer everything. 

Approval glinted in Sergio’s eyes. “I knew I chose the right witch.” 

He chose. Not her. An instinct to pull away tugged at the muscles of her neck, but she didn’t yield. Jerkily, she shook her head. “I won’t do it. I won’t be complicit in this.” 

“We could have everything. Together.” He took her hand, and she tried to pull it away, but his grip was like steel, his thumb pressing down on her knuckles. His eyes were hard. “We could have power like you’ve never experienced before. We already have that power.” Even as he spoke, she could feel his exhilaration climbing, his lust for her magic. If she let him, if she ceded to his control, he would tear it from her and rip her apart. “Thosebefore us, all the greats in history, they all made mistakes. Grindelwald fell to Dumbledore. Dumbledore wasted his abilities on a school. The Dark Lord was insane and short-sighted. Harry Potter and Hermione Granger? One a cog on a wheel, and the other wasting time on lost causes. Ten years more, perhaps even less, and you will be Minister. The road may be ugly and gritty, but it means we could put into being everything we’ve ever dreamed.” 

“Like you’ve dreamed!” She had been right. She could not bear to play this long game. “Power unchecked is not power, it’s tyranny. You think you’re above the Dark Lord, but you’re already following in his path, you’re already losing your control!”

His face went still, and his nails dug into her knuckles. She was sure they would leave marks. She refused to flinch. 

“What makes you think I’m losing control?” His voice was dangerously soft, but she could feel his anger flare from his side of the bond, and it sparked alarm in her nerves. 

She tried once more to throw his hand off, and she succeeded this time, pulling away and staggering out of her chair. She backed up closer to the wall, tucking one hand under her sleeve to hold her wand, the only shield she had. Both Sergio and Andres were staring at her. “You think I only seeyou? Did you forget we are bonded now? I feel you. I feel you when you use my magic. I feel your intoxication, the madness growing inside you.” 

“I didn’t forget a thing,” he snarled. “You mistake strength for madness. I dare walk where no wizard has ever ventured!” 

Wizards had walked where he had, and killed thousands for it. Power drove all wizards to madness. It was already happening to Sergio. There was no point in reasoning with him. She wanted to be back in her room, she wanted to leave and to never be found, she wanted to vanish. 

Her heartbeat roared in her ears as she backed away. She flicked her wand to the door, but she found the door jammed. It refused to bow to the pull of her wand no matter how many spells she cast. 

“You’re not going anywhere,” Andres cut in. He sounded insufferably smug. Had he sealed the door? “Not until you yield.” 

She saw red. “I will not yield.” 

“You have nowhere to go. No friends to help you. The Ministry is ours.” Andres kept his gaze steady. “Did you forget that we have your mother?” 

Her mother. He dared speak of her mother? 

Seething, she turned on him, jerking her wand in his direction. Red sparks shot out of the tip of her wand, and she felt it lock her fingers tighter around the hilt, into the grip she used for duelling. Andres tensed, reflexive fear crossing his features. 

“Say that again.” 

His jaw flexed. “You heard what I said.” 

“Touch my mother and you will die,” she hissed. 

“Andres, enough,” Sergio interjected, his voice terse. “Raquel, sit down. I won’t have my brother and my wife constantly at odds. You will cooperate.” 

Bad enough to be forced to bow to one man. She refused the added indignity of two masters. She let her eyes grow cold with contempt, staring at Andres down her nose. “I will die before I kneel to you. Do you think you’re anything but a tool to Sergio? With your blind loyalty?” She jerked her chin in Sergio’s direction, finding him staring at her with a poisonous glare of warning. “If only you were a legitimate son. Perhaps then Sergio would have made you Minister for Magic. But we’ll never find out, will we?” 

The legs of Andres’ chair screeched loudly against the marble flooring as he stood, and she turned back to him. He had whipped out his own wand, his face twisted with savage fury. “And you think you’re anything but a whore dressed up as a wife? Ungrateful bitch, you have more than enough toys to amuse you.” 

The ring sealed onto her finger stopped her from hurting Sergio. 

But it didn’t stop her from doing anything to Andres. 

Ten years to rising as Minister for Magic. Ten years of bearing with Sergio’s brother. Ten years of losing herself. Ten years of their rule. 

She wouldn’t do it. 

Sergio had made her swear a vow. I, Raquel Murillo, swear to Sergio Marquina that I will never reveal his secrets, nor work against his interests.  

She was gambling with this and she knew it. But she had nothing to lose. It was worth a try. 

Sergio didn’t need Andres anyway. 

He was nothing but a tool. For Sergio, and for her. 

He would be the tool she used for her own freedom. 

Sectumsempra. She slashed her wand in the air in one jagged motion. A red gash appeared across Andres’ throat, blood seeping from the wound quickly. Andres’ body teetered dangerously. With a slick, squelching sound, his neck tore away from his shoulders, blood pouring down into his robes, and he collapsed, his decapitated head tumbling forwards onto the table. 

The door flew open. She was, for the briefest moment, shocked that it had worked. But she regained her senses quickly. 

As Sergio stood, staring at Andres’ head on the table, Raquel bolted through the doors. 

Raquel raced through the Marquina estate, the soles of her shoes slapping against the marble tiles. She slipped and slid down the stairs, wheezing for breath, and she ran underneath gold chandeliers hooked to the ceiling, glimmering with glittering diamonds. She ran and she ran until she reached the front door. 

“Alohomora!" 

It didn’t budge. 

The front door had been sealed shut. 

"Crucio!" 

Raquel’s skin felt as if it were being seared by white fire, all her nerves flaying open, and she collapsed to the floor with a scream, her body contorting unnaturally. She hadn’t even heard Sergio coming. 

She had experienced the Cruciatus before, of course she had, nearly every senior Auror in the field during and after the war had. But not like this, never like this, with magic from two people trained on one body, one of its sources herself.  Her head cracked against the wooden floor, but she couldn’t think through the blinding haze of pain and panic in her mind—not while all her insides were being shredded alive. She couldn’t, she couldn’t do it, she could only scream—at the corner of her vision, she could see Sergio, his black robes whipping around his figure, his wand trained on her—she couldn’t bear it, she would surely die—

And after what must have been minutes, hours, days, she didn’t know, the spell finally ended. Heaving for breath, she trembled on the floor. In the aftermath, everything hurt, even the barest movement of her chest for breath, or the press of her fingertips against the floor. 

Through tear-streaked eyes, she saw Sergio’s black shoes before her face. If she had the strength, she would flinch away, because—because he would surely cast his spell again, and again, and again. 

But she didn’t have the strength. She could only lie helpless and terrified at his feet. 

“You killed my brother,” Sergio spoke. His voice cut into her. “If you were anyone else, I would boil you alive and throw your remains to pigs.” He stood over her, then reached down, grabbing her arm forcefully. Her nerves were still fried from his Cruciatus, and she cried out with pain. 

But he knew no mercy. When she stumbled and fell, her knees trembling, he grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her over the floor. Mindlessly, she sobbed, not even having the clarity of mind to beg him to stop. 

He threw her against the stairs, and her back hit a step. Panting, she twisted to face Sergio. Everything inside her cringed with terror—his eyes were blazing with hate. 

She tucked her hands over her knees and drew them close, trembling. Her eyes flitted away from his face. Frightened to the bone, she couldn’t bear to look at him. She had seen him cruel, she had seen him calculating, she had seen his passion. But this was the first time he had truly looked upon her with such raw loathing, like he wanted to do much worse than kill her. 

She blinked, and in her mind’s eye, she saw Alberto looming over her, his face twisted with familiar disgust. She blinked again, and there was Sergio. 

“You don’t even fight me,” he spat.  

“Your—your ring,” she rasped. It’s pointless, she wanted to add, but her throat was torn, and it hurt to speak. 

