Didja Miss Me? -- Cecelia

[Elaine Lyra Dupree]

Today was the first day that Elaine was going to Hogsmeade not as the Hogs Head bar wench Anise. Instead, she had chosen the guise of Isolde Blackwell.  The woman seemingly had been shy, but she'd put up far more a fight during her brainwashing treatment.  She had had several bruises and cuts from trying to break out of the small room where Elaine had held her with the mandrake root, but in the end she broke.  They always broke, and now Elaine was Isolde's saviour, coming to her rescue after four days.  Elaine preferred this form to Anise's; Anise was far more innocent and doe-eyed looking of course, but Isolde was twenty years older, and had sharp features.  And dark hair; Elaine preferred the dark hair the Anise's blonde.
 
She had snuck into the Shrieking Shack; it had been easy of course.  All she had to do was flash her Ministry badge and sing the story that she was there to configure some details for the Second Task, and nobody looked at her twice.  As she had made her way to the Shack, she saw the girl she had been intent on seeing; Cecelia Rousseau.  Elaine was mildly surprised the girl hadn't reached out to Elaine when Desirae had died.  Surely the girl wanted to make sure that Elaine did not suspect her as the rat?  So Elaine sat in a chair in the abandoned living room and closed her eyes.  She had practiced this particularly complex spell a few times with just Isolde and Anise around, so she knew it would work this time.  She took a breath, held her wand up to her throat, and whispered.

Cecelia.  Cecelia.  This way Cecelia


@cecelia  

[Deleted]

The new year had come, and Cecelia found herself feeling surprisingly...light. She knew that the change of a calendar couldn't erase everything that happened in the last year - both of her sisters were still dead - but getting a new beginning, even an arbitrary one like this, was...nice. She was sitting in the Gryffindor common room, preparing to make her prefect rounds, when she heard it. Her name. Cecelia looked around the common room, wondering if maybe Grey was trying to sneak in and was distracting her so she wouldn't see him. Grey was nowhere to be seen, though. In fact, Cece was alone in the common room. Strange. She was about to return to whatever she had been doing, when she heard her name again, and then instructions, to follow the voice. Cecelia didn't know why, exactly, she was going to listen to a scary whisper that came to her only when she was alone and it was nearly the middle of the night, but she had to patrol anyways. What would be the harm in going into the Room of Requirement, like the voice asked?

Cecelia followed the whispers into the Room, a sense of foreboding coming over her. She ought to go to the headmaster, and tell him about the voice in her ear, in her head...but something told her that she shouldn't. If she just followed, she would be fine. Cecelia ducked into a passageway, and after walking in the dark and the damp for what felt like hours, she finally emerged into a dimly-lit shack. "Hello?"

Elaine Lyra Dupree

[Elaine Lyra Dupree]

Elaine took her wand off her throat, letting her wand sit in her lap.  She didn't need a wand for the most part of course; Alastor had been exceptional in teaching her wandless magic.  The man hadn't even been inspecting the day that she wandlessly Imperiused him, and now he was hers to command, to control.  It had been almost too easy.  And now Alastor was still running his little club; Elaine even sometimes let him think he had his own mind.  But he didn't and as long as he stayed that way, he was allowed to live.  

Alastor however was not the reason that Elaine was sitting in the dusty old shack though, and after a few minutes she could hear her reason shuffling into the Shack.  She must have come through the Room of Requirement; the Room had been known of course to create passageways to the Hogs Head, and other shops in the village.  It was not surprising to her that eventually the room would create one there.  She watched as Cecelia entered the room she was in; wordlessly, the candelabras flared up, creating a warm glow in the room.  Smiling slowly, Elaine stood up.  "Cecelia, darling.  It's been too long; did you miss me?" she asked, her voice low and dripping with an insincere sweetness.

