DISCLAIMER: I don't own the setting. I own the plot and any character not seen in Rowling's books. Plus the poem isn't by me; it's by J.L. McCreery, as I've written below.

A/N: This is the sequel to Hidden Flames! (READING OF HIDDEN FLAMES RECOMMENDED) Please enjoy! Thanks to everyone who reviewed on the last chapter of Hidden Flames. I'm not up to doing individual reviews right now though.


--

---Prologue: Numb---

--

A light breeze lifted a few strands of my hair off my forehead, trying in vain to stir the still, sultry, summer air. Despite the heat, I was shivering and sweating at the same time. I was dressed in a plain black dress that didn't quite bring "mourning" to mind. Shifting uncomfortably in my seat, I tried to still my quaking limbs.

Glancing around me, I saw all the other people… friends of Tracy and David, hanging onto each other, taking comfort from another. Tears streamed silently down their faces, and many of them were openly sobbing. I touched my own face—it was completely dry. A burning feeling in my heart started and wound its way up to my throat.

I was sitting right on the edge, surrounded by people I didn't know and didn't care about. I didn't have anyone whose shoulder I could cry on, who'd lend me strength or soothe my pain. I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly feeling a sharp stab of loneliness through the thick blanket of grief.

I watched in silence as the as some person read off sentences from a piece of paper. I saw his mouth moving, but none of his words reached me. It didn't matter anyway. No words could put a death to my pain, or make Tracy and David come back.

This was all… so surreal. I was standing out here in the bright summer sunshine… standing in a cemetery filled with neat rows of gray headstones surrounded by blooming summer flowers, watching other people sob their hearts out in an attempt to express their grief. I saw the rows of coffins, the freshly dug holes in the ground; I knew what was going to become of those. And yet… it still seemed unreal. It was just so hard to believe—to accept—that two such important people in my life weren't going to be there anymore, that today was the day when they would be put to rest—in other words, gotten rid of, along with many others.

This wasn't happening to me. This couldn't be happening to me. Tracy and David… I could count on them. I actually appreciated them for all that they were among the group classified as untrustworthy adults. And they… they trusted me, cared about me, took care of me as if I were their daughter. They had made me feel wanted again… they had shown me what it felt like to have a family—a real family. And now their bodies were to be put in the ground…

And Melanie…. How could this happen to Melanie? She was more than my cousin—she was my sister. She always had a smile on her face for me, she had listened to my rants, she laughed so contagiously… and she loved me so unconditionally. And now… now her face was stilled and her laughter stopped… her once lithe and graceful body was barely alive. And even if she did wake up from her coma, there was no guarantee that she'd remember anything, or be herself, or ever be able to dance again.

That was a thought I couldn't stand. Melanie had done nothing—nothing!—to deserve this!

I wished I could take their place. I wished I could be the one being lowered into the ground, or the one lying in a coma… I just wanted Tracy and David and Melanie to just be happy, to have a smile and a laugh, to live.

It left a great, gaping hole in my heart, a raw wound that refused to heal, a terrible, yawning void. I couldn't fill it; I couldn't appease it. I tried covering it up—but it only worked for so long. During the day, when the light was shining and I still had a hard time believing that all of it had happened, I could keep everything at bay, and keep the hole from swallowing me up and casting me into an ocean of grief and pain. But during the night… there was no light. There was no hope. There was only the darkness, the soft, taunting darkness of death, and then everything would come crashing down so hard that I couldn't even find an outlet in tears.

I wanted to cry so hard, for so long, just to let all my pain drain away… but I just couldn't. I wanted to scream my rage at the world, rant, crush, raze, devastate… but I couldn't. I wanted to do something, anything, but it seemed as if I was on hold, frozen, numb.

I circled my arms even more tightly around myself in an effort to stop my shaking, to no avail. In fact, it only worsened.

And then Fiona, my perfect little half-sister, stepped out of the crowd. I could see her blonde hair glinting in the bright sunshine, her white skin glowing with a beautiful healthy color.

I wanted to dredge up the hate I knew I felt towards her, as I had done so easily so many times before… but now I couldn't do even that. How could she just go up there to speak about Tracy and David when she had never taken the time to know them? How could she still pretend to be Little Miss Perfect? And how could I just sit here and listen to her, not caring enough to go rip her hair out like she deserved…

"So…" Fiona's voice cracked a bit. I sneered at her, silently willing her to just make a complete fool of herself.