“Yes, my ring. You can’t kill me, so you want me to kill you, don’t you, so I can die? It’s not going to be that easy, Raquel.” He reached for her, and she shrieked, instant panic snapping through her. She turned around and scrabbled over the stairs. But her legs were trembling, and she was weakened from his Cruciatus. She slipped on the smooth marble and fell over, crying out as her elbow struck a stair. Weeping, she climbed up the stairs on her hands and knees. 

Sergio’s hand grasped her ankle, yanking her down the stairs, and she screamed. He heaved himself up and over her body, wrapping his arms around her torso; he was larger than her, easily overwhelming her. She scrabbled for a grip on the stairs, but his arms tightened around her chest, one of his hands slipping over her breasts. 

She could already feel his erection against her back. Repulsed, she choked on air. 

She flung her elbow back, but she found her arm bouncing off him as if it was nothing at all. She dug her wand out from her robes, trying to summon up all the curses she knew, but her magic didn’t respond. 

The fucking ring. 

She couldn’t hurt him. She was completely defenceless. She screamed and screamed past the point when her voice turned hoarse, past the point when her throat began to tear with pain. She screamed and screamed even as he rucked her robes to her waist and vanished her underwear, hoping beyond hope that her screams would put him off, but he was relentless. 

He took her like an animal, brutally fucking her on the stairs, his grunts of effort loud against her ear. Again and again he drove his cock inside her, and she wailed her fear and her pain and her rage, unable to hold back even if she could. He wove his fingers over hers, pinning her hands down to the floor, and she felt her ring push against his skin, heating up. Recognising his touch. Accepting it. 

The ring protected Sergio’s interests. Prevented her from touching other men. But it would never shield her from Sergio’s advances. 

Frustrated, she slapped his hand away. She ended up shrieking when he grabbed a fistful of her hair and shoved her cheek down. 

“I’m bored of subduing a Squib,” he growled. He snatched her hand again, grabbing the ring on her finger. The ring vibrated against her skin furiously, clinging to her for a moment, before it yielded to his touch, and he pulled it off, flinging it somewhere above her head. 

There was a loud metallic clatter as the ring hit a stair and fell away. 

Disbelieving, she froze. She was free. But her moment of hesitation was all he needed.

Exhilaration filled the bond. Not hers, but his.  

"Crucio." 

All she knew was pain as she had never known before. She screamed, but no sound came out. Her body would have seized and twisted, but there was no escape and she couldn’t move and at first, she didn’t understand, but then she did. He’d put her in a Full Body-Bind. 

He kept fucking her, groaning as her insides squeezed down on him. He had voiced his desire to boil her alive but she could not imagine how any fate could be any worse than this. The tip of his wand jabbed into the nape of her neck, and she howled as his Cruciatus shredded her spine, her head snapping forwards against something hard, and then she could no longer think and she could not think but she could certainly imagine fire, fire, burning Sergio alive as it did her, and she could hear a distant voice in her mind, one that sounded like her own, screaming: Crucio Crucio Crucio Crucio! 

And just like that, his Cruciatus and Body-Bind were broken, and Sergio slipped out of her and he was screaming. She was, for a moment, completely shocked that she had broken free, that she had cast the first Unforgivable of her life, but she refused to let her concentration fall. She twisted her torso around to see Sergio tumbling down the stairs, his body shaking and quivering. She could not look away from the sight of him, nor did she want to. It fed the hate within her, and as her loathing grew, so did the intensity of her Cruciatus. 

For the first time, she had true power over him. For the first time, she had made him fear her. And she could feel his terror in their bond, so pervasive and thick she could have choked on it. It was undeniable. To her and to him and to their magic. She drew from him as she fed her own Cruciatus, a Dark creature that devoured agonised nerves and called for more, more, more. His side of their bond screamed with anguish, and it only fed her greed even more. 

In that moment, she understood why all the Dark witches and wizards who had come before them were so drawn to Dark magic. 

She couldn’t get enough of it. Of this. 

His head arched back and his mouth gaped open to release cries so high pitched and pained, she hadn’t thought him capable of such feeling. So he did have nerves, skin, bone, muscle, all the parts any human did, all the parts that made any human mortal and vulnerable to pain—even though he was a heartless monster. 

There were so many things she could do with a body. She thought of all those human parts, so easily torn apart and dismembered and put back together again. 

He was not so fearsome like this. Helpless and afraid. 

She summoned her wand from the floor, training it on him. “Crucio,” she rasped with her broken throat, and again, “crucio,” and his screams rose impossibly high in pitch. This was power, and she could have done it forever, to make him feel all the pain he had inflicted on her and more besides. But she couldn’t. She hated him all the more for that. 

Baring her teeth, she stumbled backwards up the steps, keeping her wand on Sergio. Even when she was on the landing, she kept her hold on him tight. 

Until she couldn’t stay. She had to run. She let go of him, at once feeling her euphoria abruptly cut off. A heartbeat, and then his end of the bond began to roar with humiliated rage as his body shook against the floor. She wasted no time in casting up a thick wall to block off the landing, then Transfigured a vase into a ferocious Griffin, and then a wall of fire for good measure. Assuming it was enough to buy her a bit of time, she ran to the dining room as fast as she could, casting Healing spells on herself to refresh herself, to soothe her joints. 

In the dining room, Andres’ corpse sat headless. She didn’t spare it a glance, instead stalking out onto the balcony. She threw her wand arm up in the air and blasted a shot of fire to the sky, watching as it rebounded off the wards. With her wand, she furrowed her brow and felt along the wards, which were as strong as they were ancient and multi-layered. Among the hundreds of wards she felt pushing back against her magic, there was an Anti-Apparition ward. If she tried to Apparate out without Marquina blood, she would die, not unless Sergio had manipulated the wards to recognise her magical signature. And she doubted he had. 

The only option was to turn back. So she did. She walked off the balcony and back into the dining room, ignoring the feeling in her that told her she was walking to her death. 

Her eyes rested on Andres’ head, lying crookedly on a plate, his expression part-fury, part-shock. Frozen like that for eternity. 

She thought of Sergio, twisting on the floor; of the dead spider in her room last week, turned into something that clawed and shrieked, relentlessly hungry. 

She readied her wand in the air, then sliced it down in the air. “Rennervate mors,” she breathed, and Andres’ body twitched faintly. She followed the motion, again and again, repeating it until his head reattached to his neck, then she rasped a song of death and endless hunger, a fate for the unworthy, to curse and to eat without satisfaction. She drew and drew and drew from herself, from Sergio, and she could feel that Sergio sensed it, because she could feel him faltering. 

The Inferius she had made of Andres sprung to life with a snarl. His lips pulled back, his eyes unseeing, he scrabbled over the table like an animal, crawling towards her. Staggering back, she threw up a wall of fire between them, and the Inferius let out a pained shriek, retreating safely behind the curtain of fire. 

A loud bang split the air. It sounded close, too close, and Raquel retreated back to the balcony, her heart in her throat. Sergio was close. He was surely fighting the Griffin now. 

She looked up at the sky. The Marquina wards were so strong that it would take a thousand witches and wizards to help her break it. As it was, she only had herself. 

There was Fiendfyre, perhaps. But she had never cast it before in her life, and it was volatile, tempestuous to control. She was already on edge. Sergio had a weeks’ worth of a head-start in learning how to wield magic that wasn’t solely his. 

She turned her eyes down to the grounds, splayed out before her. If she could not break through the wards from above… 

She swung her wand arm down. “Reducto!” 

Grass and bushes and trees were blasted to dust, leaving nothing but soil. She cast, again and again and again, digging deeper into the earth, all the while feeling the wards: they reached down into the soil, into the crust and mantle of the earth. 

She would have to cut it all open. 

