✓ | RECKLESS AND BRAVE | Draco Malfoy

60 | HONNE

HONNE
(n.) what a person truly believes; the behavior and opinions which are often kept and hidden and only displayed with one's closest confidants

TESSA DIDN'T QUITE UNDERSTAND WHAT TO FEEL. She'd experienced the death of not just her godfather's, but also her uncle's. Her mind was spinning madly, and there was a sort of unbearable pain blossoming in her chest that gripped her heart.

Remus left to keep Harry away from the dais as he tried to go after Sirius behind the veil.

Kasimir laid unmoving on the stone floor — his face thin and pale, blood pooling the ground beneath him that soaked Tessa's knees. "Uncle Kasi?" she whispered, the sound broken and detached she didn't even recognize it.

A sob escaped her, tears dropping on his shirt as she grabbed onto him and shook him.

     "Wake up," she croaked out, hiccuping from her own tears as she shook him harder. "Wake up!"

Catherine tried to pull her arm back with a trembling hand. "Tessa," she said quietly through her own tears. "He's gone . . . "

"NO!" she yelled, flinging her body down to cover his cold one as she cried. "Wake up, Uncle Kasi!" she broke down shaking miserably in agony. "I — I promise I'll be good," she stammered through the sobs. "Please come back."

It didn't take very long before Catherine covered her own body with an embrace, an arm extending around her brother's as she wept.

There was the noise of the battle still ongoing behind them — she didn't even care anymore with what was happening. Catherine had to pull back after a while to help the others, but Tessa stayed. She didn't want to leave him. Sirius's body was gone — it had vanished behind the veil, and she won't let the same thing happen to Kasimir.

The world had turned quiet — too quiet. Nothing made sense anymore as Tessa lifted herself up from her uncle's dead body to observe the scene behind her. Most of the Order were nowhere in sight, most likely to help the others who were unconscious in the other room. What was left of the Death Eaters were rounded up in the center with ropes binding tightly around them. Harry and Dumbledore weren't in the room anymore.

Eyes puffy and heart empty, Tessa let her eyes rove through the Death Eaters, scanning their faces until they landed down on one of them. Part of his robes had been blasted, showing a huge part of his skin. Tessa stared at the Dark Mark that had been etched into his forearm for a long moment, her fingers still desperately clutched onto Kasimir's shirt.

Then it dawned on her what she'd been dreaming for nearly two years now.

Death imprinted on flesh.

Tessa let out a cry of gasp as she stumbled to stand up to her feet. She was clawing the fabric over her chest as though in attempt to stop the pain.

     "Tessa, are you okay?" Tonks, one of the members of the Order who'd been left to watch over the Death Eaters, approached her quietly.

     "Fine," she murmured back, stepping away from Tonks as she backtracked toward a door. "I — I'm going to help the others," she lied.

     Tonks watched her sympathetically but nodded.

     Tessa swallowed roughly, eyes snapping over to linger on her uncle's dead body one last time. She turned around and headed straight toward a door and pressed a palm over the smoothness.

     Her eyes fluttered shut in concentration.

     She had seen Cedric Diggory's death and barely did anything to stop it, she had felt Kasimir Valentine's tragedy but had not tried to prevent it — she would not repeat the same mistake again.