"Should we tell Jisoo?"

"She's not going to believe it, even if it does come from us. He's just done so much." 

"I think we should tell her, give her a heads up. She'll be in shock." 

"She's stronger than you think, Seulgi. We should let her find it out herself. From him." 

"She doesn't deserve this. It's unfair." 

"No, she doesn't. But she'll only believe it once it comes from him." 

The prospect of sitting face to face with Taehyung with nothing but a table keeping them apart terrified her. Her stomach churned and she held her breath when she sat down, looking at everywhere other than his eyes. He was shackled by the wrists and ankles. She may be in his prison cell but she still had to be cautious. She can't allow herself to be so comfortable at the fact that he was chained and there were a dozen guards outside. Even though he was unarmed and looked helpless, he was still dangerous. 

It took her two hours to calm herself down when she woke up this morning. She had read Jinyoung's letter, it was practically a summons, and the first thing she thought of was that she didn't want to talk to Taehyung at all. She wanted out. It was like a slap to her dead parents' face and to Bona's. 

Jisoo figured that capturing Taehyung would be the end of it. She would finally be at peace with her retched past, but it left a huge hole in her chest instead. A feeling of emptiness that stuck to her skin, and it went all the way down to her bones. This wasn't enough. She had questions about that night, and Taehyung was the only one who could answer them. 

He looked like he had been beaten up despite the lack of physical evidence to attest such. She could just feel the lack of energy from him. He wasn't physically tortured, but she could tell that Jinyoung had not been forgiving with his interrogation either. He must have done a total overhaul in Taehyung's mind. Taehyung was stripped off his fancy robes and cloaks into nothing but a brown monochromatic pair of shirt and pants. He still managed to look ten times more menacing though, which made Jisoo feel even more jumpy but she managed to glance at him from the corner of her eyes.

He was already staring at her and she wanted to run away right then and there. His eyes held emotions in them this time, emotions that Jisoo does not want to linger on because there's a spark of familiarity in them. She sees eyes that once belonged to a boy she loved. This is a version of him that comes closest to the Taehyung she once knew. It's why she just can't bare to look at him, to be this close to him, because despite everything he's done and would have continued to do if she hadn't stopped him, she still sees him as the boy who once offered her his heart. Part of the reason why she's scared of confronting him is because she sees all the memories of her past in every line of his face: the good ones, the evil ones, the ones that pieced her together and the ones that broke her apart. 

Jisoo suppresses a sob breaking out from her. She shouldn't be this easily swayed at the fact that his eyes seemed more familiar now, that he seemed more familiar somehow. From an Auror's perspective, a feeling of suspicion tugs at her guts. There was something wrong with him and she was about to find out what it was right now. 

"You're going to drink this." Her voice was firm and forceful, mustering all the courage she had, but her hands were shaky as she placed a small vial of veritaserum in between them, giving away her fear. She did not look up at him, she found that she couldn't stare into his eyes for more than five seconds because if she did, the fear would continue to nurture inside of her and she couldn't afford that. Even if he didn't use magic, he'd still be able to pick her apart just by looking at her eyes and that thought was enough to keep her fear alive. 

Jisoo has never interrogated anyone before because that had not been part of her job even back then. This wasn't her field of expertise, but she at least tries to come off as intimidating. She figured using a truth potion would be the easiest way to get the truth out of him and it's what she's best at among the other methods. She was playing this by her strengths.

Taehyung's hands moves against the shackles that kept him seated, his fingers encircling around the vial. His expression is blank and unreadable, she won't be able to penetrate through it unless he drinks.

To her astonishment, he downs the entire content of the glass in one go. 

He shuts his eyes, his face contorting as he swallows. Jisoo felt her own heart beating wildly against her ribcage as the potion began to work its way through his system. She had a list of questions she wanted to ask him but right now, she was at a loss on which one she should start with first. She was already falling apart before she had even begun but his presence and the small distance between just rattles her entire being. 

Taehyung opens his eyes and looks at her. He was right there, right in front of her, and he was so close. This is the closest they've been in over a year and the proximity is killing her with each passing second. She needed to get a grip, she had to remember why she was doing this in the first place. She needed to remember her purpose, her cause, her reason. 

Jisoo lets out a shaky breath. "Why did you kill them that night?" Her voice came out as hoarse. She sounded like she was choking the words out because they were just too painful to say aloud. "Why did you kill them? Bona.... and my parents." It's the first question on her list of course. They were her reason. 

She thinks of her parents and the image of her family flashes inside of her head, a memory so long ago emerging from the depths of her mind. It's almost enough to make her break down in front of him, but she cannot afford to do such a foolish thing. She cannot afford to look weak in front of Taehyung. 

There was a second of silence and Taehyung's eyes slowly glaze over her face. He looked like he pitied her. "I didn't kill them. I didn't kill your family." His deep voice echoes against his prison walls. 

Jisoo stares at the empty bottle he just drank out of. Was it not strong enough? Had she somehow messed up the potion? She clenches her fists and pounds them against the tabletop, an angry ripple of heat coursing through her. It overrides her feelings of fear, if not for a while, and she manages to look straight at him. "You lying snake!" She grinds her teeth and glares at him, focusing all her negative energy at the murderer sitting in front of her. "You're lying!" 

"I'm not lying and you know that." He snaps. He was annoyed with her, or maybe even angry. 