Gathering her strength, she planted her feet apart, poising her arms before her in the air. Then, using the strongest Blasting curse she knew, she swung her whole torso down. Again and again and again, and the earth shattered, dust and dirt and blinding orange heat flying in the air. Shards of something sharp flew and hit her face, ripping her cheek open. She didn’t flinch. She repelled it all with a curse, casting again and again and again, pulling deeper and deeper and deeper into the layers of the earth, until something boomed down below, something great and impossibly terrifying, and the whole mansion shook, and she froze. 

She realized, then, that she was trembling with effort, clutching to the ground. 

She tried to stand, her body shaking, and she needed to clutch along the balcony to move. 

When she brought herself upright, before her eyes, she was met with a terrible sight. There was a deep furrow in the ground, reaching so cavernously deep into blackness she could only shudder. As she watched, blinding yellow-orange-black magma boiled before her eyes, quickly rising to the surface. 

She drew her wand in the air, feeling along the wards. They were frayed, and there was a gaping hole torn open by her magic. She was free. 

Behind her, the Inferius shrieked. 

Sergio rasped, “Andres?” 

The Inferi recognized no family. Only food. For a moment, she almost felt pity for him.

Almost. 

She threw herself off the balcony and twisted in the air. 

Raquel landed tumbling to the ground, her face scraping over concrete. Gasping, she looked up to find herself in the alley outside the Muggle telephone box concealing the entrance to the Ministry for Magic. Her limbs shook with panic. Panting and wheezing for breath, she forced herself up on her hands and knees, then up onto her feet, then ran out of the alley. 

A Muggle man in a suit collided into her, and she shoved him away. Cursing vehemently as his briefcase tumbled to the ground, he stumbled on his feet. She didn’t have time to spare for an apology; she raced to the telephone box and closed herself in. She tapped her wand against the telephone mounted on the wall. It was spelled to recognise the’ magical signatures of Aurors and other higher-level officers in the Ministry. 

The box shivered around her. She planted her hands on the glass walls for balance, and then it plunged down, down, down, until the box shuddered to a stop. 

“Level eight. The Atrium,” a monotonous female voice announced, and the door swung open. The Atrium loomed long and high before Raquel, and witches and wizards of all kinds swarmed the area, chatter passing her ears as she walked out of the telephone box. Further away, there was a long line of fireplaces used as Floo entrances, some glowing with green and making whooshing sounds when they spat out Ministry workers who stumbled through them and hurried to fix their robes. 

High above her, countless large chandeliers loomed, their stones dangling and glittering brilliantly as they caught the light. With a chill, she realized they resembled the chandelier in the entrance hall of the Marquina mansion. 

Sergio’s mark. 

Raquel made a beeline straight for the information counter, where an unfamiliar witch sat scrawling something down on a notepad. 

“Is Head Auror Potter in today?” Raquel demanded. 

The witch raised her head, already frowning. Her eyes widened when she set her eyes on Raquel, as if she’d recognized her. “He is. Do you have an appointment?” 

“I don’t need one.” 

Heedless of the witch’s protests, Raquel turned her back and stalked towards the lifts. There were two. One was on level three. The other was on level one. The button to summon the lifts down was already glowing bright red, and a few other wizards stood close by, waiting. Jittery and fidgeting, Raquel jabbed at the button again. 

The men nearby muttered among themselves. Raquel didn’t care. She cast her eyes behind her, half-expecting to see Sergio turn out of nowhere. But there was not a hide nor hair of him to be seen. Just men and women in black robes scurrying about on Ministry business. 

Her stare caught on a copy of The Daily Prophet which had been discarded on the floor. It was open on a page with a photo of Raquel herself, encased in Sergio’s embrace on the ballroom floor. Their robes whipped around them as they waltzed, the copy of Raquel tossing her head back and laughing. As Raquel watched, Sergio abruptly stopped and dipped her photographed self in his arms, and the laughter slid off her face as they stared into each other’s eyes. 

“Head Curse Breaker Marquina sets eyes on Future Head Auror,” the embolded headline declared. 

Of course Sergio had ensured a story about them had made its way into the paper. 

She flicked her wand, watching grimly as the newspaper shredded into little pieces before her eyes. A cluster of witches and wizards standing a little away from her goggled at the display.

The Floo entrances swooshed with the sound of more people rushing through. She thought nothing of it, but then there was a loud bang, and then loud shrieks and screams filled the Atrium. 

Her heart shot up her throat. She turned, seeing a flurry of people in robes running through the Atrium, away from the Floo entrances.

Sergio. She ran off to the side, to hide behind a pillar, then whipped out her wand. “Expecto Patronum,” she gasped, summoning up a mental picture of her mother's smile. 

Instead of the luminescent, playful bear that had served as her Patronus her whole life, all that escaped her wand was an amorphous white ball. It fidgeted and twisted, as if longing to dance as it once had, but it just writhed in place, awaiting her instructions. 

Had Dark magic corrupted her already? Or did she no longer have any hope left? Could she ever get it back? 

She didn’t have time to mourn the loss of her corporeal Patronus. “Go to Potter.” Her command was shaky. “Tell him I’m in the Atrium and I need his help. Sergio Marquina attacked me and he’s planning to overthrow the Ministry.” 

The light bolted up and away, careening towards the upper levels of the Ministry, to the Aurors’ offices. 

She cast a Disillusionment charm on herself, watching as her figure transformed from pale and clothed to translucent to invisible. Then she risked a glance around the pillar. 

Sergio was standing at the information counter. It was little wonder why his entrance at the Floos had caused such a commotion: his head, neck and robes were matted with dark blood. She supposed it was all Andres’ blood, since his posture stood tall and broad, apparently untouched by injury. 

The witch at the counter staring up at him was white with fear. Her lips moved, but Raquel was too nervous and unused to lip-reading to figure out what he was saying. 

One of the lifts gave a loud  ding . Harry Potter raced out with Alicia and several other Aurors, his wand held tight in his white-knuckled hand. His panicked stare swept across the lobby, settling on Sergio. 

He had no sense of caution whatsoever. Raquel tried not to gnash her teeth together. 

“Marquina!” Potter shouted, hurrying towards him. The Aurors behind him followed, their wands at the ready. One of the Aurors was unfamiliar to her, and he looked wan with nervousness; a junior, she assumed. Civilians rushed to get out of the way, backing towards the Floo exits. “What did you do to Murillo?” 

Sergio turned around slowly. His face was carefully schooled into indifference.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything to her.” 

Raquel crept out from behind the pillar, seeing Alicia was near the back of the group. As she moved, Alicia’s frown seemed drawn to Raquel’s invisible figure. Her eyes widened, then she gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. 

Alicia had always been observant. Frighteningly so. Raquel watched as Alicia’s brow furrowed, her eyes flicking from corner to corner. Checking all the points of entry and exit. Was she worried Sergio would bring reinforcements?  

“I sent one of my men to check at St Mungo’s. She’s supposed to be quarantined but she’s not there.” Potter raised his wand. “Explain yourself.” 

“I have nothing to hide. I don’t know where she is, and that’s the truth.” Sergio splayed his palms out and shrugged. “Shouldn’t you be asking what happened to me, Auror Potter?” 

“So tell me.” 

“My home was attacked,” Sergio rasped. Onlookers let out loud gasps. The homes of the Sacred Twenty-Eight were said to be impenetrable, their wards strengthened by generation after generation of powerful wizards. “They killed my brother. Raquel was recuperating in my home, and they took her too.” 

Potter readjusted his grip on his wand. “I’ve heard a different tale.” 

Sergio’s eyes narrowed. “And what tale is that?” 

Potter opened his mouth. Before he could say anything, the lifts exploded, shards of metal raining in the air, and Raquel hastily threw up a Shield charm, running further from the pillar and around the Atrium. People screamed and scattered, some colliding into the unit of Aurors and making them stagger. Sergio’s head whipped aside to watch the commotion, his eyes searching hungrily. 

