Cell 6: Ophelia Fuilteach || Deja Vu Innit!

[Lord Sanguini Fuilteach]

Sanguini held his daughter through the bars and felt utterly relieved. As dreadful as she looked, at this moment in time she wasn't being controlled by her other side, and she was happy to see him. That filled him with a happiness he hadn't felt in a long time. He made to enter the cell too, only to be told by the quivering escort that only the doctor was allowed access to the cell due to security risks. He bit back a snarl, and waited outside the cell patiently. "As you wish," he said through gritted teeth.

[Dottore Giulietta de Medici]

Giulietta looked at Ophelia's face closely. The girl had not improved since she had left the asylum. Her first course of treatment had been the Dark Trick, hoping to force the girl's mind back to a sensible state, as it had done with her body when it removed the vile Dark Mark and the small scars she had accumulated during her semi-mortal state. Unfortunately, it only served to fuel her "other side", known in the patient files as Sickness. It became obvious that Ophelia was suffering from dissociative identity disorder, as a way of coping with doing something so against her nature as to kill a human for a reason other than the necessity of feeding. The girl was an unusual vampire in that she had never killed for food until the day she attacked those mortals, but Giulietta supposed she was too affected by her mother's mortal blood.

"We have something that will help you, Signora Fuilteach," Giulietta said softly, taking Ophelia's hand and patting it. She took the potion from her cloak, and released the girl's frail hand. She uncorked the potion bottle and held it out to her patient. "Drink that down. It should get rid of Sickness for a while."

[Ophelia Fuilteach]

Ophelia shuddered, and nearly cried when she felt Sickness coming to the surface. She didn't want her out, not now. Her father was here, and she would have done anything to spare him having to see this awful side of her yet again. It was too late, however, and Sickness took over her body.

"Get rid of me?" she asked. "My dear little Dottore, she will never be free from me! I tried telling you before. Now I've got my nails into her, I'm enjoying being free. Ophelia wastes her talents, her powers... she wants to be human! Can you imagine? It's because she's weak... so very, very weak, and she needs me to make her strong. So, in case you were wondering, I won't drink that, and you can't make me."

[Lord Sanguini Fuilteach]

Sanguini nearly wept when he heard her voice changed, watched the flicker in her eyes and the subtle shift in body language that meant his fragile girl had switched again. Had Ophelia been so willing to embrace vampirism before, he would have been delighted, and found real joy in having a hunting partner he could teach and train, but this was a corruption of his daughter, a twisted thing that inhabited her body, wore her face and used her voice. This thing may have been pure vampire, but it was not his little girl.

"Giulietta, I'll hold her..." he murmured in an old Italian dialect that the doctor would know, but Ophelia would not. He readied himself to move, and to hold her down so that the healer could give her the medicine she needed. It was not the first time he had been forced to restrain her, and no matter how necessary it was, it never became any easier. Each time was worse than the last, and chipped away more at the husk of a soul he had remaining to him.

[Dottore Giulietta de Medici]

Giulietta scowled. She immensely disliked Ophelia's other side. The doctor prided herself on making an uppity attitude into an art form, but Sickness could act like the Queen of Sheba even in this filthy cell and condescend like a pro. She especially loathed it when the little ingrate called her "little".

"Do not force me to restrain you, Sickness," Giulietta purred dangerously. "You know how much you hate it when I do that."

[Ophelia Fuilteach]

Sickness hissed, and backed away from the child-like doctor. "You wouldn't dare, cutie pie. I'll tear out your sweet little throat before you can even get hold of me." Sickness always knew what buttons to push, exactly how to twist the knife to cause the person the precise amount of pain. "Besides, I've got a grown up body, and you're just a tiny little thing. You can't do it, principessa," she added in a mock sweet tone.

She noticed the ministry official backing away, pulling his wand, but she did not care. This was the thrill of defiance, the anticipation of a fight, and she was giddy with it. She would beat them. She would win.

