𝐂𝐗𝐗𝐕𝐈 ━━ Seven Devils

Start from the beginning
                                    

Elara stopped in the doorway of the Great Hall.

The House tables were gone and the room was crowded. The survivors stood in groups, their arms around each other's necks. The injured were being treated upon the raised platform by Madam Pomfrey and a group of helpers. Firenze was amongst the injured; his flank poured blood and he shook where he lay, unable to stand. The dead lay in a row in the middle of the Hall.

Dean and Aspen immediately came to Seamus's side and began leading him towards Madam Pomfrey. Elara started towards the middle of the Hall to learn who's dead when Ginny and Ron stopped her.

"Lara, you don't — "

Ron's sentence would forever remain unfinished as all noise was drowned out by the pounding of her heart. Dolohov said he'd killed Nymphie. Desperate to find if his words held truth, Elara stepped around the brother and sister and raced towards the middle of the Hall, weaving between the bereaved and the wounded.

She had a clear view of the bodies lying next to Lavender Brown: Nymphie and Remus, pale and still and peaceful-looking, apparently asleep beneath the dark, enchanted ceiling.

Nymphie's hair was still its bubble-gum pink. The world seemed to crumble as Elara's knees gave from under her. An arm caught her by the elbow and helped lower her to the ground gently. She couldn't have cared less if it was friend or foe. Noise was non-existent. Breath evaded her lungs.

It was difficult, at first, to truly grasp that her sister was gone. That was was never going to wake up. That Andromeda and Teddy were her only remaining family members. But when Elara reached a trembling hand out to touch Nymphie's arm, it was like wildfire. The god of wrath had taken a sword and plunged it deep into her heart, tearing her in two as they dragged the weapon down through her shaking body.

It was all her fault.

If she had told Nymphie to go home, if she had stayed with her this whole time, if she had been nicer, if she had spent more time with her, if she had killed Dolohov at the Ministry, if she had killed Dolohov at Tottenham Court Road, if she had been less forgiving in her youth, if she hadn't been so stupidly concerned with the Horcruxes.

Sobs violently racked Elara's body. Her vision was blurred as tears welled in her eyes and tracked down her bloodied and scarred face.

Arms wrapped around her back. She did not fight as she was pulled into the embrace of another. She did not look at her comforter. Her eyes were not averted away from her sister. How was it that so little time ago she valiantly battling, staring Death's henchmen in the eyes and forcing them onto their knees, and now she was reduced to a desolate state, crying over the dead body of her sister?

Inexplicably, a feeling of wrath that Elara had never experienced before fell over her. She forced herself out of the arms of her comforter and began making her way towards the entrance to the Great Hall. Those who stood in her path leapt out of her way, for they were not willing to disrupt the woman whose eyes were pure flame and whose body was sparking with the bloodlust of lightning.

Elara was forced out of her fury as a hand caught her arm. She whipped around and came face to face with Harry.

"Lara, look at me, and take a deep breath."

"They killed her," she snarled, trying to pull out of his grasp. "They will pay with their lives."

"Look at me."

The panic in Harry's voice forced her to meet his eyes. She never realized how strongly they reminded her of crystals. 

"I promise you, they will pay, Lara." he comforted, subtly leading her away from the doors. "They will soon, but you need to be clear-minded before you go storming off into the Forbidden Forest. You don't want to do something you might regret."

          

"I've killed before," said Elara, her own voice sounding worlds away.

"Yes, you have," replied Harry, inching closer and closer to one of the tables pressed up against the wall, "you've saved so many lives, Lara, think of how many you could save if you stay here for now."

Cold wood met her legs as Harry lowered her onto the bench of a table. 

"Do you think you can stay here and not start a massacre while I go to Dumbledore's office?"

"Why?"

"Snape's given me a memory."

"That bastard?"

"Voldemort killed him."

"Oh. Okay."

Elara's lips were moving on her own, saying words before she realized they were coming out of her mouth. Harry pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead and began heading towards Dumbledore's office. Hermione and Ron immediately came by her side, perhaps to prevent her from succumbing to her bloodlust.

They tried talking to her, but their words fell on deaf ears. Elara stared straight ahead, mind and body numb with loss.

She hardly noticed that others had come over to offer their condolences or to thank her for her protection during the battle. None of that mattered much anyways. What good did her protection do if it couldn't help those close to her?

She had no idea how long she'd been sitting on that bench, staring at the opposite wall. A hand rested on Elara's knee that pulled her from her stupor. It was Corrine. She was battered and bruised. A trail of dried blood ran from her nose to her chin.

"Lara?" she asked, speaking gently and quietly. "Do you think you would be up to help Ollie and I find more injured and fallen?"

"Corrine," began Hermione, "I don't think — "

"Sure."

Elara's voice was raspy from unuse. She pushed herself off the bench and dazedly made her way to the exitway of the Great Hall. The castle was empty. She felt ghostly striding through it alone, as if she had already died. The portrait people were still missing from their frames; the whole place was eerily still, as if all its remaining lifeblood were concentrated in the Great Hall where the dead and the mourners were crammed.

She was wandering through the destroyed halls of Hogwarts castle, looking to find more injured or fallen to distract herself from the unimaginable grief she was enduring. All she had left was Andromeda and Teddy. Her heart and mind were tearing themselves in two. Half of her wanted to give up. To end her suffering. The other told her to keep moving. To keep fighting.

As she made her way down a flight of crumbled stairs, she was pulled into a niche.

She tried to scream, but the hand of Harry Potter covering her mouth coerced the sound dying in her throat. The Invisibility Cloak fell off the rest of his body. She began to ask what the hell he was doing and where the hell he'd been, but her time to do so was cut short by his lips on hers.

Elara never knew the Stars had a flavor until then.

Turns out, they taste like a bitter sweet symphony of all that was lost and found again. Like how justice loves to sit by and let the world run wild, like desperation and determination all the same. Her many questions of the future — the 'what ifs' and the 'what nows' — were sweetly forced into the back of her mind.

When he pulled away, Elara searched his eyes. Sorrow clutched onto his crystal green eyes. A bitter realization crashed over her.

"Harry James Potter, you will not go to him."

O, CURSED CHILD. ﹙ harry potter ﹚Where stories live. Discover now