@cecelia

[Deleted]

The moment Cecelia entered the room, it filled with light from several candelabras. The firelight cast eerie shadows every which way, but it wasn’t the shadows Cecelia was looking at. It was the woman in front of her. The face wasn’t familiar, and she spoke, the voice wasn’t either, but Cecelia knew. The knowledge throbbed within her like a second heartbeat, accompanied by spikes of fear with every contraction and expansion. Cecelia knew it wasn’t good to show fear, especially not in front of someone as powerful as Elaine, but fear was the only thing she knew, and quite frankly, it was fear that had allowed her to reach the conclusion that it was indeed Elaine Dupree who was standing in front of her. Cecelia wasn’t afraid of Elaine’s body, but of her soul, and Cecelia could feel that soul. There were other hints, too – the way she carried herself and the cadence of her voice – but in the end, it was the aura of Elaine that Cecelia couldn’t shake. “Hello, Elaine.” She said, letting out a long, slow breath to keep her voice from shaking. “I’ve been busy.” Cecelia replied in lieu of saying whether or not she missed the older girl – if she lied, Elaine would know, and if she told the truth, then Elaine would be angry. And Cecelia had been busy, first with grieving, and then with trying to get her life back.

Elaine Lyra Dupree

[Elaine Lyra Dupree]

Elaine's smile widened, and she laughed.  "Very good Cecelia, but then again you were always an observant girl," she told her.  She clapped slowly a few times, then let her hands fall to her sides.  She crossed slowly over to the Gryffindor, circling around her like a lioness stalking her prey.  "I was wondering how you were since you haven't been in touch since the death of your sister.  Strange, I'd thought that you'd want to check in since now I'm the closest thing you have to a sister."  She stopped right in front of Cecelia and crossed her arms.  "I've been doing a lot of thinking Cecelia, and there's just something that...doesn't add up.  Nobody knew where Desirae was hiding, aside from a select few people.  The Aurors are certainly not smart enough to have figured out where she was hiding, no matter what propaganda the Ministry spews.  So that leaves one option; someone told them."  She took a step closer to Cecelia, the smile gone from her face now.  "Don't you want to find out who sold your sister out to be murdered by a blonde Auror and her lackey?  Electrocuted and alone, who knows what her last thoughts were," she whispered.

@cecelia

[Deleted]

Elaine’s compliments didn’t feel like compliments to Cecelia. She knew what they were supposed to be, but it was strange to be shown any sort of kindness by a woman who would just as easily turn around and snap her neck. When Elaine started to walk in circles around her, Cecelia simply stood still, keeping her gaze facing forward. If she followed Elaine with her eyes, she would seem even more nervous than she already did. When the older girl made a comment about Cecelia not contacting her, the Gryffindor took a deep breath. “I was grieving. I do not do that well when I’m around others.” She had hidden herself away when Bay died, and she had done it to an extent when Desi did, too. There were some people whose arms she sought for comfort, but that wasn’t the same as wanting to be around people. Elaine continued on, taunting Cecelia with a graphic description of her sister’s death. Another deep breath. “I want to find who sold her out, yes.” She wanted to know who she could trust – and those weren’t the same people that Elaine was thinking of. “I know what her last thoughts were, though. Desirae would have been delighted to get to die for the cause.” At least Desirae had died for something she believed in. It was a small comfort, especially considering how vile those beliefs were, but it was a comfort nonetheless.

Elaine Lyra Dupree

[Elaine Lyra Dupree]

Elaine said nothing as Cecelia mentioned that she needed to grieve on her own, that she wasn’t good at doing that around others. “I understand, losing both your sisters in the course of a year must be incredibly hard, even if one of them was a lying little traitor. Still, she was a pureblood and for that you must grieve.” Elaine could go into Cecelia’s twins death more; she knew it was at the hands of Desirae, not that she really cared. When a traitor was revealed and named, they had to be made an example of swiftly and painfully, no matter whose family they came from. She knew the traitor in their ranks would be from a prominent pureblood family, but their name could not save them from what Elaine had in store for them. She had to run a few trials first, of course, but that could easily be arranged.

“Yes, Desirae did always want to go out swinging, that was for certain," Elaine agreed, then slowly smiled. “I’m glad to see the Vow held up until her dying breath. It means dear Cecelia, that you are not the traitor in my midst. For if you had known of Desirae’s impending doom, you would have had to transport yourself there, or die.” Elaine confessed herself disappointed if she was honest that Cecelia hadn’t been the traitor; she had never fully trusted the girl, not after her twins death. It was, after all why she had persuaded Desirae to go through with the Unbreakable Vow. “I want you to report any whispers you may hear on Desirae’s death and the circumstances surrounding it. Someone knows who the traitor is, and someone can set us on the path to their destruction.” She turned to face Cecelia again. “I shall know if you do not Cecelia, remember that,” she added, the warning clear in her voice.

