𝐀. "you've ruined me." theodore spoke, words falling like a silent plea for further devastation, "but i'd give you the rest of me to ruin if you ask, maya. i'd fucking break for you."
and he did.
time after time, theodore nott set himself aflame a...
an: this update is long overdue. reread the previous few chapters to recall the storyline and important details. you can go back to chapter seven. and while you're here, please vote and comment! i could use the motivation. tw: mentions of suicide, torture and blood.
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Thesun sat heaving its final breaths for an hour before it died, giving closure to the first half of this intolerably long day. The star carefully reached for the earth's horizon with a burning hand before a void was left for the moon to settle instead. A perfect, overly played, routine.
Theodore watched this darkness unfold while the irony embraced him.
You'd think a phenomenon so well crafted would mirror the souls who lived to observe it. But here, in the most sorrowful end of the wizarding world, all those colors above sat unacknowledged. And if one's gaze accidentally spared them a glance, indifference would stretch upon their wretched features.
Sunsets were now nothing but threads of bliss in a background of man-made decay.
Sadly, there was no one but the former minister of magic to blame for the anger and hopelessness that remained in the hearts of those who survived the war. He promised the people a better life after the dark lord's demise, swore they'd receive it. The ministry was desperate enough to believe that Voldemort's fall would come carrying an end to the suffering. They sewed the idea of a brighter world, an unrealistic facade, into everyone's mind. Anything to keep the newspapers quiet, to keep the workers and residents patient.
And yet, when the dark lord left, life went still.
Grief continued to stitch itself within every household until it stained the bricks, seeped into the walls. Families continued to mourn until there was nothing left of them but rusted picture frames of what once was.
The ministry's plans shattered overnight.
There weren't enough hospitals standing to aid the sick back then, the buildings destroyed in the midst of the fire. Some died on the doors, waiting their turn on the debris. Some took it upon themselves to cease their own suffering.
Blake Walker's face, Slytherin's previous keeper, embedded itself within Theodore's memory. His darkened picture painted on the first page of the daily prophet, the journalists paying his privacy no mind, the article even worse.
A family tragedy. Blake Walker, son of the late Eliot Walker, took his own life because he couldn't stand to live it without his twin, his other half. The twin who was spared no mercy by the dark lord.
Sometimes it felt like they never left 1998.
"Mate." Blaise called, dragging Theodore's attention back to the unfinished conversation. A frown rose on the edges of Zabini's brown skin when he was met with an unfocused stare, "You're awfully distracted today, Nott."
