Chapter XIII

Hanging Pieces

CARA GAVE ME a concerned look as I half-collapsed onto the bench for breakfast. It was probably warranted, too. My hands were still shaking, and I could not tell if my head spun from potion withdrawals or sheer hunger.

"Morning, you are up awfully early."

"And you're looking awfully awful. What… Do I even want to know what happened last night?"

I groaned in answer, resting my head on my hands. I let my hair fall around me like a curtain, trying to drown out the memories. A blazing inferno miles underground. Blood red eyes staring into my soul. Violet eyes staring into the mirror, staring back at me. Staring, staring, staring. I shut my eyes but they still looked and I wanted to scream.

A plate bumped against my elbow and I jerked so hard I almost knocked it to the floor. Cara ran her hand in circles on my back as she pushed the plate in front of me again. "You should eat."

I should not have come down for breakfast. I was fine when I woke up—I swear I was. Harry had been warm and safe and I was fine. His hair was black and soft and everywhere.

I glared at the toast for a moment before taking it in one hand and stuffing it straight into my mouth. No cutlery. No table manners. I was too exhausted to give a fuck. It was bland and warm and utterly delightful.

"We need to talk," I said between bites. "Are you free after breakfast?"

Cara shifted in her seat. "No, sorry. I'm going to the village with Lestrange." I twitched at the name. She was fidgeting with her ring—Marlene's twin— and it finally made sense why she was at breakfast so early on a Sunday.

"I shall come to your rescue, then," I said as I pulled her closer.

We sat in silence, drawing comfort from each other. The one mutual constant in our lives. Cara poured me tea before I could ask, because my hands were still shaking. No milk, no sugar; just like I took it every morning. I reached out to grab two muffins that were too far for her before she could ask in turn. Blackberry—her favourite. For a few blissful moments, all I thought of was toast and bacon and muffins.

Until Professor Slughorn cleared his throat behind me. "Miss Black?"

I suppressed a sigh as I lifted my head from where it was still leaning against my hand and tried to look at least a smidge put together. "Yes, professor?"

He smiled that clipped smile he used with students he wanted to keep in his favour but did not actually care about. "Headmaster Dumbledore wishes to speak with you after you're finished with your breakfast. I do hope this isn't because of some trouble, yes?"

"Of course not, professor."

He chuckled. "I would expect nothing less from my Slytherins, Miss Black, nothing less!" He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "The password is 'ginger newt'."

I stared at the teacher's table as Professor Slughorn made his way back to his breakfast. The headmaster was absent, but so was half the staff, Harry included.

"Cissy?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know what this is about?"

"I really, really hope not, Cara." I looked at the last toast on my plate, then shifted it over to Cara's, all thoughts of eating having evaporated. "I better go find out, though. Would not want to keep him waiting."

"Yeah, go. I'll see you later down at Hogsmeade?"

"I will bring the girls, too. And remember, if he so much as looks at you wrong, kick him in the groin. I hear that sets them straight."

Her laugh carried me all the way up the stairs to the headmaster's office. By the time I stood on the twisting staircase, the tremors had mostly subsided. I almost felt human again. Like yesterday had not happened.

Almost.

I looked down to the line of tender skin cutting across my palm from where my wand burned me. I used my left hand to knock. Soft but firm, just like grandfather taught me. Resolute, but non-threatening.

"Come in!"

"Good morning, headmaster, I was told you wished to see me?"

"Ah, yes, Miss Black; do come in and take a seat."

He looked troubled, hands hidden in flowing periwinkle robes patterned with constellations. I sat in silence, waiting for him to speak, but it was almost as if he had forgotten I was there. There was a trinket ticking away on the corner of his desk, emitting a puff of smoke every once in a while. The silence coalesced, deeper and deeper, assembled from all the things that made noise.

The phoenix perch was empty.

