Core Four Fun | Location : Earth | TMC |

[17] declan cried when dobby died :(

"Will I cry if I go in?" Declan asked in a wobbling voice. "I cried when Dobby died."

"Dude, if you're gonna cry, let me know before so I can record it at least." Jordan joked, but he sobered up quickly staring at the path ahead of them. "I cried when Dobby died too."

"Who didn't?" Alex teased, resisting the urge to whip out her phone and take pictures. They would be back tomorrow, and she could capture every moment then. For now, she just wanted to savour the entire day to come.

"I didn't," Dix said sheepishly. "When Kreacher led the house elves into battle in the books, I did though. I still can't believe that only the books were available in the palace."

"Nowhere else had them," Kaiden said with pretend-jealousy, "Even I had to sneak in and read it there."

"You're lucky you even got to sneak in, I had to wait until Alex brought them back." Declan sniffed his nose delicately before returning to his usual self. "We should go in now. People are gonna think we've got our feet stuck in cement if we stare at it all day."

Declan's words grounded all of them, and they began to make the walk down the street. On their right were a row of houses. Alex recognised one of them easily by its gloomy demeanour compared to the other bright buildings to its left. Number 12 Grimmauld Place stood proud and tall, perhaps a bit thinner compared to the others. A slight twitch from one of the curtains caught her attention, a window on the upper level of the house distrurbed by a thin hand. Kreacher. The house elf gave the onlookers below a slow sneer and withdrew behind the curtain.

"How'd they do that?" Bear wondered, "Probably some sort of robot, right? The mecho-autonism parts—"

"Hello hello, six tickets for the Knight Bus 'ere?" interrupted a very British voice. Dressed in a very bright purple, a Knight Bus conductor gave them all a grin. "Or are you heading into Diagon Alley?"

"The latter, kind conductor."

"Well I won't be getting on your way. Stay safe and outta sight of Muggles, all right?"

"Gotcha."

Alex and the others strode for the brick wall, skirting around the fancy fountain and milling crowd. They walked around the fake wall, and it was like she'd stepped through another door to another world. The same feeling - wonder - washed over her, and she could tell the others were experiencing it too. Crossing the boundary to another world was just a boatload of deja-vu right here.

Unexpectedly, her stomach twisted at the memory of her first opening the headmaster's door to Medora. There was no throwing across worlds here, but the same enchanted feeling had overcome her body. It wasn't a lush canopy of leaves above here, but a hodge-podge of tall buildings. There was no haunting future-enemy to provide weird words, but her friends. And that was way better. Then and there, Alex knew that they had come far.

The nightmares still existed, of course.

Aven's eyes. Niyx's. Her tortured friends. A dead Kaiden. Her parents lying lifeless. The alternate dream timeline dream-Kaiden had shown. Her consciousness had never really been able to replicate when the real Kaiden looked at her with bright blue eyes. In the alternate timeline, it had . There was no Aven here. Maybe a fake Voldemort, but no Aven. Her own story was still being written, but the climax? The war, and the pain? That was over.

"Sorry, I just, uh," Alex cleared her throat and plastered on a bright smile for everyone. "I just needed a moment."

"No worries," Jordan smiled. They all knew how it felt. Sometimes it all just came back in a rush and you couldn't stop it. Sometimes you could push through it. Others you couldn't. Alex's single bed back in the dorms was drenched in sweat every other night. Dix's, too. She could wager the same for the others, for everyone involved in the war.