And Counting || Silvanna Snape

Chapter Fourteen

Sorry...

...that the chapter's shorter this week ;)

It was one of those normal afternoons. Just gone two o'clock, Gryffindor tower and the sixth years had a free period where the tower was almost empty. Silvanna, Lily and James were working on Alchemy, and Mary and Marlene were supposed to be doing charms with Remus, but Sirius kept distracting them by shaping his cigarette smoke.

There was a thud from upstairs, and a followed by more in sucession of growing speed, until a half empty bottle of firewhiskey rolled out from the bottom of the boys stairs. At once, Sirius jumped up and snatched it from the floor, poking his head up the stairs to find who had dropped it. Silvanna heard Remus sigh, but he was soon grinning at the girls, and James went to join Sirius, trying to grab the bottle from him.

'You two having some?' he called over to them.

'Alright,' Silvanna shrugged. It was only Potions next.

'We really shouldn't,' Lily said, biting her lip. She was right of course - Lily Evans was almost always right.

But James just shrugged. 'OK.' And Lily blushed, and Silvanna pretended not to notice.

Pete appeared at the bottom of the stairs, grinning stupidly while Sirius shoved him for dropping the bottle and James ruffled his hair before taking a swig.

She continued to stare at the ceiling, fiddling with her engagement ring. Dorcas had died last night. Killed by Voldemort, according to Marlene's patronus. A flittering butterfly, deceptively small and gentle, carrying the heaviest of news. Marlene sounded distraught, but Silvanna didn't go to her, she was still far too angry. So now she lay awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking she really should've done more to console her.

That was when the second butterfly came.

She forgot everything except her wand, cloak, and boots, disapparated immediately, and the white moonlight was sucked away, replaced with a sick green glow over the landscape before her.

The McKinnon house, door flung open, curtains torn, and three decapitated bodies strewn across the lawn. David she saw, her throat drying up, and a man she had never seen before. She had never met Marlene's father, and now she wouldn't. And her mother, the kind soul who did all she could for her children and their friends. She put her hand to her mouth, trying to prevent the sickness rising within her.

A shriek sounded out, high-pitched, terrified, pained, all across the woodland around them. Silvanna noticed she had blood on her boots, shining under the light from the Dark Mark. She rushed inside following the noise that clenched her gut so tightly it would crumble.

Up the stairs, round the corner - and which one was Marlene's? Damn this new house, which room was hers?

The scream stopped but still she ran, too afraid not to.

Three more figures; two standing, one slumped against the wall. Marlene's hair, usually so light and pure, was patchy with the dark stain of blood. She whispered her name, letting it escape her lips with a cascade of overwhelming panic.

Peter turned around, his face barely illuminated, so faint she may have imagined it. Crack, he was gone, crack, so was the other.

More footsteps followed behind her, up the stairs, and she flung herself towards Marlene, felt a tiny breath of hot air as she pulled her in close, and that was enough. That was relief, the very definition however small, all the weight of all her trouble gone. They disapparated together.

And that was where Silvanna Snape's stroy ended. There were many other things that happened after this, but none of them happened to that person. That person was a beautiful, young woman, who loved Marlene McKinnon with all her heart, who would always forgive but never forget. And that woman disappeared.

They landed in the woods, which ones she couldn't remember, and she felt the solid ground bruising her knees as she fell, dropping Marlene as she lost her balance. She pulled her close again, feeling the hot blood seep through her clothes and onto her skin, as she raised her wand, trying spell after spell to stop the bleeding.

But none of them were working on this cursed wound.

If only she could afford to apparate again, if only she'd gone to Hogwarts in the first place, if only she had a cauldron to whip up some wound sealant. But she had none of those things, only her wand and her mind.

She heard the tiny, ragged breaths thinning and watched as Marlene's terrified eyes fought to stay upon.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered, although there was no one there to hear her. 'I don't - I can't - I don't know-'

Marlene seeped a small tear, and then was still.

Silvanna screamed her throat raw. She sobbed and shook, and beat the ground with her fists. She cursed everyone she'd ever met, until she was too tired to carry on and the sun had begun to rise.

All was red. The paint in the sky, the lipstick on Marlene's lips, the small imprint on Silvanna's where she'd kissed them. There was blood on her hands, and on her boots, seeping through her nightshirt, and encrusted in her engagement ring. She pulled it off and threw it into the forest.

And then she went home.