Absolute Duty // Elise, Evan & Natalie
"To exact revenge for yourself or your friends is not only right, it's an absolute duty"
Christmas Night, Aversio Cabin
Natalie stalked through the forest, the fallen leaves now decaying in their winter state. They muffled her footsteps, wet with the remnants of melting snow. Twigs clawed at the hem of her cloak, but she barely noticed. Red hot blood was pumping through her veins, a fury that kept her focus upon the destination ahead. Soon they would come to a clearing with a cabin, the center of it all.
She had felt like this once before in her life, a white hot rage threatening to take over her mind and sanity. She only got this way when the people she cared about were in danger, threatened. Before it was her father: a victim of the Ministry’s attempts to look proactive in their dealing with the Dark Lord’s rise to power. They blamed him for atrocities he would have never committed, attributing guilt for crimes his kind nature would never allow him to perform. Now there were three names repeating endlessly in her mind, a drum beat that pushed her toward the cabin on a mission of revenge.
Regulus. Severus. Bellatrix.
The day had started with such promise. Christmas morning, a time of joy, happiness, and peace. Natalie wasn’t able to be at her parent’s in France this year. As a Ministry employee she was required to keep long hours to help solve the disaster of the Minister’s continued kidnapping. She maintained a feeling of hope in the morning, but that had been quickly shattered as news spread of the Minister’s body being discovered.
Shortly thereafter, as was to be expected, the Dark Lord already had more information than the Ministry would probably ever be able to sort out. He had located the building where they had been keeping the Minister, and had entrusted three of his closest followers to go. While Natalie was not admittedly the closest with Bellatrix, she felt a closeness with both Regulus and Severus. The three were quite capable and no one had dreamed they would end up kidnapped by the rouge group.
Aversio. Their name made Natalie’s stomach turn with disgust and revulsion. The negotiations were to open communication and, in truth, for the Death Eaters to learn more about this group so they could mount a counter-strike. The Order was no longer their biggest threat. This was made even clearer when news filtered back through the ranks that the three had not arrived at the predetermined time to discuss their findings. The cabin had been left empty, no sign of Aversio or her friends.
Her friends. They had taken her friends. This was no longer the Minister, who Natalie didn’t particularly care for. These were people who she saw regularly, who she cared for. Her mind kept drifting back to the pictures of the Minister’s lifeless corpse already splashed across the more subversive news outlets. And she would be damned if her friends suffered the same fate.
They had all been summoned, at the Dark Lord’s request, to gather volunteers for a scouting party to return to the cabin to look for any clues that the group might have left behind in their last known location. They had covered their tracks better this time, less traceable than when they had dumped the minister’s body.
They were almost at the clearing now, the three of them. Almost immediately upon the Dark Lord’s request for a team, Evan had raised a hand confidently. The Dark Lord had instantly obliged. Why not send one of his smartest, most loyal supporters to scout the area? Evan could be trusted in the heat of battle, but he was also extremely observant and would be key in looking for subtle clues.
The group as a whole had been surprised at the second hand that rose, the Dupont girl falling closely behind. Even the Dark Lord had seemed surprised, and in truth Natalie surprised herself. However the blinding, white-hot rage was already bubbling beneath the service. Images of her friends flash before her eyes, tossed aside in a graveyard like trash needed to be disposed.
Bellatrix. Regulus. Severus.
They had been snatched from them in the midst of a negotiation. Natalie could almost hear their screams from there. The marks on the carcass of the Former Minister was enough to prove that Aversio was not above violence to extract information. Suddenly in the pit of the young girl’s soul, the darkness she had been desperately trying to keep at bay burst forth. She wanted blood. She wanted the satisfaction of holding their arm and jerking it backward to hear the sickening snap of broken bone. She wanted to hear the sounds of their screams to fill her ears until she went deaf.
Thankfully, the Dark Lord had nodded in approval, and Elise’s voice spoke up to round their group to three. Of course Elise would come along, her thirst for blood and pain in others might prove useful should they run into their foes once more. And so the three of them had set off, to finally arrive before the cabin.
They stood outside wooden doors, masks shrouding their faces and cloaks covering their body. The uniform of the Death Eaters to signify their intention and common cause. They were there for their friends and they would not leave until they found them. Upon reaching the cabin, the three check to make sure there were no jinxes or traps that would alert their foes of their arrival so soon. Seeing no such tricks, Natalie was itching to burst into action.
Impatiently, Natalie cast a wordless Reducto with an aggressive swipe of her wand. The door shattered into pieces, light now streaming in a clear rectangle at the doorway. Fearless, she strode first into the house, eyes darting around the room to take in the scene. They were met with the evidence of a party abandoned by a duel. Marks on the walls showed curses and hexes deflected. The ground was littered with cups and wasted bottles of alcohol lay spilled on the ground.
They had been celebrating. They shouted uproariously at the demise of the Minister of Magic, and Natalie could only imagine they rejoiced in kind at the capture of three of the Dark Lord’s soldiers. Her jaw clenched so hard that the veins around her neck threatened to burst underneath her porcelain skin. She looked to the two with her, a fire in her eyes that most had never seen in the likes of Miss. Dupont.
“I want them to pay.” The words hung in the silence of the cabin, a threat that fell on deaf ears but with all the weight the young girl could muster. Her voice came out softer now, calculated, as eyes turned to the stairs. “I’ll start upstairs.” With those quiet words, she turned swiftly towards the staircase to the second level of the cabin.
