Cursed Child Years 5-7 | Marauders Era

21 | Courts and Skulls

Courts and Skulls

TW: Inflicted pain, grief.

Tuesday 13nth July, 1976

Elizabeth couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think.

She stood with a black long sleeved dress hanging down to her feet and a corset around her waist, she was ready, Hilda had styled her hair and Elizabeth had her wand in her hand, but she couldn't bring herself to open the door.

Today was the marking ceremony, seven children would be receiving the Dark Mark from Lord Voldemort himself and Elizabeth couldn't bring herself to leave her brother's bedroom.

Jonathan knocked twice against the black oak before cracking the door open and stepping inside, closing the door instantly behind him. "I thought I'd find you here."

Elizabeth looked over her shoulder, smiling at the sight of her baby brother with his hair slicked back with the darkest shade of grey Elizabeth had ever seen on a set of robes.

"You looked in my bedroom and then Cass's and then came here."

Jonathan shrugged, standing at her right, looking where she was looking. "I heard you crying in here the other night... Liz... I know, ok? But- Divicci will see you in here one day and you'll be punished."

"I saw you leaving here this morning, so you're not one to stand there and tell me not to come here when you do too."

"I don't fall to the floor sobbing."

"I miss him," she whispers, looking at the empty bed that Jake used to sleep in. "I miss his magic, I miss his connection with mine, I miss his laugh in these halls. I miss Jay."

"I miss him too. That's why I come here."

"There's already dust on his bed," she doesn't mean to laugh, but it rips out of her. "There's dust in the most personal space of his life and it's dirty already."

"Why keep it clean?" Jonathan turns to her. Elizabeth doesn't look at him. "He's not coming back, Lizzie."

"I know for a fact I can bring him back myself and survive it," she turns to him now, begging for him to be on her side with this.

"He doesn't want it. He specifically told us before he was killed. We don't need the bed clean because he's not coming back, Liz. He's gone. Forever this time."

"I miss him, Jonnie."

"So do I. But there are battles that we won't win, and this is one of them."

"But if we fought, the outcome would be glorious." After a moment, Elizabeth accidentally whispers something that breaks Jonathan's heart. "You look like him."

"We need to go," Jonathan coughed and took her hand, pulling her towards the door. "Mother and father are downstairs waiting. They're growing impatient."

Elizabeth took one final look at her brother's bed, his room and his forgotten world, before turning and following Jonathan out of the room.

As the three remaining Selwyn siblings stand side by side in the doorway of the manor, Elladora and Divicci stand before them critiquing and criticising.

"You all look perfect," Elladora breathed in and out before turning and walking outside.

"This is an important evening. Do not do anything that may disrespect the Dark Lord. Do not speak, do not breathe, do not move unless you are told to. Am I understood?"

"Yes, father," Cassilda and Jonathan both bow their heads.

"Do you understand, Elizabeth?"

"Yes, Divicci," she looks at him momentarily and then follows Elladora into the gardens. She takes her mother's arm and they apparate to the Lestrange Manor alone. Elizabeth almost immediately finds her balance, as she's been trained to do, when they land on the grass of the overbearing manor of horrors.