[Lord Sanguini Fuilteach]

Sanguini made a small sound in his throat, like a wounded animal might make, and forced himself to focus. He had to do this for her. He would master himself, do what was necessary, and feel his foolish emotions afterwards. He would be the cold, emotionless monster once more, for the good of his child, and afterwards he could be human.

He entered the cell, ignoring the Ministry escort's protests and the pain in his own heart. He lunged, and managed to pin Ophelia's suddenly struggling form to the floor. "Giulietta, now!" he barked, and tried very hard not to think about how much of a failure he was as a parent, and how Lilith would be disgusted if she could see what he had allowed her daughter to become.

[Dottore Giulietta de Medici]

Giulietta despaired of Sanguini, she really did. His self-loathing and torment over the death of his son and his daughter's condition would be his undoing. She preferred the old Sanguini, the cruel young vampire who had debuted in the Italian court with rich red eyes, a soft Irish accent and violinist's hands and stole the hearts of half the women there, and very nearly counted the tiny doctor among his many admirers. She found him alluring, yes, but she found many others to be the same way, and there was nothing particularly special about one vampire who had barely reached fifty at the time. Lord Fuilteach had been the poster boy for his generation, everything that young vampires should aspire to be - wealthy, well-bred, beautiful and cultured - and was destined for great things.

Then that wretched, red-headed witch had come along and made him forget everything he stood for, everything that countless generations of his kind had preached! She gave him mortal children, mortal problems, mortal death. If Sanguini could realise what folly it was to allow mortals into his heart, she knew several well-bred ladies in Italy who would be glad to provide him with a true heir, a pure-blooded vampire worthy of his title and heritage.

She shook her head, processing all her thoughts in mere seconds, and then pounced on the struggling patient. She easily pried Ophelia's mouth open, small hands and fingers digging into her hollow cheeks and not allowing the girl to close her mouth until she could pour the silvery potion between her lips. She clamped her hand over the girl's mouth, refusing to let her spit the potion back out until the choice was swallow or stay there all night. She felt faintly horrified by how thin the girl was, wondering how often she was being fed by her jailers, or if she was refusing meals as she had once tried to do in the asylum. She waited until the girl obediently swallowed the potion and stopped struggling. She stood up, patting Ophelia's cheek briefly before she moved away. "There's a good girl," she said patronisingly, petty payback for Sickness' goading. She gave the other two room to stand, and eagerly watched to see if anything would happen with Ophelia.

[Ophelia Fuilteach]

Ophelia was aware of a struggle, knew she was fighting like a demon against someone who was holding her, someone else forcing her to drink a mild-tasting potion. She drank it down, assuming she was back in the asylum and being made to take her medicine yet again, but as soon as the liquid reached her stomach, a horrible realisation began to grow in her mind. "Dottore... Daddy..." she began, and stopped just as suddenly. Fragmented thoughts and ideas knitted together, all that was broken was mended in one instant, and all at the same time, her fragile world came crashing down around her.

She pushed away from her father, realising who it was that crouched at her side. She backed away, recoiling as though from a threat, when the only fear and danger was from her own mind. "No!" she gasped, shaking her head, her eyes wide and aghast. She was suddenly, painfully aware of everything that had happened since the night Voldemort had made her murder that man, the one Snape called Alejandro. Sickness was part of her, a vile invention she had made to cope with the guilt of killing someone, and she had allowed her to spiral out of control and take two more lives. Everything was real, she could discern what had been imaginary from what was not, and she felt shame, guilt and despair more acutely than she had ever done before. She had done it all. She was a murderer, she was in the Ministry cells and awaiting trial, her brother was dead, her husband most likely lost to her, and all she had left was her father, whose heart she had broken when she had lost her mind.

"Oh, Vlad Dracul, what have I become!" she wept, breaking down completely as she curled up in the corner of her cell, unable to look at any of its other occupants.

