- Keira Knightley

*******

The woman on the floor stirred, making incomprehensible noises.

"Draco," I whispered, shaking him awake.

He started, and I could feel his heart hammering under his chest as he clasped his arms tight around me.

"Aurora! What is it? Are you okay?" He said frantically.

"She's waking up, get her some water, quick." I said, beckoning towards the rasping figure in the dirty white rags which looked as though could have once been a beautiful dress.

Draco crossed the room, offering her a cup of water which at first she hesitantly took, but then greedily drank, slopping water down her face.

"W-Who are you?" She rasped, her eyes growing fearful as she gazed up at him. "Lucius?"

"No! I- I'm a friend," he said, glancing up at me warily as he did so. "I'm here to help, Mrs Diggory. I'm here to help the both of you."

She slowly followed his gaze towards me and blinked. She closed her eyes tight shut, shaking her head as she did so, before opening them back up again.

My heart thudded in my chest. Despite her emancipated and dishevelled appearance, I could suddenly see so much familiarity in her face; in her eyes. It was almost like looking at myself in the mirror.

"Mum," I breathed.

"Aurora?" Her voice shook. She reached out her trembling frail arms, which, like mine were tied together at the wrists.

But sadly we were chained up too far apart for any means of contact.

Draco stood up, looking between the two of us.

"I'll give you a moment," he said hoarsely before resting his eyes on me, "I'll go and check on Nova, okay?"

I nodded gratefully, a feeling of such love and gratitude towards him warming my heart as he stepped out of the cellar.

"My baby," my mother sobbed, never taking her eyes off of me. "My beautiful baby."

I had so much I wanted to ask her, so much I wanted to say. Yet I couldn't find the words. Nothing seemed appropriate.

"I thought you were dead." I said, settling for the cold hard fact.

And for some reason I felt angry at her. Despite the obvious fact that none of this was her fault. This whole time my mother had been alive and I felt horrifically cheated.

"I'm sorry baby, I'm so sorry," she said weakly, tears rolling down her dirty cheeks.

"I have a baby," I said, almost accusingly. "I'd do anything for her."

"You have a little girl? I have a grandchild?" She gasped, her eyes lighting up.

I nodded slowly. I wondered if she knew about Cedric. I was too afraid to ask.

"Nova. Draco - the boy who was here earlier - he's the father."

Confusion flitted in my mother's eyes, she looked back towards the door where Draco had just left as if she could conjure him back up.

"But he- he's a Malfoy? He looks so much like Lucius."

"He's his son. He's nothing like him. He's trying to help us, but he can't do anything until we know Nova will be safe. My daughter will always come first."

I couldn't help the accusatory tone in my voice again. And given the look my mother gave me, it didn't pass her by.

"I'm so sorry my darling, I never wanted to leave you, you must know."

I closed my eyes, desperate for this anger to pass. I didn't know where it had come from or why I was feeling it.

"It's understandable that you should hate me." My mother continued sadly. "But you must know I've never stopped loving you and hoping I'd see you again one day."

"I don't hate you. I just don't understand. You're here in front of me after I've spent my whole life thinking you're dead. None of this seems real."

"I did die." She said, and I looked at her curiously, suddenly desperate to know her story. "After Lucius killed me, Aberforth Dumbledore took my body and brought me back to life. It took many, many painful years of recovery until I was anything like a human being again, though. The magic he used to revive me was so dark that he wasn't sure if it was safe for me to return to my family. So he kept it quiet. But before I could properly recover, Death Eaters stormed the place and I was kidnapped; tied up and tortured in Yaxley's cellar until I was eventually moved here."

"Why didn't Aberforth say anything? Let us know that you weren't dead?" I asked, horrified at the brutal life my mother had to endure, wondering almost if what Dumbledore's brother did was actually worse than leaving her dead.

But my mother had no answers, instead simply sadly shook her head.

"I can only imagine Yaxley had something to do with it, a memory charm, perhaps? Or maybe Aberforth was just too ashamed to admit that in trying to help me, he had given me a fate worse than death."

And then a sudden, horrific realisation made my stomach wrench violently.

"I thought you were looking after Cedric," I gasped, choking through my sobs, finding it hard to breathe. "But all this time he's been alone."

A small, inhuman wail sounded from where she sat, and I watched, through my own painful sobs as her frail body wracked violently.

"I prayed it wasn't true," she cried, "my darling sweet little boy."

And together, we both sat chained up in the Malfoy cellar as we cried for our Cedric.

The lost Diggory.

*****

"He's ready for them."

Draco's heart plummeted at his mother's words. He cradled his daughter closer to his chest.

"I don't think I can face it." He murmured, kissing the top of Nova's head as she giggled in delight.

"None of us can face it, Draco. Do you think we want to hear the sound of people being tortured in our own home? It's the way it has to be. And if you want to be there for her, then you will stand down there and show her so."

Draco knew his mother was right. So, with a heavy heart, he handed Nova over, placed a silencing charm on the room so that at least his daughter could be spared the sound of her mother's screams, and proceeded down to the drawing room.

He vomited hard when it was over.

He would never forget the image of the woman he loved being tortured over and over again. He would never un-hear the sound of her screams as she writhed in burning agony.

But she had been brave, so extraordinary brave.

"Don't tell them mother," she had wept, as Voldemort tried to get the secret of the Order out of the older Diggory woman. "Let them kill me first."

It had taken everything he had not to dive across that room and save her himself. Instead, he did as his mother insisted he do, and stood there, silently letting Aurora know that he was there for her.

She had been barely conscious when they took her back down to the dungeons.

"You see now that she is nothing but a filthy creature, young Draco, just like her mother," Voldemort had said to him afterwards, "I'll forgive you for your past indiscretions and allow your marriage to Miss Parkinson to go ahead. But I now want six pure blooded Malfoy's to make up for it. I'm sure you can do that for me seeing as I have spared your first born, after all."

Draco hadn't missed the threat.

He vomited once more as he vowed to himself that he would get Aurora away from this hell hole.