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x. Stuck In The Hourglass
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THE NEXT DAY, after Thea has said goodbye to Dean, she, Harry, Ron and Hermione are ready to leave. Thea's hands are knotted, and her stomach squirms uncomfortably. She really doesn't want to do this, but she can see the discomfort in Hermione's tired face.

"I'll...be her, Hermione."

Their eyes snap to her in surprise.

After Thea's... moment last night, Hermione had firmly told her that it was too much for her to be Bellatrix, and Thea, in her hazy state as a result of one too many cups of wine, had agreed. She doesn't want to do it, at all, even now she's as sober as she could possibly be, but she swallows the apprehension down.

"I thought we decided it was too much for you?" Ron asks.

She can see they're worried, and rather reluctant. The wind blows her hair in her face from the open window, and she's glad for its hiding of her complete terror.

"I can handle it, I'll be fine. It makes sense that I'd play the Death Eater anyway, right?" Thea asks rhetorically, and rather wryly, as the others frown, and make their way out of the cottage and into the garden, from where they'll Disapparate.

Before she can change her mind, she forces down the thick, writhing potion, that has turned darker since they added the single, curled hair. It's bitter and sour, and it takes everything in her not to spit it right back out. She can feel the skin on her hands tightening and blanching, her hair shooting back up as it curls and she tugs on a strand of it, watching in horror as it morphs from its usual golden blonde into a rich black.

It's so much like Jude's that she wants to rip it from her scalp, but she distracts herself by pulling on the musty, ancient robes they had picked up from Grimmauld Place before she can dwell on him, pushing Bellatrix's and her own wand into a pocket on the inside.

She ducks her head every time she passes a mirror. Knocking twice on the goblin's door to let him know they're ready to leave, she strides ahead when he emerges, lightening her footsteps as she passes the living room where Dean is fast asleep so as not to wake him, then finally spots the others on a sand dune not too far out.

When she reaches them, she notices the others are ready in their disguises. Hermione's hair is now short and red, and finishes at her chin, while her eyes are a startling hazel and her nose is pointed and rather long. Ron's chin is hidden by a short, dark beard, and his nose has been shortened rather drastically. Harry's holding the Invisibility Cloak, and she notices now that she's taller than him. She doesn't like it. She's normally around ten inches shorter than him, and she loves it because she can tuck right into him when she hugs him.

"This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me," Thea says.

"Fair enough," Ron replies, as the goblin climbs onto Harry's back and Hermione covers them with the Cloak.

They stride ahead, just out of the Fidelius Charm, where Thea takes Hermione's hand and they turn on the spot, being sucked away from the calmness of the sea and back into the war that's been playing in the sand outside the whole time they'd been there.

Thea stumbles a little as they land in a street packed with Muggles, whose faces she can't make out due to the early morning gloom surrounding them.

Thea feels a little more elated at the fact that it's May, though. It should get lighter around eleven, and the sun's rays will warm her now.

There are only a handful of wizards in the Leaky Cauldron. The last time Thea was here properly was when she was twelve, and she and her mother had gone to meet her grandmother. It was the first time Thea decided she hated Butterbeer.

"Madame Lestrange."

Thea's eyes narrow into a scowl at Tom, the landlord, and he scuttles back behind his counter.

They make their way towards the brick wall and Thea taps Bellatrix's wand in the correct pattern, watching the spinning and rattling bricks as they form the opening and the familiar street of Diagon Alley sinks into view. A sharp, nasty feeling seizes her at the gloominess of it all, and for the first time, she spots Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. She doesn't smile, or beg to go in as she wants to. She lifts her head, chin pointed up, and strides ahead, shoving Bellatrix's wand as far down as it will go in her pocket.

Undesirable Number One and Two are the words plastered above hers and Harry's faces on thousands of posters, stuck onto boarded up shops and leering from windows. The terror starts to coil back around her ribs like a thick fog.

She's about to round a corner and she's sure they're about three turns and four long stretches of pavement away from Gringotts, when someone stumbles in front of her, his hoarse voice full of fury directed at her.

"My children! Where are my children? What has he done with them? You know, you know!"

"Do I?"

Thea's about to push him aside. She really does hate this. When she hears the lack of care that fills her voice, something heavy clogs up her lungs. The lack of care she speaks with is so hard to produce, that it provides her a little strange comfort. She's not bad, is she? Or else this would be easy, wouldn't it?

