Since the moment Y/N realized how corrupted her family was, Y/N vowed to do everything in her power to be absolutely nothing like them. She was not sorted into Slytherin, and that was the first sign that she was not going to follow the death eater and blood-purity advocate path that her parents expected her to be on. In first year, the sorting hat was placed on her head and before it was completely touching her she told it inside her mind don't you dare. The hat was impressed, to this day it uses her story as an example of when family members are sorted differently. She'd worked tirelessly her entire life to be a morally good person, and her best friends the Weasley Twins knew that. Upon graduating from Hogwarts, Y/N promptly joined the Order of Phoenix, and went into pre-auror training, knowing she'd always wanted to be the person to track down her parents and all their death eater friends.

Y/N hadn't always been successful in thwarting her parents' plans however. The summer before her seventh and final year at Hogwarts, Y/N found herself in a duel with both her parents. They wanted to get her initiated into the death eaters, but Y/N did not want that at all, and she thought Voldemort knew it. They got the upper hand and used a dark spell Y/N did not know that rendered her unconscious. When Y/N woke up she was in her bed and her left arm felt like it was being burnt on its underside. She opened her eyes and looked at it, there were bloody bandages covering her arm. What'd they do to me? She carefully peeled off the bandages on her arm to examine her wound and she saw black on it. Her arm looked inked, like she had gotten a muggle tattoo, but she knew her parents would not force her into getting a muggle tattoo, it would be the kind of thing she would get to rebel against them since they hate muggles. She peeled the rest of the bandage off and her jaw dropped. The image on her arm made her heart stop and ice run through her veins. She felt like was going to faint. They'd branded her while she was unconscious. They'd forced her to get the Dark Mark.

Tears welled in her eyes, she should've run away sooner, but she didn't. Looking at her arm with wretched hatred, Y/N felt a sudden impulse to chop it off. She knew there was no spell that could reverse it, but she tried and tried anyways, until it felt as if it had been scrubbed raw. The pain of the spells on top of the brand couldn't even distract her from her emotional pain. Completely losing her head, all the while trying to remain silent so her parents wouldn't know she was awake, Y/N sobbed and let the blood flow steadily from her arm. She wished she could just let the blood come out of her arm until she had none left in her lifeless corpse. The fight within her was dying out. She sobbed dryly now, all the tears had already left her, her body had no water left to expel. She wanted to skin that part of her arm to get rid of the Dark Mark, but even that might not get rid of it. She decided to try it anyways and cast a silencing charm on her mouth before she began. She started to scrape the skin off from the top of her wrist, knowing she might die from this, but not feeling the will to stop. The pain felt good, better at least the physical pain felt than her emotional pain. Siphoning off her very skin, she was growing fainter every second. Blood was pooling on the bedspread.

Y/N's sobs finally broke her own silencing charm as she cut layer upon layer of skin from her arm. She wasn't thinking about anything but the pain in her arm, and when she heard a little voice say no, she knew it was vital. She gained strength from that voice. Someone wanted her to stay alive, and she thought that person might be herself. Looking down at her half-skinned inner forearm, Y/N wrenched her wand arm away. She wasn't going to do this. She was going to fight. She felt a fire burning in her chest, and her emotional strength built off it. As time went by, her sobs were getting gradually less violent. She pressed the bandage onto her arm again, no longer trying to let her body bleed out. She charmed the bandage to empty itself of blood when it got full, and pulled parchment and a quill from her school trunk. Owls from her house weren't intercepted since her family were death eaters, luckily for her.

Professor Dumbledore,

Parents forced a Dark Mark onto me while unconscious. Details later. Escaping today. I hope you trust me enough to believe I don't want this goddamn mark. Owls not intercepted from this house. Do not owl back. Will try to contact you once I am gone, still got a lot of fight left in me.

-Y/N

Feeling fainter than ever from loss of blood, Y/N shakily grabbed a cup from her dresser and filled it with aguamenti charm water. Not feeling any better than before she drank it, she decided to finish her task as quickly as possible so she could get help, and knew exactly where to go. First she had to sneak her way to the family owl to get the note to Dumbledore.

Casting muffliato all around her (she hated to admit that it was a death eater trick, but it was a harmless and handy death eater trick that she needed now), she stumbled her way to the owl and put the note in her beak, her fingers weren't nimble enough to tie it to her leg in her state. With the bottom half of the parchment she'd used to write Dumbledore's note, Y/N wrote in huge wobbly letters, trying as hard as she could to use the little strength she had left.

Fuck you. Tell your master he could sooner kill me than receive allegiance from me. See you in the war.

Y/N felt that fire in her heart grow in response to her note. The fire radiated in her body, giving her a strength that she wouldn't have even with a healthy amount of blood in her body if she hadn't started that fire within herself long ago. Summoning all her strength she said "Accio trunk!" and grabbed the giant trunk not caring who heard the noise in the room. She wanted her parents to come into this room to see the note. She disapparated as soon as she gripped the handle of the trunk to go to her designated safe house: the burrow.

Y/N had never been to the burrow but knew she was welcome. Molly Weasley invited her there every school holiday, but her parents never allowed her to go. She apparated into the field in front of a crooked home. She'd always known the difference between a house and a home. Where she lived before was a house, this was a home. Almost collapsing on the spot from the strain of apparition, Y/N drew several deep breaths to regain control of her body. "Locomotor trunk" she said, allowing it to move with her. She walked on, fighting with every step not to faint. Fred and George were outside, she couldn't tell what they were doing, her vision was swimming, but she knew it was them.

