A/N: Seventh year is even shorter than sixth, don'tcha know. Psh, seventh year isn't important, simply because nothing happens and I've got nothing to say about it.

Just a question to all the readers: Why do you think I wrote the prologue? I'm interested in why you all think it's there.

Uh, maybe this chapter has to do with the fact that there was a The Twilight Zone marathon today. I don't own The Twilight Zone, and I don't own Lord of the Rings.

If this chapter is confusing... good. I want to confuse you. Short chapter, though, but not as short as the prologue or chapter four.

The Scribe's Resurrection
Part Two: Chapter Fourteen

Tuesday, September 6, 1977

"Ooh, wow, did it hurt?"

"No," Selena answered truthfully.

"Dad's letting me get a tattoo later on," Deven Patil said. He was a year below Selena and had taken Allan's place next to Remus in the Great Hall. They were talking about their summers.

"Cool. Sirius got a tattoo too."

"Did you, mate?" Deven asked. Sirius nodded.

"Yep." Sirius pulled back a part of his shirt, exposing some of the inking.

"Wicked."

"Trying out for Keeper, Deven?" James asked.

"Yes, sir, Head Boy Captain, sir." Remus snorted milk out of his nose as James puffed up his chest in a 'dignified' manner.

"Good, good." The schedules were passed around, and Selena picked hers up first.

"Bloody hell!" She screamed.

"What?" Remus picked his up. "OH MY GOD."

"Great, I don't wanna know now," James mumbled. Lily picked up hers.

"This is worse than O.W.L. year!"

"We're never gonna sleep again!" Selena shrieked. "Double Potions, double DADA, double Arithmancy, double Ancient Runes, and double Transfiguration?! I think I'm going to cry." Sirius, James, and Peter snatched up their schedules, and were happy to find that theirs weren't as bad as Selena's. Sirius peeked over at Selena's parchment.

"Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch."

"At least you've only got them once every week. It could be like Spell Making where we go to class three times each week."

"Yeah, well, Spell Making is easy. I've got all the hard classes, then doubled."

"Sorry, Quicksilver. But you're the one who wants to be an unspeakable." Remus and Selena switched schedules.

"Your schedule's almost like mine. I've got breaks where you've got Herbology." They all swapped papers, looking at who they should sit with in class and wait on between classes.

"Well, tell me how the first few days go so that I can schedule Quidditch practices. I don't want to pick a time we're all not free..."

"Ugh, Quidditch too?" Selena moaned.

"Sorry." James shrugged. "I know exactly how you feel. Wonder who our new DADA teacher is this year..."

Wednesday, February 8, 1978

N.E.W.T. year was everything Selena had expected and more. Yes, she had seniority over most other students in Hogwarts, but the workload was dreadful. The holidays were certainly not enough time to recuperate, and she often found herself tired and poured over books in the Great Hall.

She was on break, and Sirius and the others were in the greenhouses. After this break was lunch, and she did not feel like going all the way up to the common room and back down for a meal and double Arithmancy. Selena was grossly upset.

Guide to Advanced Transfiguration Level Two, Undo the Unknown, The Standard Book of Spells: Grade Seven, Neumerology Five, and The Beaters' Bible all sat open to a particular page. Thankfully, she had finished finding the numerologies of twenty famous warlocks over the summer break, and now Selena checked over them diligently.

"D... twenty-seven, add that to forty-four, minus eleven, plus ten. Hum. Seventy. Fun number, seven. I swear, it's in everything."

"Oh, wow, Regulus, you're so incredible." Selena's ears twitched, and she looked up and searched for the admirers. Some Slytherins, on the other side of the Great Hall, were gathered around Sirius' little brother. Regulus, arm outstretched, wore a smug look of satisfaction.

"Yes, I know."

"I can't believe the Dark Lord let you join!" All the breath in Selena's body flooded out through her mouth.

"Of course he did. My family's been pure for centuries. Who wouldn't want to rid the Wizarding populous of Mudbloods? I swore my allegiance to him, and he let me be a Death Eater." Selena, the only Gryffindor at her table, felt cold and her hands clammed.

"Regulus is just too great," Darcy said sweetly, pecking him on the cheek.

Selena's vision became blurry as she strained for air to flow into her lungs. Tears stained her numerology charts. She hastily shoved her parchment into the book and slammed it shut. All the blood seemed to pump to her cheeks and away from her extremities, resulting in a dull ache in her chest.

