Heulwen Roku's Death

 The cell was as small and damp as the witch remembered. From somewhere, there was a leak. The dripping of the water kept time with the groaning from prisoners around her. From the small window too high to reach, the crashing waves added to the music of the prison. Lifting her arms, the chains from her shackles sang. An orchestra of dread. Azkaban had not changed since the last Heulwen had occupied a cell within the fortress. But she had. Instead of screaming, like the others, she sat back against the moist brick and closed her eyes. The spells and tinctures that had kept her looking youthful and pretty were wearing off, one by one, leaving her looking her age. The witch was nearing sixty, but had kept the appearance of a woman in her early thirties. Now, there was no denying how much time had worn her out; her eyes sunken, cheekbones jutting out, but no wrinkles. Not so much as a crease. It was, sadly, proof that happiness had not touched her, no matter how pretty she made herself.

The sound of her cell door opening made Heulwen looks up. Just a guard. 
'Up,' he instructed, and she did her best to rise to her feet. 
It was difficult, with the shackles, but she managed. 
'Just a few more questions, then you're free to rot.'
He led her to a room not better decorated than her cell, and there she sat and waited. They made her wait without even water for almost an hour. When the Auror came, supplied with a thick leather folder, he didn't even try to hide his disgust. Had there been an inkling of bravado left in her, Heulwen would have said something. Anything. But the witch just sat against the wall on a rickety bench, head lolling to the side with exhaustion. The gruel they fed her wasn't enough, and sleep was all she wanted to do. Even that was difficult with all the wailing and screaming in the cells around her.
'Heulwen Black,' the man started, flipping through the papers. 'Or is it Sunniva? Lucero?'
"Black-Roku," she corrected hoarsely, "Roku is my family name, Black is..." she paused and shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Heulwen Roku will do, if you must."
He gave a nod and crossed several things off the file, scribbling something on the page before locking his gaze on her. 'We almost had you some years ago, but your trail disappeared. Where did you go?'
"Nowhere. I...instructed one of your kind to remove the hints of my whereabouts."
"How?"
"The mind is strong, but the flesh is weak. Seduction, to put it mildly."
"Who?"
"I...I can't remember his name anymore. I can't remember his face..." she trails off, a note of sadness in her voice.
The nib of the quill scratches the parchment as something else is jotted down.
"You were a Death Eater for years, yet you evaded capture so meticulously."
"I was hiding in plain sight, I thought someday you Aurors would catch on. But you didn't, so I stopped looking over my shoulder."
A grunt and more writing.
"My manor, Chester Place, you will find evidence there of all my crimes. The butler is under the Imperio curse...he's just a muggle," she says, knowing nothing will change the life-long sentence ahead of her. "I don't care what you do with the place. I have no family, no heirs to take over. It is just me and me alone." A lie, but her children, biological or not, would not go down with her. Not again. Never again.
"It's the Dementor's kiss for you, Roku, I'm sure you know that. Nothing you confess to will lessen the punishment." He paused. "It'll buy you a couple of days, but that's it. So, it's up to you how long you want to be spared."
"I'm not going to talk."
"You sure?"
There came a knock at the door, and a man stepped in, leaning in to whisper in the Auror's ear. A look of concern crosses his features, but it's gone before Heulwen thinks anything of it.
"Wait here."
Another hour passed until someone entered the room. That someone was not the Auror. Heulwen stared at the face, took in the way he stood in front of the door. Oh. The man's hand twitches around the wand. She wasn't even going to beg or deny whatever wrong she had done. 
'Don't think 'cause yer just sittin' there lookin' like a frail woman that I don't know what and who you are. Demon bitch,' he spat.
His wand hand rises. Heulwen meets his gaze. Defeat is written all over her face, and this man sees it. He sees she's not going to fight back, not going to try to run. The look on his face says it all; there's anger and satisfaction, justice burning to be inflicted. He couldn't have been older than twenty. So young, so furious. Who had she taken from him? Did it even matter? An apology wouldn't mean anything; in the moment, whatever she had done, there had been no remorse, and she wasn't going to feign it now.
"Steady your wand," the witch says, swallowing down the rising fear. She was scared, the survival instinct flaring like a wild animal; however, she gripped the edge of the bench to ground herself. To keep herself from running. "You have to mean it," Heulwen nods shakily, "Otherwise there's no point to whatever you did to get here. You stunned them, didn't you? The guards? They'll put you away for that. So mean it."
It happened quickly: the bright emerald-green burst, the door flying open, the Aurors rushing in to tackle the intruder. It was the last thing she saw before it all went cold and dark. There was no montage of her life, no glimpses of happier times, only the edges of her consciousness going black. Heulwen had hoped, after receiving the dementor's kiss, that someone would visit the empty shell that had once been a witch. But this? Death? It was a mercy she did not deserve.