"I must admit myself unpleasantly surprised, Miss Black," he said at last. He paused, looking at me expectantly, as if waiting for my confession. Alas, lately I found myself with way too many things to confess so I held my tongue; eyes fixed on that little sphere of brass as it turned and turned and puffed smoke, acting as paperweight for the morning's newspaper. "I see."

I did not see.

The silence built up again, knitting itself closed again as I sat, resisting the urge to fidget. "It has come to my attention that you spend time in the quarters of our Defence Professor."

I looked up, meeting the headmaster's eyes. The little sphere puffed. "I do." He sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. I had never seen the headmaster look his age as much as he did at that moment.

But all I was trying to figure out was how he had known. Had he known that we had left the castle? I caught a hint of movement in my periphery and turned to look and…

There was Sir Cadogan, pony and all.

Fuck.

Of course he would go tell the headmaster! We had been so reckless—no, I had been so reckless. I almost burned down all of Gringotts because… Because a piece of Riddle's soul nudged me there? No, it only twisted what I had wanted.

The little trinket emitted another puff of smoke.

I had wanted to burn the bank to the ground and all the greedy goblins inside it. I had wanted to free the dragon. And so the potions and the horcrux found the easiest way to do so, like water flowing downhill.

The frightening part was that in the moment it all felt like the right thing to do.

Looking at the headmaster made me even more painfully aware of just how fucking stupid I had been. He had probably arrived at all the right conclusions. I squeezed my hand shut, feeling the jolt of pain from the angry red gash through my palm.

"Is that all you would say on the matter, Miss Black?"

I shrugged, a little. "I freely admit that I went to Harry's quarters. What more is there to say, headmaster?"

"I will not pry into your personal happenings, Miss Black. However, it is unbecoming for a student and a member of staff to act in such a manner. As much as I want to believe nothing untoward has happened between the two of you, I must take disciplinary action and ask you to refrain from further contact with Professor Potter. I understand that—"

"No."

"...you—Excuse me?"

"No," I repeated as I stood, weaving a bubble of privacy around us to prevent yet another portrait incident. "With all respects, headmaster, you do not understand." I unclasped the little chain that hung around my neck and placed it on the headmaster's desk atop today's newspaper issue. The little broken hourglass wobbled there, swinging back and forth on a bent piece of metal. A ghostly snake twisted through the front page underneath.

Death Eater attack, family of four dead.

It had only been a few weeks since Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters had made their public debut, yet I was already growing desensitised to the terror of the headlines. In its own twisted way, I was glad to see it. That, at least, meant that the dragon had not made the news yet. Which meant that the headmaster did not know. Yet.

I took a deep breath, trying to regain composure. It would not help my case if it looked like I could not even keep my own faculties under control.

"I know who he is, so let us drop the pretence, headmaster. Both Harry and myself have spent the last half a year repeatedly risking our lives to stop the war outside laying waste to this country. Did you know that his name is Tom Riddle? That the first person he killed still haunts the second floor bathrooms? That he used dark magic to make himself all but immortal? Because I do, and it's the only thing I can think about at night.

You sit in your office while I am sneaking into Death Eater's mansions and breaking into Gringotts to scour the face of Earth for pieces of Tom Riddle's soul! The absolutely last thing I need right now is worrying about whether going to a professor's quarters is seen as proper, because. It. Does. Not. Matter. Headmaster!"

The silence again, stronger than before due to the absence of all the things that clicked and whirred in the background. It gathered in the contours of the headmaster's bushy eyebrows. It echoed and echoed inside my head as I heard my heart thump rabbit-quick. Still; I stood, refusing to sit back down, yet feeling awkward looking down on one of the most powerful men alive. The sun came up, casting its low winter light through the office, glinting off this object, then that.

After a while, I turned and walked to Fawkes' perch. There was a pile of ashes on the tray at the bottom, and I could just make out the faintest glow of cinders from inside. A part of me felt like a phoenix, then. I had burned myself through, and all that was left was a welt left by an ash wand and memories of fire and blood and death.

"I asked Harry why he had not approached you for help," I said softly. "The Chief Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, and Defeater of Grindelwald. And you know what he said? He said that you were an educator, not a fighter."

