ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴏᴜʀᴛʜ ᴡᴀʟʟ | ᴍᴀʀᴀᴜᴅᴇʀꜱ ᴇʀᴀ

xi. aftermath

Everyone was panting when they got in the shack. Even Callie who didn't run as much as the rest felt her chest tightening because of the atmosphere they had just been into.

Regulus set her down on the bed and immediately knelt down to check her sprained ankle. It doesn't look too bad, fortunately. He immediately cast an Ice Jinx to produce ice cubes and used them for first aid. They couldn't bring Callie to Madam Pomfrey, there's too many risks which was why they had to resort to what Regulus knew. Luckily he knew how to heal a sprained ankle.

"That was close," James commented, sitting on the bed beside Callie.

"Too close," Remus added.

James then noticed the girl beside him being too shaky. "You all right there, Callie?"

Albeit with her head down, she nodded without any more words. But she let out a small whimper that the three could hear. She bit her lip, in hopes that they would dismiss the noise she made. But the tears that welled up in her eyes could not be stopped from falling one by one.

Regulus noticed the falling teardrops first, being the one in her front. "Shh, it's all right. Just a mild sprain. You should be good in two weeks." His voice sounded mellow and serene. As if all the coldness he had in his system were gone with the wind. As if he was talking to a kid who lost their toy.

Callie nodded. But it's not her injury that made her weep. It's the fact that she became a burden to all of them. Her tripping, losing the diadem, Peter and Sirius about to get caught. "I'm so stupid," she whispered through gritted teeth that the three boys heard.

James and Remus looked at one another in worry, asking each other to comfort the girl. But Regulus quickly snatched the job.

He looked up at her and stopped whatever he was doing for a brief moment before continuing. "You're not."

"He's right," Remus seconded. "It's not your fault."

"But look what happened!" She looked up at all of them, tears staining her whole face. "The diadem was left inside. And now Sirius and Peter are on the brink of getting caught, all of you could be in detention. Gryffindor and Slytherin will lose points because of me."

James caressed her back for comfort in the middle of her speech and waited for it to end before he said, "Stop blaming yourself. If Gryffindor is to lose points, we can easily retrieve them. And besides, you can trust those two. They may not look like it but they're smart enough to get away from Filch. It's not the first time he almost caught us."

"Don't worry about the diadem either. Filch will probably find it. If he did, all we need to do is get it from him," Remus added making Callie look at him.

"You don't expect this to be easy, do you? Nothing is ever easy," Regulus finished, standing up.

Callie did not respond yet but her pout deepened like a kid whose candy got taken away by a bully. She looked at the three one by one, eyeing her with the comfort of their own. Without a prompt, Callie burst out into tears, a noisy ugly cry. The boys panicked.

"Hey, hey, hey, it's all right! Everything's fine. Everything will be fine." James beside her almost caressed her back aggressively. Fortunately, he managed to be gentle.

"What did we do wrong?!" Remus asked in panic. Shouldn't their words suppose to make her feel better?

"I don't know!" Regulus responded with the same panic tone but with a pinch of irritation.

Callie shook her head. "Nothing, you, you did nothing wrong. It's just, you, all of you, you're my comfort characters. And you actually comforting me it's just... it feels so great," she explained, sniffing and bawling her eyes out in between.