After she was branded with the dark mark she had so despised, the rest of the death eaters apparated from the home, and Gideon wrapped his hands around Briar's forearms and dragged her up to her old bedroom. He threw her into the dark bedroom ungraciously, and she was weak still from the pain of earlier, so she skidded to her knees at his force. Briar glanced up at her "father" through her black hair that had fallen into her eyes, and she had never felt so much hate in her entire life.

With his cruel features twisted up into a sneer, he promised, "If you so much as make a plan to leave or attempt to contact someone, I will not show mercy on that boy."

Briar hated that they had figured out how to control her, but she didn't care if they considered her to be weak for this. She couldn't let him suffer. He had already suffered so much, and he didn't deserve any of it.

In response to Briar's silence, Gideon pulled Briar's confiscated wand from his pocket and snapped it in half with a sharp crack. Her spirit sunk, but her glare was unrelenting. He didn't say anything more and just slammed her door shut, casting the colloportus spell to lock her door...to keep her trapped inside this prison once more.

She sat on her floor and listened for the sound of his steps to leave her hallway, and once she was sure he was gone, she clambered to her feet and stumbled into her bathroom. She stared at herself in the mirror, and her appearance was nearly unrecognizable already. Her skin was ghastly pale and shimmering with droplets of sweat. Her black hair was frizzy on top but sticking to her skin at the nape of her neck. Her hair felt thicker than usual, and she wished she hadn't let it grow so long.

Her eyes drifted down to the darkly colored flesh on her arm, and her throat tightened. This was her worst nightmare, but she would do this for Neville until she could escape. It was all for him.

With him as her purpose for surviving this, she thought this wouldn't hurt as badly, but a cry still forced its way out of her throat. Her fingers shook as she realized that Neville would think that she had abandoned him.

What would he think when he woke up to her gone? Would he believe that she had wanted this? Would he have thought she was a monster when he found out?

She wrapped her arms around herself and sunk to the floor slowly. This situation couldn't have felt more bleak in that moment. Why was this her life? Did she do something to deserve this?

To try to calm herself down, she began to work through her coping mechanisms with her eyes closed as much as possible. Through the pain and the practices, she just kept imagining Neville holding her in a sweet embrace, and this gave her enough peace to finally fall asleep, curled up in a ball on her bathroom door with the door locked to keep the monsters out.

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