Images of her parents and the Knox family danced through her brain. Oh, why did Death Eaters have to exist? Oh, why did Darcy have to belong to Regulus instead of her? Oh, dash it, why did He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named have to even exist? Selena clutched her bosom; the dull ache had transformed into a sharp stab. All the blows she'd ever taken seemed to hit her again with the force tenfold that of the original hits.

Was it never-ending? Was there no solace? Why couldn't she let go of her Darcy? No, she was not her Darcy. Yet, why did it feel like a part of Selena had been sold to the devil? It was not Darcy who was a Death Eater- it was Regulus. But Darcy loved that boy! Selena could always see it in Darcy's sky blue eyes. Did Darcy's heart not ache as well? Knowing that her Regulus could end up in Azkaban too? Selena looked up.

Darcy's eyes held melancholy in them. It was like those sky eyes were raining. Storming, now. But no tears were in Darcy's eyes. Selena gasped. Darcy was staring back. Selena put her head down.

"Selena?" Selena turned to her right and forced a smile.

"Hi." Her voice was scratchy. Sitting down, Sirius carefully placed all of her papers in their respective books, packed the books away, and then sighed. His hands cupped Selena's face, and he studied her physiognomy long and hard.

"What happened?" He finally asked.

"Your brother is a Death Eater," Selena stated plainly. His face hardened into a scowl.

"Figures. And that hurts you how?"

"Darcy's in love with him."

"And she'll get what she deserves."

"Don't say that. Darcy's still my friend. She's like you-"

"She is not," Sirius said gruffly.

"You don't know her. She'll get hurt."

"Then let her. She made bad choices. And her father killed your-"

"Her ancestry has nothing to do with her soul, Sirius."

"Right." Sirius let go of Selena's chin; Selena wiped her face with her sleeve.

"Just like your parents've got nothing to do with you," she added. Sirius' mouth opened with a retort, but then everyone else sat down to lunch.

"One thing I love about Herbology is that you can swear loudly when stuff bites you," James announced. "I am starving."

"All right?" Remus asked quietly, close to Selena's ear.

"I'm fine. I'm always the same."

"Okay, but you don't look very well."

"I'm fine. Ask Lily what's up." Remus looked at the redhead with newly concerned interest. Lily slowly took her seat next to James and quietly began eating whatever was in front of her. Selena kicked James under the table.

"OUCH! MERLIN, SELENA, WHAT IS YOUR-" Selena jerked her head in Lily's direction, and James looked at his girlfriend's composure.

"Hey," he said quietly.

"Hi." James put his lips on her forehead and murmured something against it. Lily promptly burst into tears, to James' astonishment.

"Whoa, Lily, what's the matter?"

"Dumbledore's just told me!" Lily wheezed. "My mum and dad! My mum and dad have- have-have just died!" Everyone's eyes widened.

"Oh, Lily," James cooed, pulling her into his arms.

"It- it was a car accident," she continued. "Petunia wrote me last night that they were in the hospital, but I thought they'd be okay! But then Dumbledore..." Lily trailed off, and her sobs became louder, though she had buried her face into James' robes. James looked to his friends, nonverbally asking what he was supposed to do.

"Maybe you should take her to the common room," Selena offered. "I'll take her notes in Arithmancy for her."

"Right." James eased himself off the bench, careful not to disturb Lily. James guided stumbling Lily away.

"Poor love," Selena sighed. "I know exactly how she feels."

"We should make her a care basket," Peter said. "My mum does that for people who've suffered a loss or aren't feeling too well..."

"Oh, Peter." Sirius shook his head.

"He's right. We should."

The four plus Frank proceeded to make a list of things Lily would find comforting. Selena wrote down the items, though she knew no amount of material presents would make Lily's world all right again.

Monday Night, April 3, 1978

Lily would not recover, particularly after Dumbledore told her the circumstances in which her parents died. The circumstances revealed themselves to be tainted with the slightest bit of evil.

On an exceptionally rainy, tempestuous night, Mr. and Mrs. Evans had been driving down a residential road when they saw a Dark Mark in the sky. Knowing what it meant from their daughter Lily, they panicked. Distracted, Mr. Evans swerved his car into a lamppost, and Dumbledore had trailed off from there.

Still overcome with grief, Lily had not asked how Dumbledore had acquired their memories when they were dead, but Selena knew that the headmaster had personally pulled their last conscious thoughts from them.

