𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑮𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝑮𝒊𝒓𝒍 | 𝑫𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒐 𝑴𝒂𝒍𝒇𝒐𝒚 | 𝟏

𝟐𝟓*

"Olivia..."

"I just—are you okay...?"

"I know. I'm sorry, I knew you were close but... there's something I need to tell you... about what happened in the graveyard..."

"No, it's not that, it's not about Cedric... Voldermort he.. he summoned his followers there and there were some people there that you should know about..."

Harry's words continued to echo in her head even when she walked through the dimly lit corridor to the Slytherin common room on her own. Professor McGonagall had offered to walk her back but she had declined, Harry had offered to walk her back after he'd spoke to her but she said no.

She needed the time to gather her thoughts before she faced her house, her friends. By the morning everyone would know that Barty Crouch Junior had escaped Azkaban and captured Alastor Moody before he'd even had the chance to arrive to the castle, they'd know he had been impersonating him all year and that he had been the one behind everything.

What they wouldn't know was the destruction and heartache he had caused. They wouldn't know what happened in the graveyard that night, they wouldn't ever find out why he killed Olivia's mum and dad.

But she did. She knew it all. It was overwhelming enough to force anyone into shock. She was half surprised that she hadn't passed out yet though she had come close on more than one occasion. The second Professor McGonagall had dragged her out of the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and into Dumbeldore's office she had spewed her guts up all over the floor.

Her mind was working on overdrive to sift through everything she had discovered, to process everything that had happened.

When the portrait door slid open and revealed the tunnel into the Slytherin common room Olivia found herself unable to move. She didn't have the brain capacity to sit and answer her friends questions or figure out some kind of functioning lie for anything she couldn't answer truthfully. It wasn't night hours yet and she knew her house would still be awake. They were all night owls. They were the house of the snake after all and they lived up to it's habits. They came out at night... nocturnal creatures, the lot of them.

She knew it would be heaving inside the common room, people waiting for gossip and talking about what had happened. Yes, one of their fellow schoolmates had died and it was tragic but no one in the Slytherin house knew Cedric Diggory. They had nothing to mourn—soulless bastards that they were.

So when the portrait door swung open and Olivia saw the crowd of people gathered in the common room—heard their voices overlapping like the hiss of a snake—she turned around and walked away knowing she couldn't deal with the staring and the whispering. Any other day, any other time, it wouldn't particularly bother her but knowing she was one of Cedric's best friends, knowing she had been dragged away from the arena wasn't something she wanted to talk about.

Of course, she wasn't expecting anyone to be paying attention to the portrait door when it swung open on the other side and no one entered. She wasn't counting on someone waiting on her return, watching the door like a hawk and she certainly didn't think anyone would see her lingering in the shadows before she made that decision to turn around and walk away.

She walked and walked, mindless as to where she was going until she couldn't walk any further. The dark sky wrapped the world up like a blanket and hundreds of stars shone bright, illuminating what would be a seemingly endless void of pitch black darkness otherwise.

A warm summer breeze kissed her cheeks and blew her soft curls lightly. The rain had long since stopped and the clouds had cleared from the sky. Instead, a soft summer night graced the world, completely unawares of the pain and devastation that was occurring blow.