The Marauders: Year Six Part 2 #Wattys2017

Remember Me, Regulus

Moonlight glowed through the window of the third floor of St. Mungo's Hospital, casting a blue glow over the beds that lined the ward. The forms sleeping in each bed were lined in silver and purple shadows. A mediwitch had fallen asleep at a squat desk, and it was with great care that the coming footsteps moved silently past her, toe pointed inward to quiet the tread. A shadow poured slowly over the sleeping form of Walburga Black.

"Ennervate," a voice whispered, and a wand pressed against Walburga's chest.

With a sputtering gasp of pain, Walburga Black's eyes snapped opened and she stared up into the eyes that loomed in the darkness above her. A bottle was held aloft - a clear liquid inside - and Walburga felt a shiver of panic. 

Veritaserum.

The bottle was uncorked and lowered to her lips - there was nothing she could do about it, she realized she was under a body bind, cast silently - and she felt the liquid slip over her tongue and into her throat and hot tears trickled back from her eyelids as she imagined the danger that she was about to inflict upon her son - upon Regulus - and with no way to warn him that she, Walburga, was about to reveal their secrets.

"What is your name?" whispered her attacker.

Walburga felt compelled - controlled by the potion - to answer. She opened her mouth and the word formed upon her lips, but -- but no sound. No noise came from her throat. She tried again, still compelled by the potion, but still, nothing would come out.

The attacker's eyes narrowed, their face hidden mostly by shadow, only their eyes and the bridge of their nose was visible in a slice of the silver moonlight, the rest hidden by shadow and cloak. "I said what is your name!" the voice was more of a hiss than a whisper now.

Walburga struggled. She wanted to answer now - the potion made her want to answer so very badly, the words burned in her, the desire to tell the truth was as strong as any craving, any insane need that could obsess and take over a person - but she couldn't speak the words. They simply would not - could not - come out. No matter how her mouth moved. No matter how she tried.

"Your name!" the attacker persisted. "Dicere!" But the counter-curse for the silencing charm did not do the trick. "Dicere! Dicere!"

Walburga was gurgling, choking on her desire to speak, and her inability to, her face turning red. She was panicked internally, worried about the pain that was rising in her chest, a combination of the wartcap powder's effects and also the inability to release the sounds fighting to escape her chest. Had her voice been taken? Was this side effect of the wartcap as well? Would she go through life forever mute?

"Is somebody there?" 

The voice echoed down the ward and the attacker looked up. 

There was a hiss, and the eyes that had stared down at Walburga disappeared, the cloak pulled tighter about them, and the figure was gone, disappearing into the shadows.

The mediwitch, who had been awakened by the attacker's voice when it had risen in annoyance, came down the ward to find Walburga convulsing with the withheld words and she worked quickly to help her. But even the mediwitch was confused to why Walburga could not speak - for there was no reason that the wartcap powder should have had that effect. Even if it had gotten onto her vocal chords, which their scans of her throat had not shown any of the powder there, it should have been repaired by now... Walburga's silence was puzzling at best...

But deep, beneath the pain of the truth serum being denied, Walburga was thankful for whatever it was that kept her from saying too much.