good things fall apart • sirius black

Camille Dubois

Camille Dubois had joined the Order of the Phoenix to avenge her sister, change the world that her beautiful niece would have to step into as an adult. She was murdered by Bellatrix Lestrange before she ever could.

The mission should've been a routine one, a stake-out, nothing dangerous, and once they'd finished surveillance, they were to join in with festivities at the Gryffin House. But they were ambushed, five Death Eaters to two, and after Moody had taken a curse to one eye, they hadn't stood a chance. Just like that, Camille had fell, another marionette doll cut from her strings, and the Death Eaters hadn't cared enough to finish Moody off too. This was all too easy for them, like practice duals at school. They'd been injuring Order members left, right, and centre, knowing that their Dark Lord overpowered them in every sense of the word. 

Moody had appirated back to the Gryffin's with Camille in his arms, no man left behind, but fate had been sealed and death took another.

Lily had been the one to scream and Ellie knew it, but Remus was first to the beautiful girl before she'd even made it anywhere near the huddle of people in the entrance hall. She asked what had happened, try to see for herself, but then James was in front of her too, his expression vacant and skin pale - Sirius was the one that saw first, and in his drunken state, didn't have the ability to be discrete.

Euphemia was there, thank Merlin, already tending to the gaping hole that was Moody's left eye without any hesitation, but no one seemed to even be able to look at Camille splayed out on the floor beside him. Ellie moved so quickly that her friends couldn't catch her, and she was knelt beside her aunt immediately.

"Lily!" She shouted, "Come and help me please."

The red head was the best Healer she knew, destined to work in that profession, and someone had to wake Camille up. She must've been stunned, there was nothing else to it, but Lily never moved from where she was stood quivering, hand over her mouth.

"Lily, please." Ellie begged, "Or someone else? There's got to be someone else here who's good at healing." She looked around at all the adults floundering with the same horrified expressions, and something in her snapped. "WHY IS NO ONE DOING ANYTHING?!"

Everything about Camille was as it should be besides her closed eyes. Her hair was as blonde as it always was, her lips painted in the same cherry red lipstick, and her outfit one Ellie had seen before - so she was fine. Yes, she'll be fine. It was funny though, she looked more peaceful than the people she'd seen accidentally stunned in practical DADA classes, not frozen stiff, but just still. And then Ellie took her hand to squeeze, the only way she could think to try to wake her up when no one was doing anything, she almost retracted it immediately.

Not because Camille's hand was cold, it was still warm in fact, but because Ellie had never felt death before and it wasn't until then that the word rung in her ears.

Her pain didn't come in a tidal wave like it did after Adelaide, there was a numbness in it, a disbelief. When they'd taken her aunt away, they could've simply been whisking her off to St. Mungo's, and that's what Ellie held on to. She took a shower as usual, went to bed in her room in the house, and fell asleep after all the Order members had left abruptly. That was that, nothing unusual, because she couldn't believe it, she wouldn't allow herself to.

Death Eaters had murdered another important person in her life, this war had murdered another important person in her life, and accepting that would break her.

But even if sleep came initially, she was woken in the middle of the night by dreams of coiling snake tattoos and flashing green. The house wasn't silent, as if the crawling dark had grown a voice that whispered distress, but Ellie couldn't lie staring at the ceiling, that gave her too much time to think, so she was up and pacing the hallways. Back and forth, up and down the staircase, back to her room, and then repeat. Just walking and no thinking.