Raquel recognized it as the diversion it was; Alicia appeared unsurprised by the ruckus. Raquel raced towards the fireplaces, which stood in the opposite direction of the lifts. 

She was so close when, suddenly, steel bars slammed shut on all the fireplaces. Staggering to a halt, she turned around. 

Sergio was staring directly at her. 

She couldn’t breathe. She looked down at her hands and saw nothing. She was still invisible. How had he seen her? 

“I think you will agree it’s best to seal off all the Floos, Auror Potter,” Sergio was saying. His face was blank. But she could feel his building rage, a storm across their bond ready to suffocate her. Around him, witches and wizards seemed to relax, their eyes resting cautiously on the Aurors. “I fear the wizards after me might attack the Ministry.” 

Potter looked enraged. “Do you truly believe that is their cause?” 

Sergio’s eyes bored into Raquel’s. “It’s every insurgent’s cause.” 

She slashed her wand in the air, and a violent gust of air blew Sergio off his feet. The small crowd around him scattered with panicked yells as Sergio was launched high up in the air. The Aurors’ wands rose to attention, turning around, uncertain who to attack; and Sergio twisted and fell back to the ground, tumbling back to his feet easily. He’d cast a Cushioning charm. 

She didn’t wait for him to regain his bearings. Wand at the ready, she cast curse after curse, everything she had in her arsenal, but they bounced off his shield. Still she refused to let off. If she could get close enough, to join the unit of Aurors, maybe they could take down Sergio together. 

The Aurors moved forward to help Sergio, their eyes frantically chasing his invisible assailant. But Alicia snatched their arms and pulled them back, hissing at them. Potter’s face turned white, and he looked back at where Raquel was standing. 

Mutters of confusion rose from their audience. She cancelled her Disillusionment charm, and collective cries of shock rose from them. 

Sergio’s mouth twisted with displeasure. “Raquel?” A pause, and then, “I’m so glad you’re alright. I thought they took you.” 

“Only you took me.” She launched off another spell. 

He deflected it with ease, false shock widening his eyes. “They’ve Imperiused her!” he shouted, and she could almost feel alarm rippling through all filling the Atrium. The crowd shuffled backwards and away from Raquel. 

For the first time, doubt crossed Alicia’s face. 

No. No no no. 

“It’s me,” Raquel yelled back. “You can’t do this anymore, Sergio!” 

“Do what?” He shot a Body-Bind at her. It cracked off her shield as she repelled it easily. “Shake it off, Raquel. Come with me and let’s put an end to this.” His eyes bored into hers, his voice flitting over her thoughts: You’re mine. 

The junior Auror behind Potter raised his wand. His eyes were wide, his forehead shining with sweat. He shot off a beam of red at Raquel. She pulled up her shield, but it didn’t matter: his spell missed her by a wide margin, ricocheting off the black walls of the Atrium and launching up towards the high vaulted ceiling. 

Raquel gasped, diving for cover against the nearest pillar. She closed her eyes and gripped her wand tight to hold up her shield. With a shrill cracking of glass, all the chandeliers shattered, and the world seemed to rock underneath her feet. The ensuing screams split Raquel’s ears, and there was all only chaos, bursts of magic all around her  flaring so hot her skin felt as if it was burning. 

Her magic swelled in her chest. Longing for an escape, she reached inside her, then felt along the wards on the Ministry. 

The Anti-Apparition wards had shattered from the immense flare of defensive magic and shields. It was her way out. 

Forcing her eyes open, she looked up. 

The lights above had gone out, the Atrium only illuminated by rays of light from the windows of lit offices high above. Broken diamonds glinted off every inch of the floor. 

There was movement in the dimness ahead. She squinted. Not far from her, she thought she saw a woman with Alicia’s bright red hair, groaning as she tried to pick herself up off the floor. And further away from her was a male body clad in the navy blue robes of an Auror. From his head, wild black hair stuck up every which way, and as she watched, something wet seeped from his skull, fast and thick, pooling on the marble floor. 

By his side lay a pair of broken, black-rimmed frames. 

Her breath caught in her throat. 

Potter was dead. The man who had taken down Voldemort and heralded a new age. A husband and a father; to all accounts, a good one. 

Sometimes, he had served as her mentor. He had guided her in learning how to resist the Imperius. 

At least Alicia was alive, she told herself, backing away from his corpse. Her colleagues would be fine. They would be fine. 

She didn’t pause to check if Sergio had survived before she pivoted the on her heel, thinking of blissful evergreen, of rich food that melted on her tongue, of countless warm summers spent sun bathing and playing with her mother and sister along the coast of Portugal. 

She would die. 

Pain blasted at the base of her fingers, but her cry was overwhelmed by the loud crack following her Apparition as she tumbled onto a patch of beach in Lisbon. Shrill screams split her ears as the world cleaved from colour to black.

“She appeared out of the air!” 

The air was fresh on Raquel’s face, on her skin. It felt good. Almost good enough to distract her from the fact that her left hand throbbed fiercely. 

Her other hand twitched around something wooden and thick. Her wand. A wave of relief washed over her. 

“Don’t be silly. It’s not possible.” 

An exasperated sigh. “I’m telling you, Mum, it’s true! I saw it with my own eyes!” 

Muggles. She was with Muggles. 

“There you go,” a weary voice muttered. “You’re dreaming of your magic tricks again. You’re too old for such things anymore.” 

There was a clatter of something falling to the ground, followed by a low curse. In Portuguese.

The Muggles had been speaking Portuguese all this time. 

Her eyes snapped open. She turned her head to the side. She was lying on her back on a bed in what seemed to be a little hut. The door and the windows were all wide open. Through the window, from her vantage on the bed, Raquel could see the sea, an apparently borderless expanse of blue upon blue. 

A loud gasp. “Mum, she’s awake!” 

She glanced around to see two women at the other side of the room, which was rather small. They stared at her with wide eyes, both dressed in white nurses’ uniforms. 

Both had their hair pulled tightly into a bun, but one was older, her hair shot through with white. The older woman moved closer to Raquel, her face wary. “Hello. I don’t know how, but you’ve lost three fingers—I have them with me—” She gestured to Raquel’s bedside, to a small table. Next to a pile of syringes and other items for blood sample collection, there was a metal tray. In it lay three of her fingers, blood congealed at their ends. 

Numbly, she looked down. Her left hand was wrapped in bandages. 

She’d Splinched. Of course. 

Cross-continental Apparition was unheard of, a concept that only existed in legend. The rare few powerful enough to attempt it often could only safely land in neighbouring countries, then make jumps from country to country until they were too exhausted to continue any further. 

She had Apparated from London all the way to Portugal. In one go. It was unheard of. 

It was a wonder she hadn’t suffered a worse Splinching. This level of power was unnatural. 

She pushed her torso up the bed with her intact arm. 

The woman at her side straightened, her eyes flashing with authority. “Bed,” she snapped, in accented English. 

Raquel ignored her as she swung her legs out from bed, then began to unwind the bandages from her left hand. 

The nurse gasped in outrage. “What are you doing?”

Raquel gritted her teeth as pain throbbed at the knuckles of her left hand; the bandage had stuck to it. She peeled it off, hissing from between her teeth, and stared down at the stumps, the raw muscle grotesquely shredded and seeping with new blood. She thought she could see flecks of white bone. 

The nurse moved, her hand coming up fast to take Raquel’s wrist. The movement triggered a violent flinch in Raquel, and she scrabbled back, her heart pounding as she held her mangled hand to her chest. 

The nurse stared back at her with wide eyes. “Let me wrap it up for you.”

Raquel’s stare slid to the second nurse, who was watching her from the other side of the bed. Much too close. When their eyes met, the younger woman blushed and lowered her gaze, scuffling back on the floor. “Sorry. I got curious.”

