a/n: i know it's been too long since i left this story behind, but i can't stop thinking about sophia sage. i need to finish her story to set her free. enjoy these final few chapters i've cobbled together xoxo
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It's the feeling of being shoved down a tube that's just slightly smaller than your body is, so you have to breathe in and cross your arms over your chest and make yourself as small as possible, clench your fingers and toes and grit your teeth and hope you don't lose a limb or a lung in the process.
It's the experience of Apparation, but also of the panic attack Sage is currently experiencing.
Hermione is gripping her hand tightly, ignoring the tingling feeling she's getting from Sage's bare skin, and whispering reassuring words into her ear. Sage's body shakes violently, earthquakes rattling all the way from her screaming mind through to her unwilling body. The men that surround them are all faces that she's seen before and had never, ever wanted to see again. Her brain tells her every horrible outcome that could occur of the situation she's in, her heart tells her to close her eyes and pinch herself to wake from this horrible nightmare. Her soul laughs at her, because of course it does. It's not like she's housing an ancient death omen within her or anything.
"It's going to be okay," whispers Hermione as they're herded through the mansion like cattle. Every corner, every doorway and chandelier and old relic of dark magic reminds her of why she left the mansion, reminds her of the horrific fear and emptiness she felt in this place before she got her heart back from the underworld. "We've got a plan, remember? Me and Harry are going to make it all okay."
Sage manages to suck in a breath long enough to look around, to see Hermione has a nebula of bruises appearing quickly beside her right eye, and Harry-- Merlin's balls, Harry looks awful. It's like an angry nest of bees teamed up with a rhinoceros made of stinging nettle and trampled all over his head, which was then boiled in a pot of pea soup for seventy-two hours and left to dry out in the hot summer sun. After that, they kicked him around like a football for a few hours and forgot about him in a shallow puddle, which--
Sage's speculation is cut short by a man with long, white-blonde hair and a cane who's sharp end she remembers well. He sneers down at her. She drops her eyebrows low over her eyes and stares up at him with the might of the women who came before her.
"I see the snatchers have done as they were told," he all but spits in her face, and Sage clenches her fist. "Bringing in the scum of the streets."
"Ah, dear Lucius," chimes a sing-song voice. Sage's spine curdles. "We shouldn't talk about the Dark Lord's little plaything like that. And what a little band of merry men she's brought to us! Anybody important, little raven?"
Sage bites her tongue. There are many things she could say to Bellatrix Lestrange, but none would be equal to the pain the wild woman inflicted on the girl while she was here. Sage's playground insults will not break the heart the way that Lestrange's months of trauma broke hers. Sage's nails clawing at Lestrange's ugly face will not pierce her skin the way that Lestrange's spells pierced hers. Sage's hands will not suffocate Lestrange the way that the damp, dark room to the side of the cellar suffocated the girl. And Sage's cold looks will not make Lestrange turn to the darkness in the same way that Sage had to so that she wouldn't disappear altogether.
Hermione cuts the silence with a claim of, "Penelope Clearwater, half-blood. I don't know why my friends and I are even here. We were camping in the woods, as we always do in the springtime, and we were snatched up and brought here! My father is quite high up in the Ministry, you know he'll hear about this..."
The girl gripping Hermione's hand finds her breath, finally, and starts to calm down. It's all going to be fine. It's all going to be okay. Girl Wonder has a plan, and they're going to get out of here safely--
"That's not Penelope Clearwater," a familiar voice says from opposite the room. A girl with inky black hair, thin limbs, and pink-painted lips lurks in the shadows of the candlelight. She strides towards them slowly, like a cat of the savannah stalking it's prey, until she's finally in full light of the room. Ripley Nakano says to them, "That's Hermione Granger, and I'll bet my bottom knut that's Harry Potter."
The dank cellar makes Sage's skin crawl. As an object with no pedestal to rest on in the Malfoy house, she was left in the blackness of a small broom cupboard beside the entrance to the basement. Barely enough room to stand and definitely not enough to sit or lie, she wiled her hours away closing off her mind to the pain in her body and her heart. And now, all of that pain is flooding back.
The spells on Harry's face are starting to wear off. She stares at him, only moonlight from the small window above them illuminating his face, and she can tell he's getting unnerved by her unblinking eyes. Good. Let him be uncomfortable. She doesn't care.
There are others in the cellar, either knocked out or unbothered by their appearance. She stands and squints into the pitch black. "Dad?" she croaks through the darkness. "It's me. It's Sage."
There's a scrabbling sounds on the floor, feet fighting against gravity to pull a body to stand, and a shape lurches at her out of the shadows. The pair cling onto each other tightly, as if any air between them may be the force that rips them apart once again.
"Do you remember me?" he wheezes out finally, after minutes of sobbing. "Sophia, baby, do you remember me?"
"I remember it all," she whispers. Her face is pressed deep into his shirt, her hands balling fabric into her fists. He still has that woody, smoky smell he's always carried, even covered in months of dust and dirt. "Where did you go? I needed you, and you disappeared."
He starts to cry harder and presses kisses to the top of her head. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, so, so, sorry. If I had any other choice, I wouldn't have left you."
"Sage?" Another voice asks from the darkness. A young man with a limp approaches, and it takes a flash of his red hair for Sage to remember his name. But Harry gets there sooner.
"Ron!"
"Harry!"
"Harry?"
"Luna!"
"Sage? Harry?"
"Dean!"
"Rocky," Sage mumbles under her breath, earning a teary laugh from her father. Dean Thomas all but scoops her up in his arms, and then embrace tightly.
"I'm so angry that you died and left me to deal with all that shit," Dean mumbles to her. Sage almost laughs. She's not quite sure she even still can, but she tries to force a smile onto her face all the same. The look Dean gives her is one of horror, so she drops back to her blank expression.
"How long have you all been down here?" Harry asks them. "I'm so sorry we couldn't get you all out sooner. But we're going to get out now."
They hear a rattling scream from upstairs, and everybody's faces snap upwards. Sage's blood starts to boil.
"Yeah," she says. "Have you guys ever seen Silence of the Lambs?"
