The Keepers' Evil

Thirty-Four: You Gryffindors don't have a monopoly on bravery

Song- The chain: Fleetwood Mac

"You Gryffindors don't have a monopoly on bravery, you know?"

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"You can't be serious." I feared that if I looked at my sister at all, the way her body swayed violently in the frozen air of her heart sinking would force me into motion sickness. Her hands clung to her lips as if to mute her words from the truth, her glazed eyes locked onto me like this was all just another reckless game of mine. Ominis remained silent, but the way he shifted to take Anne against his chest said it all, the way his hands held her far too roughly screaming the lack of control I had instilled into his organised mind.

"Oh, truthfully, I am." The defensive tone wasn't purposeful, and I wasn't entirely sure I meant to walk away either, but my body deliberately shunned my breath because it needed me to wake up to understand exactly what I was allowing myself to do for Madeleine.

The stairs wobbled beneath me, or maybe my legs gave way until I began to count, count to five. It was five steps until the one that splintered when I slipped on it when I was six, four steps until the one that had a stark black slick on it from my father's work shoes, three steps until a tiny pearled bead sat lodged between the step and the wall from when Anne lost a charm on her necklace when she was just five, two steps until the one where my mother had made us sit for hours on end so that she could paint a family portrait, one step until she was there.

"Memories are everywhere, aren't they? Too bad you tried to take all of mine." Madeleine sat peacefully atop the highest step, her legs crossed as they dangled from the stairs. She shook her head with an intentional slowness as she watched my feet stumble past her, only following once I had tried to lock her out of the peace I needed for the clarity I sought to gain.

"For fucks sake, why would you say that? I didn't try to take them all, I tried to stop you from killing yourself over something that doesn't even matter." My snap could've physically bitten her, the sharp scrape of my voice lurching for her, had she been real. My chest heaved with a nausea I tried to suppress, my back sliding down the door until the floor seemed to swallow me to take the pressure of my own weight away.

Madeleine's head found my shoulder as she sat beside me, her hand curling into mine as the sickening twist of my stomach seemed to ease momentarily. For a minute I supposed it didn't matter whether she was real or not, and I allowed myself to find her comfort, but as I let her in I could feel the slip of my mind beginning to loosen its grip on reality.

"I'm so sorry, Maddie." The apology hadn't a specificity in mind, but the colour of her blood seemed to paint every inch of my mind in a colour I wished to never see again, a colour I prayed could be erased from the pallets of her body, a colour I wished wasn't so associated with the ending of her life. Perhaps I was apologising for what seemed to have become inevitable; the bloodshed, the death; the tears.

"I know you are." Her whisper clutched my throat as I claimed her hand into mine, a smile dampened with the sadness of my tears felt like it couldn't be deemed as happiness at all, but her voice prolonged my belief that she was the true euphoria that could exist through it all.

Holding her had never been a difficult task despite how fleeting it seemed to be, despite the universe that wanted to snatch her away at any given moment. It had never been difficult, it had never been a task at all, it had been more of a numb to my world, a way to gain clarity in the arms of someone so evidently pure. As she hummed into a lulled sense of peace in my arms, her gentle breath that hushed against my neck was the clarity.