---

Selena's brain hurt. Too much commotion threatened to make her explode with stress. Time was running out. The N.E.W.T.s approached quickly, and Selena didn't think she could make it. Her sleep patterns were out of whack, making her optimum rest time during the break between first and second. For the life of her, she could not make herself go to bed at one in the morning as everyone else did. Therefore, she took walks.

In February, Selena got the insane idea to walk the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest using a makeshift sketch from Remus. (They couldn't find the time to retrieve the Marauder's Map, and they found they didn't need it very much.) One time, she accidentally went too far and ran into centaurs, who were extremely angry with her. But when she told them she needed help 'reading the sky,' they were all too happy to help Selena, and she learned very valuable information from them. But then Selena noticed her feet had a faint shade of green because of the silver shoes, and she stopped visiting the young centaur Magorian.

In March, Selena had stumbled upon a fantastical thing in the kitchens, resulting in her making lots and lots of turkey burgers for the house elves. Cooking, which she had not done by hand since her mother died, soothed her mind and made her feel closer to her parents. But when she got detention from Professor McGonagall and then again from Professor Walden, she decided against making the long trek from the seventh floor to the kitchens in the dead of night.

So then, Selena racked her brain for all the places she could visit. She found only one place that would satisfy her.

Holding her journal, the plump young woman paced the corridor of the seventh floor, thinking about the legendary number seven. The Room of Requirement presented itself to her, and she pushed open the door.

"Well, that's peculiar," she said. Instead of the wardrobe with the boggart, the Come and Go Room was completely empty. There were no walls, no arches, no windows, nothing. Everything was like a midnight sky.

"It's like I've stepped into the Twilight Zone," Selena mumbled, thinking of her favorite television show. She murmured the opening words, remembering the eerie music that accompanied them. Selena opened her journal, posing the quill. The quill wrote down where she was, and the television show she thought of.

All of a sudden, the room began mirroring Selena's thoughts. The door, the window, the eye, the clock...

"Are you trying to tell me that seven equals the Twilight Zone?" Selena asked. Her voice reverberated through the vast room.

"No," she heard voices whisper. Selena tensed, pulling her wand out.

"What're you trying to tell me?"

"You should know- you're the Unspeakable..." The voices spoke as one, but they started at different moments and ended at different times. Their pitches were all different, too. A child's playful tone, a woman's demure voice, a man's slow, deep pitch, and many other voices made up what Selena heard.

"I don't know! I'm not an Unspeakable yet!"

"We are... Things that are, things that were, and things that have not yet come to pass... We are the bravest, the courageous! We are the cowardice, the fearful! We are the strongest, mightiest! We are the weakest, the helpless! We are the ignorant, the unaware! We are the wisest, the smartest! We are the greatest, the ultimate! We are the first, and we are the last! We are the most loyal, and we are traitors! We are the purest, the most benevolent! We are the violent, the sinister, and the evil!"

"One cannot be all those things."

"Untrue! False! Incorrect!" The voices paused. "One can be everything one wishes... If only you stay true to your path... It is greater not to stray and succumb to the impulses, the distractions!"

"What if you need them- the distractions?" Selena looked down at her journal- it wrote down what the room said.

"Do not let them be who you are! Let them shape you... Learn from the impulses, the distractions... The greatest men gave in to their desires! The greatest men would have done well to take the righteous course! The greatest men should not have been selfish!"

"If they were great, then did they not take the righteous course?"

"No... No, they did not. At one point, they were selfish and gave in to their desires, not once thinking of the hearts they would maim by doing so!"

"What if they didn't mean it- to, to maim the hearts of those they loved?"

"But they still did it. The hearts would never know their damage- to be maimed is bliss for them- but they would feel it... But if first the hearts stopped beating, not knowing they were so maimed-"

"Then that would not be selfish," Selena finished. "Because the hearts would know the damage at the end and could not hold back or sway the great men. And if the hearts knew the damage before they stopped beating, then the great men could never be great and follow their righteous path."

"See? You do know."

"So, only the truly great men can be selfish and give in to their desires... Only if the hearts they maim by loving do not realize the damage until they stop beating."

"Yes."

"Then the greatest men would be alone."

"To be great is to be alone in this world."

"That is awful."

"That may be true."

"But what if the greatest men know? What if they know what you have told me?"

"Then that is sacrifice." The voices stalled and added, "The truly great men always know."