"We… I guess we all sometimes wish that things didn't turn out the way they do," she continued, her voice squeaking a bit. Her gaze swung in my direction for a moment. "But… they do, and everyone has to cope with it."

Whoopee. What a great revelation.

"When I found out about this… well, needless to say, I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to believe. I mean, life is all about living, right? Nothing bad is ever supposed to happen—no one should ever be taken away for good.

"Despite what some people think, I really did care about Tracy and David." I rolled my eyes. "I don't really know what I can say about them that wouldn't disrespect them… because I can't pretend like I knew them well when I didn't. I liked them… just—just because. They were both so nice and understanding, and they accepted me, even though they knew that I shouldn't be there."

You shouldn't be HERE, I thought.

I was so sure… so sure that nothing could be right, that nothing was going to get better.

"But then I found this poem. It makes death sound like paradise… and maybe it is. At least, I hope it is. It's called 'There is No Death,' by J. L. McCreery."

Fiona cleared her throat before starting on the poem in a slightly cracked voice.

"There is no death! The stars go down

To rise upon some fairer shore,

And bright in heaven's jeweled crown

They shine forevermore.

There is no death. The dust we tread

Shall change beneath the summer showers

To golden grain or mellow fruit

Or rainbow-tinted flowers.

The granite rocks disorganize

To feed the hungry moss they bear;

The forest leaves drink daily life

From out the viewless air.

There is no death; the leaves may fall,

The flowers may fade and pass away—

They only wait through wintry hours

The coming of the May.

There is no death! An angel form

Walks o'er the earth with silent tread;

He bears our best-loved things away,

And then we call them "dead."

He leaves our hearts all desolate—

He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers;

Transplanted into bliss, they now

Adorn immortal bowers.

The bird-like voice, whose joyous tones

Made glad this scene of sin and strife,

Sings now in everlasting song,

Amid the tree of life.

And where he sees a smile bright,

Of hearts too pure for taint and vice,

He bears it to that world of light,

To dwell in Paradise.

Born into that undying life,

They leave us but to come again;

With joy we welcome them—the same

Except in sin and pain.

And ever near us, though unseen,

The dear immortal spirits tread;

For all the boundless Universe

Is life—there are no dead."

My body was quaking even more hard than before. The soothing words that had rolled of Fiona's tongue sounded so sweet and so true… for a moment I could actually believe her; for a moment I actually forgot all the hate I harbored against her. All I could think about was how sweet and melodious her voice was, how the words seemed to almost—mean something to me in a way that nothing had in a such a long time.

But then the spell was broken. Fiona heaved a great shuddering sigh and headed back into the crowd—where Diana put her arm around her. I felt subdued anger when I saw Henry—yes, Henry Prewitt, my dumbass father—stand up and walk until he was right next to David's coffin. The burning feeling, one that I had been feeling for so long now, intensified sharply, and I had the insane urge to go and rip Henry's throat out before he could speak any words about David.

Instead, I had to settle on glaring at him.

He cleared his throat roughly. "I… well, I don't know quite what to say. David was my younger brother, and when I was young, I loved him. But that was when things were different. We… could get close, we could talk, and we could laugh together. As we got older, he turned out to be the "more perfect" son. And I began to hate him for his perfection, for his caring, for how he always seemed to shine brighter than I did. Yes, it was sibling rivalry. Even when we grew up and he moved away, I was always painfully aware of how he had such a better life than me.

"When he married Tracy, I was there for their wedding. I saw how happy he was…and I begrudged him of that, since my own wife had died."

I gritted my teeth and clenched my hands so hard that I felt the stinging pain of my fingernails digging into my skin. That was my mother he was talking about, the mother I had never known, the mother I'd only seen in photographs, the one with golden eyes that mirrored my own. If he had ever, ever loved Susan Prewitt, then he should have never been able to hurt me.

And this wasn't confession time. It was a time to honor Tracy and David, not to talk about his own experiences!

"And I had never hated him more than when he was granted custody of my children last year."

I didn't even try to repress my laugh at that. It had just risen up so unexpectedly in my burning throat, and soon I was bitterly laughing at the cruelty and lies of the world. He was acting like he actually cared!

