𝘝𝘖𝘐𝘊𝘌𝘚. harry potter world ¹

𝘹𝘭𝘪. 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘢 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘦 𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴

     RORY WOKE UP SCREAMING. Her whole body had been poked with needles, every single one of her limbs was screeching in pain. She had felt the pain on her chest, the shatter of her heart, as though someone was cutting it themselves painfully slow, piece by piece, torturing her until her brain gave up, until she was completely numb and she couldn't feel anymore.

     The dream had been very different to any that she had had in the past, powered by a memory.  A memory of father and daughter, but all there is are hash words and touches that could kill.  Filling the emptiness in her head, covering the bright white walls with black paint and fake promises. 

     After writing all about it, she checks her body, every inch of it, trying to find a scar to match the dream, anything. But she didn't. And she screamed, it wasn't very powerful, but it was a scream. A wail, a warning to whoever was close to the victim. 

     ''What was it?'' asks Hermione as they both settle in the common room with books scattered around them, five am in the morning, after being kicked out by a very grumpy Lavender. ''Was it the third task?''

     Rory shakes her head and it burns, her neck is sore, and tired of holding her in place. Her hand is still flying over the paper, writing all the little details, connecting lines, remembering memories. ''No, it was an actual premonition,'' she explains. ''I screamed and someone died, I know how those feel.''

     Hermione clasps a hand over her mouth. ''Someone died?''

     ''Yeah, they did,'' she says. 

     ''Do you know who it was?''

     ''No.'' She sighs and closes the leather journal, her fingers go over the cover, tickling her tips, making her feel something. ''I wasn't fast enough,'' she says. ''I was running through the woods and someone was begging for mercy, and the voices were guiding me. . . But you know how they are, confusing and well, loads of them.'' Pause. ''When I finally reached the destination they had already done the Avada kedavra, and the figures were too dark to see.''

     She was too late, too tired, too weak to reach the father and son in time. She had been running for hours, an icy green mist was freezing her lungs, the humidity on the cold soil making her slip and fall, over and over again, clutching, squeezing her thundering heart, aching her chest like if she was being pounded with a hammer. 

     Trying to take the air, the life out of her, so she couldn't breathe, so she couldn't reach.

     But Trelawney's words echoed through her mind as she stood up for what it felt like the tenth time, with muddy and bloody knees and shimmering tears cascading down her cheeks. So she ran again, trying to find clarity. The patch of light that would show her. 

     ''Oh my Gosh. . .''

     She never got to see the action, just as she faced them, they were dark shadows, one lying down, another pointing. And as he turned, she was quickly fading away into nothingness with the farewell of her wailing.

     ''I know,'' she says, her chest still suffering the shock and the pain anytime she breathed in way too quickly. ''Luckily, the scream wasn't as powerful as when I saw Quirrell die —like the real time. So whoever it is that's going to die, they still have a little time. . .''

     Rory just says it like that, calmly, like if it was a given fact. It was what she did, after all, she wailed, she warned, but nobody listened so there was nothing to do. So she let go of the dream, her desperate hands stop clutching it as their life depends on them and she moves on to whoever was dying next.

     ''Rory, what if—''

     Hermione is holding the memory, because she thinks there must be a way to save whoever is going to die. Because Rory is there for a reason, a matter, if she wails she can save.