Then, a tight, hard grip clings to her neck, just for a moment, before her wand is out of her pocket again, and she Stuns him so hard he must fly about two seconds in the air before he clutters to the ground, a heap of straggly limbs and guttural sobs.

They carry on, when another man approaches her, one she recognises with a surge of anger. The DEATH EATER scar on her arm seems to spring to life, writhing and burning.

"Why, Madame Lestrange!"

Thea raises her eyebrows. "Travers. How are you?"

"Well, I confess I am surprised to see you out and about, Bellatrix."

"Really? Why?"

"Well, I heard that the inhabitants of Malfoy Manor were confined to the house, after the...ah, escape."

Thea's heart drops. Draco.

"And why would that apply to me? I am the Dark Lord's most faithful and loyal follower, everyone knows that much."

Travers seems rather amused. "Not just that, Bellatrix. They spotted your lad the other day in Hogsmeade, skulking around, probably up to something behind our backs I suppose, now he's been under the radar for a while. Not going to be pretty for him now he's been seen, is it? Only a matter of time before we actually catch him. Had a bit of a thing for Potter's girl, didn't he?"

Thea is so rattled, so stunned for a moment that she freezes, unable to speak.

"So he is alive then?" she asks, her face twisted into something like disdain, she hopes.

"Ay," Travers says, nodding, before frowning at Ron and Hermione. "Who are your friends? I do not recognise them."

"This is Dragomir, and Daria Despard," she gestures to Ron and Hermione respectively. "They speak very little English, but they are in sympathy with the Dark Lord's aims. They have travelled here from Transylvania to see our new regime."

The pair nod their heads once at Travers, who turns back to Thea.

"So what brings you and – your sympathetic friends to Diagon Alley this early?"

"If you must know, I need to go to Gringott's."

"I must say, you're rather spiky today, aren't you? But alas, I also need to go to Gringott's. Gold, filthy gold! We cannot live without it, yet I confess I deplore the necessity of consorting with our long-fingered friends. Shall we?"

Thea's tempted to roll her eyes, but she resists, matching her step with Travers, her heart thumping all the way into her mouth as they reach the huge, glinting doors.

Thea meets eyes with one of the security wizards on the top marble step, handling a glimmering golden rod, and although she was expecting this, as Griphook had told them about the new tight security measures, she feels a slight shiver ripple down her back.

Thea goes to follow after Travers as he is allowed through the doors, but the guard raises his hand. "One moment, Madam."

"Why are you doing that again?" Thea snaps, staring down at the Probity Probe, Travers had called it, as it scans over her.

"Yeah, you've just checked them, Marius."

Thea swallows the panic flaring in her, her fist clenched by her side. She finds herself scanning her memory of Bellatrix, and tries to employ the blunt sharpness that oozes from her, by flicking her wild shock of curls over her shoulder in indignance and striding ahead into the building.

She attempts to put blinkers up in her mind against the terror she's feeling in case they get caught, channelling Lyra's poise and cold, demanding elegance, and mixing it with Bellatrix's ruthless, effortless arrogance. In her peripheral vision, she can sense the goblins looking up from their work, but she doesn't acknowledge a single one of them, and carries on her sweeping gait up to the front desk, where Travers already stands, being handed a key.

After ten seconds, Ron and Hermione fall beside her on her left, and she thinks a breeze picks up by her right as Harry and Griphook stand there. If she listens hard enough, she can hear Harry breathe.

"Madame Lestrange –"

"I would like to get into my vault."

Thea enunciates every word, in the same way that Bellatrix does, daring to be challenged. She hates how well she does it, and she hates the way the goblin trembles.

"You have...identification?"

"You're asking me for identification?" Thea snarls, but her entire body seems to quiver in realisation.

"Your wand will do, Madam."

It's like she's just been doused in icy water the second it dawns on her that they'll know Bellatrix's wand was stolen. Surely they know. She's about to throw some sort of tantrum to buy them all more time as her mind whirls between their scarce options, when she hears Harry mutter something she doesn't catch, and the goblin seems to pause for a moment, as though he's struck by a trance.

The Imperius Curse.

Her fingers tremble as she pulls out Bellatrix's wand and passes it to them.