@cecelia  

[Deleted]

Cecelia took a shaky breath when Elaine said that she had lost two sisters in a year. She knew that, of course, but hearing it said didn’t make it any easier. Especially when Elaine felt the need to qualify Braelynn’s death, and to call her a traitor. She and Braelynn had shared a life, up until when Bay’s life had ended, and trying to brush it off as being any less painful just because Braelynn didn’t believe in a cause that Cecelia also had faltering convictions about, was difficult.

The Gryffindor nodded when Elaine said that Desirae had wanted to go down swinging. At least now Desirae’s name would be written in blood on history’s pages. She would go down in infamy, as the right hand of a tyrant who was dispatched before her leader was. Even if Elaine’s plan somehow worked, Desi would be remembered, but in glory, as a martyr, rather than as a traitor. Elaine continued by saying that Cecelia couldn’t be a traitor, and the Gryffindor felt some of the tension in her body loosen at the phrase. “I only regret that I was not there.” Cece said quietly. She regretted that she wasn’t there to see her sister’s death, and also to beg forgiveness from Desirae’s murderer. Beg for help, beg for escape from the world she had walked into willingly, but wouldn’t be able to leave willingly. “I will tell you anything I hear.” Cecelia promised. She was half-afraid that Elaine would make her take another Vow now to cement that promise, but since there was no Binder present, Cecelia had dodged a bullet this time. “I know.” She knew that Elaine could look into her mind. That was why she never made eye contact with her, and kept all of her secrets carefully hidden where Elaine wouldn’t think to look.

Elaine Lyra Dupree

[Elaine Lyra Dupree]

Elaine nodded, taking in the fact that Cecelia was not making eye contact with her. It was a little known secret that Elaine was a Legilimens, but Cecelia was one of the few that had been made aware of due to her Unbreakable Vow with Desirae. Sadly, that had died with Desi’s demise, but there were always other ways of ensuring the final Rousseaus’ loyalty. She stepped forward and grabbed Cecelia’s chin, turning her head so the girl had no choice but to look directly into Elaine’s eyes. She skimmed the top of Cecelia’s thoughts; she saw the girl dropping a plate, her face white as Desirae’s death was revealed to her. Unfortunately, being a Legilimens could not convert the exact emotions Cecelia was feeling at that moment, but all Elaine needed to see was that she was not crying from relief or dancing around excitedly at the death of her sister.

Elaine released the girls’ chin and took a step back. “You are roommates with the Hogwarts Champion, are you not? I’m assigning you the job of figuring out a way to get any information about the upcoming Tasks you can. To my knowledge, they’re not supposed to know much beforehand, but cheating is always a custom of the Triwizard Tournament,” she said with a smirk. She took out her flask and sipped on the Polyjuice Potion within; she had been told once that the taste of the concoction was normally disgusting, but she tasted nothing when she drank it. Her disguise locked in for another hour, Elaine turned from Cecelia, waving the door open with her hand. “You may go now,” she said shortly. She turned back and waited patiently for Cecelia to leave; she wondered if the girl had thought for a moment that she was going to be taken unawares by anything. Trust no one; Desirae had held her trust, but now that she was gone, Elaine was making the conscious decision to keep her trust to herself alone.

@cecelia

short and notso sweet

[Deleted]

Cecelia almost made a noise when Elaine seized her by the chin, but was able to clamp down on the urge before squeaking and making Elaine aware of how terrified of what the older girl would find in Cecelia’s mind. She didn’t look for long, though, and since Cecelia wasn’t currently being cursed or killed, the Gryffindor could only assume that the leader of the Purifiers had been pleased with what she had seen – or at least not angered by it.

Elaine had to have known that Cecelia had never interacted with Anna Weasley in her life (the girl was a blood traitor, after all, though that meant less to Cecelia than it used to), so the Gryffindor was a little bit frustrated with being assigned the task of figuring out information about the upcoming Triwizard tasks. “If you want someone to get information on her, just get her boyfriend on your side.” She said underneath her breath. The boy was a pureblood, and he could probably be persuaded to join the cause. Cecelia didn’t say the idea fully out loud, not wanting to further Elaine’s cause any more than she had to. When she was dismissed, though, Cecelia wasted no time in leaving Elaine behind.

Elaine Lyra Dupree
(Cece out)