The Sight Of Eternity With You

Hard Times

"And hey, darling, I hope you're good tonight
Tell me something sweet to get me by
'Cause I can't come back home 'til they're singing
If you can wait 'til I get home
Then I swear to you that we can make this last"
-If it means a lot to you, A Day to Remember

******
Several people sat uncomfortably around a small dining table in a dingy looking house, the amount of dust and grime around the place was an astounding sight. The gathered guests included: two current Hogwarts professors, an ex-professor, a man wrongly accused for the murder of his best friend, two aurors, the parents of a family considered blood traitors, and the parents of a daughter who's recent school year left her in a traumatic state that included the feeling of betrayal.

An older witch who looked nearly identical to her daughter sat with her black hair sleeked back in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Her icy glare making Molly Weasley shift uncomfortably in her seat down the table when their eyes met. She was a tall woman, slender in frame—in contrast to her daughter who had gorgeous curves, as people may think—looking nearly identical to her daughter, except for her eyes-hazel eyes that held a confident gaze as she held her cold demeanor.

"Keep staring at everyone like that, Wren and your face is going to set," Sirius Black chuckled slightly, taking a sip of his brandy, the liquid leaving a warm burning sensation in his throat as it traveled through his body.

"I'm not here for a school reunion, Sirius," Wren glared at him, gripping her cup of tea between her hands, the man with a matching wedding band placed a restraining hand on her arm. "We have a daughter at home mourning the loss of a friend, a loss that could've been prevented! She feels like her professors have betrayed her."

"Mr. Diggory's death has been the hardest thing for me to bear this year, do not accuse me for what happened," McGonagall spoke softly, her voice shaking. "That damned cup had an unbreakable contract enchanted on it, to finish the tournament, there needed to be three tasks-"

"Then you should've changed up the tasks!" Wren interrupted, her voice shook with the fury and terror that coursed through her, "when Harper came to you. Both of you. You should've taken that and changed the damned task at the very least! And I can't even begin to comment on the fact that no one knew that Alastor wasn't even there last year! How the hell does that go unnoticed?!"

McGonagall nodded slightly, a long sigh leaving her, "it wasn't our place to alter things. But had I been able to, I would've made sure that not only did Diggory live, that Potter would not have been entered in the first place."

"My stores of lace wing flies and boom slang skin were diminishing over the year, two prominent ingredients for polyjuice potion. I had my suspicions, but nothing concrete seeing as your daughter also snuck ingredients from my cupboards as if I didn't notice," Snape drawled.

"There's nothing you can do about the past now," Alastor Moody said gruffly.

"And you-" Wren pointed a long manicured nail at Severus Snape, her glare would make anyone else flinch, but Snape merely sneered in return. "We trusted you with our daughter, trusted that you could help her control her ability...but no. You've wasted our time-"

"On the contrary. Miss Nonemacker has established control in her own way. I stand by what I've written to you over in the past: she's a natural legilimens and her ability is on par with mine if not crude at times. It's her occlumency that needs finesse, but that doesn't mean she hasn't come close to mastering it. I do agree that she may have gotten sidetracked at times, but Miss Nonemacker has come the furthest she has been since I've met her, give her another year and she'll fully master the ability as long as she focuses," Snape spoke in a bored tone. "However, taking her from the enchantments of the castle during this time would be counterintuitive. I agree that Hogwarts is safer than your own home."