A/N: Not much to say except Exams are coming up soon so there will probably be a longer gap between updates. Very sorry but school comes over . Shameful, I know, but true.
Enjoy!
Tress Blues
Spiralling
Chapter Ten
New Year, New Day, New Problem
"I really don't see why this is necessary," I moaned, fidgeting in my chair. Rose chuckled from her bed, busily painting Lily's toenails bright red.
"It's tradition Malfoy. Get used to it," she called to me before nodding at Dominique. "Yes, that's good, leave it down like that." She ordered and my hair was yanked back as Dominique sunk her fingers into the blonde strands.
"Rose, why can't I wear the purple dress?" Lily complained, looking wistfully at her cousin's closet where she'd brought over a few dresses for the holidays. Rose tapped her chin mock-thoughtfully.
"Because Al and James would kill me?" she offered, chuckling. "You're only thirteen Lils, give it some time, you'll wear it next year, promise." I peeked at the dress Lily was gazing at laughed. It was deep, plum purple, silk fabric that clung to just the right places and displayed a daring v-neck that would have every male unrelated to her flat on their arse in seconds.
"Lily, your brothers and cousins and uncles and father would have a heart attack if they saw you in that." I pointed out. Lily looked slightly happy at this thought but still scowled. "Besides, it wouldn't match your nails," I added on, seeing she wasn't convinced.
As far as traditions went, I could live with this one, I mused as I sat in the Dominique Express Chair, trying not to look at the mirror. Rose had quickly informed me, once Scorpius was awake and feeling a hell of a lot better with the last of his potions, that the Potters played host to a big party every New Years, where they invited their friends and family and co-workers to celebrate the New Year.
It was held in the ballroom, the only room in the house that was polished and beautiful and luxurious. Ginny knew that her mother had always wanted to host big, fantastic house parties but the Burrow had always been too small. She'd made New Years the one day of the year where she allowed forty or so complete strangers into her house. Molly Weasley Snr had been overjoyed and loved the room dearly.
There were Weasleys, Longbottoms, Jordans, Scamanders, Lovegoods, Jones, Diggles, Shacklebolts, Grangers, Macquaries, Saunders, Woods, Changs, Diggorys, Creeveys, McLaggens, Montezs, Sweeneys, Duvents, Potters and this year, there were going to be Malfoys. Almost everyone from the legendary Order of the Phoenix and then a number of old friends and colleagues were invited to attend which was always said to be a great honour.
But the girls of the family always played host to their own pre party of getting ready in one of their spare bedrooms of the Potter House. And this year, I was expected to play nice and go along with it.
"Rose do you know where the black heels are? The ones with the velvet straps?" Victoire called from deep within Rose's closet. The redhead frowned, holding a finger to tell Lily to wait a moment and reached under her bed, searchingly for a second, coming up with a triumphant look and a pair of tall black stilettos.
Victoire sighed with relief. She was all dressed up in a jet black, velvet floor-length strapless dress with her hair up in a French twist, perfect and straight without a wisp out of place.
Roxanne, who was busily applying make up to her eyelids, let out a low whistle. "Damn Vicky, you're going to knock Teddy's socks off tonight."
Victoire sent her a look for the nickname she detested but slid the heels on without a word, glancing at herself in the mirror. Molly laughed.
"Oh god, maybe you should wear the other black ones? We want Teddy to be breathing after all this." She pointed out. Victoire, being 1/8th Veela, was 'cursed' with the high probability of looking like she had just been groomed for the front of a Witch Weekly photo shoot for her entire life. She could roll around in mud and pull it off.
Molly herself was wearing a bright canary yellow flawless dress with a halter neck that made her skin look creamy and soft and her long charcoal coloured locks, courtesy of her mother's genes, were straightened and pinned back. She was slowly running soft pink lipstick over her bottom lip and checking and rechecking her hair.
I wish I could say I looked at them all, getting ready, and was naive of it all. But I wasn't because I could name every beauty product owned by these girls together and I knew exactly the brand of perfume someone had just sprayed and I could predict how many pins were holding Molly's hair together with dead accuracy.
The perks of being a groomed pureblood young lady I suppose.
But I didn't really care for being poked and prodded to look picture perfect. Rose caught my eye and gave me a stern look that quite clearly said: Don't even think about leaving that chair Malfoy.
So I sighed and leaned back for the long run, wondering if they realised I hadn't actually packed a dress when I was leaving. Dominique twirled her wand a few more times and my hair felt lighter as she pinned it up, to make sure I wouldn't get massive headaches by the end of the night.
