it all ends with us: ruins

053

Chapter Fifty-Three:

"No one beats the odds."

It was awkward. That's the word Atlas would use to describe the whole situation. The group were sat in a circle, all staring at each other with a loss for words. There wasn't much to say and in all honesty they were waiting for Atlas to take the lead, after all it was her idea to be doing this in the first place.

"Why can't we wait until the day before?" Lorenzo asks.

"Because I need to get used to the feeling of having that much power." Atlas responds.

"Right, so what are we waiting for?" He questions.

Atlas was scared, rightfully so. She was young and doing something so crazy, something her own mother would reprimand her for, was making her heart palpitate so much it was like having a heart attack. the blood was pumping so fast it didn't seem natural.

"Nothing." She sighed before turning to face Theo.

It was no wonder he was first. If she could only be able to siphon the mark from one person she would want him to be the one rid from all the evil torture. As much as she loved everyone else, no one could amount to him.

Atlas continued to take deep breaths before grabbing Theo's arm. Everyone watched intently as she closed her eyes and siphoned away the concealment charm revealing the horrible mark that looked like it was burned into his skin. Red marks from scratches surrounded the area and Atlas could only imagine the amount of pain that he was in right now. She continued to siphon, black lines appearing on her hand and travelling up her arm.

It stung, a lot. It was the understatement of a century. The amount of pain that Theo had been feeling while suffering with this mark was now entering Atlas' system and it wasn't doing it quietly. It took a couple of minutes for the last of the darkness to be removed and once it was it looked like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. The permanent frown that he had for the past couple of days was finally gone, bringing back the old Theo.

"Who's next?" Atlas asks, slightly breathless, covering up the pain she was in.

"You sure you can handle it?" Ren asks, worried about her best friend.

"I'm sure." Atlas softly smiles.

It was a slow and painful process. Atlas had managed to siphon away the mark from all of her friends and now sat under the covers in her bed. She could feel the shift inside of her and she could recognise the change. She felt foreign. Like there was something that had been put inside of her and her body was actively rejecting it. She had made no complaints though, instead she sat shivering. Unable to shake the feeling away from her.

The dark lines shadowing her vein had not disappeared and stayed there as a permanent reminder of her selfless actions. Her usual luminous brown skin had dulled down to her looking sickly. Since starting Hogwarts it was no surprise that Atlas had lost a lot of weight. The constant stress and fear made her lose her appetite but she knew once this was all finally over she could return back to being herself.

Atlas knew that she couldn't sulk in her bed forever, that she needed to get out and act normal before people came sniffing around. However, the black magic acted quickly in not only affecting her physical body but also her mind. She had always assumed that she wouldn't be as affected by it since her whole existence is surrounded by black magic but the more time went by the weaker she got.

The only thing Atlas could say to herself to convince her mind that everything was okay was that this is what Apollo would do. It was no surprise that Apollo would jump at any chance to save the ones he loved most. It was what she had loved about him, his passion and his ambition. They were the traits that defined him and ultimately made him end up in Slytherin.