1. Shadow on the soul
"Sarah! Stop!" I could hear the voice of my best friend very clearly, but I couldn't make my feet stand still for a single moment. I needed to get away from that cursed place, it made my blood run cold within my veins. The smell of rotting corpses followed my everywhere I went and I felled like throwing up my intestines. Not one person with a bit of feeling in his body could do the things that had been done to those poor Muggles.
I could hear Lisa panting right behind my. No matter how bad things got, she always stuck to me like a nail to a finger. That was no surprise, we had been partners in this horrid war since we had been thirteen years old. We knew and understand each other like a married couple and trusted their lives to one another. She never left my side and if I hadn't been so impulsive, I would've never left hers. Her breath got louder as she grabbed my arm to slow me down and she rasped: "Not Diagon Ally Sarah, it's not save."
"No place is save these days!" I spit out the words like they where venomous and jerked away my arm. I didn't slow down my pace however. To get to our shelter we had to go straight through 'Deatheater Central' and Lisa realised it to. The little layer of snow was making it very difficult to run, but as long as we didn't fall there wouldn't be a problem. But it could get tricky, with all the shops everywhere and the chance of someone unwanted stepping out of one of the doors was very likely.
"Just two more streets to go." Lisa muttered the words, almost as saying it out loud would cast a curse over them. "Crap! Lisa! Put on the breaks!" I shouted as I caught eye of two hooded men and tried to stop dead in my tracks. The snow beneath our feet however didn't allow that and we had to watch ourselves slide on for several metres. As we skidded to a halt, I could see the shiny shoes of the hooded men and my brain was working franticly to come up with a plausible excuses why we were right in front of their feet.
Slowly I looked up and my green eyes met grey ones. One look of those eyes made my blood run as cold as ice. I could feel Lisa's hand on my back, trembling like she expected that her last hours on earth had passed, without her noticing. How many times before hadn't we been in a situation like this? We always managed, we grew up in this war! As those thoughts came up, I managed a daring smile. "What would be you pleasure, My Lord?"
My voice sounded alien, even to myself but I could feel Lisa relax slightly. The man in front of her however raised one perfect eyebrow as he looked the two young women that we were. He didn't say a word and the second man slowly took a step forward, also taking in a look at us. His brown eyes seemed to look straight trough us and I shivered as he opened his mouth and said sneering: "Leave them Draco. They are way to young, even for your taste." The other man's eyes narrowed, as though he was about to disagree with his 'partner' but after a brief hesitation he shrugged and turned around.
"They probably won't last the winter, it hardly calls for my intervention," he muttered as they both walked away. It wouldn't surprise me as he thought that we couldn't hear him, but sadly we could. Before I could restrain myself I had grabbed a handful snow and threw it at him. "Bastard! We will live longer than you will!" I shouted the words as the snow hit him square between the shoulders and he whisked around, wand at the ready.
"You little bitch!" He snarled as we turned around and ran as fast as the snow would allow us to. Someday my temper would certainly get us killed, there was no doubt about it. As we ran into a little side street, I could feel a breeze pass me but I couldn't, wouldn't look behind me. They weren't following us, it was a harmless curse, they just wanted to scare me. Maybe, if I repeated that long enough, I would believe it myself.
I slumped against the wall, trying to catch my breath and felt Lisa do the exact same thing. She breathed hard and I could hear her swallow before she said: "You do realize that lying like that will leave a mark on your conscience? One day, you will start to believe the nonsense you're saying and I'll loose you." A small smile appeared on my lips and I had to use all my strength not to say something sarcastic to Lisa. It was just her way of saying that I got away lucky and that maybe next time, I wouldn't be so lucky at all.
She just didn't seem to understand that Lisa and I would be better of without our conscience, it would make things so much easier. At this point, we hadn't done much in the war, but the shadows had already begun to make their descent on our souls. We just didn't realize it yet, 'cause it would mean we would loose everything we believed in. But the truth being told, we had marks on our conscience ever since the war had come to an violent eruption…
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