Dominique finally declared me finished. "Okay, now what colour's your dress Lyra? We've got some of this really nice French green eye shadow which would look-"
"Um, Dom, I don't know how to tell you this but...Idon'thaveadress." I said, quickly, rushing the words together to make sure Dominique didn't murder me outright.
Lily's eyes went huge. "But- But you had your trunk!" she protested, looking like she wanted to run and check it. I wondered what she'd do if she saw my closet at Malfoy Manor.
I shrugged, feeling a little defensive. "I didn't really think ball gowns would be the first thing on my list when I left Lils," I replied sarcastically.
Rose blinked at her closet and pursed her lips. "Lyra? You'd fit something of mine wouldn't you?" she checked, looking me over in the chair. Roxanne caught her gaze and nodded slowly.
"Hmm. Yes, that would work. But you might need to alter the straps a little." She added in, drawing something green-blue and softly sparkling out of the closet space. Rose nodded, tapping her finger thoughtfully against her cheek and apparently forgetting she had a nail polish brush in her hand.
"Yeah I s'pose..." she murmured, thoughtfully. Rose herself was wearing a pale pink, knee-length dress that swirled around her pale skin as she moved and looked silky against her body. Dom grabbed it and held out the dress to me.
"Go put it on so I can adjust it." She demanded. I frowned at her.
"Are you seventeen yet?" I asked, playfully and she tossed me a death glare back.
"What the Ministry doesn't know, doesn't hurt them. Besides, you really think they're going to go up against my Uncle Harry?" she challenged and I darted into the bathroom, knowing a lost cause when I saw one. I tried not to look in the mirror too much while I changed because seeing the scars always made me feel nauseous.
So I just slipped in it, trying desperately not to mess with Dominique's no doubt flawless creation and checked the fabric out to myself as I walked outside.
It was a very light blue-green with sequins sewn throughout the varied layers of fabric, ending a few inches below my knee, hiding one of the cuts on my thigh and the bruise on my knee cap rather well. There was a band of shiny metallic green silk about an inch wide running just under the bust although Roxanne was right about the straps- they were just a little looser on me than Rose.
Dominique appraised me with a very pleased smile. "Yes, it's perfect." She announced. Her cousins rolled their eyes in unison.
"Oh fantastic," Lily mumbled.
"Wow, that takes the stress off," Rose teased.
"Well, now that it has your approval Dom," Roxanne raised an eyebrow, sarcastically.
Victoire merely sighed and weeded her way through the pile of shoes that had collected near the door from the beginning. She pulled out a pair of white, lace-decorated ballet flats with a centimetre or two of heel and handed them to me. "These should go with it Lyra," she murmured with a smile.
"What? No, she's wearing the heels!" Molly bemoaned, glancing at the shoes near the door- six inch, metallic green stilettos. I blanched. They really are trying to kill me...
"Well I'm the Healer here and I say she's wearing the flats." Victoire shot back with a no-nonsense tone that could've rivalled Ginny's.
Molly pouted, turning around long enough for Victoire to whisper "Molly has a bit of an obsession with heels," to me with a wink. I smirked at Rose who was mournfully watching as I slipped the shoes on.
"Wish I could get away with flats..." she mumbled, finishing up with a drying spell on Lily's nails. Her little cousin quickly donned a pretty old fashioned kind of white dress and ran into the bathroom for a moment to study how she looked.
Molly glared at her. "You will be happy you got your Mum's height not your Dad's and be done with it, Red." She growled, having already been denied once. Rose growled.
"That is not my name." She insisted. Roxanne snorted.
"Oh give it up Rose, they're just being gits because they're not so wonderfully ginger like us." She comforted her cousin, giving her own auburn strands a tug as she twisted it into a bun at the back of her head. Roxanne took after her father with her colouring although her face was remarkably Johnson and she had her mother's dark brown eyes. Molly, Dominique and Victoire all rolled their eyes simultaneously.
Being the non-redheads of the family gave them automatic leverage to tease and mock their cousins although it was probably just so they wouldn't be teased themselves. Victoire, Dominique and their brother Louis, were all white-gold blondes and Molly and Lucy both had long charcoal coloured curls although their sister seemed fit to inherit a Weasley mop when she grew up a little.
Dominique set to work applying the French green eyeshadow she'd been dying to use and I got the distinct impression that many discussion prior to this evening had been had, wistfully: What would you put Lyra in if she were here? What kind of hair would you do? What heels? What makeup?
