𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐒 - 𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞

I. chapter eighteen

Students gathered in the great hall, sun rising through the magnificently tall windows contrasting the darkness that sat below everyone's eyes from lack of sleep.

Rosalyn, Ginny, Hermione and Ron sat closely at gryffindor table, the silence of the large room incredibly overwhelming.

Harry had gone missing late the night prior, his location still unsure hours later.

"Today we acknowledge a very terrible loss," Dumbledore rose from his chair, voice strong and somber, "Cedric Diggory, as you all know, was very exceptionally hardworking, intricately fair minded, and most importantly — a fierce, fierce friend."

Cho Chang let out a sob across the room at Ravenclaw table, and every pair of eyes seemed to avert to her before Dumbledore cleared his throat.

"I think therefore, you all have the right to know how Cedric Diggory passed," he continued hesitating before his next sentence sputtered from his lips, "Cedric Diggory was murdered by Lord Voldemort."

The crowd fell into a wave of hushed murmurs, Rosalyn's gaze falling to Draco, sitting silently at Slytherin table. Her stomach churned at the sight of his eyes, suddenly cold and refusing to meet her own.

"The ministry does not wish for me to tell you this, but not doing so would be an insult to his memory."

She couldn't bear to listen any further. She could only picture her mother dead on the kitchen floor, the sound of vines twisting through the death eater's lungs buried beneath her floorboards. Those scars on her hands were still there, strands sliced in her palms from when she had formed those three white roses in her backyard before the tragedy.

"Rosalyn?" Hermione's hand waved before her face, blank eyes suddenly blinking back tears, water threading in her eyelashes.

As the speech came to a close and students began to rise from their seats, she couldn't help but stand and run.

Her breaths became quick as footsteps approached behind her at a swift pace, now in a quiet corridor abandoned by the rest of the student body. She didn't care where she was going, but she stopped as those footsteps grew closer, coming to a halt behind her stilled feet.

"Rosalyn?" his voice was familiar, smooth like honey as she spun around to face him, "Are you alright?"

She opened her mouth to speak. Her shimmery tears were only seen, not heard.

"Hey, hey," he had taken her into his arms, a hand wrapped around her waist holding her tightly to his chest, "It's alright."

All she could do was cry, golden tears rolling into the fabric of his cardigan.

"When I put you to bed after the ball, you used the past tense," he murmured quietly, her breathing slowing as she gazed into his eyes.

"Yeah," she bit the inner flesh of her cheek as he dried her tears, anxiety rising in her throat.

He glanced to the ground, flustered but curious, all the while terrified to intrude on her business, "Is she?"

"I was five," she shuddered, goosebumps rising on her skin. They began to walk back to the gryffindor common room in silence, his hand brushing hers three times before finally intertwining them by his side.

"May I leave you here?" Draco asked as they approached the door, glancing away in shame as he stared at the lion's emblem on her robes.

She nodded, planting a kiss on his cheek before whispering the password, leaving him alone on the grand staircase. The students in the common room were silent, staring at her with intense anger as she walked up the staircase.

With slight hesitation, she knocked upon Harry's door.

"Go away."

His tone was angry. Tired.

Rosalyn's pure voice was soft against the hardwood, "Harry?"

The door unlocked with magic, only for her to press it open and find him sobbing on his bed.

"I'm so sorry," he cried.

"For what?" Rosalyn approached him, sitting besides him on the bed, "You didn't do anything wrong,"

"It's my fault he's back," Harry shook his head, removing his glasses to wipe his eyes with his coat sleeves.

"Don't you dare say that Harry," Rosalyn exclaimed angrily, "He's incredibly powerful. I'm sure whatever happened was against your own will."

He nodded, but nevertheless curled his knees and covered his face with his palms, utterly guilty.

"We'll fight them together, Harry," she assured him, one hand on his back, "Get revenge for our mothers. If you need anything..."

He nodded, showing her out of his room and back into the quiet and lonely hall.

The common room had cleared the later the night grew, and she decided on a plush chair in front of the fireplace just as Hermione and Ginny came down the stairs.

"Rosalyn," Hermione began, worry plastered across her face, forehead scrunched, "What if he comes after you too? We must be prepared-"

"It's not me you should be worried about," Rosalyn muttered, picturing Harry's shattered green eyes as she stared into the licking flames of the fire.

"We've ought to do something-"

"We can't do anything of help, Hermione," Rosalyn exclaimed angstily, "We're just children."

The room fell silent besides the crackling ash. If Voldemort had failed to murder Harry once more, he would surely return. How selfish it seemed for Rosalyn to think that Voldemort wasn't the one she cared for.

She remembered the curly haired witch vividly from the night her mother was murdered, although she doubted she'd recognize her now, having grown so.

Not from her face, but perhaps her powers. If she were to cry a single golden tear...

It'd taken multiple years of research and practice in private to receive merely an acute understanding of what she was capable of. She understood that the night the witch had cursed her with that unforgivable spell, she had absorbed the energy.

She'd the power to murder those subsequent death eaters due to the witch's spell. A child naturally wouldn't have been so talented at that age, but as she matured, the more she understood that her emotions had as much to do with it as others' interference.

Small things such as roses required little to no energy, but anything further required a boost. She wanted one so powerful she could kill her, kill that witch she saw that day.

The one she saw in the paper published the morning after Cedric's death in the Great Hall.

She wanted to murder Bellatrix Lestrange.