Lumos (Book One)

Chapter Twelve ~ The Prophecy

I was home. The house still smelled the same, like fresh baked snickerdoodles. Isolt and Seamus sat at the kitchen table. Seamus was signing bills, Isolt alternating between reading a Muggle newspaper and The Daily Prophet.

"Maev, Connor, come downstairs please," Isolt called, "I've got a job for you."

My little sister and her twin brother came flying down the stairs. "Yes Mummy?" they said in sync.

"I need you to go outside and feed Flannigan," she said, switching back to the Muggle paper. "And while you're out there can you feed the goats?"

"Yes Mummy!" they both said. They ran off outside to the stables.

"Avery's gonna be so proud of them when they get their letters for Hogwarts," Seamus sighed.

"They grow up so fast. I still find it insane to believe that all of the children we had are Squibs except Maev and Connor."

A hard rapping on the front door stole their attention. Seamus raised an eyebrow at Isolt.

"Are we expecting any visitors?"

She shook her head and reached for her wand from the secret pocket she had sewn into her jeans. She stood, walking over to the door and putting her wand against it. She opened the door slowly.

"Who are-- Oh my god--"

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Isolt's lifeless body flew against the wall. Seamus yelled her name. A green flash and another wave of a wand and Seamus joined his wife in death.

Then the house was on fire. Maev and Connor hid in the barn with Flannigan, watching fearfully as the flames spread through their home. Nobody was inside the house except their now dead parents. Ardan and Bradan drove up in their car, screaming for their mother and father.

The cloaked man shot another Killing Curse off to the older twins. Their lifeless bodies fell to the grass.

The younger pair of twins cried silently in their hiding place among the hay. Flannigan nuzzled up to the two, laying down and curling his humongous body around them. Eventually the crying children fell asleep feeling safe in the embrace of their horse.

"Avery! Avery wake the hell up!"

I woke up covered in cold sweat, tears falling from my eyes. Aria was standing over me with her hands on my shoulders. My scar burned like hell. There were other girls in the room, too, looking at me with fear and worry etched onto their faces.

"It's okay, it's okay. It was just a bad dream," she cooed.

"N-No," I said between choking sobs, "they're d-dead. M-M-My family. I j-just watch-watched them d-die." She wrapped her arms around me.

"It was just a bad dream," she repeated.

"No! I-It wasn't a-a dream! It w-was re-real!"

One girl lit the lamps in the room and everyone gasped.

"Why are you covered in blood?" someone asked.

I reached up and touched my face. Sure enough, crimson coated my fingers. I grabbed my pocket mirror and opened it.

My scar wasn't just burning, it had split open. Blood ran down the split in the middle of the horrific welt that ran across my face and onto the rest of my skin.

"Everybody clear out," Aria said, getting up to escort people out of our room. "She needs space and I need to clean her up."

She brought me carefully into our bathroom, wetting a rag. She gingerly dabbed the blood off my face. I winced a few times but I held mostly still.