I wondered if Rose had known that I'd one day participate in this tradition. From the way she was eying me, smug and happy, I realised she'd been planning this since First Year.
"Okay, am I done yet?" I asked, impatiently. I desperately wanted to see Scorpius who had apparently been cleared of all the injuries I'd seen this afternoon- they were all surface injuries, Victoire said, taken care of with one of her brews. And, to a certain extent, I wanted to see Albus, to make sure he and everyone else was alright. The dread hadn't left me yet: I didn't understand it but I heeded the feeling.
Dominique threw me a dirty look but nodded, gesturing to Lily, who had reappeared from the bathroom, a pair of black and white striped stocking on her legs and a bright red sash tied around her mid section. The dress was off-white with flat sleeves that just covered her shoulders and fell into a flowy, lace trimmed skirt that stopped at the knee. Pretty on its own but with the stockings and bright sash, it looked like it'd been made specifically for the thirteen year old. She beamed, her hair spilling over her shoulders in a tangled mess. "What do you think?"
I laughed. "You certainly have style Miss Potter," I complimented. Her face glowed- she looked like Alice, having tumbled down the Rabbit Hole in that ridiculous Muggle novel Alice in Wonderland which I'd had to read for Muggle Studies.
Dominique clicked her fingers at me. "You go do her hair. I'll help Rosie learn about mascara. Goodness knows you redheads need it..." she muttered, impetuously. Her cousins threw her dirty looks.
I sat down on the bed behind Lily and brushed out the knots which had collected through out the day, adding a curling spell here and there. "Up or down?" I checked.
"Down," she chirped, studying her bright red nails. The dress was knee length but clung to her slim form in ways that drew subtle attention to the fact she wasn't a child.
I curled her hair into bright red ringlets and let them spill down her shoulders, shiny and bouncing. "You want me to do make up as well?" I queried and Lily nodded, turning to face me. She'd inherited her mother's soft brown doe-eyes although there was a certain twinkle in them. Her face was very much like her mothers, heart-shaped, delicate and beautiful.
I applied the mascara and eyeliner and pale cream eye shadow in amounts which wouldn't give her father a coronary and she beamed at me, drawing a tube of bright red lipstick from her side and quickly putting it on before anyone could stop her. "I'm thirteen." She cut off Molly's frown, defiantly. "I can wear lipstick."
Well, she'd inherited the Weasley stubbornness, at least.
-''-''-''-
The party was big and grand and from the outside, it seemed just like the infamous pure-blooded balls Narcissa and Lucius forced me to attend at home. Neat, grand, elegant, beautiful. But in the crowds of people, talking and chatting, there was definite improvement in the air, a sort of lightness that didn't hold any of the sinister comments or intentions or coldness of the pureblood balls.
Scorpius and Albus had been reasonably stunned that Rose and I were actually wearing dresses and acting like girls and although he still looked like crap, Scorpius insisted on accompanying Rose and I everywhere he could and when he had to rest, Albus took over.
"How's he feeling?" I murmured to Albus when Rose badgered him into his seat nearby. We were collecting punch from the bowl in the middle of the snacks table which meant it was relatively empty- everyone was either talking or dancing.
Albus shook his head, chuckling lowly. "Are you at all aware of the fact that both of you were hurt?" he asked, pouring out a glass of punch.
I scowled. "Yes, of course. But Scorp had it worse even if he'd never tell me himself. Al, just answer me, please?" I begged.
It was his turn to scowl as he looked at me, exasperated. "Ly, puppy dog eyes? Really?" But he sighed. "He's doing ok, not as well as Victoire would like but he'll be fine to go back to school in a few days."
School. I made a face, just thinking about the news that was probably well circulated among the pureblood circles by now: The Malfoy Twins have been thrown out...living with mudbloods and traitors last time I heard...
"Hey," Albus murmured, slipping one hand into mine. I hadn't noticed the trembling. "It'll be okay."
I choked out a laugh. "Promise?"
"Definitely." He replied, firmly and tugged me toward the table where Scorpius and Rose were exchanging heated words in whispers. "Come on, let's see what the lovebirds are arguing about now."
I rolled my eyes but followed and we reached the table at precisely the same time as Scorpius sat back in his chair, huffing and Rose gloated with victory. "Well I wonder who won this time..." I murmured to Al who scoffed and went to pull my chair out before I stopped him with a dirty look. "I'm not an invalid, Potter." I snapped. He held his hands up surrender and took the spot between Rose and Scorpius, tentatively.
"I never said you were." Albus replied, mildly but he cast a knowing glance at Rose who raised an eyebrow.
