Bound By Blood.

ch.52~Excuses.

"You must be on time. 

They'll come looking for me if I'm late."

Translated Recovered Correspondents between Order Member Alexandra Brooks to Death Eater Mattheo Riddle, 2003. 

The New Safe House, 2003.

Alexandra.

"I told you a billion times," I sighed, exhausted, wanting a proper shower, and seventeen more hours of sleep, "He caught me on my walk, and hexed me." 

I flinched recalling the details.  

But, Harry insisted he knew them backwards, so here we were. 

"And then you woke up in the dungeon." He scoffed. 

"Yes. I woke up there, spent about two days there, and one day in the woods. Then somehow I found a wand, and went to the old warehouse, where thank Merlin, Luna was."

Not counting the one whole day I spent in Mattheo Riddles bed. 

"And in all those days in the manor, you didn't see anywhere else but the dungeons?" Harry sat back in the chair across from me. 

"Just the dungeons." I looked down. 

A lie. 

"And you saw no one but Berkshire? No one else was in on this?" I felt his eyes boring into mine. 

"Just Lorenzo, he worked completely alone." I nodded. 

A bigger lie. 

"So from your time on your first mission, to your most recent... trip, you don't know the layout of the manor? Where Riddle was, or his father?" Harrys eyes never wavered. 

"No. I was unconscious during most of it, in and out. I never even got solid footing in the dungeon." I sighed, feeling as if I was there again, "I don't know where Riddle, or Voldemort were. Not there I'm assuming. Its as if Berkshire had full reign, a free for all. No one else knew."

I could feel them, the lies, curling around my throat like a noose, but I had no choice. 

Harry's expression hardened, his brows knitting together as frustration flickered across his face. "You don't get it, do you? You just let them see you as an easy target to capture. You made yourself look weak."

My heart thundered in my chest, but I held my ground, refusing to let his words dismantle the resolve I had so carefully forged. 

He wasn't there. 

He didn't know. 

"That wasn't my intention, Harry. I was caught by surprise, I wasn't—"

"Excuses," he interrupted, his tone sharp enough to cut through the tension. "You think they see you as anything but an easy in? Riddle, Nott, Malfoy, Zabini—they're laughing at you. You literally walked right into the trap. They're watching, waiting for you to make the next move, and you think that makes you strong? That you survived?"

My jaw tightened, the air between us crackling with the weight of his accusations. 

"I didn't have a choice!"

"And now?" Harry leaned forward, his voice barely above a whisper, thick with intensity. "What do you think they say behind your back? They don't see a formidable opponent. They see someone who could easily be overcome again. They're waiting for you to stumble so they can finish what they started."