I heard the headmaster approach behind me, the soft rustle of cloth loud in the spell-woven silence. "And are you, Miss Black?"

I considered his words as I ran a finger along the inscription at the base of the perch. Tantum per mutationem emendare possumus. Only through change may we improve.

"I would rather be a fighter than whoever I was before I met him," I said at last.

We stood, side by side, watching the barest of cinder glows from inside the ash. "I fear that I have misjudged the situation greatly, Narcissa—may I call you that? It only seems fitting if we are to talk like equals."

"Of course, headmaster."

"Albus, dear."

I nodded.

"I think Fawkes would like you, Narcissa. Phoenixes are wondrous creatures—they are beings of fire who twist time for their own ends, and they burn fiercely, again and again. Stubborn, proud, powerful. But above all else, they are still only animals; bound to a simpler way of thinking. Alas, things are rarely so simple. Do you understand?"

Of course you don't understand! You were always so full of yourself, your dreams, your ambitions, your perfect little world.

I shook my head, feeling her violet eyes watch me. "Perhaps. Or maybe they see something which we do not. Maybe they try to tell us that things are not always so complicated."

"Perhaps you are right. That, however, does not mean that the fire does not burn."

My hand stung. A numb, tingly feeling like ice needles blooming through the skin. He looked at me over the rim of his glasses, with eyes that had seen too much. Like Harry's.

"I myself had acted rashly in the name of love back when I was young. Perhaps it is only an old man's dream, to hope to spare you the same pain, but can you blame me for trying?"

I shook my head again. I felt out of my depth, trying to argue with a man like Albus Dumbledore. What words could I say and not sound like a child?

"I hope you understand that I will still have words with Harry," he said after a while, looking down at the hourglass on his desk. "And while in light of what you have told me, I do believe my conclusions were misplaced, it would be in your best interests to keep your contact with him discreet. It would not be good for either of your prospects if this sort of breach of etiquette became public knowledge."

"Yes, headmaster."

"Good, now, about the other points you mentioned. I do not recall ever being notified of you leaving the castle, nor am I quite certain what you meant about Tom Riddle's soul. Would you care to enlighten an old man?"

I sighed as I sat back down again. It looked like the conversation was far from over. As the saying goes, in for a knut, in for a galleon. Perhaps, in for all the gold in Gringotts.

···

By the time I made my way down the road to the village, the hills were already painted in the yellows and oranges of the setting sun. Despite the deep snow and bitter cold of January, I had not taken a carriage.

I had known that they were drawn by thestrals, just like a child knows that sticking a hand into the fire burns and sticking a hand into certain books burns even worse. But there is a gaping chasm between knowing something and knowing something.

The creatures looked half-dead themselves. Thin, translucent skin stretched taught over their skulls, with thick black veins criss-crossing right beneath the surface. Their breaths did not cause puffs of mist to freeze up and billow away on the breeze. I could bet every galleon in my vault that they would be ice-cold to the touch.

The thoughts of vaults made me feel queasy.

The thestrals made me feel queasy, too, with their black eyes staring straight through me, making me feel like my soul was being pulled apart at their unseeing gaze. Maybe I did not regret the death of the goblin, or goblins—I was not even sure how many had died last night. Maybe there were people, too. Maybe that made me a bad person.

So I avoided the carriages and the judgement of my own thoughts, choosing instead to kick up clumps of snow as I made my way down the valley towards the sloped roofs and crooked chimneys. Towards Hogsmeade and busy inns where the noise was loud enough to drown out your own thoughts. Towards Cara.

I stood in the doorway to the Three Broomsticks, trying to see if I recognised anyone, but none of the girls seemed present. Then I saw a group of seventh year Gryffindors blowing firewhisky flames into the air and all I could think about was dragons and blood red eyes and I turned on my heel and left.

I slowly wandered through the village, peering into shop windows, trying to find a familiar face. I waved at Lydia and Adelaine in front of Honeydukes, but I had nothing to say to them despite sharing a dormitory with them for six years, so I moved on.