Now that was rich.

Henry was still talking. "But now I see why he had everything I ever wanted. Because he truly cared; he was always laughing and compassionate, and…"

Several people looked at me in horror and disgust at my bout of laughter, and Henry's gaze swung right around to meet mine. My laughter died as suddenly as it had come, and I sneered at him before spitting on the ground to show what I thought of him. Then I got out of my seat and stalked off across the cemetery. I wasn't going to stick around and listen to Henry spout a bunch of insincere lies about Tracy and David. I wasn't going to stand for that.

I could hear the whispers of disapproval behind me, but I didn't care. I didn't care about any of that anymore. I sped by the gray headstones and beautiful arrays of rainbow flowers. The sight of those just made me want to puke. The world didn't deserve to be this beautiful, not when it was all a layer of sham. Underneath it all was just pure, barren hopelessness, despair, unfairness, and—inevitably—death.

Some of the gravestones were so old that their shape and engraved words were starting to wear away. Time was so unmerciful.

This made me break into a run, and soon I spotted a tall tree with long, drooping branches. A weeping willow. A crying tree, one perfectly suited to a graveyard and for my purposes.

I batted the branches aside and flung myself down near the trunk of the tree. The graceful branches enclosed me in a quiet embrace, welcoming me into the tree's bower. Yet, even in here, I couldn't cry. I couldn't let my tears out. Something in me refused to break, to let me show my weakness, even when there was no one to see.

So I stared dry-eyed at the ground in front of me.

Strange how things just kept on looking normal and okay when it really wasn't. Like how the grass was green. It was green and alive when it should be dead and dried out and brown. And how time kept on moving forward when I wanted it to stop.

Time—that pitiless, merciless, driving force—never stops for anyone.

I let my mind wander and go blank as I stared at the ground, dimly aware of the sunlight turning from bright yellow to a dull red-orange.

Then I finally picked myself up shakily and peeked out from the willow branches into the distance. All the people had gone, and I knew without seeing that there were many new graves covered with a fresh layer of dirt. I slowly stepped out of the comforting embrace of the willow tree and made my way over to the two newest additions to the cemetery.

With every step I took, my feet felt heavier and heavier. I knew that looking at a certain two of those headstones would truly mean the end of all my denial, all my refusals.

I finally came to a stop in front of those two headstones, newly engraved.

I let my legs go slack, falling onto my knees before the headstones.

"Why did you have to go?" I whispered, stretching a hand to trace the letters. "Why?"

"What will I do now? What can I do?" I let my hand drop. "I wish I could see you two one more time. I never did get to tell you how much I appreciated you two, how much… how much I… love you." I nearly choked on that word, and the burning sensation in my throat and heart intensified.

"You showed me what a real family is like. Please… I don't want to go on. I don't want to go back to Henry and Diana… I don't want to be alone again…. For a little while, I actually thought that I had a family, that there was a place I could always come back to …"

The air was still and heavy as I stared at the gravestones.

"I… I promise I'll take care of Melanie," I started once again. "You won't have to worry about her. She'll… she'll be fine. I won't let Henry and Diana take her. I won't let them take me! I'm seventeen now, old enough to be considered an adult. I'll—I'll work for money. I'll take guardianship of Melanie. You won't ever have to worry about her. You know I love her like I couldn't ever love Fiona. Don't you?" I swallowed hard.

"And… and…" by now I was running out of things to say. I rested my head on Tracy's headstone, letting the cold of the stone seep into my cheek.

I felt so empty, so lost, so alone. How small and insignificant I was—even though I was sure my grief was so great that the whole world should be able feel it.

How could anybody do this? How could someone be so cruel as to wipe out the whole town, leaving so many people broken and dead and grieving?

A shudder ran through me.

Voldemort.

It was Voldemort and his Death Eaters that had done this. The numbness I was feeling was overcome with a rage so hot and fierce that I physically felt the need to kill something, to hurt something so badly that it wouldn't be able to move. I bit my lips hard and clenched my hands, waiting for the rocking anger to leave me. And it did; it slowly ebbed away.

I still felt hot and feverish, but I didn't care.

"I promise you," I whispered harshly, my voice sounding raw and cracked. "I promise the both of you… I will avenge you. Those people are going to pay. I will hunt them down, every single one, and kill them. I'm going to make them pay. I'm not going to let them get away with this. Do you know how many more people they are going to kill?" I paused.

