A/N
Hi! This is a little one shot that I came up with literally ten minutes ago. I love Hogwarts: A Mystery, I've been playing since it came out (I got to Fifth year and then I got a new phone so I started over). I have not beat it yet this is just something I thought of. I'm sorry for typos, I'm doing this on my phone. Also Josephine is pronounced with the J not the H sound. Please enjoy!
The Burrow, June 2001
It was a lovely day in June. The weather had been treating Britain right. It wasn't uncomfortably hot in way that made nobody want to go outside, the sun was shining perfectly, and there was even a light breeze.
Molly Weasley decided to host her weekly Sunday dinner outside today and changed dinner to lunch. She spent hours preparing a favorite of everybody's. Except Ron's since his favorite consisted of everything.
The whole family and people they considered family gladly gathered around a large table that Fred and George had so graciously volunteered (also known as Molly yelled at them multiple times before they did it) to put together. There was lively chatter, a lot of eating, and smiling faces.
Fred, George, Harry, and Ron bickered about Quidditch. Hermione, who was curled up against Fred, her fiance, was talking to Fleur and Ginny. Four year old Teddy, was trying to keep up in conversation with his dad and Uncle Padfoot. Percy and his father were in debate about something from the Ministry. Molly and Andromeda were having a quiet conversation about things that weren't necessarily appropriate at the table.
Tonks was trying to enjoy the conversation between the three ladies at the table. But her normally bright colored hair hung limply in a dull blue shade and the smile on her face didn't reach her eyes.
Bill listened to the conversation between Remus and Sirius but didn't add much input. He picked at his food, only eating when he saw his mother glancing in his direction. The light in his eyes were dimmed.
Charlie was the worse of the three of them. He'd been torn up for the last few days. Today he had wanted nothing more than to stay in bed curled against a pillow. But he had come just so he wouldn't have to hear his mom drone on and on about how he missed an important family get together and how she never sees him. He just sat there staring at his plate, food untouched. His fist clenched around the fork in his hand every time he heard a laugh or giggle or whenever he looked up and saw a bright smile on somebody's face. Eventually, the fork in his hand broke in half and Charlie snapped.
"How can you all just sit here and act as if everything is okay?" He bellowed, pushing out of his seat. He was vaguely aware of the chair falling back. "How can you just smile and laugh and be happy when today is the day she left? How can you act like the most brave and stubborn and beautiful person to ever grace this Earth is gone?"
His voice cracked with the last word. Charlie hadn't noticed the tears on his face but everybody else did and they were all shocked. Charlie, dragon tamer, Weasley was crying.
"Charlie," Arthur said softly, when he got over his initial shock. "Who are you talking about, son?"
Charlie tried getting her name out but he couldn't. Every time he tried he turned into a stuttering mess. Finally, he collapsed on the ground, head resting on his knees and his shoulders shaking from his sobbing. Molly rushed over and cradled Charlie in her arms, whispering things like "my poor baby" and "mummy will take care of you."
It was so silent you could hear a pin drop. Even Teddy didn't say a word.
Finally Tonks spoke up.
"Josie," She said with a sad smile. "He's talking about Josephine Sykes."
"Josephine Sykes?" Hermione asked, sitting up. "As in Jacob Sykes' sister? As in the girl who defeated the cursed vaults? That Josephine Sykes?"
Her voice went an octave higher after every sentence.
"Now you got her started," Fred mumbles, earning himself a flick on the ear. Although everybody knew those names. There wasn't a person at Hogwarts that didn't know who Jacob and Josephine Sykes were.
"Yeah." Bill answered. "Josie went to Hogwarts the same time Tonks, Charlie, and I did. She was two years below me."
"You mean that girl that always you boys in trouble?" Molly demanded, a scowl on her face.
"That girl," Tonks hissed. "Was brave and loyal and loving. She saved the school. If it wasn't for her, Hogwarts would've gotten shut down a long time ago. And not by choice. All seven years of Hogwarts she risked her life for the school and for her family. Until her life finally got taken away from her."
"Wait but," Hermione, who had read all up on Josephine Sykes, interrupted before Molly could retort. "Everything about Josephine Sykes, even the professors, say she went missing after defeating the cursed vaults."
"That's because nobody knows the whole truth." Bill said. Him and Tonks looked at each other and had a silent conversation. It didn't take long for them to reach an agreement. "Josie wasn't able to close the vaults until the summer solstice when the sun was at its highest peak. As it turns out this was the same day as her graduation. So after the graduation we, Josie, Rowan, Ben, Tonks, Penny, Tulip, Barnaby, Charlie, Liz, Andre, Jae, Diego, Badeea, Meurla and I all went to final cursed vault. We needed all hands on deck. When we got there, there was surprisingly no challenge. Only we saw what was powering the vaults for so long and found what Josie had been looking for that whole time. Jacob Sykes' body laid there attached to some weird contraption."
After the collective gasp, Tonks took over the story as Bill's eyes filled with tears.
