❝𝐈 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐮𝐩 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐨 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝.❞
Jupiter Black has been isolated from the outside world her entire life up until the age of thirteen. During a duel with her mother, Jupiter tragically witnesses her death and flees from...
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𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 12
I WAKE UP, but not in the way I should. There is no breath, no sharp intake of air to remind me I am alive. There is no jolt of pain, no pounding heartbeat, no frantic, gasping awareness of my own body.
Because I have no body.
I exist, but barely. I am thought and will—nothing more. A flickering remnant of myself, held together by sheer instinct, by the stubborn, desperate refusal to be erased.
I should be gone. I was gone.
The Killing Curse had hit me, and my body had died. My real body was killed a few hours ago, it won't take long for the fake to vanish.
I saw it, didn't I? The moment I collapsed. The way the illusion of my existence shattered in front of The Dark Lord's eyes. I felt it, the breaking of something deep within me, the connection between soul and body snapping like a thread stretched too far.
And yet... I am still here. Not fully. Not really. I am barely anything at all.
It is not even projection keeping me here. I have nothing left to project. No body. No real form. This—this fragile, untethered thing I have become—is held together only by my mind, by the last fragments of myself that refuse to dissolve into the abyss.
And so I watch.
I drift, weightless and unseen, through the shifting darkness of the Forbidden Forest, moving without form, without substance. I cannot feel the ground beneath me, nor the air against my skin. I cannot hear my own breath, because there is none.
But I can see.
And what I see makes me sick.
Hagrid carries Harry's limp body in his arms, his massive shoulders trembling, his eyes red-rimmed and shining. The sound he makes—a low, guttural whimper of grief—is something that will haunt me even beyond death.
Behind him, The Dark Lord strides forward, leading his army like a conqueror returning home, like a god demanding worship. His Death Eaters move behind him in perfect, disciplined silence, their faces grim with victory.
And then—I see myself. Or what was myself.
My body—my projected dead body—floats in the air beside them, levitated effortlessly by The Dark Lord's magic. My hair drifts gently, the way it would in water, every strand moving in slow, unnatural waves. My limbs hang loose, my fingers slightly curled, my head tilted at an angle too still, too serene to be anything but dead.
It is the most horrifying thing I have ever seen.
The others will see me like this. They will see what is left of me—what The Dark Lord will show them. A warning. A trophy.
I want to scream. But I have no voice. I have no body anymore.