I ended up in the gardens at the corner of the village. In spring, they would be full of students lounging in the grass and kissing on the benches and surreptitiously sneaking hands under clothes. But it was too cold for any of that now; too dark. My company consisted of lamplight, snowflakes, and a few tracks of footprints on the ground. My palm itched something fierce and it took all of my focus not to scratch the skin bloody. I kept the glove off in hopes that maybe at some point it would go numb enough for the sensations to stop.

Perhaps that was why I was out here, instead of somewhere warm.

One of the statuettes had the number fifty five engraved in its chest in crude strokes of molten stone. One of dozens I had seen, lately. They seemed to spring up like flowers in spring, some done in chalk on corridor walls, others carved into desks next to names and innocuous messages.

I traced my finger along the lines with a frown. Fifty five. LV in Roman numerals.

I heard footsteps crunch the snow behind me. "Hello, Sirius," I said as he came into view. He looked tired, with bags under his eyes and hands stuffed into his coat pockets, shoulders hunched up to nudge the scarf up to his nose. Red and gold and red and gold and red and gold. Like blood and golden coins. The statuette barely had a face, but for a moment I thought I caught a glimpse of red eyes staring at me.

"Admiring your handiwork?"

I shook my head. "I was thinking how to remove it."

"Yeah right. As if you'd go against your boyfriend." The word came out of his mouth all twisted and dripping in malice.

"Sorry?"

"I'm not stupid, you know? I saw Malfoy carve it out yesterday. Him and his friends."

"He is not my boyfriend."

He gave a snort. "Yeah, you call it whatever you want, cousin. It's not like the whole of Gryffindor tower doesn't know what you two do in the school cupboards."

My eye twitched. I did not like what he was implying, nor his tone. "Know what, Sirius?"

"Oh, don't give me that look, I'm not twelve anymore." He spat into the snow. "Not that it's any of my business, but to hear him tell it your knees must be scraped raw."

He laughed and I felt my temper snap. "You think this is funny? Did you come here with your made up story to taunt me? Is this some sick stunt to make you feel good, Sirius? Are your friends going to jump out of the hedges and hex me to have a merry laugh at my expense like I am some Slytherin blood purist? Is that what this is about?"

But I did not see Potter or his friends tumble from behind the corner. Sirius' frown now matched mine. "They're not here, Narcissa. They're not… talking to me right now. Listen, I'm not trying to take the mickey out of you or anything, 's just what I heard."

"From. Who?"

"Dunno, you know how rumours are. I heard it from Pete, but that was before… it doesn't matter." He kicked at a clump of snow.

"Well he is not my boyfriend, and he will be lucky to be walking by the time I am done with him," I seethed between my teeth; barely feeling a thing as I dug cold fingers into my palm.

He flinched. "Sorry, I thought—I mean, I didn't know."

I took a deep breath and forced myself to unclench my hands. I collected the anger and frustration even as some wicked part of me imagined carving fifty five into Malfoy's chest. I bundled up all the feelings and stuffed them somewhere deep inside.

I was not bottling my emotions. I was brewing them into a poison.

"Just… think about it. Before you do something, I mean. So you don't do something stupid."

Something in his tone made me pause; made me notice the haunted look in his eyes. He was not hunched from the cold—he looked like he used to when we were just children and he would come tumbling out of the fireplace to escape one of Aunt Walburga's screaming episodes. He would come to my room still covered in floo soot and I would pretend not to hear him cry as he ranted.

He had not done that since he started Hogwarts, but now his friends were not talking with him. My mouth pressed into a thin line, hesitating for a moment, but then…

"What did you do, Sirius?" I asked, forgetting Malfoy for a minute.

He looked torn for a moment, eyes flitting between me and the statue. Then he threw a banishing hex at the bench, scattering snow into the air. We sat there and I watched as he scratched into the side of his wand where a splinter was coming loose. "I almost got expelled."

