thrill
Because I'm doing this for the thrill of it, killin' it
Never not chasing a million things I want
-Lorde, Tennis Court
She stares at the never-ending horizon.
What was it like, she wanted to know. To be one of those specks in the horizon. To exist, but to be... inconsequential.
To not have her face plastered on posters that covered the brick in Diagon Alley.
Hermione had left, like a coward. When Harry fell, when Ron screamed at her to run, she had listened to him for once. She didn't hesitate, not even for a second.
She apparated without looking back, straight into the heart of London. And, after nicking some pounds from a muggle, disguised by a glamour charm, she took the nearest flight to New York. Her heart had pounded in her chest the entire time, the blood in her veins turning to ice.
She couldn't have helped the thoughts flitting around in her head.
Harry's dead. Harry's dead. Ron's going to die. I left Ron to die. I'm going to die. I'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodieI'mgoingtodie...
Even when she landed, she felt her hands shake. She felt her stomach churn, and she looked around, at the faces of the muggles who had no clue.
They didn't spare one glance at her. She had cleaned up before the flight, changed clothes, healed her wounds. To them, she was what she wished to be. Inconsequential.
But she knew better. Standing on the roof of a minor skycraper, drinking in the lights that were simultaneously blinding and soothing, in a city that she had dreamed of when she was younger and didn't know of the dangers she'd soon face, she began to accept her fate.
They would find her.
He ignored the screams. They became background noise after a while.
He had been in charge of solidifying their hold on the ministry. He had succeeded, and now all that was left to do was line up the stragglers.
Dolohov buzzed with excitement next to him, ready to unleash his monster.
Fool, he was. Dolohov may have been a creative spellmaster, but Corban thought he was a blithering fool. One whose bloodlust took over his mind and controlled him like the puppet he already was.
Corban may have grudgingly admitted his position as a puppet for the Dark Lord, but he'd never let himself truly cave to his master the way he wanted him to.
Not that he made it obvious. He played the perfect puppet, doing the bidding of a man that had evaded death for too long, even at his relatively young age. Corban thought that maybe he was a fool too. He knew the truth, of the Dark Lord being a half-blood named Tom Riddle. How he had manipulated the ever-righteous Purebloods into kneeling before him, worshipping him by taking his mark, by not even daring to utter the title that the half-man half-snake had given himself. /Voldemort./
And as Corban stood next to his bloodthirsty, barely sane coworkers, he thought of the life he once had, before he took the mark and wreaked havoc and was sentenced to Azkaban, where he no longer had control of himself. Where he no longer had the beloved power that strummed in his veins, barely contained. Where he was forced to idle around in a cold, dark cell not fit for him.
He wondered, what was in a name?
And he knew. It was a question he asked, sometimes aloud, when the shadows in his cell began to whisper to him. Treacherous things that he had done. Things that had led to him being where he had been, left to rot.
Nothing.
Not one damn thing.
It was a crisp autumn morning when he found her.
She had been in the city for a little over five months. Her birthday was in a few days. She knew she wouldn't feel like celebrating.
And when she returned to her hotel room, which she switched out every week, each time with a new appearance, she had set her coffee down on the table once she felt the feeling of wrongness.
Pocketing her wand, she mentally prepared herself for the shocking face of Greyback or the dead eyes of Dolohov, either salivating with the chance to claim her life.
But instead, she was met with eyes so blue they seared their way into her soul, etched into her memory forever.
Yeah, I don't know if I like this.
My writing kinda sucks. Sorry kids.
-six-of-books