Web of Redemption

Chapter 1: The threads are cast

For months her mind had slowly started to return to her in a haze of half-remembrances and moments of willfulness. There were times when Iris Manon felt the slap of a whip and struck out, but instinct told her to fight that urge to turn on her assailant and defend her body against the onslaught. There were flashes of recognition when she realized what it meant to have the weight of a man on her, his breath in her ear. The icy voice giving her orders in a clipped tone stirred nausea in her belly. It was a slow dawning, a kind of awakening for her memories and self-awareness, a rekindling of the fire of her will.

When it fully returned, Iris could successfully fake being Imperiused and had finally calculated that she had been at Malfoy Manor a full seven months. She figured it had taken six months for her mind to return to what it once was and for her to grasp the magnitude of what had happened. She was raped, humiliated, and tortured repeatedly to slake the sick desires of her tormenter, none other than Lucius Malfoy. In the month since her reclamation of will and Lucius' return from Azkaban, Iris vacillated between thoughts of insanity on her own part, to illness and hallucination, before finally settling on grim reality. She was facing the truth of plurality of worlds. Somehow Lucius had crossed that boundary between her own reality where people such as he were the stuff of children's books and his world where someone such as Harry Potter was a living legend, not a mere literary character. Worse, she wasn't the only one who had unwillingly made that leap. Two others she recognized from her own time and place; Elizabeth Herrera's and Shannon Michealsons' disappearances were still a mystery back in Iris' all-Muggle world, yet here they were, slaves like her in a sadistic sex ring in a world that should not even exist.

Bilious anger bubbled up in her throat as she wiped the cloth again across the mirror she had just cleaned. There were still moments of the past months that she could not recall, such as how she had ever been separated from her friends this past New Year's Eve at the club and how exactly he had brought her here. Sure she had been drinking, but not that much. It stood to reason that he had used a Confundus charm. Iris finished buffing the gilt-framed glass and taking up the spray bottle, stepped lightly and quietly down the hall past the door to Lucius' study, where he had been napping, likely resting up for his nocturnal indulgences, as a few minutes prior he woke and went downstairs to the basement room. She heard one lazy word drawled, "harem" and the scraping of stone told her he was safely ensconced with the girls for the time being. Nagini, she knew, would be curled in front of the study fireplace with her belly full from feeding the night before.

Iris gut tightened again at the memory of what constituted the snake's latest meal. A Muggle from Surrey had inadvertently conceived, and Malfoy in his demented state had raged when he realized her condition, cutting the fetus out and dismembering her wretched body while the other Imperiused girls held her down. Iris and a few others had been brought down from the kitchens to help clean up the mess. It was this knowledge which finally strengthened Iris' resolve to put her plan into action.

She had been eavesdropping above stairs for weeks, her mind still plotting at night while the other slaves slept in that crypt-like hidden chamber in the basement. In a few more days, Voldemort would be joining his faithful servants in residence at the manor, so if she was going to act, now was the time. She used her cleaning as an excuse to wander the halls, assessing who was home and what they were doing. Draco, who was due to start his sixth school year in a few more weeks, was outdoors gliding around on his broomstick, chasing a snitch. Narcissa, who remained clueless as to her husband's vices, was off on a shopping expedition with Bitsy Bradford, of the Bath Bradfords, yet another ancient wizarding family.

"Now or never," she whispered to herself, gripping the wainscoting and swallowing hard. Taking a deep breath, Iris advanced into the great room, shifted an Edwardian leather armchair, peeled back a pristine Persian rug, and tugged hard at the ring of a trapdoor hidden underneath. What opened before her was a small vault in the floor, lined with dark oddities and eccentric artifacts. But the one that seized her attention as she quickly closed her grip around it was a gleaming ancient epee with serpents emblazoned on the handle.

Lucius, who could resist the urge to brag even less than his son, had told her, "Salazar Slytherin himself crafted this sword. It imbibes and accumulates strength from the very blood that touches it, which doubles when it is raised against someone in the name of revenge--something Godric Gryffindor never considered for the blade he forged. See that it gleams; I want no trace of tarnish on it, when I present it to the Dark Lord, or I'll have your head with it."

And in imparting that knowledge, he sealed his own fate, Iris considered. She retraced her steps, treading back down the hall and easing the study door open. She went for the snake first, knowing the full import of dispatching the wicked creature. Nagini was so sluggish from her meal, and was so used to Iris' scent that she barely opened one bleary eye before the blade sliced down, severing the head from its sinuous body. Nevertheless, the snake starting thrashing, muscles bunching and bucking in the death throes, as Iris quietly left and closed the door behind her. Gaining courage as she watched the blood seep into the blade, yet not a little queasy at what she had just witnessed, she glided down the basement stairs not even feeling her feet. Angling the epee out of sight behind her, she said the word she had come to hate, "harem" and stepped into the heat of Malfoy's last climax. His face still a spasm of release, Lucius raised his eyes to hers briefly before the blade caught his glance. Too late, he spoke "accio" for the wand on the side table, as again her blade sung through the air, slicing through tendon and bone. His head tipped, rolled onto a slightly frayed version of the rug from upstairs, spattering blood across it as it came to a rest two feet from the bed. At once, screams rent the silence as collectively the girls eyes cleared and they took in their surroundings. Their captor dead, the spell lifted, panic and confusion set in.

"Follow me! Up the stairs!" Iris shouted, leading the scared and shaken women to freedom. Streaming into the hall, and running full tilt for the great room fireplace, Iris heard the door behind her from the back of the house and turned to see Draco, stricken, standing with his broomstick still in hand.

"You there! What are you up to? Who are all these other girls? Wha-," he stammered, not recognizing half the girls who had been left below stairs.

"Daddy's down stairs, Junior. Go tend to him," Iris shouted, her voice already shaking from shock and fear of all she had done and seen. She thundered through the great room door where the girls still stood, weeping hysterically, glassy shocked eyes taking in the unfamiliar environment. Iris strode to the fireplace, threw in a handful of green powder and shouted to the girls to come by twos onto the hearth and step in. Shivering, they complied, still not comprehending the nightmare they had awakened into.

"St. Mungo's!" Iris shouted into the fire, hoping that the healers and medi-wizards there could help the girls. On she pushed them, into the green flames, shouting the hospital's name repeatedly until the last woman passed through. Casting a final glance around at the gilded prison she was at last escaping, she stepped in herself. "Hogs Head Tavern!" she exclaimed, and watched the green flames flare before her world started to spin.