Happy New Year everyone!

I will apologise. I meant to get these up last week, but we've had some bad news about my grandmother and things are about to get rough. I am planning to do regular updates again and I'm finally starting to get organised and hopefully will swiftly get back into writing as well. I'm determined to get back on track with writing in general so let's see how that goes.

Hope 2023 is your best year yet!

Lots of love,

LSH xx

Sisters Divided – Part 4:

Nurmengard Castle:

"Flora… Flora…" Vinda whispered as she gently shook Flora, not really wanting to wake the witch but something had required her to be present. Flora had, oddly to her, become like a sister or even daughter who Vinda needed to keep safe. She watched as the witch began to wake and Vinda wondered what had caused the slightly younger witch to sleep in so late. She knew Grindelwald had been to see her but knew that he hadn't been too long making sure she was OK. So she was wondering what had kept Flora awake.

She had been so lost in her thoughts that she almost missed Flora beginning to wake up. She watched as Flora rubbed her eyes and sat up.

"Vinda… what's going on?" she asked as she looked at her.

"Sorry for waking you but you've been summoned. We have a visiter and Gellert has asked for you to go to him," she explained before Flora jumped out of bed and soon had a wand pointed at her as the French witch switched her bed clothes for her normal clothes and she watched as her light brown hair was French braided before her hand was grabbed and the two rushed from the room to the front door of the Castle.

"My name is Karma, Yousef Karma," Flora heard and she managed to suppress her reaction so nobody would be able to read her mind, least of all Grindelwald. She didn't even know if he knew about her being a Legillimens or not.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and saw that Vinda had her wand stretched out in front of her… right at Karma.

"You killed his sister, Leta… Leta Lestrange," Vinda said as she looked at Karma and then at Grindelwald.

"Dumbledore sent you… am I right?" Grindelwald asked.

"He fears you are in possession of a creature. He fears the use you may put it to. He sent me here to spy on you. What would you like me to tell him?" Karma replied.

"Flora!" Grindelwald called, making her jump. How had he known that she was there? "Is he telling the truth?"

"What…? How do you know I'm a…?" she asked.

"Just tell me is he telling the truth?" Grindelwald asked.

Flora looked at Karma and he appeared to be sending a message as their eyes connected.

"Yes. Yes he is," she replied.

"What else?"

"Even though he believes in you, he holds you responsible for his sister's death. He carries her absence with him every day. Every breath he takes is a reminder that she breathes no mor," Flora said after a few moments of silence.

"Then I think the best thing to do would be to relieve you of your memories," Grindelwald spoke as he pressed his wand to the wizard's temple before noticing a nod. It didn't take long for a silvery strand to break into dust mid-air. "That must be better," a nod was the response, "I thought so. When we allow ourselves to be consumed by anger, the only victim is ourself. Now. We were just about to depart. Perhaps you'd like to join us? Come, we can talk some more about our mutual friend, Dumbledore," he said before leading Karma inside.

Karma looked vacantly at Flora but she could see that there was some plot at play and it felt like Karma was there to keep an eye on her but a spy sent from Dumbledore as well.

"We need to get you ready for the Candidates' Dinner," Vinda said as she and Flora were the last two to enter the Castle."

"I don't really want to go," Flora said as she twiddled her thumbs and looked at the older witch, "I don't want to face my sisters. I know they'll try something to rescue me," she said before Vinda rested a hand on Flora's shoulder.

"Gellert and I will not let anything happen to you… although if anyone asks you're Flora Rosier. We have to protect your identity somehow or else there will be moves to try and take you."

Flora just remained silent and headed towards her room with Vinda, hoping that nothing would happen and upstage Grindelwald.

Berlin:

"Now…" Dumbledore began, "Lally and Jacob will focus on preventing the assassination attempt that will happen tonight whilst Theseus, Newt and Tina will, hopefully, be undercover and gathering any intelligence on Flora that they can that, in time, may help us free her from whatever she is trapped in," he said, "also we need to see if she's hurt in any way."

"That's everyone but me. That's not fair," Queenie said before Tina walked over to her, "we need someone here and keeping an eye on things to make sure this place doesn't get discovered. We lose this place and we cannot stay and hunt them all down in Berlin," she said as she tried to sooth her sister.

Queenie could be very stubborn in her own right but she sighed and uncrossed her arms and nodded,

"OK fine. I'll stay here," she said eventually, much to everyone's relief, "we need to try and stay one step ahead of Grindelwald as best as we can. I can hold them off," she said before Dumbledore spoke again.

"We cannot rescue Flora tonight but we can check on her and make sure that she is OK and unharmed."

"Once we know the situation with Flora we can regroup and come up with a plan to save her," Lally said as she looked at the sisters.

"Lally… I'd rather try and rescue her tonight. It would be easy to snatch her back whilst there are a lot of people there," Tina said, "I want her back here with us tonight."

"We go in there without a plan and we may well never see her again," Lally said as she watched the sisters, "Grindelwald will keep her even closer and maybe not let her out of his sight. We will have no chance then," she added before Tina sighed and nodded. "Theseus…" she said turning to the Auror, "I'm trusting you to keep Tina in line."

"Consider it done," Theseus said as he side-eyed his brother.

Nurmengard Castle:

Flora was now on her own as Vinda had gone to get ready. She'd been able to decide on her dresses and things that she wore now Grindelwald trusted that she was not going to run away any more. She sighed as she finished putting her makeup on as Vinda had already done her hair for her. She hated to admit that she liked the way her hair hand been done. She stepped into her golden shoes and then into her baby pink dress with a gold sash and stood in front of her mirror. She realised that she couldn't do the zip up before she looked in the mirror as someone did her zip up.

"Karma? What are you doing here?" she asked.

"Why didn't you say the truth?" Karma asked in reply.

"Because I can read your mind," she said as she looked at him, "I know exactly why you're here and it's best he doesn't know that so you stay alive."

"I'm here to check on you and a spy for Dumbledore, so you were half right," Karma said with a nod before he finished zipping up her dress suddenly.

"Is everything alright here?" came Grindelwald's voice and Flora stiffened as she heard his voice.

"I was just helping Flora with her zip," Karma said before stepping back and stepping back so Flora could turn and face Grindelwald and Rosier.

"He was. I was struggling and he was heading to join the others and saw me struggling to do it up so he helped me," Flora said before Vinda walked over to her and put some pale pink lipstick onto the young witch's lip.

"You can go," the French witch said to Karma and the wizard nodded and left the room, "was he just helping with the zip?"

"Yes he was," Flora said as she watched Vinda's eyes and found a gentle kiss being placed on her head.

"I think that it is time to go. Vinda I trust you to get Flora there and I'll meet you at the car," Grindelwald said before Vinda grabbed a nice coat for Flora before the two headed outside and apparated away to the meeting point in Berlin.

"Whatever happens stay with me," Vinda said as she steadied Flora after they landed, "I will keep you safe," she said and Flora felt sick with nerves so all she could do was nod.