Raquel lowered her hand cautiously. When neither woman made an attempt to touch her, she said, in Portuguese, “Give me my fingers.” 

The pair of nurses exchanged bewildered glances. 

They must have thought that she was insane, that needed to be committed. Raquel fought against the hysterical giggles that threatened to burst from her. If she let them, they would call the police next, or the number to the nearest asylum, and then she would have not just Sergio chasing after her, but also Muggles who believed her insane. 

Sergio. Apparition could be tracked. If he knew how to scry, and if he had survived, it wouldn’t be too difficult. She needed to leave. She needed to stay on the move. 

She swallowed to regain her composure, then held out her intact hand. “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Tilting up her chin, she kept her tone stern and unyielding. It was the kind of voice she used on junior Aurors all the time. 

Not that she would ever get a chance to train another Auror. Her lips thinned. 

The younger nurse gave in first. With her glove, she picked up Raquel’s fingers and placed them delicately in her palm. 

“Thank you.” She turned back around, scooting to the side of the bed. She was still wearing her shoes. She slid off the bed and hobbled to the door, grimacing as every little movement made her mutilated hand throb with pain. 

At the door, she lifted her eyes from the ground. And then she paused, gasping. 

The beach was completely destroyed. What had once been clear white sand years ago was marred with dirt and soil and wet clumps of mud. In the centre of the beach, there was a deep hollow in the sand. 

Her heart sank in her chest. Her Apparition had done this. 

People were running over the beach in a frenzy, gathering their things and holding their children close. One family passing the nurses’ hut saw Raquel, blanched white, and then ran away. 

“They’re scared of you,” said a voice over Raquel’s shoulder. She didn’t have to turn to know it was the nurse who had given her her fingers back. “They saw… They saw you appear. How did you do that?”

There was fear and wonder in her voice all at once. 

Raquel squeezed her eyes shut, remorse washing over her. She had to Obliviate this Muggle. She would have to Obliviate them all. 

There was a bang in the distance that felt as if shattered Raquel’s eardrums, reverberating through the ground. She reeled back, staggering back against the door. Her vision swam, and her ears were ringing. When her eyes refocused, the world made its way in, and she could hear everyone screaming. 

Sergio. 

She could see some bodies lying limp on the beach. Others were running for their lives. 

She hobbled, turning around to find the two nurses huddled together on the floor, clutching onto each other.  

“Hide,” Raquel gritted out, clinging to the doorway. She could hardly even hear her own voice. “Run if you can.” 

The Muggles stared at her, their faces white with terror. “What was that?” The older one rasped. 

“I said hide! ” She snarled, whipping her wand in the air. She didn’t have time for this. She staggered out of the hut and blasted a hole in the back of the hut. The two women shrieked, and with a wave of Raquel’s wand, they were blown out of the hut and out through the makeshift back door. They only took one fearful backwards glance at Raquel before they ran. The door slammed shut. 

She looked down at her mutilated hand. She swallowed, then levitated her broken fingers in the air, bringing them close to the stumps at her knuckles. A low, muffled scream was gritted out as she reattached her fingers, the pain shocking her awake. 

Then she turned around. 

Sergio was stalking towards her, his black robes whipping around his figure. He stopped a ways from her, his face streaked with dust and soot. She noted, with no small amount of satisfaction, that his robes were singed, and his face was twisted not only with wrath, but pain. He had been burned. 

Their eyes met. 

“You Apparated,” he panted, “halfway across the world. Do you know how many countries I had to jump over to find you? You almost killed me!” 

“So did you,” she spat. She realized, distantly, that she was trembling. 

“No. That’s a lie.” His eyes flashed with the sun, full of heat. “Where are we?” 

She stared at him. “You followed me without even knowing where I was?” 

His lips twisted into a sneer. “I only had to pull on our bond to know where you were, wife.” He spat out the word like an insult. It only gratified her to hear him so infuriated by their connection. “Have you forgotten that we are married?” 

“We are bound,” she snapped. “Not married. Not even your brother witnessed us. More fool you.” 

The mention of his brother riled him. The tip of his wand rose to point directly at her face. “Our magic doesn’t lie.” 

She raised her wand, aiming it at him. Her body settled into a duelling stance; one arm against her side, her feet a shoulders’ width apart. “No. It doesn’t. We only ever lie to our magic. And that of others.” 

He tilted his head. “I have never lied to you nor your magic. You, though…” He tilted his head at her. “I made you swear never to act against my interests. Yet you were able to kill Andres.” 

“You bound our lives.” She stared at him bitterly. “Your interests are mine now.” 

He only lifted his wand. She stiffened, casting a swift Shield charm, but he didn’t cast at her. He drew his wand in a circle around his head, and then thick walls of stone rose high around them from all sides, until they were caged in. 

He smiled grimly. “A proper duelling arena for us. You first met the real me in one just like this.”

“I remember. You were a cheat from the beginning. Always using Legilimency, even as part of a school duelling tournament.” Her lip curled. “A thief now. Taking magic that was just mine to give.”

A shrug. “You know why I did those things.”

“Yes. You just have to win.” Her lips felt dry and cracked. “Why did you turn out this way, Sergio?”

His shoulders stiffened. “You know my childhood.” 

“I didn’t ask how. I asked you why.” She held his stare. “Don’t you think your Muggle-born mother would be ashamed? Or your father who would have sacrificed everything to be with her?” Her breath shuddered on its way out. “Would he have made his wife wear a ring that would chain her?” 

“My mother didn’t need the ring. She was a woman chained by love. I’m not so conceited that I would fool myself into believing you love me. Handling you required harder means.” He advanced on her. The line of his jaw was hard. Unyielding. “If you hadn’t snuck into my office, I could have seduced you first. I could have made you love me. I saw it in your mind. I heard you think it, as clear as day.” 

She refused to dignify that with an answer. Holding her ground, she shook her head, biting hard on the inside of her cheek. 

“Do you remember what I took from you?” He stepped closer. 

She still didn’t move back. “The memory of my first magic.”

“You destroyed that. It’s lost in the earth, in magma and fire.” He looked at her. “But I remember. I remember what I saw. Everything. I could give it back to you.”

Sucking in a breath, she froze. “You wouldn’t.” 

“If you come with me willingly, I will.” 

“It’s not that simple.” Her eyes followed the tip of his wand. His arm moved slightly with his breaths. “You’re not done avenging your brother.” 

“I can’t lie to you. I can’t let that pass.” He cocked his head. “But you will survive. I won’t lose control and kill you.” 

Readying her Occlumency shields in her mind, she set her jaw. “I don’t want the memories back. You’ll have to use force.” 

“I find that very hard to believe.” White light glowed from the tip of his wand. A Lumos . Her eyes caught on it. For a reason unknown to her, it took effort to drag her eyes away from the light and to look back at his face as he continued to speak. There was unmistakable knowing in his expression. “I felt how much you wanted it. I saw how much you fought for it.” 

“I lost the child inside me long ago. There’s no getting her back.” 

There was no going back. 

He cast at the same time as she did. Her spell cracked against his shields with a blast of light, and she didn’t relent, casting again, and again, and again, and he responded, his teeth bared, his robes flying around his figure as he moved to attempt to disarm her from other angles. But he wouldn’t catch her so easily. The sky blazed green and red and yellow and blue with their spells, just like it had all those years ago when she had duelled with him in Hogwarts. 

He sent an enormous column of fire right at her face. Digging her heels into the sand beneath her heels, she parried it, baring her teeth in triumph as she sent it blasting into the stone wall near them. Casting spell after spell, in no time, sweat was dripping down her forehead, and she could taste salt in her mouth. 

Sergio’s eyes blazed as hard as her own magic did. She could feel the needle’s point of his Legilimency at her mind’s edge. But she didn’t yield. Her barriers were strong. 