"Bloody Weasleys. Always trying to take care of the injured," I teased. "Us Malfoys are made of stronger stuff than Spellotape guys, we're fine."
"I think Victoire would beg to differ..." Albus mumbled but Scorpius elbowed him in the gut, irritatedly. "What? You two-"
"Almost died, we know." The pair of us drawled in unison. I rolled my eyes again and snorted in sync with Scorpius.
"You know, it's really weird when you guys do that," Rose commented, casually.
I scoffed, once again in time with Scorpius and then shot him an irritated glance at the same time and then pinched his elbow while he flicked my ear in unison. "Cut it out Hyperion." I smirked and he growled.
"How many times do I have to tell you Thea, the middle name card is a reverse street." he snapped back.
"Ah, Thea and Hyperion...they were siblings you know..." came a drifty voice and suddenly the incandescent figure of Luna Lovegood-Scamander appeared, smiling dreamily, wrapped in a pearl colour dress and a pair of long orange carrots dripping from her ears.
Rose smiled. "Hey Aunt Luna."
"They say the snifflerdoodles came from Thea and Hyperion...as well as the sun and moon and all of the stars..." Luna sighed, continuing on. "The Titans of Light and the Sky...married on Frabjous Day..."
"You mean they were siblings and married?" Rose said, disgusted.
"Godly incest was big back in Greece." Scorpius shrugged, having heard the story many times. Albus raised an eyebrow at me.
"You're both named after gods?" he asked, sceptically. I frowned, mock-exasperatedly.
"Haven't you heard? We're Malfoys, Albus, pretentiousness comes with territory. We're named after stars too." I pointed out, smiling.
Rose giggled. "That would explain the rather large enormity of your brother's ego, Ly."
"Oi!" Scorpius protested. "I'm injured Weasley, be nice would you?"
"Oh so now you're injured!" Rose turned on him with a vengeance. "What about this afternoon when you were wandering around, claiming to be perfectly fine?"
"Well I was fine then, obviously." Scorpius drawled before pulling out the trembling bottom lip and puppy dog eyes. I smirked as Rose blushed a furiously bright red at the sight of him. "But due to this constant beating of my fragile self-esteem, now I'm helpless and injured, Rosie-Posie."
"Oh shut up." Rose muttered, for once unable to retort with a clever excuse. I frowned. It was our little running joke that Rose and Scorpius bickered far too much to be healthy and so it must be a way of relieving the sexual tension running between them. But I'd never actually thought-
"Children," Luna interrupted my thoughts, softly. "I'm just introducing some of our guests tonight. There are a few new faces." She added, sweetly. I had to admit, Luna was the only person Scorpius and I didn't have to convince when we first met. She'd actually hugged me when we were introduced which scared the shit out of me and Scorpius had kept glancing suspiciously at her like she was pretending to ease his guard down.
"Rose, Albus, you've met Dennis and Linda Creevey." I noticed a couple dressed in soft brown dress robes and a dove grey dress standing behind Luna, both of them smiling happily at Rose and Albus. When their gaze turned on us, they turned concerned but slightly suspicious nonetheless. At this point, it didn't even bother me but I could see Albus' smile become a little forced and Rose gripped my hand beneath the table.
"This is Scorpius and Lyra Malfoy, family friends. And this is their daughter, Maria Creevey and their son Colin." Luna finished, gesturing to the tiny little girl that seemed to be swallowed up by her soft purple dress and the even smaller figure beside her who was matching his father in brown.
"Oh yes, wonderful to meet you all, I haven't seen either of you in so many years, oh you're all so big, goodness, it's so strange, isn't it Linda?" Dennis Creevey took off at the speed of light, his voice high pitched and rapid and I wondered, for a moment, if his Patronus was a chipmunk.
His wife merely smiled and nodded, holding tight to her daughter's shoulders and casting odd looks at Scorpius who rolled his eyes. "Maria's starting her Third Year of Hogwarts this year and Colin just starting this year. He was so excited to meet some of the students before he went." She added on, fondly.
"You can do magic right? Well, that's kind of a stupid question, I mean, you go to Hogwarts after all but I'm just starting this year and it was really weird 'coz we didn't really know if I could go, y'know, coz I didn't show any signs but then there was the Headmistress and she said I could go and I heard it's really, really cool and Maria told me-"
It was obvious that Colin took after his father.
"Colin, shh." Maria whispered to him, her pale skin flushed slightly. I caught her peeking at Albus and I from the corner of her eye and I wondered if she thought I was about to decapitate him.
