Miss Potter -DISCONTINUED

Chapter 17

Rossendale Valley,  Lancashire...

On  the farther side of Rossendale Valley was a rundown home  near a large pond, with a seemingly abandoned property  filled  with  tall grass and mosses, a lake filled with various water plants that over grew as years went by. Locals used to find the property quite magical, that was of course for the old folk, the young ones always thought of the place to be oddly eerie, haunted almost though no one really dared to go near it in fear of what  they  might find.

It was the perfect cover up, or so Sebastian Thorns had thought as he stealthily walked through the tall grass of the front yard in the dark, taking  his wand out before chanting a charm under his breath. Hearing a click he sighed as he entered the seemingly worn down building.

It was different when inside, as the outside looked like an abandoned cottage, inside it was a different story entirely. Everything was neat, full of life and light, windows fully open to let in the cool evening air in the soft candle illuminating the kitchen table where there sat a plate of food left untouched.

"Finley?" he called out in  a sigh, hoping for a familiar response as he  started to walk towards a closed door. "I saw that you didn't touch the food I left again," he sighed, his gaze softening as he saw a girl with long dark hair sitting on the bed looking towards the moon. The girl looked visibly thin,  pale and too fragile to move. This was what he was afraid of, watching her lost and not there, the bright shimmer in her eyes were dull and lifeless. The only hope she had of her being alive was her slow breaths.

"I got you a croissant, figured that the meals I leave were too much for you," he says, sitting on a stool he placed next to the bed. Resisting the urge to shed a tear, he felt pity for the girl who was once full of life, the same one whom he promised his sister to protect before her first untimely death. Holding her thin hands gave him shivers up his spine, the shell of his friend forever hanging by a thread. He didn't know how to help her at all.

"Please Finley," he starts, "please talk to me again."

His mind wandering to the day he finally heard her voice once again, how the first person she looked for was her brother. He would be lying if he said that he was hurt that Harry was the first thought in her mind, and in honesty he wished Harry Potter died instead for how selfish he had been. Not even aware of his sister going missing, the only news he got from Malfoy was of Zabini manor in chaos, it was the only indication of who truly cared for the Potter girl.

"People want to see you again, Finley. So please, come back to us," he begs, kissing her hands. All he had ever done for months since he took her to safety. No one knew she was alive with him except a selected few, that included his cousin Heart who made it a habit to send them Prophet articles through a burning note. "Blaise must be so lost without you, Theo too," he starts to think.

His time with the Slytherin boys, he could see the obvious shift. Theo Nott forever held a scowl on his face, always by Draco Malfoy's side and first to fight against rebels against the dark lord. He saw more of him than Blaise Zabini who not only sent his mother away to Italy, but also appointed himself as the new head of his house. Last he heard from him, Blaise was under suspicion of helping the folks whom the dark lord sought to wipe out.

Draco Malfoy changed too, for the worse that is. He shut himself out and never confided with anyone, as his life slowly merged with the fate his family had forced onto him. He looked sick, a different person. As if he had received a dementor's kiss and turned into a ruthless shell of the boy who he once was.

'We're just kids,' Sebastian gulped, placing the girl's hand on his cheek, hoping for warmth yet he only felt so cold. Finally letting go of her hand, he looks into her dull green eyes, no longer holding a spark that he adored her to have. "I'll just get you some water—" he was interrupted by a creak at the door.