In the circle of the arena, there was nothing but magic. She didn’t even have space to feel afraid. She could only cast and react and rely on her power and her instincts. Even after all these years, duelling training had been her favourite part of her weekly routine as an Auror. But those paltry training sessions could never compare to this. 

Exhilaration sung through her veins as she faced down Sergio. She pushed her limits as much as he did hers. Sergio’s eyes were bright, and she could feel his fevered excitement in their bond, his lust to push their duel further. 

Just as she yearned to push. 

She drew from him and he drew from her and she had no clue who would be left standing. But there would be only one winner. Or perhaps it was apt to say that there would be no champion at all. 

She planned to duel until death. Either way, she would be dead. 

The shrieking and howling of sirens pierced the air. It startled both her and Sergio, and his next curse shot off-coarse, ramming against stone and dissipating into nothing. She took advantage of his distraction, snapping out, “Crucio!” 

He staggered back as her aim struck true, an agonized scream tearing itself from his throat before his wand lashed out and pushed her back, punching all the air from her chest and breaking her hold on her Cruciatus. In the ensuing lull, she stood gasping for breath, and his glare fixed back on her face. Then they were casting, again and again, their spells growing fiercer and Darker in nature as the sirens howled ever-louder. 

She had to finish this before the Muggle police drew near. She wanted very badly to cast Fiendfyre, but she was already exhausted from duelling, from cross-continental Apparition. If she wished to control it, she would have to draw on an immense loud of magic, draining herself and Sergio in the process, and if Sergio had one last trick up his sleeve… She wouldn’t be able to fight it. She wouldn’t risk it. If she lost control, the Fiendfyre would consume Portugal. And that was something she would never allow. 

Instead she sent a Blasting curse at Sergio’s feet, rapidly firing off another Cruciatus at his face. He darted out of the way and twisted back towards her. 

And then they cast at the same time. 

Their spells met in the middle, green and red meeting to form a line of bright white light, and Raquel felt an inexplicable force pushing her back as a dome of wispy silver light formed over the space of land encompassing her and Sergio’s arena. Her eyes widening with shock and horror as her fingers snapped tight around her wand of their own volition, she stood her ground, screaming from between her teeth as the force of the magic pushed back on her chest. 

She knew exactly what this was. 

Priori Incantem. 

Her wand had a phoenix feather core. And so did his. It was the only way this could happen. 

She couldn’t believe it. 

Her eyes met Sergio’s over the line of white. The wide-eyed shock in his face mirrored her own feelings. 

Insistently, she pushed hard against her wand, and white flickered to green and red again, the line of her green Killing curse pressing back against the red of his. His face glowed with green, and small ghostly figures twisted around his wand, displaying the spells he’d last performed. She saw herself parrying his fire; she saw Andres’s body being exploded and set on fire; she saw herself, writhing and screaming with pain under his Cruciatus. 

So engrossed was she that she didn’t realize her line of green was growing shorter once more until the figures escaping Sergio’s wand shimmered into nothing. Her eyes snapped back to the connection as a phantom of Sergio’s figure broke free of her wand, twisting briefly with pain and shaking.

She had cast that. And the Killing curse too. Two Unforgivable curses in a day.  

She was losing this. She couldn’t afford it. 

She should have cast the Fiendfyre. 

With an incensed roar, she broke the connection. Their magic exploded. She was sent flying off her feet, only barely managing to cast a spell to protect her fall as she slammed back against the sand. 

Her lungs shuddered. 

When she opened her eyes, she saw the stone walls had disintegrated into nothing. Over the rubble, Sergio was staggering to his feet. And beyond him, the blown remains of police cars stood, pieces of what appeared to be intestines strewn on the windows. Policemen clad in bulletproof vests lay bloody and unmoving inside the cars. 

White cloth drew her eyes. 

The pair of nurses who had helped her. Their bodies lay still behind what had been their hut of an infirmary, now blown to pieces. A large shard of what appeared to be glass was plunged into the body of one of the nurses. 

“No,” she whimpered. 

The beach around her was completely destroyed too, trees blown to nothing and what was once pale, spotless sand marred with dust and dirt and blood. It was no longer the haven it had once been, all those years ago. 

Bile surged up in her throat, the vile liquid spewing onto her tongue and filling her head with a thick, inescapable pressure that forced her mouth open. Twisting onto her side, she vomited out her breakfast, hot tears searing her eyes. 

Her fault. 

She wished she was dead. 

Something crunched on the sand. Sergio’s boots. He was walking to her. 

With a flick of his wand, all her fingernails had ripped from their beds, and she fell back to the sand and sobbed in agony. Her wand tumbled from her hand. 

She had let him. She let him, because she needed the punishment. She laid on the sand shivering, barely able to even think through the pain. 

And she didn’t want to. 

Her lungs shuddered. 

Years ago, as a young witch being sworn in as an Auror, she had made vows. She had held her wand to her chest and recited vows to protect those with and without magic, to guard the rights of every magical being, to act when necessary, to use power for good. Her wand had glowed as she spoke, cementing her vow. 

Adapt. Protect. Power. Action. Four promises of her youth inscribed in her wand. Four promises every Auror made. 

And she had failed. In trying to protect herself, she had failed. In trying to protect her mother, she had failed. In trying to protect the people of a country dear to her, she had failed. 

With every breath, her heartbeat pulsed in the bleeding beds of her naked fingertips. They throbbed so fiercely she could not forget she still lived and drew breath. 

“Stand up and fight back,“ Sergio finally broke the silence. 

She stared into nothing. She needed more. She needed the sound of her heart to grow louder and overwhelm it all. “Your brother,” she choked out.  

She was met with silence. 

“He would have had me dead if not for you. Such a fool deserves to be soiled. To be torn apart by Inferi himself.” She turned her eyes up to Sergio. 

Sergio’s eyes were bright with fury. But he didn’t rise to her bait. That enraged her. 

“It’s a pity I couldn’t summon more corpses to make Inferi of,” she continued. With bloody fingers, she snatched her wand up again, scrambling for a curse in her mind. She had to make him pay for leading her to kill so many. It hurt to move her hands, but she lashed her wand out at him anyway, and on his next breath, he began to suffocate. He gasped for air and clutched at his throat, his face turning blue as she watched. He tried to breathe and he made no sound except strangled, wheezing, choked cries. He made an undignified sight. 

Every breath he took would cause his lungs to turn to stone. 

But she didn’t want him to die this way. Not like this. 

It was too easy. Too quick. He deserved more pain. Another half minute, and he would be dead. With another slash of her wand, she reversed the curse. 

He collapsed to the ground, his mouth wide open as he gasped for breath. His body shuddered and twitched on the ground. She watched, her wand at the ready, and after a few heartbeats, she cast, “Imperio.” 

A wondrously light and dreamy sensation washed over her, and her breath caught. This was control. True control. She could almost feel Sergio’s mind in her palm, feel the ridges of his brain sliding along her fingers. His mind purred keenly under her touch, eager to please. 

She watched him: he was standing still, his eyes blank. She opened her mouth to tell him to lock himself in the nearest stronghold he could find, to use his Legilimency to forget her— 

—and the blissful pleasure inside her abruptly cut off as he broke from her control, his teeth bared. Of course he did. His willpower was too strong. He threw off the Imperius curse nearly as easily as she did. 

He rounded on her. Their eyes met. And all of a sudden, she was convinced that there was a snake lodged in her windpipe. 

Her hands flew up to her throat, her eyes bulging. How—what—she choked, all the while looking pleadingly at Sergio, but he stared coldly back at her. Surely he could not let her die. But he could. He could. It was all his choice. 

The pressure in her throat intensified until she thought her chest would burst. She couldn’t breathe. 