"Was it one of your pranks gone bad?"

"No… Yea—No." He paused. "I guess. You know Snape? Greasy haired boy in our year, friends with Evans."

I nodded, vaguely able to picture the boy. He had taken to spending time with Malfoy and his group lately.

"He was sticking his nose where it didn't belong, and I almost got him killed for it. Remus and James, too. I just wanted to… I don't know, do something. Cause him some pain. He's always with them when they mutter about mudbloods and sneer about how amazing they are."

He pulled out a pack of muggle cigarettes and offered me one. I shook my head. "I guess I'm just worried I'm turning into my parents, you know? Dumbledore gave me a talking to about responsibility and all that bullshit, but… I don't know. I'd still probably do it again."

He coughed a few times and sounded exactly like Emmy's father—he was the only other person I knew who smoked cigarettes. Maybe I should take it up as well. It seemed to be the habit of people who meant well and acted poorly.

"You are not like them, Sirius, and you know that."

"That doesn't mean I can't be a shit person."

I tried to find something to say in reply, I really did. But what could I say? So I leant on his shoulder and we sat there for a while, trying to cling onto the feeling of being ten again.

"Sirius?"

"Hm?"

"Say, what would you do if someone started spreading nasty rumours about you and you wanted them to shut up, preferably discreetly and very convincingly?"

···

Next morning, Lucius Malfoy did not appear at breakfast. I was almost certain he would not show for the day's classes either. Despite what people said about Potter's friend group, those kids were way too smart for their own good.

Maybe it had not been a nice person thing to do, but the world seemed to be in short supply of nice people lately.

"Hello, Narcissa, how was your weekend?"

Oh, you know, I robbed a bank, set a dragon loose over London, had a lovely bonding moment with the headmaster and then did unspeakable things to Lucius Malfoy, may the demons swallow his soul. "You know how it is, Rosalie. Schoolwork, sleep, then more schoolwork."

"Mmm, sounds positively enchanting."

"Indeed. Truly thrilling."

She sat down next to me, loading fruit into a bowl. I stuck to my usuals, still too traumatised by a childhood of being forced to 'eat healthy' by my mother. "I don't suppose there is any chance you'd want to spend some time on Arithmancy during your free period today? I could use someone to bounce ideas off of for the essay."

Oh, right, the essay Vector gave us. I had completely blanked it out, which was a worrying first. "I would, actually, I was too busy with my project to work on it."

I did not mention that the project I meant was the repeated use of the imperius curse in conjunction with the polyjuice I bought off her a week ago.

She gave me the look of universal academic pity—halfway between a smile and an emotionless stare that felt like a sleepless night all over again. "Do you think we'll need the library, or can we just do it in the common room?"

"Common room, probably. All the sprogs will be in classes, anyway."

"Merlin, don't get me started. A second year almost blew up my notes yesterday."

I felt a smile tug on the corner of my mouth.

The Great Hall slowly filled up as people came in for breakfast. I was usually on my way out by the time the morning rush went into full force, but since I was waiting for Rosalie this morning, I poured myself another cup of tea and waited.

Everyone waited—for the post, and with it, the morning news. Even Cara started appearing at breakfast. When the owls finally flooded into the hall, it felt like my sinews were all stretching taught. Like lungs squeezing underwater. I hated every second of it.

Gringotts Dragon Breakout: Attack or Accident?

There was a collective exhale. When the front page news was not about murders, when there was not a student who left the hall in tears, it was a good day.

In the late hours of Saturday, a dragon broke out of Gringotts Bank. Due to the goblin's refusal to cooperate in official investigations, we do not know for certain whether this was an accident or a deliberate attack.

Just like that, the noise returned to the hall. I looked up at the head table. Harry seemed to be in deep conversation with Professor Flitwick about the news. Three seats to the side, the headmaster was looking back at me with a frown. I looked away, continuing to scan the front page.

