They felled the centaurs one at a time until they came to the one with the black bow clutched in his hands. It was Ilya, sixteen, who flashed out the killing curses, the short bursts of bright green in the white of the forest in winter. Adrien was only nine and stood close by Ociel's side, the man's hand resting on his shoulder.
He saw Ilya walk out to the body, standing over it and looking down, a sharp streak of black clothes and black hair and a wand loose in his fingers. He said, "Yes, this is the one."
Ociel let Adrien slide from his grip. "Go," was all he said, and Adrien went, walking through the thick snow with the cold sinking into his bones. The bow was long and dark as Ilya's hair and there were creatures carved along it in silver, terrible howling things with gemstone eyes. Ociel warned them the curse would destroy them if they so much as touched the old wood. The centaur was twisted and black, not from Ilya, but from the magic which had eaten him alive. Silent, Ilya and Adrien moved to either side of the fallen body, which lay cooling against the earth, still as a statue, spilling no blood at all.
"Wingardium leviosa," Adrien whispered, as he could not yet cast without speaking like Ilya could. Ilya flicked his wand and together they watched the bow tugging at the dead creature's fingers. Adrien's spell was unsteady; he was still unused to wand magic, learned deep in the forests of Europe at Ociel's insistence before he so much as set foot in Hogwarts. The bow wobbled and pulled free and they raised it into the air.
There was a tugging, deep within Adrien's chest. The bow was slipping from his grasp. Ilya was staring at him with steady eyes, pulling it away. "Ilya," Adrien said, pleading, but the whole thing spiraled out of his control; he pulled back on his wand too quickly and Ilya pulled in response and the bow spun in the air and rocketed into the snow a few feet away.
"It was mine," Ilya said. Adrien realized he was shaking. "It was supposed to be mine. You're not supposed to be here."
"Ilya," Ociel said, one word, cold as the ice around them.
"I hate him!" Ilya screamed. "Why are you here? Why won't you just die?"
The curse came out of nowhere and hit him in the chest, sending him doubling back and careening as the bow had done. Ilya hit the trunk of one of the trees around the clearing so hard Adrien could hear his teeth click. Snow fell from the branches and covered his legs. He let out a quiet noise, then blood, running from between his lips and his shattered chest.
"Ilya!" Adrien said, and started to run to him. The second curse took him in the arm, and he saw the shattering happen, and felt nothing for a moment. He hit the snow and only then did his arm erupt with the pain.
Ociel stood as still as the forest and slowly lowered his wand. He walked without a sound to the bow and wrapped his hand around the grip. He lifted it from the snow. Adrien watched this with a buzzing in his head, his left arm blown wide open at the elbow, and he could see the bone pink under the muscle; his hand seemed attached only by sinewy threads. He could not move his fingers. There was a brief moment where he wondered why the curse had not taken Ociel as well, unsure of what sort of dark thing could hold such a dark thing and overpower it.
His head was reeling, screaming. Ociel knelt down next to him.
"You killed Ilya," Adrien heard himself saying, broken words, sounding neither French nor English. "Ilya—"
"Do you remember your healing spells, Adrien?"
A sob caught low in his throat and he was not sure who was crying. "Yes."
"Fix yourself," Ociel told him.
He could barely hold the wand in his shaking fingers; he was weeping, bleeding, cold. His blood was pumping dark out over the snow and there was a dizziness settling into him. He could not remember the words to the spells. He could not remember the motions. "Please," Adrien said.
Ociel rose. He walked to Ilya, kneeling once again. "Do you remember your healing spells, Ilya?" Adrien heard him ask, but Ilya's eyes were closed; his breaths were shallow gasps and he was gray. Ociel shook his head as if dealing with a petulant child. Adrien tried and tried to mend his arm.
He must have survived, for he grew older; he spoke and slept and walked like a living thing. He does not remember Ociel casting the healing spells, although he must have. He remembers Ilya later, still and silent with hopelessness in his eyes.