Stars in Her Eyes {Wolfstar's Daughter}

Chapter 57: Loss

"Nell!"

"Stay with us pup"

"Get her down here!"

"She's losing too much blood"

"Hand me that!"

"It's okay baby, you can sleep now"

Voices drifted in and out of Nell's mind as she tipped on the edge consciousness, blurring the lines between her own thoughts and reality. She felt a pair of strong arms sweep under her, quickly transforming into a soft white blur beneath her body, mixing into inky red as she rested on its surface, like blood on a milky river. Her blood soaking into the sheets.

She wanted so desperately to fight against the darkness clawing her down into oblivion, to a place where pain and grief thrived, reminding her so hauntingly of the unforgivable curse that had her in its hold only a short time ago. But her body and mind were so utterly exhausted.

Fighting and tugging against its force, she tried to peel open her eyes, to see anything, to grab anything to stop her descent. But the moment she heard the lulling tones of her father accompanied with a loving hand on her forehead, she let herself give in as a cool liquid was tipped down her throat, washing the darkness away in her path and easing her into unconsciousness.

After an endless sleep dreaming of sky void of stars or any other beauties, she found herself stirring slightly and tumbling back over that line into reality.

She wasn't entirely sure how long she had been out, but from the sheer look of exhaustion on her parents faces as they slumped in chairs in the dark hospital wing, she assumed it hadn't been short nor easy.

Sirius was asleep entirely, despite his evident efforts to stay awake, and was resting against a barely conscious Remus. Both of them looking far worse for weather with disheveled clothes as if they hadn't changed for days, and bags under their eyes to even challenge their daughter's.

Despite being almost entirely sleep at this point, at the mere stirring of his daughter Remus' eyes were flying open as she tilted her head in his direction.

"Tell me it's not true." She managed to croak out before he could say anything and his eyes immediately softened at her words, pooling with sadness.

"I'm so sorry sweetheart"

And that night in the hospital wing was the last time Nell cried over Cedric Diggory's death, in front of anyone else at least.

What the adults learned from that formidable night came solely from Harry's recount as Nell had not once spoken a word of what took place. And of course no one pressured her to, except for Dumbledore who was immediately shut down by a very angered Remus and Sirius.

It wasn't long before she was healed enough to travel and was whisked away home by her fathers, taken immediately up to bed where as the days went on, she found herself unable to leave.

She took to spending both her days and nights confined beneath her sheets, leaving only when absolutely necessary. But the warmth that was once brought by own bed, now felt cold and empty, the mattress feeling like rock beneath her back. She didn't move, she didn't eat, she didn't even sleep. She would simply wait until she believed her fathers to be asleep before she allowed herself to cry endlessly into the night, and when they would try to talk to her or comfort her in anyway (which they frequently did) she would simply insist "I'm fine" until they went away.

Her grief crashed over her like waves. At first not hitting her as she rested in the calm still waters of shock and denial. Only to eventually drown in a deluge of tears against her pillow in the dead of the night when no one was around to hear. Until her head finally felt as if the weight of the entire ocean was pressing down on it. She was whisked through numbness to anger to pain as the water crashed against the rocks until ultimately ending in the unbearable depths of guilt. Sinking and sinking to where the world could not see.