❝𝐈 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐨 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝.❞
Jupiter Black has been isolated from the outside world her entire life up until the age of thirteen. During a duel with her mother, Jupiter tragically witnesses her death and flees from...
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𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 9
DARKNESS PULLS AT ME LIKE AN OCEAN TIDE, heavy and relentless. I am floating in it, weightless, lost in a void where time does not exist. Then, suddenly, I am again. My eyes snap open, but they are not my eyes. The world around me is muted, distant, as if I'm seeing it through a veil of glass.
I am inside her. Inside the projection. The perfect, hollow shell of myself that Voldemort believes to be real.
The air is thick with the scent of damp earth and rotting leaves. The Forbidden Forest stretches out endlessly around us, twisted trees and thick mist swallowing the world whole. I feel the weight of my body—her body—but it is wrong, unfamiliar. My limbs move with a strange fluidity, too perfect, too calculated. I am not breathing; I am mimicking breath. And yet, even now, he doesn't see it.
Voldemort stands before me, tall and skeletal, his face pale and stretched like thin parchment over bone. His red eyes burn through me, unblinking, searching. There is something possessive in the way they linger, in the way his lips curl at the corners in a semblance of a smile that never quite reaches his hollow face. He tilts his head, watching me as if he's looking through me, but he doesn't know. Not yet.
"My most faithful," he murmurs, his voice smooth and quiet, yet it slithers over my skin like something vile, something unseen but felt. He reaches out, fingers hovering just above my cheek, and for a moment, I think he knows. That he's finally realised. But then he lowers his hand. "You have been... distant." I force the projection to smile. It is soft, docile. Perfect. "I would never be distant from you, my Lord." The words are easy, instinctive. Lies I have learned to weave too well.
He watches me for a long moment, eyes narrowing. "No," he murmurs, almost to himself. "You would not." But he is thinking. I can see it in the way his fingers twitch, the way his gaze lingers on my face, searching for something he cannot name. He feels it, doesn't he? Somewhere, deep within his fractured soul, he senses the truth scratching at the edges of his mind.
I watch him carefully, knowing that even now—especially now—he must not see the cracks. Not yet. Not until it's too late.
He paces slowly around me, his robes whispering against the forest floor, his presence suffocating. "Your loyalty has been unwavering," he muses, though his tone lacks warmth. It never had warmth to begin with. "Even when others failed me." His eyes flick to the figure standing just behind him, and I feel the projection's breath catch, even though it means nothing. My mother.
She stands perfectly still, a mirror of the woman I once knew—dark, elegant, untouchable. Her eyes are hollow but cold, her lips pressed into that same composed line. But now I know. Now I see. Voldemort turns to me, and something dark and gleeful dances across his face.
"I must confess," he says, his voice taking on a sick amusement, "I did enjoy watching her die." The words sink into me like a dagger, even though I already knew the truth in the deepest, most twisted parts of my mind.
"She was loyal," I say, my voice steady. The projection speaks without hesitation. "She was devoted to you, my Lord." A sharp, hollow laugh escapes him. "Yes, she was." His gaze drifts back to her, and something terrible flickers behind his eyes. "But you, my dear, you are something else entirely."
He reaches out again, and I force myself not to recoil as his fingers trail along my cheek—no, her cheek. His touch is feather-light but cold, lingering in a way that makes my skin crawl from within this hollow shell. His red eyes bore into me, drinking me in like a prize, and I wonder how much of his obsession is power and how much is possession.
"You are mine, Jupiter," he whispers, a dark promise woven into every syllable. "You always will be." And I smile. Because I know something he does not.
He steps away, gesturing towards my mother, and for the first time, I see it—the flicker in the air around her, the subtle, ghost-like shimmer that betrays the illusion.
"Watch closely," he instructs, his lips curling into something that might have been a smile if he were still human. "See what you truly are." And then, with a wave of his wand, my mother fades. It is slow at first—her edges blurring, the sharp lines of her face dissolving into mist. And then, like smoke caught in a breeze, she vanishes, piece by piece, until there is nothing. Nothing at all.
I do not move. I do not break. But inside, something cold and sharp tightens around my chest. "Did you truly think I would let anyone stand beside me?" Voldemort says, his voice almost gentle, almost pitying. "Did you think I would allow love to exist in my shadow?" I force my projection to nod, my voice smooth. "No, my Lord." He watches me closely. "You have always been strong," he murmurs, his voice dipping into something lower, something darker.
"But your mind... your mind was weak." And suddenly, I know. Dumbledore. Harry. All those times they believed he was the Horcrux, all those moments when they searched for something inside him that wasn't there. Because it was me.
Because my mind—broken, twisted, tampered with—projected Harry as the Horcrux. A desperate, unconscious defence against the truth buried deep inside me. I had fooled them all, even myself, building a lie so intricate that even Voldemort had been deceived.
Even now, he believes this illusion, this empty shell, is me. And he will, until it is too late. I force the projection to step closer to him, to lower my gaze in submission. "I exist only to serve you, my Lord." His smile is thin, satisfied. "Yes," he breathes, his fingers ghosting over my arm. "You do."
But inside, I am screaming. I am burning. And I will not stop until I destroy him.
˓𓄹 ࣪˖ ⋆ ࣪. ˖ ࣪⭑
1046 Words
A/N- did you guys see it coming? Theodora was a projection all along...