She wants to flip him over and choke him against his own chains. "Don't talk to me like that!" 

Taehyung snickers but his voice is like a double-edge blade when he speaks. "How should I talk to you then?" 

His unfiltered responses and the serious expression of his face said it all and Jisoo looks at him as if she can't hear what he's trying to say. He was telling her the truth and she can't seem to accept the implication of his words. I didn't kill them. "But you told me you did. That you killed them." She's contradicting herself. She brewed a truth potion and now that it's in his blood and brain, controlling his will, she doesn't believe him. He's making her look like a fool already. 

"I only told you that so you'd stay away. I - I -" his face twists in disdain, like he was physically preventing the truth from spilling out of his lips. It was strange seeing him like this, so powerless and vulnerable under her simple potion. But there is no stopping the truth from coming out. "I did so many things to keep you away from danger, from me." He looked at her, really looked at her. And she allowed herself to look back at him with less hostility and fear.

His eyes are hard and he's glaring at her, but it's missing that fire and hatred. The usual look of spite reserved for someone you loathed. He doesn't hate her, not really, not as much as she had initially believed, not as much as he did back on that yacht where he tried to kill her. This is a different side of him. The way he presents himself right now confused her, was it the potion's fault? Or the effects of the spells in his cell? Had he truly gone mad? Was he toying with her? "I even went as far as making that unbreakable vow, so you would be scared of me and you would learn to resent me over time. Just so you could stay away. It's all I could do to keep you far away from my reach." 

She could almost laugh. It's funny how wrong that was. If anything, the unbreakable vow that was struck between them had pulled her towards him even more. It gave her a reason to be the one to pursue him. She was the only weapon that could stand against him. He could never severely injure her to the point of death and she was the only one who could be so close to him without worrying that she'll be dead in the next minute. It was a perfectly lethal combination. It just goes to show how his plan severely backfired. 

But she doesn't care about that at the moment. She still needed the truth and he has strayed her away from finding out about it. "Who killed my family that night then?" There's a strain in her voice and her knuckles turn white as she clenched her fists by her side, trying to keep herself calm which was almost impossible to do this time. She just wanted to explode. 

And she might have at Taehyung's next words. 

"The Dark Lord did." 

That was an even more serious blow to her than when Taehyung lied about saying he did it. Jisoo felt the blood drain from her face. It took her a few seconds to say anything. "But why?" The words are a whisper only the two of them hear.

She never considered herself that important or powerful to the point where the Dark Lord, where Voldemort had to interfere himself. She was just like other Aurors, wasn't she? There was nothing special about Jisoo. She was only doing her job like everybody else. It was a dangerous job that constantly threatened her life, being an Auror had a cost. But why did her parents and her best friend pay the price for her instead? That was just cruel. 

"You were a threat." He says plainly, as if the reason was simple and clear. The words flow out of him more naturally now because it seems like he realizes there's no use in fighting. The truth will come out one way or another. "You constantly caught Death Eaters wherever you were assigned and you were relentless. You were a force to be reckoned with. You were becoming a serious issue at the time so he had to stop you." But he still looks like he regrets telling her all this, it's not like he has a choice. Not when the potion would be in full effect by now. Every word that comes out of his mouth is the truth. 

"So he killed them then?" Her voice sounds empty, and she feels a void forming in the pit of her stomach. She feels empty too. Instead of anger flaring inside of her, there is nothing. She feels just as dead as the only people she cared about.

Taehyung can only nod. 

The Dark Lord's twisted plan had been effective since Jisoo had retired the next day. She laid down her wand and stopped fighting with them, for them. She had been furious at the Ministry, projecting all her grief and sorrow towards them because they had promised her that they'll keep her family safe and they didn't even bother in keeping their end of the promise. She's been mad at them for years when all along, her anger should have been directed at the Dark Lord. The true murderer, the reason for all of her misfortunes in this life. 

"I'm sorry." His apology stops the tears that are threatening to spill from her eyes. She can't ing cry in front of him but his voice sounded so sincere that it was very hard not to. "I know how you feel." He probably said that against his own will because of the potion. Jisoo wanted to scream at him, but she remembers that his own parents were dead as well. Both of them are orphaned by this pointless war. But at least Taehyung's parents stood a chance and had lived a few more years. Her parents were only muggles, they had nothing to do with all of this and yet they were killed in cold blood. 

Jisoo turns to face him and his face is much calmer, much softer. He has his eyes cast downwards when he speaks, and he sounds like a lost child when he does. "The Dark Lord killed them too. My mum and dad." 

She should have felt good that her previous hunch was right, when Jinyoung had quickly shut her down when she was getting somewhere. She was so sure his parents had committed a grave offense to have been killed so suddenly, and she was right. But she had gone momentarily numb from the weight of the truth, too numb that she can't even connect the dots between the Kims and Jinyoung. She was hopelessly miserable and the Dark Lord was the cause for her misery all this time. "And why did he do that? It was a senseless move." 

"They were betraying him." Taehyung tells her. 

She looks at him, and the numbness is momentarily thwarted by a feeling of disgust rising up her chest. "If you knew that, then why are you still at his disposal like some dog?" There's hurt in her voice that even Taehyung detects, his ears perk up and he catches the hidden meaning behind her words: why are you still with them? 

His expression tightens, before he releases a sigh and looks away from her piercing, judgemental eyes. "It's not like I ha