"Ah, you have had a new wand made, Madam Lestrange!"

Thea pauses for a moment, unsure of what to say. Harry must pick up on it, because after seconds, the goblin changes the subject.

"I shall need the Clankers," the goblin at the desk tells a younger goblin he had summoned, who disappears and returns almost immediately with a bag that gives out a metallic chorus as he passes it to the first goblin.

"Good, good! So, if you will follow me, Madam Lestrange. I shall take you to your vault."

Thea offers Travers a departing nod and they make their way after the goblin.

"Wait! Bogrod!"

Thea's heart leaps into her throat again.

"We have instructions. Forgive me, Madame Lestrange, but there have been special orders regarding the vault of Lestrange."

Thea narrows her eyes at the goblins, the new goblin whispering furiously into Bogrod's ear.

"I haven't got all day," Thea says bitterly, folding her arms across her chest as though keeping her heart within a cage it's trying to beat itself out of.

"I am aware of the instructions. Madame Lestrange wishes to visit her vault...very old family...old clients...this way, please."

Thea bites her lip so hard she feels the skin break under her teeth as she makes her way after the goblin. The clanging from whatever metallic thing hides within the bag seems to get louder and louder, growing with the dread blossoming across her pounding chest. It takes everything within her to stop the vomit crawling into her throat.

She is so glad Lyra taught her how to make her own masks. She never has to remove one and swap it. They're all there, right under her skin, ready for their performance, whenever she demands them.

"We're in trouble, they suspect," Harry says quickly as he pulls the Invisibility Cloak from himself and Griphook, who leaps from Harry's back. Thea relaxes at the sight of him, without those long, sharp fingers tangled around his neck. "They're Imperiused."

Thea is a little startled to see Travers amongst them, but keeps her face uncomfortably out of place, to mirror the contempt Bellatrix never seems to stop feeling.

"I don't think I did it strongly enough, I don't know..."

Thea's tempted to tell him that's a good thing, but she's worried her guts and internal organs will spill out of her if she opens her mouth. So she keeps it firmly shut until Ron says, "Shall we get out now while we still can?"

"No, we can't! This is our only chance!" she says firmly.

"We've got this far, I say we go on," Harry agrees with her, giving her a small nod.

"Good! So, we need Bogrod to control the cart; I no longer have the authority. But there will not be room for the wizard."

"Imperio!" Harry points his wand at Travers, who turns around and sets off on a lively walk.

"What are you making him do?"

"Hide," Harry replies, pointing his wand at Bogrod, who whistles.

A small cart appears before them, its wheels a lot creakier than is comforting to Thea; they don't drown out the loud shouting from upstairs, and her body is plagued by shivers again. The long, thick curls sitting on her arms make her skin crawl, and she wants to tear them out again, itching for her own body back.

Thea's basically on Ron and Harry's knees as the four of them squeeze into the back, Bogrod and Griphook in the front. Her hand grips onto the edge of the cart so hard she feels the blood drain from it as they speed and turn so sharply, whiplash finds a home in her neck.

The descent starts a fluttering in her stomach, and the cave-like walls blur past her, so close to them she's worried they're closing in around them, ready to suck them in, ready for them to be caught, then chucked into Azkaban, slandered as dirty little thieves in the Prophet.

Thea thinks she hears the rushing sound of water and Griphook lets out a bellow of "No!", that fires the nerves back up within her. She's about to shout back, but her voice is replaced by a mouthful of freezing water, that stings her wide-open eyes that she didn't have time to close. 

They cascade out of the cart, and the only thing she can register other than the icy water clinging to her is Hermione's voice shouting a spell, that breaks their harsh fall and allows them to drop like feathers onto the uneven ground.

"C-Cushioning Charm," Hermione coughs; Thea lets out a yelp at the sight of her friend's usual dark, curls stuck to her dripping face, as Ron, completely himself, helps her up.

Her fingers immediately jump to her own sopping hair, and the panic swells her up like a hot-air balloon when she pulls it in front of her eyes, to find it blonde.

"The Thief's Downfall! It washes away all enchantment, all magical concealment! They know there are impostors in Gringott's, they have set off defences against us!" Griphook exclaims, but Thea is barely listening; her hand flies to her neck, her heart only settling a little when she finds that her father's locket and his letters are still there.

