Extinguished 🩵 Harry Potter [2]

xv ⟶ Fallout

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xv. Fallout
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IF SOMEONE HAD filled a room with electricity, Thea imagines this is how it would feel.

Tension is knotted around every bone in her body, and the air seems to hang over her, as though it is laughing at the mess she has become. She is stood in the middle of the floor in her dorm, stiller than she has ever been in her life, her breath crackling as she inhales, and tries to think of the best way to get rid of this new gravity holding her down and keeping her stuck in this tragedy. It got what it wanted; it got death, but it is still watching her, still haunting her. She is streaked with blood, some of it hers, some of it...some of it Jude's.

Perhaps tragedy is gloating.

She isn't sure; all she's sure of is that this is when she crumbles.

Her knees tremble, and she thinks maybe the joints creak audibly, as she folds herself into the tiniest shape she can on the floor.

Her lip quivers, and a small whimper, that soon becomes a fractured sob, breaks from her. She tries to stop her shoulders from shaking, she tries the best that she can, but she can't. Her throat becomes so tight, that she struggles to get air in her lungs, and a great knot in her head grows tighter around her skull so it aches so much it might shatter, as the tears start to pour, and she isn't sure they will ever stop.

She lies there for what could feel like weeks, before she drags herself up.

She is now empty of anything but a new strain of rage, that is burning and freezing at the same time. Rage, she thinks, is like a sister, and she swears sometimes it is all that understands her. It is a sharp, flaming blade, running down her spine, and it flings her arm out until it clatters into the small bedstand full of photo frames. They crash to the ground, and the sound is bitter enough to make her eyes well up again, as she looks for the thing, the one she might be able to pull his fingerprints from, pull some part of him from.

She finds it under her bed, and flicks through it, when a small, blue note that she didn't put there catches her eye. It contains writing, a perfectly neat print that she knows so well her heart plummets.

I KNOW PEOPLE SAY IT IS BUT 'STAR-CROSSED' IS NOT SO RARE A THING. HOW CAN IT BE WHEN SPACE IS SO MUCH BIGGER THAN EARTH? FOR EVERY TWO PEOPLE, THERE MUST BE HUNDREDS OF CROSSINGS. WE DON'T HAVE MUCH OF A CHANCE DOWN HERE, DO WE, CINDERS?

Thea doesn't know if he's talking about her and him, or if he's talking about everyone.

And it aches, how much she has forgotten about this boy, her Jude, and everyone else's Atlas. Even now, his face is distorted, those dark eyes and cheekbones and curls and red smiling mouth a struggle to conjure in her broken mind. But his laugh, his teasing chuckle, bell-like and glorious, seems to be on a loop in her head, and all she can feel is his arms, and his voice telling her that she's alright, now he's here.

Her wand stares at her from the floor. She hasn't touched it for what feels like years. Everyone in the castle went to a bed at least three hours ago, and since she got here, this is the first time she has even spared it a glance.

It's a weapon.

She took life with that wand. She promised herself she would never, no matter how bad all this war thing got; but she did. How could she even begin to forgive herself?

She's desperate to wash the thought from her mind, and takes a hot, steaming shower until the blood is all gone from under her nails. Her tears blur with the dirt and scarlet running into the drain, and as she sobs, the water burns the inside of her nose, and it takes her half an hour to even start washing her hair.