There is Always a Choice

Chapter Six: Confined to the stinking limits of hell

Author’s Notes: This is the summer between fifth and sixth. It is short, but I believe you all will enjoy it. Or mindlessly hate it since it’s not Tallie-Draco-Harry getting together and defeating Bellatrix in a blaze of glory. Though I have pictured that and have been itching to write it— believe it or not, this story actually has a plot! And it will be written! And I’m rambling…enjoy the chapter! Reviews are welcome.

There is Always a Choice

Chapter VI: Confined to the stinking limits of hell

“Evil is a point of view. We are immortal. And what we have before us are the rich feasts that conscience cannot appreciate and mortal men cannot know without regret. God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately He takes the richest and the poorest, and so shall we; for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves, dark angels not confined to the stinking limits of hell but wandering His earth and all its kingdoms.” – Anne Rice

“You have to feel it! Just as I told precious Potter, you have to want it!” Bellatrix screams in her ear, bringing her from her trance. Tallie blinks the blood from her eyes to stare at the terrified face of Peter Pettigrew. Could she want it? She had to, if she didn’t want a personal lesson once more. A month of training. A month of learning the sickest curses, the most damnable potions known to man and other creatures. Writhing on the floor for hours under various tortures. Watching others do the same until they die or go insane or beg for death. Watching proud humans become reduced to nothing. Watching innocent animals and magical creatures slaughtered in boredom.

Doing half of the work that gets them to that state.

So that brought her back to the question. Did she want it? Did she want to cause him the pain that was the Cruciatus Curse? Could she handle the screams ripping from his throat, as they had ripped from hers? Could she handle seeing his body twitch and tense from the effects of the curse, whilst knowing them personally herself?

He had betrayed Harry and his family. Lovely Kiana Potter had died that night protecting her innocent nephew. Thus marking Harry as the only one to defeat that evil bastard.

Could she do it? Did she want it?

Yes.

Her lids shutter close once more as the answer reverberates throughout her entire body. This one unforgivable, she could do. It might sate Bellatrix’s lust for her to accomplish all three immediately.

“Crucio” And so it began again.

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“I cannot help you if you do not try to accept it.” Her mentor’s tone had finally risen with frustration. Tallie sat at the smooth ebony wood table, polished to mirror-perfection, and props her chin on her palms.

“I have done nothing but try, Severus. Is it so surprising that I am tired? Since day one I train with that b*tch before coming back here and eating your so-called healthy food and taking a short nap. Then I relearn everything she taught me in theory form courtesy of you along with those disgusting potions lessons. Then dinner or breakfast, depending on what side of the day the evil skank took me, and an hour of counseling/personal-thinking time and then bed.” She slams her palms flat to the wooden surface, almost startling the hook-nosed professor from his leek soup.

“Severus, I am so tired.” The young witch is a physical attribute to her words. Deep bags perpetuated her eyes with the look of the undead while her skin is sallow and lined from stress. Her long hair was short again, this time sweeping her shoulder and held back with a red headband. Her body was skinny from overexertion and exhaustion, despite Severus’ best efforts to stuff it with ‘healthy food’.