it all ends with us: ruins

051

Chapter Fifty-One:

"Strangers once, and then again."

The aura over the Christmas break had shifted. The once merry holidays were now glum. Even Ren's mother was confused as to why two unhappy girls had returned back from the Malfoy ball. She had spent the whole time interrogating the two teens before realising that it was a situation outside of her hands. She had advised them to the best of her abilities and even baked a cake the next morning to cheer them up but nothing had worked.

Ren was never sad, never quiet and never angry. It was against her whole character; it was what Atlas loved about her. No matter the situation Ren was always the light. It was weird seeing her sit around so solemnly. Atlas just wanted to hurt the people that made Ren like this, but that meant killing the cruellest, most experienced dark wizards and not even the strongest wizard could do that.

Atlas and Ren sat cuddled together on the hammock in the backyard. They were wrapped up in the woolliest blankets with a small fire in front of them. Atlas' head laid on Ren's shoulder and the two were relatively quiet. The chilly breeze had no fighting chance against the heat from the fire, in fact the atmosphere was stuffy, almost suffocating. However, neither of them wanted to ash out the fire, or even open their mouths to complain.

"This changes everything." Ren eventually whispers.

This was the most she had said about the entire situation since it had gone down.

"I want to hate them, I do. It's not their fault but I can't help but feel sick at the thought of it, you know?" She stares at Atlas.

"Bellatrix killed Apollo, it wrecked you and Ajax. He was so broken it was hard to see the boy you love like that and now our own friends are a part of that same psychotic group. Inevitably they'll be going down the same route as their parents."

"No they won't, I strayed as far away from my father as I could get. And even still no one would let it get that far." Atlas muttered.

The latter part was true. Atlas had put a lot of thought into things over the past few days and she had come to a revelation. The dark mark was magic. Albeit dark magic, it still consisted of the element. She had the ability to siphon, siphon the mark away from her friends. It would take away their burden of getting forced to be the bad guy and give them a shot of living a normal teenage life. It would take away everyone's pain.

Atlas was born from evil yet fought against it her whole life. This would be no different. It would take away the Death Eaters strength in numbers and weaken their defence from the inside out. It was a perfect plan. She had thought about it long and hard, all she needed to do was to execute it.

Looking at the bigger picture there was still the big factor of defeating Voldemort but at this moment Atlas didn't want to ponder on it. It was always certain that Harry Potter, the chosen one, would come to defeat the evil Lord when the time came. He was the only one that had fought the killing curse and survived. He was thrown into the spotlight from a young age, notorious for being Voldemort's downfall.

However, Atlas was annoyed at the fact that a second war was brewing and nothing was being done about it. She wanted Dumbledore to step up and do what was needed instead of letting children fight his battles like he was doing for decades. It shouldn't be left in Harry's hands who was still practically a child. It wasn't fair the expectations and pressures put on him. The system and government were a failure in Atlas' eyes.

Throughout dinner all Atlas could think about was her plan. She didn't know if the black magic she would siphon would be harmful or not. When the thought cropped up all she could do was tell herself she would be fine. She even planned out the order of her friends she would siphon first. Although it seemed cruel to even rank them she had to think ahead.