Happy Update Monday!
This is the final chapter of Alec's sixth year. I will be taking a break to write more for her seventh year and beyond before I start publishing again. But don't worry the story will be finished. ;-)
Happy Easter!
LB
Remus Lupin
I heard her howl in pain. That noise is going to be permanently nestled in my mind. I going to have nightmares about it for years. She was in her wolf form and the howl was agonizing. None of the other people around me seemed to notice. But everyone was getting restless because there was literally nothing to see. And time seemed to tick by so slowly.
I started pacing. Left, right, left, right. And again. After a while Sirius got fed up with me and grabbed my shoulders.
"Remus, calm down." My eyes flickered over to the maze. He took me in. "What is it? Did you hear something?"
I couldn't tell Sirius. It would only make things worse. I shook my head. "No, no. Just anxious, I want this over with." I ran a hand through my hair.
His brows furrowed a bit as he regarded me but dropped it. One hand slid down my arm and grasped my hand. I looked back to the maze but didn't let go.
LB
Then suddenly the air started swirling in front of the maze and Harry dropped to the ground with Alec. Harry was sobbing over her body. Her still body, her very still body. I didn't even realize I was running until I dropped down next to them.
"No, no, no, no, no, no. NO!" I screamed so loud the entire stand fell silent. "Alec, please." My tears fell on her dirty champion's uniform.
Pomfrey was next to me a second later, together with a healer from St Mungo's. Harry had his knees pulled to his chest as he rocked back and forth, back and forth. I shuffled aside from the healers and placed her head in my lap.
"Please be okay. Please be okay." I whispered. Please be alive!
"Harry, what happened?" Dumbledore asked while the healers worked on Alec. I didn't take my eyes off her.
"It was a trap." He breathed. "Pettigrew was there. He... he shot a killing curse at Alec." He sobbed. "He's back." He said hoarsely. That made me look at him. Tears were streaming down his face, his arm bleeding uncontrollably. "I couldn't stop him. Voldemort's back."
Whispers filled my ears. But I didn't care about Voldemort, not right now. Now my priority was my daughter.
"The killing curse." I said, not recognizing my own voice. "She - she's dead."
"No." Pomfrey said steadfast. "Remus, no. She is not dead."
"What?" I blinked at her, feeling the tears run down my cheeks. "How-"
"I don't know. She's not dead, not yet."
"Not yet?" Sirius croaked, kneeling behind the healer from St Mungo's. Harry was being dragged away by Moody.
"We don't know what happened, or how she survived the killing curse. But she is in critical condition. We need to get her to the hospital wing, now!"
Suddenly she was lifted in the air by magic, Sirius and I followed. I don't know how I got from the Quidditch pitch to the hospital wing, but there I was. I was sitting on a chair next to her bed. The healers talked softly to each other as they performed spell after spell on her. She died three times in one hour. They always managed to get her back, for now. Sirius was sitting next to me, clinging to me like I was his lifeline. The rest all went by in a blur, people came in and out of the hospital wing. Who? I had no idea. Did they say anything? Nothing came to mind. I don't know how many hours had passed, or how Harry was doing, but when the sun began to rise behind the mountains, the healers dropped down on a chair exhausted.
"Is she..." Sirius couldn't finish the sentence.
"She's alive. She's between stable and critical." Pomfrey frowned. "It's hard to explain. It's like she's in bardo. In the in-between. I don't know when she'll wake up." Her expression was somber. "Or if she'll wake up."
"We'll give you two a moment." The healers walked out of the hospital wing. The room was eerie silent.
"I can't lose her, Moony. I just found her." He said softly, but it carried through the room.
"I can't lose her either, Sirius." My voice was harder than I meant. "She is my daughter."
Sirius leaned his head against mine. "She is our daughter. And since she's our daughter, I know she will get through this. She will wake up, Moony. She will."
I wanted to believe him, so desperately. But it was hard seeing her lying like that, still unmoving. I dropped my head on his shoulder and cried.
"I don't know if I'll survive if I lose her."
Sirius wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly against him. Then he broke too, and I felt tears wetting my shirt.
LB
Draco Malfoy
She was dead. Alexandra was dead. I saw how her body hit the ground under Harry even though he tried to shield her from the fall. She was dead before that. She was utterly still and pale. My cousin, my best friend. My family. I clutched on to mother, and we buried our heads in each other shoulders. Remus's scream tore through my bones. At that moment, I didn't register the thing about Voldemort. I was grieving for Alexandra. Harry was safe and something settled in me for that, but Alexandra. Everything in me broke.
Then I heard the words I could cry for in joy. "Remus, no. She is not dead."
The next time I looked up, Harry was gone, and Alexandra was floating in the air, lifeless as they hurried to the castle. My eyes searched for the Weasley twins, but they were gone. I grabbed mother's hand and dragged her with me, to the castle. But once we had arrived at the hospital wing, they wouldn't let us enter. The twins sat defeated against the large doors, their hands bruised. Probably from pounding on the door to let them in, to give them news. But by the looks of it, they got neither. Mother transfigured a few large plush couches and pushed me down on one before leading the twins, rather forcefully to the others.
"It's probably going to be a while." She said. Her voice cracked. "But we know as long as they don't come out, there isn't going to be bad news." She said, sitting back next to me.
I wasn't sure if they heard her or believed her. They were just staring blankly at wall, their bodies ridged.
I couldn't do anything but wait. So, my mind drifted to Harry. Harry who was hysterical, who was bleeding roughly from a cut on his arm. Why wasn't he here? The cut was easily fixed by Pomfrey. Where did he run off too?