She collapsed to the ground and clutched at her chest as the snake wound itself around her heart, squeezing. She could feel it moving in her ribcage, inside her, a sick sensation. She would have vomited, but the snake curled around her lungs and squeezed and then she could no longer breathe. 

She was faintly aware of Sergio approaching, looking down at her while she spluttered and raked at her throat with her nails, certain she was choking to death. A bitter sense of betrayal enveloped her, and she hated herself for it, for expecting that this one man would not want her to die. But he wanted her dead. She was completely alone. Tears streamed from her eyes as she twitched. 

And then everything was over: the sense of compression in her chest vanished, and she could breathe again. She opened her mouth wide and gulped in entire lungfuls of air, sweet air. 

She had cast her third Unforgivable curse of the day. The third of her life. And she had enjoyed it. 

And she had killed. 

Merely collateral damage, her fellow Aurors would have told her. But she could only see the crumpled bodies of policemen, and the pair of mother and daughter—nurses together—their bodies forever broken. The memory of Potter’s body rose in the back of her mind. He hadn’t died at her hands… But she had walked into the Ministry of her own free will. And then he had died. 

Sergio would consume her for as long as she drew breath. 

Eventually, he would surely take her mother too. Neither he nor she would know any limit for as long as they were bonded, for as long they shared the same world. She stared sightlessly into the air. 

She had to die. She had to die to end this. She had to die so her mother could live. 

“Creative, isn’t it? It’s a spell I invented when I was twenty and refining my Legilimency,” he said, sounding almost bored as she curled at his feet, shivering. “It makes you completely and utterly convinced that there’s a snake in your chest. All an illusion. ” 

It took all her strength to jerk her wand up, mouthing a curse she had read only days ago, and he doubled over, screaming as tiny silver needles swarmed over his skin, inside him, all too small but working together to spear him whole from the inside out. Lust and fascination catching her, she paused a moment to watch as he bled and screamed. 

This was no illusion. This was real. 

She was wasting time. But she could not even bring herself to call it weakness when his head fell back as he opened his mouth in soundless horror, exposing the arch of his throat, a delicate needle piercing his Adam’s apple. 

Taking his voice was fitting. But victory felt empty. Victory felt empty and she was empty and she needed something to fill it. She stumbled to her feet and mustered the will to twist on her heel. 

Crack— she Apparated into the national library, where a little girl with black dreadlocks stood and stared, her eyes huge in her face. 

She stumbled, catching herself against a shelf. Her chest—or was it her mind?—still throbbed with the aftereffects of Sergio’s curse, and her sight winkes to black, then colour again, and back. Sergio was dying. She was dying. 

Finally, everything would end. 

She could scarcely believe it would soon be over. 

“Are—are you alright?” The girl stuttered in Portuguese. 

She shook her head, holding her forehead in her blood-streaked hands. No, no, no. She wasn’t alright. 

She had fought back and run and she had succeeded and now she was on the verge of death. Finally, she would be safe, and Sergio would never be able to reach her. Her chest heaved and choked, and she doubled over, raising her hands to her face. Tears fell from her eyes and hit her palms like raindrops. 

She hadn’t realized she was crying. She didn’t know if it was from relief or sorrow. 

Tremors shook her body, and she couldn’t control her hands. She jerked and shuddered and fell to her knees. 

“Your fingers are bleeding.” A small hand clutched at her shoulder.

She jerked with surprise. Through tear-streaked eyes, she looked up, and the girl looked back at her, concerned. 

“It’s okay,” she told Raquel, then hugged her, pulling her close. Her hand patted awkwardly over Raquel’s head. 

That made her cry harder. There was a sudden flare of pain in her chest, and she bent over to cry softly onto the girl’s thin shoulder. The pain locked inside her longed for death; and her brittle bleeding skin on the outside was marked by war. 

She would die like this. It had never been the death she had imagined for herself when she was young. She had believed she would die wrinkled and grey and laughing, an Order of Merlin and various other awards decorating her living room. A kind husband holding her hand and her grandchildren running through the garden. 

Not like this. 

There was a loud crack, and screams cutting into the library’s silence. Her head jerked up. 

Sergio. 

How had he survived? How had he healed himself? 

The pain she had felt—and her vision blacking out—had not been Sergio dying. It was her own magical exhaustion. 

Her eyes met the stare of the terrified girl. She was young enough that she could have been Raquel’s own daughter. If Raquel had time, she would tell her to run and to forget her and to dream and to win. 

But there was no time for sentiment. Raquel shoved her away with shaky hands, ignoring the girl’s confused squeak.  

She couldn’t endanger the child. She shouldn’t. She only had minutes left before Sergio caught up with her. Quietly shaking her head, she backed away, scrambling between the aisles. 

She couldn’t Apparate to another country again. She didn’t have the strength. Longing for a safe house to flee to, she pivoted on her heel again. Never to see that girl again, never to once again feel the future before her, hers to shape, hers to own, because it was no longer hers —

— crack, crack— she was no longer in the library, but in her mother’s empty childhood home, because she missed her mother, she missed her and needed her so badly she could have wept like the child she used to be, the child long lost. When she looked up, she saw Sergio’s robe whirl into appearance, following on her heels. She turned again, her mind spinning and exhausted— crack, crack —finally, into a Muggle tavern, teeming with activity, and men and women screamed with disbelief and fear and shock. 

She had not meant to come here. She had not meant for Sergio to follow her to anywhere of the places she’d been. She was panicking and had scrambled for the places that had felt safest to her. Sergio was staggering towards her, his face and throat streaked with numerous red cuts. Some still bled, leaking into his beard. With shaking hands, she grabbed a knife off the nearest desk, holding her wand out to ward off Sergio. “Let them go, please,” she begged. “Just let them go. I won’t run anymore. I promise.” 

He halted in place, his eyes fixed on her. His eyes were bright with tears and loathing.

All the while, the occupants of the tavern rushed out, crying with panic. 

“There’s nowhere—nowhere you can go where I can’t find you,” Sergio rasped, his voice guttural and ruined as he forced the words from his throat. “Nowhere, Raquel. This is your life now.” 

She swallowed. 

Because it was true. He was right. She could fight back, of course, but everything she had done up until now had done was pointless. Escaping was pointless, when his life was tied to hers. 

“You raped me. I killed your brother. We’re even.” Her lips curled. “Why are you following me? You don’t forgive.”

He raised his wand higher, his eyes flirting between her own wand and her knife. “We were meant for”—he choked off, squeezing his eyes shut in apparent pain, then forced himself to continue—“greater things than death. Than all this.” He jerked his head to the side. 

She narrowed her eyes. “You think Muggle ways are inferior?”  

“Hardly. Mundanity is inferior.” His voice choked off. He struggled to get his words out, then seemed to give up, straightening and locking his eyes on hers. She felt his mind cut into hers, and gritted her teeth as he spoke to her, so brusque and loud it felt as if her skull itself was under his control: You agree with me, you know you do. You Apparated here, and now they’re gone, they can’t stop you from doing what you want, can they? You won’t Apparate anywhere with magic. You know they’ll tell you your rightful place is with me. 

He was giving her more credit than she was due. This destination hadn’t been a conscious choice she made. She shook her head. 

“You don’t understand. Maybe you can’t.” She adjusted her grip on her knife. “Do you know why we’re in Portugal? My mother used to take me here. I wanted to die feeling at home. I wanted to die safe.” The tip of her wand trembled. Her wand released a low hum of lament, and Raquel thought it almost sounded like an echo of herself crying. Or someone else. She didn’t know anymore. “I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to be safe, Sergio.” 

It was the most intimate thing she had ever confessed to him. His expression shifted, his brow furrowing with bewilderment. 

He didn’t know what to say. 

She didn’t know why she had even tried. She supposed she wanted someone to hear her last words. What other living soul could she confide in besides him? Resolute, she raised her dagger in the air, aiming it at herself. 