"Harry, I think I can hear people coming! Protego!"

Hermione casts her wand, and a Shield Charm billows out behind them and up the tunnel. If Thea wasn't so riddled with fear, she'd smile fondly at her friend's quick thinking.

"Good thinking. Lead the way, Griphook!" Harry says, as they follow behind the goblin.

Despite the unease churning her blood into a curdled mess, Thea is relieved to be back in her own body, even though the robes drown her and she trips over them more than she'd like to admit.

"Diffindo," she mutters quietly at the front of the black fabric, so it tears itself gently from just below her knee.

The cool air in the tunnel shoots up her bare legs and chills them to the bone, but at least she's not going to fall and break her neck anymore.

"How are we going to get out again?" Ron asks.

"Let's worry about that when we have to," Harry mutters.

Thea wants to tell him that is quite possibly the worst idea, but it'll get them nowhere but an argument, so she licks her lips that are suddenly dry, like her mouth that feels like it's been paved with dust. The anxiety is a flame in her body, and she's hot now, despite the shivering mess the waterfall has left her.

"Griphook, how much further?" Harry asks.

"Not far, Harry Potter, not far..."

Thea knows that heat, the one that hits her square in the face when they round the corner.

She knows magical fire is stronger than natural, with a sinister, sharper darkness that fights with the light; it chars and leaves its victim to smoulder once it's gone, leaves them colder and rougher, and it burns away all the edges a human's supposed to have to make way for the monster it wants them to be.

That's the theory, anyway.

Thea knows first hand that it left her to the wolves of cold, the ones who stare her out like fresh meat, always ready to strike but they never do, so she's always waiting, always anticipating the pain that never comes...it's a clever little torture, she thinks, if you're into that sort of thing.

That clever little torture is what she sees when her eyes land on the dragon before them, its scales bloody and tight against its heaving, white chest. There are chains on its ankles and Thea's sure it doesn't have enough room to spread its wings.

"Good lord," Thea mutters, just as the dragon opens its mouth and a blast of inferno leaves it, that they just manage to escape by sprinting back up the passageway.

"It is partially blind, but even more savage for that. However, we have the means to control it. It has learned what to expect when the Clankers come. Give them to me."

Thea takes one of the strange metal instruments when they're passed around. It's cool against her skin, and she can't help but hate it.

"You know what to do. It will expect pain when it hears the noise: it will retreat, and Bogrod must place his palm upon the door of the vault."

Thea cringes when the shrieking of the Clankers fills her ears and brain and echoes terribly within her. She can only manage to shake her own Clanker feebly, keeping her eyes trained firmly ahead of her when the scarlet on the dragon slips into her vision. She doesn't want to think about where it got those deep gashes.

"Make him press his hand to the door!"

Thea watches as Harry points his wand at Bogrod, and the goblin moves like a robot, his hand planting against the door, which slithers away from an opening not unlike a cave's.

Gold and silver dazzle her, while bottles of eerie potions and pelts of unfamiliar animals and creatures unnerve her as they enter Bellatrix's vault. Thea feels the bile rise up her throat again.

"Search, fast!"

Her interpretation of Harry's description of Hufflepuff's cup is burned into her brain. She scrambles away from the entrance, her wand firmly in her grip, the tip alight. Excitement flares up within her at the sight of any kind of goblet, but every time she gets near to it, it dies down. None of them are dainty and gold, with Hufflepuff's badger, and at the same time, nothing has the eagle of Ravenclaw. The longer they stay there, the more Thea starts to feel trapped, a small amount of dread sticking stubbornly in her belly.

"Shit!" she hisses, when she knocks a large silver bowl and it multiplies, replicas springing from it, and falling against the bare skin of her legs. It sizzles and all she can taste in her mouth is acid, the contents of her stomach precariously balanced in her throat. She wants to scream out at the memories the burning sensation brings, more so than the physical agony.

"It's there, it's up there!"

Thea whirls around, her wand falling on the same spot as the other three's. There, on a ledge, sits a tiny, trophy-like shape, gold and glinting like the sun, and Thea can make out the engraved badger if she squints her eyes. She feels light and heavy, all at the same time, as Ron voices her thoughts.

"And how the hell are we going to get up there without touching anything?"

"Accio cup!"

Thea resists the urge to roll her eyes.