"He was dead but not completely. Whatever he was attached to was using him as a magic supply, it was draining his magic and had been for 9 years. He was more of a zombie than anything." Tonks shuddered, remembering that day. "Josie almost collapsed and would have if Barnaby and Charlie hadn't caught her. She started grabbing for her wand when the vault spoke to us. It told us that Josephine was meant to find the faults and only her. She was one of the only people with a strong enough magical core to do so. You see, the vaults were actually something created to kill students at Hogwarts. It's creator either hated Hogwarts or hated kids or both. However it needed a life source, someone who had a lot of pure, raw magical power. Jacob had it and the vaults sensed it so it lured him in. It did the same to Josephine. Lured her in, gave her a motive to keep looking and risking death. Her brother while simultaneously trying to bring hatred to her heart. Hatred to the staff who didn't help her and never told her anything about her brother. Hatred towards students who bullied her. Hateful to Hogwarts, the place she was supposed to call a home. It wanted to turn her so they could join together and destroy the school and everybody in it. Only it didn't work."
"Josie had something Jacob didn't." Bill added. "Friends. Love. People who believed in her. Of course, this just made the vaults mad. It tried to woo her and convince her but Josie was done with games. So she decided to destroy the vault."
"How?" Remus whispered.
"She forced her magic into it." Charlie spoke up, his voice still cracking. "The vault was created with dark magic so she poured her light magic into it to cancel it out. Only over our seven years at Hogwarts, every time she opened and entered a vault, the main vault would drain some of her magic. Her doing that destroyed her magical core."
"And you let her?" Harry demanded. He glanced towards Hermione and Ron knowing he'd never let either of them do something so idiotic. And he knew they wouldn't let him do it either.
Charlie let out a sharp bitter laugh. "No. She stunned the lot of us. Except for Merula. I never understood that."
"Because Merula wouldn't have stopped her like we would have. Like we wanted to." Bill said. He cleared his throat and addressed the rest of the crowd. "After she sacrificed her magic she collapsed and was barely breathing. As it turns out it was the same time her spell cancelled. The vaults disappeared but there was tremor of magic meaning it was gone forever. All of a sudden we were in a hallway and our friend was dying. There was nothing we could do."
"Dumbledore found and told us that while this was a tragedy we couldn't tell anyone what happened. He then covered it up and everyone just assumed she went missing or was traveling around the world." Tonks said, her hair shifting to a muddy brown, tears staining her cheeks. Teddy slipped out of his chair and moved quickly to comfort his mum.
"We don't know why," Bill said knowing they were going to ask. "It could be because Dumbledore didn't want people to know or if it was because Harry Potter coming to Hogwarts three months later was more important."
Harry flushed with embarrassment and anger. How could Dumbledore do this?
"After that, those unbreakable friendships of ours broke." Tonks said. "Some of us wanted the whole world to know what actually happened. Others thought Dumbledore knew best. We couldn't come to an agreement and we went our separate ways. I haven't spoken to anybody from that group except Bill and Charlie since 1992. You might be able to see why Charlie is so upset. This is something we weren't allowed to talk about."
Bill and Charlie nodded in agreement. Things weren't the same after Josie's unfair death.
Molly frowned remembering that summer and how depressed her two eldest had been. That had put on smiles and acted normal but a mother knows. Those smiles were fake. They didn't each their food. Sometimes they'd just lock themselves in their rooms. She once caught Bill crying over a photo. All of this was for the loss of a friend.
Remus and Fleur didn't understand how they missed their spouses being sad on this day over the years. Tonks' hair shifting from dull blue to sandy brown. Bill looking at old photos for hours. Both of them drinking excessively, thinking 'she should be here.'
"Ten years ago today, we lost a brilliant witch." Arthur said softly, remembering meeting Josephine over the years at King's Cross Station. A big smile and a loud "Hello, Mr. W!' had always greeted him. He remembered her sending a hex and a young Fred and George when they tried to steal from her pockets and them screaming 'COOL!'
Tonks let out a shuddering breath that turned into a sob. "Ten years ago today I lost one of my best friends."
Bill sighed. "Ten years ago today, I lost my best friend."
"Ten years ago today, I lost a role model." Percy spoke up, surprising everybody. "She May have broke the rules but she was an admirable prefect. Always looked out for younger students, even the ones not in her house."
"Ten years ago today, we lost our role model," Fred said wistfully.
"She gave us our first dungbomb and fanged frisbee. She also gave us the Marauder's map. She gave us pranking tips and told us how to sneak into Filch's office." George smiled. "She took part in making us the pranksters we are today."
"Almost made us want to become prefects and split Head Boy." Fred added.
"Almost." The twins said together.
"Ten years ago today I lost the love of my life." Charlie said softly. He pulled his chain from under his shirt. On it was a lovely sparkling diamond. It wasn't the much extravagant but it beautiful and simple. There was a gasp among the ladies, the loudest being Molly. "I loved her. Still do. I was planning on proposing when we defeated the last vault. Instead, she died in my arms. I can't...I can't even try to love somebody else. She was it."
Charlie found himself suddenly encased in the arms of multiple tearful women, who cooed at him and mumbled encouraging words.
The men couldn't say anything to tease him as there was not a dry eye at that table.
When the ladies had let go of Charlie and everyone settled back down, Sirius waved his wand. All the food disappeared and in front of everybody was a glass of Ogden's Finest, excluding Teddy who had a glass of apple juice. Next to Charlie's glass was a full bottle of fire whiskey. Sirius figured he'd need it.
Sirius raised his glass. "To Josephine Sykes, cursebreaker, she died a hero."
"To Josephine Sykes!"