The Little Lightning Girl

7-Not an Enemy

The next day, they took James. I screamed at them to take me instead, but no matter how I yelled, they didn't even acknowledge my presence. I couldn't see as they dragged him away, but I could hear that he didn't make it easy for them. I knew they wouldn't kill me, they wanted something from me. But I had no idea if they needed anything from James. As far as I knew, they wanted him because he was Harry Potter's son. They wouldn't need to keep him alive for any information that I knew of, and it terrified me.

I understood how awful it must have been for him yesterday, because I could hear his shouts of pain from my cell. As my demigod powers worked to heal me, James was being... brutalized. The worst part was that I could hear the strikes of the whip, and couldn't help but count them. He made it to fifty two before his cries stopped, and I assumed he passed out as I had yesterday.

I heard the thud of James's body as they deposited him back in his cell and heard the men whispering to each other, "No need to spend any more time on them today, we've earned a break, haven't we?"

"Yeah I almost imagine the whipping is harder for us. Much easier to do magic, wonder why they want it done this way?"

"Dunno, mate."

Their voices faded along with their footsteps until even my ears couldn't detect anything. I leaned my shoulder against the wall between James's and my cell and waited for him to wake up.

He woke far faster than I had, and began moving around, though I could hear his groans of pain.

"James!"

He didn't hear me, and kept moving around.

"James!"

He stopped, "Alana?"

They must not have replaced the magic binding his mouth. His voice was as raspy and damaged as my own.

"Are you alright?"

A croak of half-hearted laughter, "Any chance you've got another magical song up your sleeve?"

I smiled, wishing I could see him and hold his hand, "I don't think it's a good idea. It's still light out, no one is asleep yet and I don't want them to come running."

"I didn't think of that."

"The best thing you can do is not move."

I heard him sigh, "Yeah."

Time passed slower when there was nothing to do but wait for time to pass. The small stream of sunlight from my window grew less, and darkness fell, I began to sing again, the same song. This time I tried to direct my voice, and by association my healing gifts, towards James. I had no idea if it worked or not because James had fallen asleep and therefore he couldn't give me feedback. I suppose the fact that he'd fallen asleep was feedback enough. If I strained my ears, I could hear that his breathing was steady, not labored.

I certainly couldn't sleep. It wasn't that I wasn't tired, I was more exhausted than I had ever been, but I felt like I had to... stand guard, as it were. It felt like I had to watch over James as much as I could.

The next day went in a similar fashion. They took turns torturing us, and at night when the guards were gone I sang James to sleep. I slept very little myself, a few hours at most.

This is why I was still awake on day three when someone slipped a piece of paper under the door to my cell. I scooted as far away from it as possible, hoping it wasn't rigged to explode or anything. But when it just sat there for five minutes, then ten, I figured I didn't have much to lose. I picked it up and held it up to the moonlight that poured into my cell, dusting the concrete with artful shadows. It was blank on one side but had a paragraph of writing on the other side.

In bold strokes of black ink, it read:

My name is Pietro Yahontov. I am a guard. I was forced to become a guard by my uncle. I was trained at Durmstrang. I am not your enemy.

It was then that I saw a pen(not a quill) jammed under the door, and as it hadn't exploded either, I picked it up to respond to the guard.

Hello Pietro, I am Alana. What do you want?

I shoved the paper and pen under the door but was taken aback when it was snatched quickly and I heard shuffling on the other side. I hadn't expected him to still be waiting there for my response.

But his response came, and I was quite surprised by it.

I cannot get you out, I am about as trapped as you are. But I would like to be your friend.

I paused. I could not trust this man, for all I knew he was just like every other person in this godforsaken place. But if I told him nothing, if I didn't reveal the information that they'd been trying to beat out of me this whole time... I had nothing to lose. What could they possibly do to us that was worse than what they'd already done? It was a dangerous question to ask, but I wouldn't ask it out loud.

Instead, I picked up the pen and scribbled my response on the paper. I also couldn't assume that Pietro was lying, perhaps he really meant no harm to us. I wouldn't reveal that thought either. I couldn't afford to tell people my thoughts these days.

I could use a friend. Can you do me a favor?

I slipped the paper and pen back under the door and was relieved when I heard the scratching of Pietro writing. It occured to me that Pietro might be even lonelier than I was. I at least had James, and a subtle way to communicate with him. Pietro, if he was telling the truth, had no one he could trust, no one to talk to.

His response came quickly, and was short and concise.

Anything in my power.

He couldn't afford to promise things to me that might get him killed, and I wouldn't try to force him. I had no intention of asking anything of him that would put him in grave danger.

My message wasn't quite as short, it needed some explanation.

A book? I need something to do, something else to focus on.

It was barely audible when Pietro laughed on the other side of the cell. It wasn't more than a whisper of sound, and without my gifts I wouldn't have heard it. It seemed... out of place, the sound of human joy.

Five minutes.

I smiled at the message and didn't bother to answer, as I heard soft footsteps retreating from outside my cell. I crossed my legs and waited, closer to the door than I usually sat. I hummed a tune while I waited, one that I'd never known the words to, but had always played in the back of my head whenever I tried to calm myself down. I remembered it solely because it was the song my grandmother used to hum whenever she cleaned around the house. She never sang the words, but the sweet melody had stuck with me all these years.

Probably in less than the five minutes he'd promised, Pietro returned and wedged something thicker under the bottom of my cell door. He had to open the book and smash the spine down to get it through the crack. It was a leatherbound book titled Russian for Beginners: Volume 1. I grinned at the book. Not only had Pietro given me a book as I'd requested, he'd given me something to learn, something to think about besides this endless torture.

Then he slid the same piece of paper under the door, this time with no pen.

I have to go.

I wished he'd given me the pen. I wanted to thank him, but I didn't have time to say it out loud either, because his footsteps were retreating again, and they didn't return. So I opened up that book and began to read in the dim light I managed to summon and hover above my head.