"No use, no use!" Griphook snaps behind her.

Time turns tangible around her; she can feel it slip through their fingers, and she envisions them all trapped in the bottom of an hourglass, the sand moments away from smothering them all, as Bellatrix presses her hollow, gloating face against the glass, sneering at them.

"Then what do we do? If you want the sword, Griphook, then you'll have to help us more than – wait! Can I touch stuff with the sword? Hermione, give it here!"

Thea watches Hermione plunge her arm into her beaded bag. It goes right the way up to her shoulder, before the glinting, red and silver sword appears for a second before Harry snatches it from Hermione, pressing it against a small treasure beside him, which, to Thea's sheer joy, doesn't multiply.

"If I can just poke the sword through a handle – but how am I going to get up there?"

It's now that Thea feels everything within her body start to writhe in the heat, like it's slowly roasting. She can make out Ron and Hermione's terrified expressions through the haze lifting from the treasure surrounding them. Her ears pick up the screams from the dragon, and the familiar clanging and shouting of goblins, and once again, they're trapped in the hourglass, and only their eyes are uncovered, and the sand trickles into their starved lungs...

"Hermione. I've got to get up there, we've got to get rid of it –"

"Levicorpus."

Thea doesn't recognise the spell, but its effects send another wave of sickness gushing through her body, as Harry is plucked from the sea of shining objects into the air, the treasure he knocks into bursting into a collection of replicas and clattering into the rising golden and silver that's reaching their waists now.

A plate, engraved with some kind of crest catches her cheek, and she hears it sear into her skin. She screams out, ripping it from her and shivering at the sound of her flesh tearing. She knows it'll leave a nasty mark, but she forgets about it almost as soon as she thinks it, her eyes desperately searching for Harry.

She finds him just as the sword's end slips through the handle of the cup, and she hears a slight screech as it slides down the blade. She watches Griphook fall out of sight, and tries her best to stride over to him to pull him back to the surface. That's when an almost inhuman scream breaks through her throat, as hundreds more glowing-red cups and trinkets and cutlery sets spring into being around her and another wave of piercing heat with the intensity of her old curse attack her.

Her eyes barely manage to follow the goblin, that Harry snatches from the treasure; she watches with a rage brewing within her as the goblin seizes the sword with the cup still on the end of it. She's about to dive herself for it, when Harry reaches it first, and her first instinct is to fight towards the exit, that is now thick with furious goblins, waving daggers at them.

Glancing over her shoulder, she can see the others falling over the treasure after her, and her hand reaches for Harry's arm to help pull him from the wreck around them. She pulls her wand out and sends Stunning Spells into the knot of goblins screaming, "Thieves, thieves!" at them, just as Harry does.

Her heart clenches as flashes of wizard guards blur across her eyes.

"Relashio!"

Thea's eyes fly open wide as Harry sends a Revulsion Jinx at the cuffs and chains around the dragon's ankles. She's about to ask him what in the name of Merlin he's doing, when he bellows, "This way!", and all she can do is follow after him in a striking mix of blind trust and adrenaline.

"Harry – Harry – what are you doing?"

"Get up, climb up, come on –"

Thea doesn't feel like she's controlling her body when she jumps onto the dragon after Harry; she's glad, because it means she has no time to acknowledge the bricks of fear slotting into every crevice of her body, or be back in the hourglass.

As she digs her hands into the leathery, rough skin of the dragon, it takes off, and she barely has time to account for the others and calm the sudden panic that they've been left behind, when the creature's huge wings fling out and it takes off, crashing up through the passage that presses hard against Thea's back.

"We'll never get out, it's too big!"

Thea keeps her eyes shut, as the walls seem to crush against her and all she's aware of is the heat churning in the air around her.

She's back in the hourglass.

Hermione's voice breaks through the sand filling her mouth and ears and eyes.

"Defodio!"

Thea opens one eye and notices the cave's edge carving away, and puts the pieces together in her mind that Hermione is helping the dragon break out of the passage.

Her heart swells with admiration for the girl, and the screams and shouts of rage from below are as low as whispers now, until she drowns them out completely by joining Hermione and the boys in crumbling the walls.

The hourglass walls shatter into millions of pieces as they finally burst out of Gringotts, and Thea heaves in the fresh air, that douses her grateful, scalded skin as they burst into Diagon Alley.

