Nothing is mine.

Shorter one again...

L'Étrange Triomphe

Two figures strolled along the thin bridge from the burnt out husks of houses, meandering from side to side to peer over the scree slopes and pausing at the broken, crumbling end of the bridge.

He destroyed the entire school. Vert surveyed the bare slope and the vast gaping scar in the mountainside. Wiped it all away. Even with all the wards.

The Carrow twins sat on the brink of the bridge, tossing small stones down into the crater.

But he is not here.

Vert watched the pair drift back toward the ruined village, slipping a hand inside her jacket and drawing out Charlie Weasley's wand.

Unease bubbled up from that thick dark sea of secrets.

No risks.

She tucked the wand back away.

I cannot be discovered. I must not be killed. They must not realise I was not the real Daphne Greengrass. The sea settled, stilling like thick fog. It must be like I was never here.

Vert disapparated, stepping into room five in the catacombs below Paris, snatching a piece of parchment, and apparating out onto the bank of the Rhine.

She forced her magic through Charlie Weasley's wand, wrestling at it like an angry cat with a tangle of string, wrenching it into place bit by bit, thread by thread.

A smooth silver teardrop welled from its tip, swaying from the end of a slim chain before the broad river bend and the low islands rising from the waters into the faint morning mist.

This wand is a bad match for me. Vert narrowed her eyes at it as she forced the portkey enchantment through, picturing the spires of Nurmengard and the snow-veiled pines. I should get a new one after this; Neville Longbottom recognised this wand too.

Grimacing, Vert scribbled a short note. 'It is time, D,' she murmured, sending the little bird fluttering across the river.

Nearly time. And maybe then… She ran her fingers over the slim bulge beneath her skin, wincing at the throb of pain. Maybe then I can be more than just Vert.

A slim paper dart swept down from the sky, bouncing off her knee.

'Same place.' Vert vanished it with a jab of her wand, watching it flicker out of existence with a frown as Charlie Weasley's wand twisted her magic, and disapparated.

The ruined forum at the heart of Novimagus thronged with tents. Mirror-visored, red-jacketed aurors watched her from the edges of the square, wands in their fists.

'Greengrass.' Neville Longbottom stepped out of one of the tents, his eyes on Charlie Weasley's wand in her hand. 'It's time now?'

Vert tucked the wand away, reaching out and dropping the portkey into his hand.

Neville Longbottom sat on a chunk of broken marble column, bouncing a fistful of silver chain and the slim shining teardrop hanging from it on his palm. 'This is it, Greengrass?'

'This is it.' Vert folded her arms. 'It will burn hot when the moment comes, but not so hot it will hurt, and the word is… Vert. Be ready; it will not be long now. Mithras and his followers watched you slaughter Grindelwald's aurors before they attempted to intervene.'

He weighed it in his hand. 'I'm not putting this on until you swear an oath.'

'You have to swear yours first,' she murmured. 'Or I will not swear mine.'

Neville Longbottom ground his teeth. 'Give me the words.'

She drew Charlie Weasley's wand. 'Do you, Neville Longbottom, swear to use the portkey when it calls you, provided you believe that it does what I have told you it will do, bringing along all those who follow you and ensuring you do all that you can to defeat Mithras no matter the cost.'

He narrowed his eyes, twisting his heel back and forth on the ground with a faint squeak. 'I do.'

A slim ribbon of white flame sprouted from the tip of Charlie Weasley's wand, snaking around Neville Longbottom's arm and sinking through his skin.

He shivered. 'Your turn.'

Vert nodded, tucking the wand away.

Neville Longbottom pulled a piece of parchment from inside his red jacket and unfolded it. 'Do you swear that this necklace works only as you have told me it does, portkeying us to Nurmengard, that we are going to ambush only Mithras, and that you have, to the best of your ability, made sure we will not be ambushed by Grindelwald, his followers, or any hostile persons afterward?'

'I do.' Pale flame coiled around Vert's wrist and snapped tight, sending a wave of tingling prickling down her spine. 'I already have.'

'I'm not going to thank you for delaying Mithras's followers at Beauxbatons or warning us that he was coming and we needed to leave.' Neville Longbottom's jaw twitched. 'You only did it to make sure that we would be around to ambush him later.'

'I did not ask you to thank me.'

He stood up, pulling the necklace over his head and tucking the pendant beneath his jacket. 'One day, not too far into the future, I'll see you again, Greengrass. The day I put you in a small dark room for the rest of your life.'

We will not meet again.

'Your threats do not scare me,' she murmured. 'Make sure you bring every auror you can to Nurmengard; Mithras is much too powerful for a single soul to stop.'

'I can bring mine,' Neville Longbottom said. 'I asked them and they agreed, but the Duforts' aurors aren't really mine to command; they're only here because Mithras left the Duforts unable to fight for a month somehow.'

I am surprised he spared them. Something stirred in the smooth dark sea of secrets lying beneath her thoughts. Surely killing his sisters would have been a powerful sacrifice for his ritual. He has already killed his wife and daughter for it, why not three sisters more?

'Bring as many as you can,' Vert said. 'But you swore to do all that you can, you bound your purpose to it; you will do it when the moment comes.'

'I know the dangers of magical oaths, Greengrass.' Neville Longbottom stood up. 'Go. I don't want to see you until after this is done and I have you chained up for your trial.'

'You will not see me.' Vert disapparated, stepping out into the Sunshine Room. 'You will not see me again. Even Mithras cannot defeat Grindelwald, a sphinx, and an entire auror squad.'

The white flames flickered in the bronze brazier between the armchairs and beneath the glass lanterns floating along the stark stone ceiling, sending lines of soft shadows sweeping over the walls and floor.

She pulled Charlie Weasley's wand out, pressing the tip against the slim bulge of the ring in her finger and slicing a deep cut through her skin, clenching her teeth against the burning pain and twisting the ring out from inside her finger.

Slick crimson clung to the slim silver band, filling the spiral, and something bubbled up from the black unknown in the well of her mind.

'Cramoisi,' Vert whispered, savouring the word as she smeared the blood away; it tasted of cherries and sweet, light meringue. 'But I am only Vert.'

It is all in place. Must I still be just Vert, even now? The darkness shifted like thick winter fog in the wind and she sensed, somewhere concealed within, a faint and distant shape looming like the shadow of a mountain through mist, something deep and secret waiting amidst the unknown like an iceberg among the waves. Something important. Gentle certainty rose from the still dark sea; it drew back like the tide, bleeding away, baring the silhouette of a secret. Not something important. Someone.

'That is why,' she murmured, clutching for the shape of it. 'They are why.'

Vert dropped Charlie Weasley's wand into the white flames and watched the pale tongues of fire eat through the wood to the dragon heartstring; it crumbled into glowing embers and ash as she mustered her courage, dragging the ring to her knuckle.

The fog among her thoughts melted away and the dark sea swept back in, a flood of memories and more swelling up into a wave so high it brushed the sky.

She smiled as the ring crumbled to dust. No more—

The wave crashed over her.

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/mjbradley