Spoilers for "The Final Repository".
Anna didn't have a chance to make it to the Room of Requirement. Professor Fig had met her at the gates of the castle as she was slowly making her way up the path, and they were in the Map Chamber in the next five minutes. Gasping for breath, she showed the Keepers and professor Fig the wand created by Mr Ollivander, and then the secret passage was melting in front of her, revealing the location of the final repository.
Her body screaming in protest, she grits her teeth and goes to meet her fate.
The battle under the castle is a blur, and she somehow manages to subdue Ranrok in an apocalyptic battle, but she is so... so tired.
The raw emotions of pain, anger, grief, despair, they swirl around her, inky blots of pure darkness. The darkness, alive and seething, ripped straight out of the hearts of mankind.
But there is no light without shadow. No shadow without light. Without sorrow, joy loses its splendour. Without pain, love loses any meaning.
Love is what she focuses on as she struggles to contain the dark emotions. She remembers the faces of her family. Her friends, their laughter and their warmth, the victories they shared, the silly things and painful revelations.
The paternal warmth of professor Fig, who has appeared in her life to whisk her away into this strange world of magic. He is still here, and his hand on her shoulder never wavers as he tells her how proud he is of her. How she is much stronger than she even knows herself.
Hearing him say that, she believes. She cannot bear to let him down. Let everyone down.
The magic coalesces, gathering into an orb once more, but it is still precarious, unstable. It trembles, threatening to break. Anna closes her eyes.
She thinks of dancing under the stars of the Great Hall. Wandering about Hogsmeade, flying on Highwing's back, sitting quietly in the Undercroft.
She thinks of Ominis, and how much it would wound his gentle soul if she fails.
And she thinks of Sebastian and how she must make it out of here to help Anne and pull him out of the abyss of his own creation.
Her entire body shakes at the gargantuan effort but she manages to stabilise the wild, thrashing emotions inside a new cage she weaved out of primordial nothing and her love.
Barely able to catch her breath, she hears a body fall to the floor behind her. Anna spins around to find professor Fig on the ground, his blue robes quickly saturating with blood.
"Professor!"
Her trembling hands touch the sodden fabric, trying to stop the bleeding, but Fig shakes his head.
"Miriam..." he whispers, and she understands. She finds the beautiful, elegant wand of pale wood and puts it into the elderly man's cold hands.
Fig smiles, pressing the wand to his heart.
"She would have loved you, my dear girl... she always wanted... a granddaughter..."
Professor Weasley and professor Sharp found her there, Merlin only knows how long after, covered in blood, weeping over professor Fig's body.
Sharp pulls her up to her feet, even though she tries to fight him.
"No, no, no..."
"Come on, Ms Visconti, you can't stay here!"
"No!"
He hooks an arm over her waist and half-leads half-drags her away as professor Weasley performs a gentle wave of her wand.
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Up and Down
Fanfiction[Completed] Anne's malady is a curse, is it not? The newest Ravenclaw is not so sure. When all else fails, her Muggle upbringing provides a yet unexplored pathway. After all, the simplest explanation, however improbable, must be correct. If only it...