Heulwen, age 17,17th Century 

Running, she was running. Blood soaked through her black dress and her was breathing heavy. No one was chasing her, she had made sure of that when she had left the cabin. She saw it, the room in her mind. The man that had promised to teach her all he knew laid there, dead. His lifeless eyes staring at nothing and the cauldron bubbling next to him, a circle made of blood drawn on the floor where she herself had laid minutes before she cast the spell. But she had to, she told herself over and over, she wasn't going to let him kill her. She stopped, leaning against a tree for a moment, gasping for air. She looked down at the heavy book she carried under her arm. His spell book...no, her spell book. It was hers now, and it held everything she needed to know, her mentor had kept it safe, even from her curious eyes. If she hadn't of seen it, or been able to reach it, it would have been her dead in that cabin and that man, that man would have stolen her life and her magic.
She winced at the pain that came from her chest, from the cut that had brought her close to death. Peeking into her dress she could see it mending itself, healing her wound. What have I done? She blinked, her eyes moving from the closing wound to the book. She flipped it open to the blood stained page she had cast the spell from. She read over the words she had recited in the cabin and then her eyes fell on what she had feared. The consequences stared back at her in scribbled writing.
(WIP)

Fabian Black

Circa 1980; Fabian Black

The sun held itself between the puffy gray clouds in the sky, hiding its rays from the world behind the blanket of white it peeked out from. It was a cold day in the busy shopping district for witches and wizards known as Diagon Alley. It had been many years since the great war, but to some it still haunted them. One person in particular had never been the same since the war. A dark haired woman with full lips and dark eyes, her paleness almost made her look like a ghost. She had sat herself down in a table at a small coffee shop, her fingers cradling a steaming tea cup as her eyes wandered around slowly. All these young wizards and witches ran from shop to shop, excitement painted on their faces. Their eyes curiously taking in all the magical world had to offer and their eager hands clutching spell books to their chest. It wasn't too long ago that Heulwen was being dragged by her hand from shop to shop by an eager boy. His blue eyes and black hair matched hers and there was no doubt that they were one and the same. She smiled sadly into her cup of tea as she remembered.
The day had been more clear, the sun stretched out in the sky, it's ray's kissed the faces of the people below. Heulwen's arms were full of wrapped packages and shopping bags and, even though she was tired, she giggled as she watched her curious son peeking into the window of the Magical Menagerie. He was watching a small black cat play with a piece of yarn.

"Can I have a cat?" he asked, his face pressed against the window.
"A cat? Not an owl?" She of course didn't mind, a raven was her means of sending messages, and he could always borrow hers if he ever needs to. "I suppose. But you'll have to take care of it."

The boy raced to the door without a word causing his mother to laugh and then carefully she made her way into the shop to purchase the cat he desired. In her lifetime she had promised herself that she would never let a man into her heart but when her son had been born she had no say when he buried himself deep in her heart. Every thing she did was for him, for his happiness. When she joined the Dark Lord, she only thought of her son's safety.
Her son followed in her footsteps after he graduated from Hogwarts, joining the Death Eaters and going to battle alongside her when the time came.

Tears began to form in the woman's eyes, and she had to shut them and gulp back tears as she remembered the battle that stole her son from her. That day they had dawned their masks. The Aurors had them cornered, hex after hex flew from both sides. She kept a close eye on her son, bouncing spells back as fast as she could to protect him.

"Avada Kedavra" shouted one of the Aurors. Time moved too slowly as if death wanted her to watch as the green light pierced her son and he fell. His cries echoed, and she felt a cold chill run through her. As she began to ran towards him, she was hit and fell just a few feet away. She tore her mask off as she crawled towards her son.
"Stay with me, darling. Stay with mama, Fabian." She wheezed, tears trailing down her cheeks. She could feel her heartbreaking into a million pieces as her fingers grazed his face. His blue eyes empty of light as they stared at nothing.
Heulwen managed to sit up and bring her son's body into her lap just as the Aurors began to approach. She gripped her wand as she held her dead son in her arms and lifted her hand then began to shout curse after curse, her face buried in his hair. She managed to apparate them out before they could be reached and in the safety of her home she grieved.

"I failed you," she whispered into her now cold tea.