"You don't need to answer that. It's a rhetorical question." I smiled bitterly for a moment. They couldn't answer me anyways. " I'm going to do anything in my power to make a difference. I'll kill them."

I got up, casting a dark glance at the blood-red setting sun. I looked down at the graves once more. They looked so lonely.

So this was seriously all I had left of Tracy and David….

"I'll be there for Melanie, though. I'll always be there for her as long as she needs. You don't have to worry about her…. Honest. I'll try to take care of… of everything."

ll--A Few Weeks Later--ll

"Damn it!" I swore, looking around my room in the Leaky Cauldron for a clean shirt that I could wear. I had clean forgotten that I was to meet with Henry and Diana today for one last overview of any legal issues that still hadn't been taken care of, and now I was late. I had decided to indulge myself and slept in today, since it was a Sunday, and now look where it got me!

"What does fate have against me?" I growled to myself.

Finally, after digging down to the deepest corners of my trunk, I found a clean, presentable shirt and threw it on. I quickly ran a brush a few times through my hair and took a fast peek at the old dingy mirror in the bathroom. I sighed upon seeing my disheveled appearance, but proceeded to gather my things. It was only Henry and Diana, anyway.

I thumped downstairs in a rush, and I could see that Henry, Diana, and Fiona were already there, sitting at a table. Squaring my shoulders to give the semblance of confidence, I made my way over there and took a seat.

"Hello." Fiona was the first to break the awkward silence between the four of us with a nervous voice. I inclined my head to her.

"I'm sorry I'm late," I lied.

"0h, its perfectly alright, darling! We are so happy to see you! How HAVE you been?" Diana gushed. No, she actually didn't. This is what she really said.

"Humph."

I rolled my eyes. "Let's get to the real issues, shall we?"

An hour later, we were still arguing. "I told you, I'm old enough to have custody of Melanie," I snapped, already quite irritated. "I'm seventeen, I have two jobs, and I care about her more than you two shitheads do."

"Your income won't sustain Melanie's hospital bills," Henry said angrily. "Especially when you go back to school."

"I'll find a way," I shot back. "Besides, you already have custody of Fiona. What more do you want?" I didn't really care about what happened to Fiona. The court, having found Henry clear of an alcohol addiction and truly repentant, granted him full custody of her, seeing as he had never abused her.

"We want to help Melanie," he said determinedly.

"Well, what if she doesn't want your help?" I slammed my hands on the table, ignoring the sting and other people glancing around at me.

"You wouldn't know the answer to that," Diana said.

"I know her better than you do," I hissed. "And I know that she thinks you are the scum of the earth for what you did!"

At this, Henry froze and looked satisfyingly remorseful. "I just want to help in any way. I could help pay for her bills."

I knew a compromise when I heard one. Besides, the bitter truth was that I couldn't possibly make enough money to pay off all of Melanie's St. Mungo bills. I nodded curtly. "But I still have custody."

"Yes."

"Then I guess we're done here," I declared. "I hope this is the last time I ever have to talk to you lot."

As I pushed back my chair and prepared to leave to go… wherever, Fiona's voice called me back.

"Wait," she said, a bit desperately. I think.

Sighing, I turned around and lifted an eyebrow at her.

"Will we ever see you again?" she asked hesitantly.

"I'm positive you won't," I said flatly.

"But, Faye…"

"Don't say my name!" I whipped my head around to glare at her. "Don't you pretend like you deserve to say my name!"

"…Please… just forgive and forget."

Oh ho, that was funny. I laughed hollowly at her.

"Now that's an overused line," I laughed. "Listen carefully, Fee. I'm about to teach you a life lesson. Some things just can't be forgiven. And even if some things are forgotten, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're forgiven."

"Maybe we could just try and fix up the problem, as a family. Because isn't that what family members owe one another?" she went on, her eyes imploring. Now where did the spiteful Fiona go? It was easier to deal with her than this new, trying-to-be-caring Fiona.

"And I want to try to make up for the things I did," Henry put in. "Please, just give me a chance. I've changed, I really have."

I leveled a fierce glare at him. "I don't need to give you another chance. I don't need you, period. When I might have needed you, you taught me not to. Don't you get it?"