The bank's spokesgoblin issued the following statement: "One of our dragons escaped its confines, and we are currently looking into possible causes. On behalf of Gringotts bank, we express our apologies for the danger this escaped creature poses to the wizarding public. However, we have faith that the Ministry is able to handle this situation outside our jurisdiction. For all clients, we want to reiterate that all vaults remain intact."

"A dragon?" Cara squeaked.

"Imagine how it must have looked from the alley," said Rosalie.

"You know, Rosie? I'd rather not." She sounded more stressed than she used to be before quidditch matches, both hers and Marlene's.

"At least they are not returning it to the bank," I added, pointing at the bottom of the page.

Since the dragon is old and blinded, the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures has decided to send the dragon to the Wyrm Natural Reserve in the Outer Hebrides to minimise further risk to the public.

···

I watched Noire fly into the night with a letter for my father, moonlight gleaming off feathers. It had none of the neat calligraphy that I was taught when I was young. Maybe because my hand still cramped from fifteen inches on the Use of Skew-symmetric Matrices in Modern Arithmancy that I speedwrote earlier; maybe because I simply could not bring myself to care.

To add insult to injury, the burn mark across my palm had started bleeding halfway through the afternoon. I fidgeted with the haphazard linen bandage I had fashioned around it.

Do you think he'll accept it?

It is not like I gave him a choice, Cara. Either he removes Malfoy from the equation or I will.

She was leaning against one of the arches, feeding pieces of raw meat to any owl that would have her. A lot of them did. It was a very Cara sort of thing to do—I knew she read up exactly what birds should eat, then left little bundles of seed and fat in the gardens of Rosier Manor during winter. She could tell the difference between a sparrow and a swallow hundreds of feet in the air from their flight patterns alone; knew their roosting habits like the back of her hand. It was a very Cara sort of thing to do—eat barely any meat herself, yet bribe the elves in the kitchens for raw strips of bloody meat for the owls.

I, on the other hand, would have fed my owl bacon without a second thought.

She was the one who took care of birds, and she was the one that took care of me. Loaded my breakfast when I was too far gone to think about food; listened when everything became too much. I was the bird of prey, and the only thing I knew how to do was attack.

I ran a finger over the ridges of a little golden key in my pocket, counting the bitting; counting the demons inside my head. A little key with an engraved number nineteen. It was such a small thing, and yet, here I was, wondering how many lives were snuffed out because of it.

"A knut for your thoughts?" she asked.

"I fucked up." Her hand stilled from where she was petting a barn owl, concern nesting in the corners of her mouth. "You know about the dragon from the papers?"

"Yeah?"

"That was me."

She jerked so fast that the slivers of meat she was holding scattered across the floor. One of the birds hooted and flew out the window. The rest flew down to fight over the scraps in a flurry of feathers, hoots, and barks.

"Did I hear you right? That dragon—The dragon that escaped from Gringotts? You?"

"Yes."

"Cissy, are you out of your fucking mind? Is that where you went on Saturday?"

I nodded. She absentmindedly rubbed the blood off her hand on her skirt, still staring at me with eyes wide as the Black Lake.

"I had to get something from the Lestrange vault, without Bella knowing," I said with a shrug. As if I could just walk in there and get it. Which, to be honest, I had—if you squint a bit and ignore the whole fiendfyre and dragon and goblin murder part of the evening.

"Right. So you—Fucking, I don't know, just robbed Gringotts? Are you telling me. You. Robbed. Gringotts?" I was already casting a silencing charm around us as Cara's voice started to tremble.

"I will admit, the whole dragon thing was not exactly planned, but Harry—"

"Harry? Cissy, what in Merlin's saggy balls did he do to you? The girl I knew a year ago would never in a thousand years do something this fucking stupid!"

I flinched. I wanted to argue how it was Tom Riddle's fault, but all the words felt… flat. Because she had a point. "I know, Cara," I said quietly. "Trust me, I know. Dumbledore already gave me an earful this morning. For what it is worth, we took all the precautions we could think of. And I am sorry." I forced the words out of my mouth. I was not even sure what I was apologising for.

