The Queen of Vipers || Fred Weasley

III.V

Fight back. Or if you can't do that, then for Merlin's sake ask for help.

Fred's words rang in her head as she stared at the back of the door. She hadn't slept more than two hours before she'd woken herself up in the midst of a Not-Moody nightmare in a cold sweat and muscles locked in phantom pain. His voice echoed in her ears then too as she gulped down air, gripping the bed sheets to ground her.

Fight back.

She wondered if he'd say that if he knew that it was not only grief that seemed to swallow her whole, but crippling guilt. She wondered if he'd want her to come back to him if he'd known what she'd done- or really what she hadn't done. If he knew that she was a monster.

Electra was on the brink of telling him last night, after he'd brought her to the brink of defeat, hoping somehow, to some degree, that he would not hate her. She wanted to tell him how hard it was for her, how impossible it felt to... continue. She didn't know why she wanted Fred -who played pranks on her, shouted at her, looked at her with such resentment- of all people to hear her out.

But that was before the others walked in and she was snapped out of it.

How long she'd laid in her bed, silently weeping into her pillow, before she got out and drew her bath herself, she didn't know. But when Electra got back to her room Tonks had already gone downstairs, at another Order of the Phoenix meeting. A few minutes later, dressed with her wand wrapped in a wet knot behind her head, she took up her post in front of the double doors of the dining room. Waiting.

Finally, after almost an hour of waiting in silence- pacing, picking at her nail polish, humming quietly to Fleetwood Mac songs- the Imperturbable Charm lifted; their voices now clear, their words no longer sounding muddled and foreign and muted, as though she were listening from underwater.

Electra gripped the serpent shaped door handles and pushed the heavy ebony doors open. Any talk that was still happening ceased the second she stepped foot into the dining room.

There were Order members she'd never seen before, some she recognized like Professors McGonagall and Hagrid, and half a dozen she didn't. But she ignored all their eyes, but one pair at the end of the table.

Glacial eyes returned her gaze. She felt a chill race up her spine. No, those weren't cold eyes, they were burning, like they had been that night.

He was the last person she wanted to ask this of, and yet, he was the only one she could. Electra pursed her lips and steeled herself.

"I need your help."

A short stint of silence fell over the room as she and Dumbledore held stares, a silent conversation between them passing. "We'll reconvene on Friday," he announced to the Order members as his way of dismissal.

Electra gave him the slightest of nods in appreciation and stepped out of the doorway for Order members to pass. She turned her head and said quickly before he could Disapperate, "You too, Professor Moody, if you're not too busy."

Moody's mechanical (or magic, she really couldn't tell) eye whirred as it spun nauseatingly in his head. But his real eye, black as onyx, looked down at her, scrutinised her. "I was never your professor, lass-" Electra couldn't help her wince, but Mad-Eye went on as if she hadn't, "-just Moody is fine."

After another half-beat passed, Mad-Eye looked over his shoulder at Dumbledore, who gave a nod, and with that he gave Electra a grunt of acceptance.

Many members already Disapperated, but for those who lived in their headquarters, they slowly made their way to the door beside her. Sirius gave her a sidelong glance as he was basically pushed out by Arthur Weasley and her uncle (the latter too gave her a wary look as he passed). Even Tonks gave her curious peek before slipping out of the dining room behind Remus.