Thicker than Water (Marauders Era) PART II

2 May, 1998 - Hope

Jasmine was collapsing in on herself and she didn't know how to stop. For the first time in her life, she had no words. The thoughts in her head seemed to have come to a stand still, stuck in a loop as she stared around the bodies on the floor of the Great Hall.

There were so many of them.

And they were almost all familiar. Because they were her classmates. Her friends. There was Lavender Brown, the giggly Gryffindor who was happy to help anyone with Divination. There was Fred Weasley, who had occasionally asked Jasmine for advice on how to deal with the less fortunate side effects of his and his twin's experiments. And there, pale and still on the floor, was Colin Creevy, the sixth year who had taken her to the Yule Ball what felt like a lifetime ago. Who was silly and spirited and... and had meant something more to her than just a friend. Who had been perhaps the only person Jasmine had ever met who seemed to be able to keep up with her rambling head. Who was pale beside his brother, both of them looking so very tiny in death.

The sight of him when she'd first stepped into the hall had hollowed Jasmine out and she'd found rather suddenly that where moments ago, in the throes of battle, there had been determination and courage and assurance, there was now nothing. Just a pit inside her like every bit of her willpower had been snatched away from the moment she walked into this room. Like that spark that had always kept her going, kept her moving, kept her smiling, had simply... burnt out.

The only consolation, really, was the sight of Heather and Lavinia standing amongst the cots in the little hospital they'd set up. At least her family was alive. At least they weren't lying on the floor like so many others. And Jasmine hurried forward, abandoning the bodies she didn't want to dwell on, needing to see them up close, needing to touch them. Needing to know they were real and they were alive and they still had a chance to stay this way.

Predictably, perhaps, Heather ran forward the moment she saw Jasmine, pulling her into a hug and nearly crushing her with the force of the embrace as she practically sobbed into her sister's hair, shaking with what Jasmine supposed was relief as she gasped, over and over and over again, "You're okay. You're okay."

You're okay.

But standing there, even wrapped in this embrace that had been home for so many years, Jasmine didn't feel okay. Far from it, really. She felt like she was losing something and she didn't know how to get it back. She didn't even know what exactly it was. What she did know, was that she felt, for the first time in her life, like there might not be any hope. Like she couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Like it might really just be simpler to... give up.

She didn't say this to Heather, of course. For the sake of her sister, she put on a brave face and offered assurances she didn't feel because yes, physically, she was okay. Unscathed, though she had no idea how. But the rest of her... well. Over her sister's shoulder she could see the rows of bodies and the mourners who attended them, some sobbing, some just staring and all of them looking just a little bit lost.

Maybe that, Jasmine thought, was what she was losing. What they were all losing. Their sense of direction. Their purpose. After all, where did they go from here? How many more casualties could they survive? Because brave though she knew they all were, this was awful. This was hell in every form Lavinia had ever warned about.

And speaking of Lavinia, the first thing Jasmine did when Heather had finally pulled away, apparently having convinced herself that her little sister really, truly was in one piece, was look around the hall, searching for that familiar blonde hair she knew would be tied up, loose strands hanging around a set face. A determined face. A brave face.

But when Jasmine finally found her mother, she could not see the woman's face. Because Lavinia didn't look up from the cot she was hunched over, apparently deeply immersed in her work. Which shouldn't have hurt like it did but... but she didn't seem to have noticed that Jasmine was there. She didn't seem to be checking, either. The thought sparked something tight in Jasmine's chest and she felt a frown blooming over her features, felt the edges of the hopelessness pull just a little further beyond her reach.