After the Willow Tree | Theo Nott

BEFORE

(the willow)

The war had been waging for hours, and she was exhausted. The fighting was tiring. The death and loss surrounding her constantly were suffocating.

And yet, Pansy knew that the war was in their favor now.

Harry Potter was alive. The Horcruxes were destroyed. The death eaters were badly outnumbered.

Her friends were off somewhere fighting, and she hated that she only saw them briefly before chaos erupted again. She felt bloody stupid for feeling so lonely in the middle of a war, but with the risk of danger came the desire to spend her potential last moments with the people she loved most.

So, where were all the people she loved most?

When Voldemort died, everyone cheered. The death eaters who weren't captured or incapacitated disappeared immediately, but Pansy wasn't worried. She had memorized many of their faces, and she would not rest until every last one of them was imprisoned and punished for the violence they introduced to her school and home.

After the war was declared to be won in their favor, Pansy felt like she was floating, and she slowly began to find her friends in the calm that followed the news. She drew Briar and Neville in for hugs while laughing and crying simultaneously. She gripped onto both of their filthy, blood-smattered jumpers, and they all grinned carelessly.

Pansy found Daphne and Millicent not long after that when Millicent was helping Daphne limp towards the makeshift healers unit in the Great Hall. Pansy couldn't bring herself to look at the wound for long, so she couldn't be certain what happened, but from her quick glance, she believed something heavy had fallen on Daphne's leg. It looked mangled.

She swallowed down her nausea and avoided looking down. Slytherins were supposed to be fearless, ambitious, and determined. It would be a bad look for her if she were to vomit in the corridor outside of Professor Binns' room.

So, Pansy walked with them towards the Great Hall, and that's when she noticed a few healers sprinting towards the far exit of the building. An unfamiliar student was leading them by screaming incomprehensible phrases, but Pansy swore they said something along the lines of "someone's hurt" and "dead" and "willow tree".

Pansy steadied Daphne inside the Great Hall, and then she took off running. She was still exhausted, and her lungs were screaming out in agony with every step, but none of that mattered. She hadn't been able to find Draco, Theo, Luna, or Lorelei yet, and the willow tree had become their safe haven, their place.

Something in her gut told her this wasn't a coincidence.

She skidded down the war-ravaged corridors after the sprinting healers, but running this quickly only served as a distraction for her. It used up all of the last bits of energy in her limbs and her lungs, so her mind couldn't process any of the fear and desperation forming inside her. It took every last ounce of focus she had to just put one foot out in front of the other in these long strokes.

The metallic smell of blood hit her nostrils as she passed a corner, and Pansy couldn't help but look and pray that it wouldn't be someone she knew.

She felt guilty for wishing it was someone else. No one deserved to die. She knew she should have been wishing that the blood didn't exist at all, but such fantasies were no longer afforded to people like her.

Not in a war.

Not in tragedy.

Everything still felt like a truly awful nightmare, not her actual existence. Nothing felt real, but she knew it was. Her world had only gotten worse and worse in the past years; it was bound to collapse at some point.

And yet, she never expected the way her heart would shatter the moment she laid eyes on Lorelei Jones, wrapped up in the sobbing Draco Malfoy's arms while Theo Nott screamed.

No amount of rationalization could prepare her for the moment her heart broke. It was ripped from her chest and thrown into the damp, dark dirt beneath her feet. The tragedy of it stole her breath and made her watch as her heart was smashed to pieces by the hammer continuously being driven into it.

Over and over and over and over.

Pansy sunk into the black earth beneath her. She clawed at her throat and tried to draw in a single breath, but the air was forever poisoned, and breathing now seemed a careless thing to do.

//

//AN: hello, hello, hello!

Please enjoy this edited version of the first chapter from before, and expect new content stating this Friday!//