Extra Ordinary (Riddle Era)

Chapter 47

Lucy was the one who found Ella, all board-stiff and cold to the touch, just standing there, utterly frozen as she stared with blank eyes at the metal backing of the kitchen sinks.

It could have been anyone who found her. By all rights, it probably should have been the house elves. After all, they were the ones who lived and worked in these kitchens, who were, that night, as every night, sleeping in a room just off to the side.

But they were sleeping. And Lucy was not. So it was Lucy who found her. Because it was Lucy who padded into the kitchen at 3 in the morning, eyes the kind of dry that only came when there were tears that still needed shedding and heart the kind of worn out that she supposed was only natural when there was a war on.

Not that anyone besides the other muggle borns seemed to show it. It wasn't that no one knew. Everyone knew. It was difficult to not know, what with bombs dropping on London for over a year now. And even if the bombing had waned, the rubble on the streets still lingered and even magical folk couldn't possibly have missed it. But magical folk weren't war-weary the way the muggle world was. The way the muggle borns were. The way Lucy was.

And there were quite simply some nights when Lucy couldn't sleep. When it had been too long since her brother had written. When the candle on her window sill wasn't even close to enough. When all she could think about were the harrowing stories of the last war. Of trenches and blood and death. So much death in the red-stained mud of no man's land.

Tonight, Lucy had gone to do what she always did when the night was long and her head was full of images of bodies and wounds and apologies she still wasn't sure she wanted to give: she'd gone to make herself a cup of tea and curl up with a book and do her best to lose herself in a world where even if there were wars, their endings were already written. Set in stone. And usually, a flavor of bittersweet that was easier to swallow than the tragedies always were in real life.

Only, when she'd walked into the silence of the kitchen, Ella was already there. And Lucy knew immediately that something was off. Something was wrong. It was a bone-deep feeling the moment she entered the room. Because no one held that still, not even the rise and fall of shoulders with breath, not even the natural motion of a head, or hands in the sink she stood over. There was nothing. And then there was no answer to Lucy's quiet, already half hopeless call. And then her skin was so cold.

The words that had left Lucy's lips were half prayer, half curse and she wasn't sure whether or not they would have been welcome in a church. But this wasn't a church. This was a kitchen in a castle full of magic Lucy suddenly realized she understood very little of. Because Ella didn't look dead. Not that Lucy knew what dead looked like beyond the rampant imaginings of her restless head, so maybe it was something more like desperate optimism but she didn't look dead. She just also didn't look particularly alive and in that moment, hands wringing together because she couldn't stand the coldness of her friend's skin, standing in an empty kitchen in the wee hours, Lucy had no idea what to do. No idea where to go.

It left her feeling like a child. Like a lost thing. Like she was staring up at a world that was larger than her and loomed suddenly with all the monsters parents promised foolish children they would protect them from. But no one was there to promise protection. Much less offer it. And Lucy was alone in a room with the still frame of a friend, feeling like this castle might as well have been abandoned for all the helping hands she could think might be there.

It took longer, far longer, than it should have for Lucy to figure out what she was certainly supposed to do, but she got there in the end, shoving an ache and a hollow and a panic so deep down even she wouldn't find them when asked how she was. And when they were buried in the crypt Lucy kept beneath her bones, she made her feet move. Made her spine straighten. Made the weight of a lifetime look like nothing at all.