"The Mudblood" One-Shots

Chapter 127: Rewritten

Year: Year 6, right after the battle

Canonicity: not canon

Point-of-view: first person, Lainey Fitzroy

Notes: Here is an alternate ending to "The Mudblood" that includes a lot of ideas that I had but didn't use. It picks up after chapter 126, you can assume almost everything that's happened until this point is the same, though one major thing has been tweaked. To balance out some happy things I've added some horrible things, and vice versa.

Pain winded through the crevices of my brain, but it was my heart that had truly cracked, with sorrow so unending that I was surprised it was still beating.

"Lainey! Astoria's dying!"

Ashley's voice echoed through my mind, as loud as if we were still in that crumbling corridor, where Fred had died.

Where Astoria had died.

Her legs were pinned under an impossibly large boulder, crushing her. Blood soaked her pink nightgown, and perspiration plastered her brown hair to her face in a way that she would have deemed unattractive. For once, though, Astoria had no concern for her appearance: Her dark eyes were rolling, unfocused, and her head kept lolling to the side as Anderson fought to prop it upright. Harper cooed to her, stroking her hair, while Ashley yelled for me, begged for me to come.

Rushing across the corridor, I dropped to my knees beside Astoria, numb to the pain it spiked up my legs. Harper scooted over slightly as I grasped Astoria's hand, cold and growing colder, like Fred's. The pulse beneath her pale skin was so incredibly weak while mine was so unfairly strong.

"I-I'll get—I'll get Madam Pomfrey—" I started to say, but Astoria's head twitched slightly, a "no."

"It's okay, Lainey," she said, blood bubbling onto her perfectly pink lips. "I would have died anyway, Lainey. It's my time..."

Anderson pressed his forehead into the floor beside Astoria's head, but the stone didn't swallow his sob.

"What do you mean it's your time? Astoria—no. I won't allow it—"

"I have a disease, Lainey...an incurable blood curse. I...I would die in a matter of years anyway..."

She coughed violently, spouting blood onto Anderson's head, but he just kept crying into the floor, muttering her name, his sorrow. I squeezed her hand tighter, as if I could transfer my life to her, but her breaths were shallow, her chest barely heaving.

"You cannot die!" Ashley shouted at her, commanded her, from where she stood behind me. "You can fight your disease and you can win! It'll be like a Quidditch match—"

"No, it won't!" Anderson yelled as his head sprung up. "This isn't a game, Pucey, and if it were, the curse cheated! It's been passed down through her blood for generations but it chose her for no bloody reason!"

Breath died in my lungs as I processed the insinuation of his words. Anderson had known about her blood curse, which not only meant that it was real but that it was something she'd realized a long time ago, something she'd discussed with Anderson in detail. But not with the rest of us.

"Screw the curse, Astoria," I said, willing her to look at me. She wouldn't. Her eyelids kept fluttering, her pupils fixed on the cracked ceiling above. "We'll save you—you just need to stay with us. Let's—let's levitate the boulder—"