She dares herself to watch London unfold, tiny and grey and green below them, and her hands start to tingle. She's holding onto the dragon's scales so hard that the feeling and the blood drain from them. All she can think about is the loud beating of the dragon's wings, and reality seems to flood into her.

They're on a dragon.

Hundreds – thousands – of feet in the air.

Shit.

She can hear Hermione crying out, and Ron swears so loudly she hears ever syllable every time, as the sky above them melts into a dark orange, splotches of purple tendrils cutting through it. It's one of the most beautiful sights she's seen in a while, and if she weren't on a dragon millions of feet in the air, she might be smiling. If her hands and arms didn't feel like they were going to drop off with exhaustion, she might be smiling.

"Is it my imagination, or are we losing height?" Thea hears Ron bellow, just as she feels an uncomfortable, gaping growl from the empty space in her starving stomach.

Sure enough, lakes that look like puddles when she first sees them grow larger, and just as Thea can make out the deep shade of blue, Harry calls out.

"I say we jump when it gets low enough!"

"Good idea!" Thea calls back, and just as she can make out the crests of tiny waves lashing against the grassy shores, Harry shouts, "NOW!"

Her heart hammers hard against her freezing chest as she lets her cramped hands pull from the dragon's skin, and slips from its body. She's falling for at least five seconds before her feet break the surface of the tide and she's pulled into its icy grips, the water feeling like knives as she hits it. Her eyes are screwed shut, but the waving reeds underneath her threaten to keep her prisoner in the murky depths, as she kicks as hard as she can to freedom, to air.

The world comes into high focus around her, and the freezing cold air and bright blue sends her dizzy. As soon as she has found the others, they start to swim as best they can against the current, towards the bank opposite to the one the dragon has landed on to drink from the lake. It's not long before only thick mud and trodden weeds coil around her feet, and with a great effort, she pulls herself onto the dry grass, heaving and panting along with the others. Hermione falls to the ground.

She can make out the harsh, raw scalds on their skin, and she's suddenly full of dull pains, but to her luck, the cool whips of sky from the dragon flight and the coldness of the lake has soothed the worst of it.

"Well, on the upside, we got the Horcrux. On the down side –"

" – no sword."

"No sword, that double-crossing little scab," Ron says, as Harry takes the Horcrux from his pocket. "At least we can't wear it this time, that'd look a bit weird hanging around our necks."

"What'll happen to it, do you think? Will it be alright?" Hermione asks, as they all find the dragon drinking from the lake, miles and miles away.

"You sound like Hagrid. It's a dragon, Hermione, it can look after itself. It's us we need to worry about."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I don't know how to break this to you, but I think they might have noticed we broke into Gringott's."

Thea exchanges a look with Harry, and laughter takes root in them all, hoarse and tired but a lovely sound that makes flowers grow in the burnt-away gaps of Thea's heart.

"What are we going to do, though? He'll know, won't he? You-Know-Who will know we know about his Horcruxes?"

"Maybe they'll be too scared to tell him? Maybe they'll cover up what happened?"

"Well, they are spineless little bastards, so that wouldn't surprise me – Harry?"

The flowers adorning Thea's ribs wilt, as she watches him writhe a little on the ground, his face screwed up and his fists clenched. She knows he's been pulled into the clenches of Voldemort's mind, and she hates this part of the whole thing more than anything.

"He knows. He knows, and he's going to check where the others are, and the last one is at Hogwarts. I knew it. I knew it."

"What?"

Thea feels it as Harry speaks, telling them how frightened and furious Voldemort is. It starts in her feet, and slithers like a snake through every part of her. The hourglass is back, only this time, she's not in it. She's chained to it, its weight following her wherever she goes. It's starting. She can feel it.

"We'll go to Hogsmeade and try to work something out once we see what the protection around the school's like. Get under the Cloak, Hermione, I want to stick together this time."

Thea takes Harry's hand as they're all covered, Hermione's protests a dull ring in her ear. As she takes his hand, Lyra's words, Jude's words, all echo through her mind as they turn on the spot, the lake around them jolting into silent black. You'd rather be the prey, just to hold his hand.

And here she is, letting herself be the prey tohold his hand, and the thought doesn't make her want to let go, but hold tighter.