"I can explain myself; please, I can tell you why I—"

"Save it," I cut Henry off flatly. "I don't need to know why. All that matters is that you did. You always have a choice, and despite what things might have happened… you still chose to do what you did. Over and over again. You think you've really changed that much in one measly year? You think you're really that different?" I paused. "Well, I guess Fiona here will be the one to find out. Not me. Because that part of my life is done, and I'm not going back."

"If you'll just let me…" Henry tried again. I stared at him grimly, studying his flat nose, the permanently etched frown on his forehead, his wide mouth, and his salt-and-pepper colored hair… and I could find no shred of forgiveness.

"I'm not a nice person, Henry," I stated. "In fact, I'm a really horrible bitch. Really, all I'm asking for is you guys to clear the hell out of my life. And… okay…. Thanks for helping with Melanie's bills. But that's the only thanks you'll ever drag out of me." The 'thanks' nearly choked me.

After a moment of silence, Henry bowed his head. "Okay…" Then he stood up to leave, and Diana and Fiona followed suit. They filed past me.

As Fiona passed, I was sure that she whispered, "I'm sorry."

When they were nearly at the door, Henry hesitated, and looked back at me. Then he walked back.

Good Lord, what was it now?

"If you wanted to know… our flight is next Monday at four. Just in case you might…" he trailed off, his voice low.

"Want to see you guys off?" I finished sarcastically. "Fat chance."

"And…" Henry dug in his jacket pocket and came out with a slim book, which he put on the table. "I regret not being the father I should have been."

I snorted.

To my surprise, he slammed a fist down on the table. "Just listen to me, alright? Just this once… and then I'll be out of your life for good! I owe you an explanation as to why. It was because of Susan." I froze at the mention of my mom.

"I lied to you when I told you that Susan died in childbirth. She didn't. After you were born… she committed suicide. Right in front of me. Said she was tired of life, tired of trying to find something to live for. Said that she had a hole that I couldn't fill…. And she told me that she had hoped that your birth would give her the will to live, but it didn't. And her last words weren't 'I love you, Henry.' You know what they were?" Henry's voice had a bitter edge in it.

"What?" I asked quietly.

"'Take care of Faye, and tell her I'm sorry,'" he said. "So… you should know that it was then when I started to hate you. You were the daughter that Susan couldn't love enough to make her stay, but she still gave you priority over me. That's why. You failed me. You didn't have her love… and I couldn't give you mine. I realize how stupid I was back then. I know I can't fix my mistakes anymore. It's too late. But I just wanted you to know.

"And for what it's worth… I really did love your mother."

I was rooted to the ground, and the room was spinning around me. As Henry turned to leave, I mustered just enough sense to ask him the one thing he hadn't told me.

"How did she die?" I croaked.

He turned around and looked at me through sad eyes. Behind him, I saw Diana and Fiona waiting. "Jumped from the hospital roof."

And then they were gone. My pseudo-family had just left my life, and I couldn't muster up any happiness. I'd imagined this moment for my whole life, and what I was feeling now wasn't how I wanted to feel.

I had never given much thought to my mom since… since ages ago. When I was small, I had thought to blame myself for killing her. And then after Andrew was through with me, I started to believe that my mother had loved me, and that it wasn't my fault that she had died giving birth to me. I did believe it. I gloried in the idea that she had loved me unconditionally, just because I was her daughter.

But now Henry was telling me that my mother had never loved me at all.

I plopped down on a chair and stretched out a shaking hand towards the book Henry had put down. It was an album. I flipped it open to the first page, and there she was. My mother.

Susan was beautiful. She was laughing and playing with her black, curly hair, her gold eyes crinkled with delight. She looked… like me. And now I hated her. I hated her, and I hated myself. I slammed the album shut without looking at any more pictures and walked back to my room, where I threw it into my trunk.

Then I sank onto my bed and stared at the ceiling blankly. I supposed I should be feeling angry or hurt or just… pain. I should have that prickling feeling at the corner of my eyes, as I'd had for so many days now… but I wasn't. I felt alarmingly blank, void.

It was probably better like this. Now maybe I could just… forget my pain. Leave all my feelings behind and just… just become…

Numb. Numb to it all.

--

I'm sorry if this is crap. I've had a really high fever for four days now, and it was hard to do the last fix-ups on this chapter. Please read and review!