She buried her face in her hands and it felt like someone slid a dagger through my chest. "I can't…" she said as she slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

I looked at the little key in my hand, then flung it out of the tower. Light glinted off the metal once, twice. Then it was swallowed by the water of the lake, somewhere deep below. I wished I could throw out the bitter taste of my guilt like that, too.

"I can't lose you like I lost mum," she whispered. I barely heard it over the commotion the owls were causing. "You're all I got left." I slid down next to her, uncaring about my sweater catching on the rough stone wall. Cara was such a happy person, it was sometimes easy to forget that her mother had died before we started Hogwarts.

Sit down, Narcissa, there's been news… about Aunt Claudia.

Mother took my hand in hers, running her thumb over my knuckles as if she could hold me down forever. As if I would fly away. She looked so tired.

There's been a dragonpox outbreak at the farm she worked at. Some special delivery from overseas, they say…

One week, she had been healthy and happy and scolded us for getting lost in the woods at their estate and being late for dinner. A week later, she was gone.

They say that a jobberknoll never makes a sound; only releasing a scream the moment it dies, replaying all the sounds it heard in life in reverse. I remembered wondering whether Aunt Claudia screamed like that, too. After all, she had spent her whole life caring for those birds.

I sat there, looking up at the rafters and wondering when I had become so jaded. Trying to pinpoint when the little girl died and something ugly took its place. Someone who would knowingly inflict this sort of suffering.

"Cara?"

"Hm?"

"I can see thestrals, now."

I heard her shift beside me, but I could not bring myself to turn my head. Too afraid of the horror I would see in her face.

"For years, I did not understand how Bella turned out the way she had. How she… changed. Cracked. But now I think I understand, and… I don't want to." The night's cool air on my throat felt like the edge of a blade. "I didn't even notice before it was too late and I… I don't know what to do now. I try to protect you, protect Harry, protect everyone I care about, but I just end up hurting someone else."

I felt the rough bumps of the stonework as I shook my head. I wanted to ask her whether she noticed when her friend became a murderer, whether she saw the moment when I started treating life as a currency; to be balanced and spent like little gold coins. The words refused to come out, as if the tendons in my jaw were cut.

There would have been silence, had there not been owls. Their hooting echoed up from where they perched on the high rafters of the tower. I felt like I should have been able to shed a tear; at least feel some remorse. But my eyes were dry and stinging. Grey, but tinged with the red of burst veins; of blood. Somehow, that was even worse.

"You're being stupid, Cissy."

I grasped at her words like they were my absolution; the fulcrum around which I wound myself, around which the world revolved. I was drowning; holding onto the wreckage of my soul within my reach, even as I felt it slip through my fingers. I felt… hollow.

A weight settled on my legs, making me look down at last. She was looking up at me with such earnesty I almost shattered. "You're not like Bellatrix, any more than you're like Andromeda, okay?"

I felt the corner of my mouth tug up, buoyed up by disbelief and irony as bitter as death. Perhaps I was not like them, but we were still sisters. Still too similar; three twisted facets of the same song like some sort of discordant harmony. All three selfish, in our own ways. All three hurting people around us, whether we wanted to or not.

Do you understand?

Yes, Bella, I do.

"That doesn't excuse what I did," I said, when it became clear that she was waiting for me to speak to her.

"We're at war, Cissy. You told me yourself, remember? You can't…" she shifted, taking my bandaged arm in hers. "If you break yourself from the inside, then they've already won."

"I'm sorry." I was still not sure what I was apologising for. Perhaps because I did not spend time with her so much anymore; perhaps because there was blood trickling down my forearm and onto her sweater. Perhaps because she still loved me, and I did not want her to love a broken thing like me.

"Do you want to talk about it?" There was no pressure behind those words, no judgement or expectation. No promise nor a solution. It was too precious for this world. I nodded even as I felt the first tear run down my cheek, even as I collapsed, finally letting the flames burn me inside out.