"Well we'd best be off," Dennis Creevey stated. "I think I see Diddlums over in the corner. Good to see you all, if you'll excuse us..." he bustled off in a manner that only such a short man could've done and his family followed him, the little boy busily chatting away to his sister who was watching the crowd twirl on the dance floor.
"I think I need an eardrum replacement." Albus moaned, cupping his ears, protectively. I nudged him, concealing my smile.
"Come on they weren't that ba-"
I didn't get to finish my sentence before the scream cut me off, echoing all the way through the ballroom.
Immediately, Albus was on his feet and stepping up on his chair, trying to see over the crowd and I frantically yanked him back to the ground. "Are you insane? That makes you an easier target!" I hissed, watching as more screams started to emanate from across the room.
"What's going on?"
"What's happening?"
"Who are they?"
"How did they-?"
Panic ensued. Jets of bright light started to fly, flung across the room, hitting chandeliers and windows and tables and chairs. A rush of people were caught in the fray, bustling and bumping people out of the way.
There was a rush of silver light and I was knocked off my feet, the air in my lungs suddenly not enough to keep my vision from blurring as I landed, hard, on the marble floor. I could only lay there for a minute, frozen, dizzy and unsure, aching from wounds I was sure had reopened but the sound of screaming and yelling and jinxes that splattered across the ground, bouncing off Protego shields beside me brought me back to my senses and I could see Rose and Albus were huddled together by the upturned table, dragging a bleeding Scorpius with them.
I clammed up for a second before my wand found my hand and I cast a Protego charm in front of a pair of young witches at the table beside ours in time to stop a bright red hex from hitting them.
Then I saw them. It was like something out of a nightmare- a flood of black robed wizards poured in with a series of cracks! beating out a rhythm like a frantic heartbeat. They were all masked, all disguised, all too familiar to me. Death Eaters, I immediately thought but there was something different about them, something off.
They weren't killing people for one thing, I noted. They were stunning them left and right but among the brightly coloured spell chaos, I couldn't see a wisp of green. "Get out! They're coming, leave now!" came a loud, echoing voice and suddenly packs of families were attempting to exit through the main doors.
They can't Apparate out, I realised. But then how did they get in?
"Lyra!" Scorpius roared and I ducked on instinct, in time to see a jet of blue light go soaring over my head.
"Who the hell are they?" I yelled at Albus who was trying to break through the ballroom doors, which had been locked and somehow blocked with magic.
"I don't know!" he shouted back, trying to wade through the masses of people. I could see Scorpius had already flipped over the table and Rose and he were shooting spells from behind it so I grabbed Al's arm and tugged him to the safety of the flipped table.
My eyes went wide and I screamed at the red light bouncing toward the dark haired Potter son. "ALBUS!" he spun and just managed to deflect a Stunning spell aimed at his head before we collapsed behind the table.
"You don't think they're from them do you?" I asked Scorpius sending a Stinging jinx to my right. Others were copying us, flipping over tables for protection. We were in a room of war heroes. But there were still so many screaming and too many black robed figures popping out of nowhere.
Scorpius glanced at Rose for a second with fear in his eyes and I knew he was wondering the same thing: Had we just put the Potters in danger?
But there was no time to answer when suddenly Luna was there, her dreamy face hard and sharp and she glanced at us for a mere second, taking in numbers, Rose's injured leg and the tear on Albus' shirt, as well as the way Scorpius' bandages were bleeding through slightly and my dress's straps were red from reopened stitches.
"You lot had better stay here," she informed us, somehow despicably calm despite the attack. "Your parents would go spare if you were hit."
I rolled my eyes, abruptly angry and I threw a Stupefy over the top of the table, watching with satisfaction as a black shadow faltered slightly. "My parents wouldn't give a flying hippogriff." I spat.
How dare they come here? How dare they attack the Potters? I glanced around the corner, trying to see if they were anyone I recognised from the pureblood elitist circles but nothing stuck out. There was something weird about them. They were all wearing masks, pitch black with haunting silver swirls delicately twirled around the eye slits and mouth area.
Death Eaters.
"Lyra, stay-"
"Expelliarmus!" shouted an unfamiliar voice and my wand went flying along with Luna's right across the floor and I let out a wordless cry as it slipped from my fingers. No, no, no, no...not defenceless...not again...
Albus ripped me backwards as the mysterious possible Death Eater flung a spell at me but in a second his wand along with Rose's had been ridden too. My eyes went wide and my chest heaved as I scrambled backward, trying to hide Scorpius and Rose from his view. Albus remained stubbornly at my side.
