" ₜₒₒ ₗₐₜₑ ᵢ ₗₒᵥₑd ᵧₒᵤ, ₒ ₜₒₒ ₑₐᵣₗᵧ ᵢ ₖₙₑw ᵧₒᵤ. "
What if, in the prophecy, the chosen one isn't specifically a boy as previously thought, but rather a girl born at the end of July?
As Astria discovers that her life is irreversibly intertwined with...
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When the sun broke the next day, the trio had already returned to silence. Despite each other's company, they had never felt so alone. The smiles from their mischief through the halls of Hogwarts were gone, as was the innocence of childhood they barely had time to claim before the weight of war was imposed upon their shoulders.
The winter days seemed colder than they should. There was no longer Andromeda to hum in front of the fireplace in the most out-of-tune tone ever heard. Or Tonks to trip over the first object she found, or not, in the corridor. There were no more Teddy Tonks with his silly Christmas jokes, nor Draco making a fuss about not receiving the gift he wanted most.
But above all, there was no Narcissa. Somehow, that was what Astria missed the most.
Harry was also suffering. He never showed it, he dared not speak. But his thoughts were as tumultuous as a tangled knot and as cold as the snow falling on the ground.
"We're close, we'll make it," he would say before isolating himself at the back of the tent, thinking about all the things that could have been and were not.
Astria sat at the entrance of the tent and deeply inhaled the clean air. The simple fact of being alive to see the sun rise over the hillside covered in glittering snow should be the greatest treasure on earth. However, she couldn't truly appreciate it with the pain of longing filling her chest.
She contemplated the snow-covered valley, the church bells echoing distant in the splendid silence. It had been a while since she had cursed Dumbledore's name from the mountaintops.
Dumbledore had left them blind in the darkness, to face unknown and unimaginable terrors, alone and helpless: nothing was explained to them, nothing offered voluntarily. They had no sword and only the location of where the next Horcrux would be.
A vault, the safest vault in England. And they still had no idea how to break into the damned place.
On the fifth night after Bellatrix's visit, they moved again, under the cloak of invisibility, in case they were being watched.
"Where are we?" she asked, scanning a different grove as Hermione opened the bag and began pulling out the tent poles and Harry went out waving his wand and casting protection spells.
