The Madness Within: A Harry Potter FanFiction

Prologue

The sunlight beating down on Lana Herondale’s pale skin was cold.

            She sat with her legs crossed in the middle of Central Park, the grass too green to be real, the sky too blue to be over New York. Her long, dark locks tickled her cheeks and she moved to brush them away, and found him already there, doing it for her. He looked like he had the last time they’d spoken to each other, without having to worry about the other. His hair was the same brown, his eyes the same grey—only they had lost the brightness that had made them his. Now he smiled at her, but the smile did not reach his eyes. They were not really his eyes. Those eyes would never look at her again.

            Cedric’s eyes.

            She tried to pretend to be happy to see him, though she wasn’t. She knew what was coming before it came. She was waiting for it, counting down the seconds till it struck her like a bolt of lightning.

            “You’re cold,” was all he said.

            “It’s October,” she replied, shrugging. She realized she was only wearing the grey cotton shirt and jeans she’d worn almost every day she was with him.

            His arms moved around her, pulling her closer to him. She was almost on his lap, her head resting against his chest, those strong arms holding her there, but she didn’t feel him. It was as if he wasn’t there at all.

            Because he’s not here at all.

            “I miss you,” she whispered against her will. She knew the happiness, the pleasure of having him there, even when he wasn’t really there, would all end soon enough.

            “I miss you, too,” he said, and she was surprised to feel the hum of his chest as he spoke.

            “I wish I was with you,” Lana said, and she meant it. The past year had been hell for her. Being alive, but without the one person to be alive for, was almost worse than being dead with them.

            “I do, too.”

There it was—the bolt of lightning. Lana would’ve cringed if she hadn’t been expecting it. It could only get worse from there.

He held her away from him and looked down at her. “Why didn’t you save me?”

That was new. “What?”

“You should’ve saved me. You could’ve saved me.”

“I—”

“You started the war that killed us all. You’re to blame. You killed all of us.”

Lana’s heart felt constricted. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

His arms were still around her. “It still happened, whether you meant for it or not.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it.”

She was vaguely aware that she was being watched. Lana took his arms and forced them off her, scooting farther away from him, and saw that there were people, everywhere, just staring at them with emotionless eyes. They’d appeared so quickly, so silently, it sent chills through her.

Her eyes widened in horror as she began to recognize the faces around her. She stood quickly. “Dumbledore? Snape? Regina?”

They were everywhere, and she wondered how many people in the Order could’ve died that day, when she realized they weren’t just members of the Order—they were Death Eaters, too. Everyone who died that day was there, surrounding them, closing in, like an undead army designed specifically to make Lana break down in tears.