The Death Eater scowled, furiously. "Hiding behind the Potters? How pathetic," he sneered but just as he raised his arm for a second time, something hit his shield charm and just as he turned to investigate, Luna shouted "Accio Wand!" and it raced back to her, spinning through the air and straight to her hand.
"Flippendo!" she roared and the Death Eater went flying through the midst of fighting. I'd never seen a deadlier look grace the ethereal face of Luna Lovegood-Scamander and to this day, I never wanted to again. "Rose stay here with Scorpius. Al, Lyra get your wands and blast the doors." She demanded, firmly and I kicked off my shoes the same way I had a week ago, immediately.
Albus scowled as Luna dove back into the midst of the chaotic spells and jinxes and streams of colour that were flying from the cocktail-dressed war heroes and dark robed Death Eaters. "C'mon," he ordered, tugging me along and we sprinted, ducking left and right, finally skidding to a halt to where our wands had been tossed.
I grabbed mine and immediately set to work breaking the doors with every ounce of strength I had. "Reducto! Kartaris! Accurus! It's not working!" I screamed to Albus who was also trying everything he knew. He glanced at me, infuriated.
"They've blocked it somehow- LYRA!" he roared, his face suddenly becoming so horrified, so absolutely shocked and desperate that I ducked before I could think of what to do.
A green jet of light went speeding over head and hit one of the doors, making it creak and groan, full of scorch marks and cracks.
There was an almost audible intake of breath among the crowds of people. Green jets of light only meant one thing. Avada Kedavra. The Killing Curse. An Unforgiveable.
If I thought it was hell before, it was nothing to what broke loose now.
The masses of people who had been fighting and trying frantically to Apparate out were now hysterical, banging on the doors and shooting every spell known to wizard, trying to get out, trying to save themselves, their families from the Killing Curse, the one that had been surprisingly absent until now.
I turned and blanched at how close I'd just come to being hit before facing the Death Eater who'd thrown it at me. They smirked but before they could even think another Unforgiveable, I threw a Stinging Jinx at them and they hissed, one hand clutching their face through the mask.
I was livid. Terror was just a leftover emotion at this point. I'd been almost killed multiple times in the past month and I was sick of it. I could see more glints of green across the room and I wondered if perhaps someone hadn't ducked fast enough before something yellow glanced off my shoulder and half the skin came away in a red, raw bloody mess.
I gritted my teeth and drove out the pain, whirling my wand furiously at the Death Eater. Our duel got nastier when they hurled a Knife-Throwing curse at me and a dozen sharp edged blades went flying toward me. I desperately wanted to turn around and check if anyone had been hurt but there was no time because suddenly my hand acted of its own accord and bright blue light exploded from the tip of my wand, scalding the Death Eater's entire body with white hot pain, causing their clothes to start to smoke with the heat.
They howled in pain and was about to throw another curse at me when a cheer went up at the other end of the room and it was as if a single message had been passed around them at once. "You will die." The Death Eater mouth before, trembling with pain, they simply disappeared with a loud crack! followed by the rest of them in loud staccato bursts of sound.
My hand shook as I gradually lowered my wand and the righteous fury flooded out of me as I heard a wordless scream that echoed through the destroyed ballroom. The kind of scream you let loose when someone dies-
"My son!" someone bellowed, the tone masculine and broken and shattered. A cold hand seized my heart and my brain started racing, catching eyes with Albus and then glancing around the room for any other of the Weasley clan boys. Fred, Hugo, Louis, Ja- wait, James. Where- "Where's James?" I whispered, my mouth suddenly dry.
Albus obviously had the same thoughts as me because his face went paler than ever and he sprinted to the origins of the scream like Hell hounds were biting at his ankles and I followed, the adrenaline still pumping through my veins, making sure I couldn't feel the glass shards piercing my feet or the blood that was now making thin trails of crimson down my arms.
None of it mattered. None of it would ever matter, not unless James Potter, the irritating prat he was, was there too. We pushed through people but no one protested, all of them too busy comforting their families or checking injuries or trying to rouse stupefied victims. My heart felt like it filled with lead, making me heavy and slow and I picked up the pace, just inches behind Albus until he stopped suddenly, his face shocked and white.
I glanced around him and choked on my own breaths. No. Please, Merlin, no.
I hated myself for it but I'd been right-
Someone hadn't ducked fast enough.
Poor James.
Poor Albus.
Poor Harry.
TBlues.