"Y/N?" She heard George's voice ask. She swayed on the spot, and regained her balance. She was getting weaker and weaker. She just had to fight a little bit longer, she had to get to safety. "Something's wrong with her!" George yelled, she realized his voice was closer that time, but purple snowflakes were dancing in front of her vision. Then it was black.

Y/N woke up in an unfamiliar place. "Oh, you're up dear. I'm sure it's fine, but we need to verify that you're really you. Fred, come here, she's up." Molly Weasley spoke, Y/N felt very, very weak, and there was an immense feeling of pain in her arm. She looked down at it to find better bandages wrapped around it.

When Fred's face appeared in front of her, Y/N noticed it didn't look as happy to see her as it normally did. It didn't look concerned, like it did when she was in the hospital wing either. It looked betrayed, and Y/N understood why. She hated herself for making Fred feel that way. "What was the prank that made George and I become friends with you?" he asked, clearly a security question, but the memory made the fire inside Y/N dance more merrily than it did before she ran away.

"First year I changed the Slytherin Quidditch team robes to be colored pink for their match against Hufflepuff," she said, her voice sounding faint.

"That's her," he said to Mrs. Weasley. She nodded in recognition of his statement. "Y/N, what happened? Why do you have the Dark Mark?" he asked, definitely feeling betrayed.

Tears swam into Y/N's vision as she remembered the day's events, but unlike earlier, the fire inside her did not die out. She noticed George, Ginny, and Ron in the room alongside their mother and brother, but told the story anyways. She recounted her duel, how she woke up from being unconscious with the mark, how she attempted to get rid of it in every way. "You scraped off your skin?" George asked.

"I started to, but I knew I might bleed out and die if I did. That's actually partially why I started it," she couldn't meet anyone's eye at that confession. "But a voice told me that I couldn't let myself do that to myself. That I didn't want to die. That I wanted to remain fighting. That I wanted to win this war against my parents and the side my parents are on. That even though I had the Dark Mark, I wouldn't ever do You-Know-Who's bidding. I refused to be one of them. I refused to die a victim's death. I always wanted to be a hero, to rebel against my parents." Fred was looking slightly incredulous. Y/N could tell he wanted to believe her, but couldn't at the stake of his family's safety. "I decided I wanted to live to become that hero. To defy You-Know-Who, to fight in the resistance. I wanted to make a difference in this world. And I wasn't going to be able to accomplish any of that if I'd died trying to get the mark off my arm. So I owled a note to Dumbledore, left a note with too much swearing for Mrs. Weasley's ears for my parents," they laughed a little at that. She spoke again, "and apparated here. This was the only place I had to go, and I'm sorry for inconveniencing you all but I didn't know where else people would at least try to believe me." Her last words did something to Fred. She knew he believed her now.

Fred moved towards her and wrapped his arms around her faint body. "You don't have to fight alone anymore. We're here for you."

"You are not inconveniencing anyone at all, dear. We'll be moving to headquarters soon, and you'll be welcome to come with us of course, but you're welcome here as long as we're here," Mrs. Weasley said. Fred finally released her body, but sat next to her and held her hand.

"Thank you. All of you." Y/N said, wiping the tears that once again flowed down her face.

"Anything for you, love," George said. Ron nodded.

"You're so brave, Y/N," Ginny said. Y/N smiled up at her, that's all she aspired to be.

They all eventually filed out of the room except for Fred. "I'm sorry for not believing you right away. I should've. You're the closest person to me besides George, but if you had been lying you would be-"

"A danger to your whole family. I understand why you didn't believe me at first. What matters is you do now," Y/N interrupted him.

"Are you okay?" Fred asked, sincerity in every line of his face.

Y/N thought about her answer. She shrugged. "Not really," she began. "Not at all actually." She thought some more as Fred looked at her with the deepest concern. "I will be though Freddie. I realized I can save myself today. I always wanted to save the world, I still do. But I know I gotta save myself first. Today was the first big, real step. I'm gonna do it. I'm fighting for myself as much as I am for the cause, and I realized that's the fire I was missing you know?" He looked at her with pride, smiling softly. He helped her up into a sitting position, and got on the bed too. He laid down, pulling her head onto his chest, and wrapping his arms around her again. She felt more safe in that position than she ever had before.

"Tell me more about this fire," he said.

"Well, before I stopped skinning myself alive, I heard my own voice tell me 'no'. It was a very soft voice, but I knew it was a protest. That's what I needed. I needed to fight for myself, for my own life. I needed to know the difference between laying down my life for the cause and wanting to die. I figured it out just then. That voice was mine. I saved myself, and I realized that was the only person that could do it. I had to save myself. I'm gonna fight in this war, and I'm gonna fight in this war for the right reasons."

It was silent in the room as they both got lost in their own thoughts. "I love you," Fred said, looking at her differently than he ever had. Y/N knew it was sincere.

"I love you too," she answered, looking up at him for a moment, then resting her head back on his chest. They fell asleep like that, together, not worried about the Dark Mark that clouded Y/N's skin. They knew they loved each other, and they knew they were going to fight in the war together.