I don't know how, maybe mother had something to do with it, but eventually I fell asleep and so did the twins. When I woke up, it was early in the morning, the sun barely over the mountains. I shot up from the couch.
"Any news?" I asked, the twins were up in an instant too.
"Yes and no." Mother said. She gnawed on her bottom lip. "I don't know if I should tell you."
"Tell us." The twins and I said in unison. The boys stepped on either side of me.
"Harry is fine. Shaken but fine. The cup was a Portkey that was supposed to come back to the stands, but someone tampered with it. Harry and Alexandra touched the cup at the same time and instead of coming back to us, they were brought to a graveyard. Where Peter Pettigrew was. He shot the killing curse at Alexandra. On the order of You-know-who. He's back. Apparently, she held the cup in front of her that made the killing curse not as deadly as it's supposed to be, at least not in an instant. It was Moody who put Harry's name in the goblet, who tampered with the cup."
"Moody is a death eater?" One of the twins asked, shocked.
"Not quite." Mother sighed. "Barty Crouch Jr had been impersonating Moody for the whole year. He was drinking Polyjuice potion."
"What about Alec?" The other asked. Fred maybe? "Do you know -"
He couldn't finish his sentence because the door of the hospital wing opened.
We all turned to the doors, afraid of the answer. It was Dumbledore who had stepped out. His brows were furrowed but once he noticed us, the tiniest of smiles appeared. That means something good, right? Please, let it be something good. My hands started to shake involuntarily.
"Malfoys, Weasleys. You can go in now."
"Alec?" The twins barely managed to say.
"She's alive." Several shoulders slumped in relief, but Dumbledore remained serious. "For now." My heart dropped in my chest, and I noticed the twins' knees tremble.
"What does that mean?" Mother asked. "We deserve some answers, Albus." She said, standing tall and stoic.
"Like you are probably already aware, the killing curse was stopped, or rather slowed down by the Triwizard Cup. Ms Lupin-Black is alive, but we're not sure if she's going to wake up. At the moment, she's stuck.
"Stuck?" The twin closest to me said.
"Let's say... in between. She's stuck between life and death. A large part of her waking up, will be up to her." He looked down. "But sadly, we never know what goes on inside the head of someone in a state like hers." He shook his head a little.
The twins didn't wait for the headmaster to say anything else, they barged in the hospital wing. I followed quickly after alongside my mother. That's when I saw her. Her breathing was so shallow, it didn't look like she was breathing at all. She was pale, her body utterly still. A white blanket was placed over her stopping just over her shoulders. Like they were ready to cover her head with the white sheet. Around her were Remus and Sirius, the twins had taken a place on the other side of the bed. Harry. Harry was there too. He stood a little further from the rest, his eyes trained on Alexandra.
"Harry." I breathed, so soft nobody seemed to hear it. Nobody except Harry. He looked up, his eyes bloodshot. I walked over to him without thinking, but nobody was paying us any attention anyway. I flung my arms around him, making him stumble back until we were behind a curtain.
I didn't know what he would do. Push me away, scold me. But no, his arms wrapped around my waist and held me against him. His shoulders shook and I held him tighter, trying to keep my own tears at bay.
LB
Alec
Everything was dark. I couldn't see a thing. Then suddenly a light appeared in the far distant. I started to run towards it, but it seemed like the distance stayed the same. A shape filled the light, and the figure came closer and closer.
A soft hand touched my cheek. "Alec, my baby." A soft feminine voice said.
"M- Mum?" I said with a shaking voice.
Then she appeared, still young and beautiful, just like I remembered her from the memories she preserved. She was smiling at me.
"You turned into such a strong and beautiful young woman."
A tear rolled down my cheek, she wiped it away. I reached my hand over and touched her hair, then her face. She wasn't a ghost. She was solid. I collided with her, my arms going around her waist and I cried against her chest. She held me tightly against her, like she was never going to let me go.
"I've missed you. I've missed you so much."
"I've missed you too, Alec. More than you could know."
I tilted my head to look at her. To take in her beauty. "Am I- Am I dead?"
"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it." She said calmly. "I guess that's up to you."
"Me?"
"Yes." She pulled back but held my hands in hers. "Do you remember what happened?" A graveyard, a bolt of green light and the cup. I nodded. "What happened... you surviving the killing curse, just like Harry... it's unheard of. But I always knew you were special." She smiled. Then it dropped. "The thing is... you can't just choose life or death right now."
Suddenly in the dark, a large arched double door appeared in front of us. The door looked hand-carved with steel and engravings on the dark wood. I found it ominous and feared what lay behind it.
"Mum, what's happening?"
"You need to revisit your memories. The good. And the bad. You will recall things you have forgotten. Or you wish you would never see again. You will feel love and heartbreak and so much more. But you have to go through each memory and at the end, you'll choose if you want to live or die."
"If I die..., will I stay here with you?"
She gave a small smile. "Yes, we'll be together, and you can meet your family you never got a chance to meet. We could go on adventures together."
"And if I live?"
She still smiled but it was transformed in a sad one. "We'll never see each other again. Not until your actual death."
"I want to stay with you." I said. I couldn't bear the thought of leaving her, of not seeing her ever again after this.
"No decision has to be made right now." She turned me around by my shoulders with a small smile. "Go through the first door, Alec." She whispered.
I took in a breath and rolled my shoulders before I reached for one of the doorknobs. I looked over my shoulder once more, to imprint her face in my head before I pushed the door open. Behind the door, everything was pitch black. I took in a deep breath and stepped into the darkness.