"So the greatest men we name are not truly great if they do not already know they will be alone."

"Rightly so."

"So there are fewer greatest men than we think."

"Yes."

"Would Voldemort count as a great man?" Selena asked; she gasped, realizing she had spoken then name aloud. The room did not mind.

"Is Voldemort alone?"

"He has Death Eaters."

"One can be surrounded by a crowd and still feel like a solitary being."

Selena reciprocated by saying, "One can be out to sea and be thirsty, for they cannot drink a single drop. Drinking the sea when thirsty would make thirst harsher."

"And so, having hearts around you when you yearn for hearts-"

"Increases the chance of hearts getting hurt and stopping their pulsating, you lose them, and therefore, you yearn for hearts more. Eliminate your need for hearts... But one needs hearts to live."

"Exactly. Sacrifice." The voice faded, and the room turned into an empty classroom.

Selena shook the daze out of her head, finding it strange that she had talked with someone while also writing in her journal. However, she found it more peculiar that the someone was a something, and that the something had no brain.

Selena left the room feeling rejuvenated and feeling as if she'd had the most heavenly revelation in history.

Friday, June 23, 1978

"And I'd just like to say that whatever happens after we get off that train tomorrow, we'll still be best friends. Good luck to Frank and Alice on their Auror training and to Selena with her Unspeakable training. I'm going to miss you all." James moved his hand in a toasting gesture, then drank the sparkling cider; everyone else did the same.

"This is so sad," Alice Cullen said softly. "We're all going our separate ways..."

"I know..."

The seventh-years had special permission that night to make merry in the Great Hall. For some of them, it would be their last time eating dinner in it, so they were trying to make it memorable. Everyone was dressed in his or her finest and Professor Flitwick had charmed instruments into playing music. Dumbledore had allowed catering from Honeydukes and The Three Broomsticks, and everyone's favorite foods to be made. Some of the professors had even come down to participate in the festivities. Instead of his usual wizard's hat, Dumbledore wore a golden tiara.

Selena, of course, wore silver to match with her silver shoes. No one asked how she got them, but all were very surprised when she said she'd left her walking stick on her bed and that her shoes were keeping her from falling. Her Garland Fuzzies also were celebrating, flying around and kissing the air with glittery liquid.

"I have an announcement, too!" Sirius yelled suddenly. He smacked the table and stood up. Selena eyed him curiously- he'd been very quiet.

"Go on then," Professor Slughorn prompted.

"Well, um... It's been a great seven years. We've had victories, gotten nicked up, gotten into trouble-" Sirius coughed lightly, seeing the grins on the faces of Remus, James, and Peter. "-and through it all, we've had friends. And sometimes your friends evolve into something more, and... And..." Selena slowly shook her head; she could tell he was nervous. "Well, Selena, stand up."

Selena, rolling her eyes, stood.

"What?" She asked. Sirius bent down on one knee. Several people gasped, others whistled, but Selena didn't get it. Sirius pulled out a little velvet box and opened it up, revealing a ring.

"Selena Nisha Riviera, would you do me the honor of being mine forever?"

Selena stopped breathing, staring at the ring. Sirius' question echoed in her ears. Other than that, it was dead silent. Her surprised expression slowly turned into a grin.

"YES!" She squealed. Clapping, Selena began to jump up and down. "Yes, yes, yes!" She gave him her left hand, and he slid the silver ring on it while he stood up. She animatedly wrapped her arms around his neck, elated and almost in tears; her force almost proved to be too much, as she and Sirius nearly toppled to the ground. At that moment, Selena felt there was no one in the world but them, and she prayed that it could always be like that.

Everyone applauded, congratulating Selena and clapping Sirius on the back. Selena blushed happily, hugging Lily and Alice. She embraced everyone within her grasp, including the greatly taken aback Professor McGonagall. Once finished with hugs, Selena searched for the one person who she had not taken into her arms.

Darcy and Selena locked eyes for five seconds. Darcy's eyes were smiling with a sweet twinkle. And all of the things that Selena wanted Darcy to say had their moment there. 'I love you,' 'I'm proud of you,' 'Way to go,' and 'You'll be okay' were some of those things. Selena smiled wider, if that were possible. Darcy broke the eye contact by putting her own hand in front of her eyes. Selena saw the glitter of a promise ring. Before Selena could register this, Sirius stepped in front of her.

"Dance with me?" Sirius asked. Selena nodded, taking his hand.