[Lord Sanguini Fuilteach]

Hearing his daughter speak in what sounded a great deal like her own voice made him raise his head. He had remained on the floor, clutching her hand and willing her not to hate him for treating her like a criminal, but couldn't quite bring himself to look at her face. Her voice gave him hope that fluttered in his soul, but was shot down cruelly when she suddenly backed away. "What's happening to her?" Sanguini demanded, glaring at the doctor as though it were her fault. If Lucretia's potion had somehow done more damage... she would burn...

All thoughts of vengeance vanished from his thoughts when his only living child began to cry in racking sobs that shook her whole body. He was by her side in a heartbeat, holding her, soothing her, whispering all the lies that good parents tell their children to heal their hurts. "It's all right, I promise, everything will be all right now, a stór mo chroí, mo chailín rua*..." he murmured, stroking her red hair and wishing he could do something more than simply coddle, as though he had it in his power to take away her pain completely and leave her as the same child he knew three years ago, before all this suffering began.

* = darling of my heart, my red-headed girl

[Dottore Giulietta de Medici]

Giulietta observed the proceedings with the sort of lofty detachment one would expect from a medic with over five hundred years of experience. Medicine requires a certain aloofness that is necessary for the doctor to survive the demands of the job, and to leave the patient's anguish at the door when one goes home, and Giulietta de Medici had that in bucketloads. She calmly extracted a notebook and pen from her bag, taking several notes about Ophelia's reaction to the medicine, her behaviour, demeanour, body language. Vampires could not use true Legilimency, but they practiced a form of it that required great mastery of one's own mental faculties. It was not difficult to peer into her patient's mind, skim the surface thoughts, and leave them with a grimace. The girl's mind was overwhelming, cowering beneath a crushing wave of emotions and memories.

"How many months of therapy, dear Ophelia, and it takes one silly magical potion to achieve everything I have aimed for since you came to my facility!" the doctor remarked with a rueful shake of her head, as though marvelling at a willful puppy. "Its effects are merely temporary, and this was merely a trial run to ensure it works, which, evidently, it does. We shall have to observe you closely, won't we!" She took several more notes, and turned to the trembling wizard at the door of the cell.

"Oh, do stop snivelling," Giulietta sneered, her little girl's voice sounding world-weary and condescending. "I shall need to speak with whoever has authority regarding prisoners. I should like to have her transferred to Saint Mungo's until the trial so I can study her better. She needs constant care now." She glanced at Sanguini. "I believe she may need some time to come to terms with this, Sanguini. We should take our leave, and allow my patient her privacy."

[Lord Sanguini Fuilteach]

Sanguini took one of his daughter's shaking hands in his and stroked it, feeling prominent bones beneath her deathly pale skin. She looked ill, emaciated and tormented, and a thousand miles away from the proud girl he had once known. He still wasn't sure where along the way he had lost her, or when she had begun to change. At the heart of it all was a resounding feeling that he had failed her somehow, and that this was all his fault as a result. He was determined to put it right or die in the attempt, and he forced a smile as he held her.

"A chuisle mo chroí, I need to leave now," he whispered. "I will return tomorrow, and every night thereafter. I won't leave you alone ever again. You can rely on me from henceforth, I promise you. I will not ever fail you again, but you have to be strong too, do you understand me?" He kissed the crown of her head, not waiting for a response or expecting one as he got to his feet. How he loathed leaving her in such a state, but their business in the cell was concluded, and the Ministry wizard was becoming nervous and twitchy, and wands could be very dangerous in the hands of a nervous wizard..

So the potion had indeed worked its magic... but it had left her very distressed. He would have to have Giulietta explain it all to him, as she had obviously understand precisely what it had done to Ophelia's mind. Sanguini's area of expertise was law and history, medicine and anatomy were two of his weakest subjects. With several backward glances, as if to reassure himself that she was still in the cell and not about to vanish, Sanguini eventually left the cell, the click of the lock behind him as he walked away with Giulietta like the crack of a gun in his mind. He left the Ministry cells feeling older and more weary than even his generous years allowed.