“No!” he yelled with his wrecked voice. “Don’t! Raquel!” 

He dashed to her, but he was too far. 

She plunged the knife low into her belly, and she screamed, oh, she screamed, but she didn’t stop there, she had to carve out the womb that was not hers but his, she had to make everything right again. Her hands shook and her eyes whitened out and she stumbled back against the wall, but she grasped the dagger’s hilt with both her hands and pulled it out, howling in pain. With a mad surge of effort, she tried to plunge the dagger in again—

—but she was frozen, her whole body trapped in Sergio’s Full Body-Bind Curse. She screamed and screamed but her vocal cords were frozen, she couldn’t hear, she couldn’t breathe, her eyesight was full of the white above her head. 

Sergio slashed his wand in the air, approaching her, and she could breathe again, but each breath she drew caused pain to lurch in her abdomen, and she couldn’t move her arms or speak or even blink. It felt as though all her muscles were frozen. Tears leaked from her eyes as Sergio knelt by her fallen body, roughly pulling the knife from her hand and tossing it away. She heard it clatter to the ground and wanted to cry, but Sergio hadn’t released the muscles of her cheeks, and her mouth was fixed open. She couldn’t even move her eyes off the ceiling. She could just barely breathe. Barely. Her breath wheezed with minute movements of her chest. 

"Vulnera sanentur,"  he croaked unsteadily. She shuddered as her insides stitched together. He had raped her, cursed her, tortured her, and now, he was healing her. Messily. The spell was meant to be sung. With this wrecked voice of his, she would die. She found comfort in that. 

But then he closed his mouth and continued the waving motions of his wand. 

He had realized the limitations of his own voice, and he was continuing his work soundlessly. If there was anyone powerful enough for it, it was him. 

Then she truly started to panic. 

No, let me die, she wanted to tell him, and she tried to tell him with her eyes, but he wasn’t looking at her face. Even when the hold of his Full-Body Bind relaxed, her jaws remained closed against her will. Her vision swam as he worked, her eyes slipping shut. 

Raquel woke again. 

She was dead this time. She knew it because only death would have given her mercy, and she had it now. The bed beneath her was blissfully soft, and her body felt so weightless she did not even feel her weakness, as if her body was immaterial and she was safely encased in a cloud. A low sigh escaped her, and she tucked her face against her pillow. 

A low creak, and the mattress shifted with another person’s weight. 

Her eyes snapped open. 

Not dead after all. The disappointment crushed her, but she had no more tears left. 

She turned her head, knowing who she would find. 

Sergio was perched on the bed by her side, watching her. His face was expressionless. His robes looked fresh, though his face was speckled with the cuts of her needles. 

Above his head, the window was bright with boiling magma. The world was ending. 

She stared hard at the window, where a layer of wards trembled under her gaze. A strong ward to keep out the hellfire waiting for them outside. 

It was her hellfire. She had made it. 

Her eyes shifted back to Sergio. “Open the window.” 

“No.” He spoke in a hoarse tone, but smoother now. He must have healed his own throat while she slept. “I underestimated you.” 

“You did.” 

His eyes were hard as he stared at her. His forehead was lined with exhaustion. 

She thought, idly, of slapping him, of fighting him, but she was tired, her abdomen aching. She had no more energy. “How long was I out?” 

“For three days.” 

Three days. Had he availed himself of her body in that time? 

Probably. But she felt nothing. 

Unexpectedly, he leaned closer and took her hands in his. She regarded his touch with indifference. “Do you see it, our power? What we could do?” 

She blinked slowly. She had nothing left, no energy left, not even to feel appalled. “The whole world is probably dead, or will be.” 

“We destroyed it. We can fix it. There is still untouched land. There are still survivors, I’ve seen them. We can round them up and rule.” 

Faint disgust boiled in her stomach. The sensation was deeply unpleasant, and her lips thinned. They were at the end of the world, and he was still dreaming and plotting. There was no stopping it. 

He took her hands. “Rule it with me.” 

“You don’t want to rule with me.” She thought about how nice it was to speak plainly with someone else. She had forgotten what it was like. It was unfortunate that the only real confidant she had was the same man who sought to violate and rule her. “You want to rule me and everybody else.” 

His head cocked. “No. Now I see it’s impossible to rule you.” He detached his hands from hers, running his knuckles over her belly. She flinched as his skin brushed over her, her newly-healed skin only covered with a thin shift. “Your magic is too strong.”

“’Magic is Might,’” she said, echoing the mantra of the Ministry for Magic under Lord Voldemort’s rule. As she expected, a smile stretched Sergio’s lips. 

“Yes. Yes, it is. The Dark Lord was wrong about many things, but not that.” 

“You weakened yourself,” she continued, wiping the smile from Sergio’s face. “You weakened myself by binding yourself to me. And now you need me. That’s your mistake. Allowing yourself to need me.” She snatched his arm, digging her fingernails into his skin to draw him down, down, until he was leaning over her. “You regret it, I’m sure.” 

“There is no use in regret.” His eyes dropped to her lips. “Let us work together.” 

“I don’t see why you need me. You could throw me in a dungeon and do as you like and the result will still be the same.” Something dawned on her as she studied the way he looked at her. He seemed intent. Searching. “There’s something you’re not telling me.” 

He freed one of his hands, touching it to the flat plane of her stomach. Everything in her froze all at once. “You bear my child.” 

Her breath caught in her chest. “How?”

“You healed.” He looked pleased. “It's just a week old. Your body protected it even from my Cruciatus. Your magic is strong, Raquel.”

“No. That's not what I meant.” Her mouth was dry, her throat hoarse, and rasping out her words was painful. “How do you know?”

His eyes glittered. “I checked.” 

“Show me.” 

Drawing his wand down to her belly, he made a circle in the air. A white light encased her abdomen, then shifted to luminescent blue. 

Positive. 

His poison grew inside her. 

“You see,” he said, looking up at her, “now there is only moving forward. Together.” 

She had made the ground split open for her, with her wrath, with her magic. Dreamily, she wondered what it would be like, to be part of the earth and swallow Sergio whole. 

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. His eyes narrowed. 

He drew her into his arms, guiding her to stand, and she didn’t resist. He tucked her in against his body, his chest shifting as he drew breath, and she didn’t resist. He pivoted on his heel, taking her with him, and she didn’t resist. 

They reappeared in a land of snow and fire, on top of a mountain. Her skin was so hot that she wouldn’t be surprised if it was sloughing off her bones. But when she opened her eyes, her flesh was intact. They stood safe from the boiling magma below them, bubbling and frothing with hunger. She couldn’t help but watch with wonder. Nature at its barest. Its rawest. 

He cupped her cheek, turning her face to him. She saw her own admiration mirrored in his eyes. “We can own all of this. Raquel, do you see it?” 

For a long while, she didn’t answer. Sergio waited, his eyes boring into her flesh. 

“With my life’s blood,” she whispered finally, “I bind my life to his.” 

Relief glimmered in his eyes. He, too, was tired of fighting. Leaning in, his lips slid over her cheek. 

“With his desire, and mine,” she murmured, hearing him hum, “I inherit this land.” 

He drew her into a kiss. She let him press her mouth open, and she felt it as Sergio’s lips twisted into a smile of triumph. Numbly, she wrapped her arms around Sergio’s body, pressing him against her in an embrace. He let out a sigh and held her close to him. 

There was salt on her tongue. The salt of blood. 

Was it hers, or Sergio’s? 

Without thinking twice, she plunged them down. Down and down and down, towards the sea of fiery boiling magma just below. She heard Sergio’s breath catch on a spell, but he was too late. 

Their skin caught alight, brilliant orange waves splashing high above them. As they sank, the fire seeped into her eyes, her mouth. She couldn’t even scream. 

The last thing she was aware of was Sergio’s flesh sizzling away from hers.