Who: Millicent, NPCs What: a mother attempting to talk to her daughter. When: Tuesday Where: Azkaban Warnings: angst, violence, implied NPC death. Status: Complete log
Millicent had been avoiding her mother, except for an occasional check to make sure that the woman was still unrecognizable. Their looks were the only link from her mother to Millicent; that was something, at least. The Muggle woman that had been tricked by her father and bore his child no longer had the Bulstrode name, and no one would expect the mother of a Death Eater to end up in Azkaban. No one was looking for her, she had been forgotten by the wizarding world for a long time.
Millicent had not forgotten, ever, but she'd put her mother out of her mind for years. Now, it was impossible, despite her best efforts. If she managed to forget for a while, she ended up walking down the hallway, catching sight of the crumpled form on the floor of the cell. A form that no one recognized except for her.
It was starting to drive her mad. Occasionally she decided to do something about it, made up her mind to kill her own mother, and chickened out before she actually got to the cell.
She'd gotten all the way to the cell this time, had opened it, closed it behind her. She wasn't going to leave the cell until she'd done it. She lifted the wand, swallowing hard.
Why was it so hard? Millicent had killed before, she'd killed for nothing at all, on orders and without orders. She was a murderer, she'd reveled in that, in the power she felt when she held the lives of others in her hands. It was the only power she'd craved in a very long time.
She wasn't powerful, though. She had an instinct to submit, to be guided, to give others power over her. So long as they could establish that they were higher on the hierarchy than she was, she allowed herself to be theirs. Her father's fault, probably, since he had never been satisfied until she was submissive and cringing, bullied into a corner.
She had no instinct to submit to her mother's will; this was something different. Maybe it was because her mother was the only other person in the world who understood what her situation had been like, who had been under her father's thumb. But she hadn't become the same kind of person he was, a bully, seizing power over others to make himself feel better.
Millicent ignored that thought as soon as it surfaced. She wasn't a bully. Her actions were by and large directed by others, first by her housemates in school, now by the Dark Lord. A powerful instrument of destruction, that was what she was. Smart people had recognized her as such and used her accordingly, and she liked her life like that. It came with enormous satisfaction, as she proved herself over and over again.
She didn't know how long she'd been standing there doing nothing, willing herself to take the power into her own hands, to obey the orders of her own willpower, to act for her own good. She'd been trying to talk herself into it, and what had she ended up with? Nothing.
Then she heard it. Just a soft sound at first, at the edges of her consciousness, and then the prisoner covered her face in her hands and cried.
Salazar, Millicent hated snifflers and criers. Yet, no hatred was surfacing inside her; her instinct was to run and hide.
"My baby," came the soft whisper. "Millicent. I named you."
"Quiet," Millicent said harshly, her voice startling the both of them with its volume.
Her mother did not listen to the command, however. "He made me love him," she said. "He tricked me. I don't know how, but I -- he never tricked me into loving you."
"Shut up," Millicent said, her voice becoming hoarse, growing higher. "Shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up!"
Her wand came down, slicing through the air; she didn't really know what spell she'd intended to cast. It came out as a simple blast, sending her mother back hard against the wall, her shackles pulling taut against the ground and jerking her arms out of their sockets. She dissolved into incoherent sounds of pain and then passed out from it, head lolling against the floor.
Millicent stomped out of the cell and grabbed a passing guard, too numb to care what he thought of her request right now. Better that he think her weak than realize who it was in the cell. "Kill her," she said hoarsely. "That one. Finish her off."
She couldn't do it herself, but she felt a combination of nausea and relief when the man nodded and headed into the cell. Then she left, and made it out onto the island, to the dock, before vomiting into the sea.