*At one point the trio had been a quartet. They had been inseparable, but Dahlia Malfoy knew, no matter the reasons for her betrayal, there was never redemption for a killer. *
The slam of the wooden gavel echoed across the Wizengamot chamber, thunderously ending the day's session. From the corners of her eyes she noticed people slowly getting up from their seats, the scratching of their high chairs resonating across the hall. She saw the witness stand glance towards her with betrayal, pity and anger, a depiction of the complexity of the trial. She looked into her brother's eyes, which shone with unshed tears of relief and frustration. Two aurors held her arms and accompanied her away from the platinum blond boy who'd been forced to grow up. His hair was no longer slicked back, his eyes devoid of all emotion at first glance, yet full of pain when one pried a bit further. Her mother sat in the front row, on the side of the accused, her first day as a free woman spent at the sentencing of her children. She would seem impassive, stone cold even, to a stranger, but a glint in her eye showed her heart slowly breaking. As they reached the door towards the dungeons she heard a choked sob emerge from the bolted down seat in the middle of the sea of seats, where her brother still sat arms chained behind his back.
"Head up little dragon, everything will work out in the end." She said it softly, but the hitch in her brother's voice made it clear he'd heard her.
As she walked down the hall, and down to the dungeons until the next day they decided to parade her she heard a heartbreaking scream come from her mother. She knew her brother would have tears streaming down his face. She did not, however, realize the trio that had entered the chamber after she'd been escorted out.
At one point they had been inseparable, but Dahlia Malfoy knew, no matter the reasons for her betrayal, there was never redemption for a killer.
