𝖠𝖱𝖱𝖠𝖭𝖦𝖤𝖣 | 𝖥𝖱𝖤𝖣 𝖶𝖤𝖠𝖲𝖫𝖤𝖸

𝐋𝐗𝐈𝐕

𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐅

____________

The journey back to the headquarters was noiseless except for the sound of their footsteps against the gravel. Everyone was dealing with their own internal battle as the tension weighed heavy on their shoulders.

Sirius, Theo and Draco were thinking about the failure this mission had been and how they could have prevented it while Fred had his entire attention put on Lilith, making sure she did not collapse right there in the middle of the passage.

The Prince women, however, had their minds filled with sorrow and grief. Circe was carrying Ginny while remembering her encounter with Ares and blaming herself for going after him instead of focusing on rescuing her mother. Had she not entertained herself with that bastard, perhaps Eileen would be going down this passage with them. Lilith, on the other side, was trying to keep all her senses alert and not faint right there due to the enormous pain that covered her from head to toe.

In her mind, every single memory she had along with her grandmother was replaying like a tragic film; the first time her grandmother welcomed her in her house after Circe was imprisoned, the time when Eileen taught Lilith how to ride a bike and later on healed her wounded knees when she fell, that time when Eileen took her to the cinema with the rest of muggles to watch the new kids film premiering that night and then took her to the nearest chippy so they could share a snack as they walked back home, the first doll she bought for her, the time when her first period arrived and Eileen immediately explained Lilith everything to make sure his granddaughter had a proper sexual education, how she guided her through her teenage years and how she had been the only motherly figure Lilith had ever met. All of those happy memories were now tainted with the image of Eileen's blood coming out of her sliced neck and the way life had abandoned her eyes as she exhaled her last breath in front of Lilith.

What was she going to do now without her grandmother? Lilith wasn't stupid, she knew Eileen's death day would arrive one day, sooner than later due to her age, but Lilith had not been ready for it. Not today. Not in such a bloody and gruesome way. A woman like Eileen deserved better.

After the life she had lived, with absent parents who died too soon leaving her alone in the world for the rest of the purebloods to feed on her, with friendships that betrayed her and left her on her own once again only for her to relay her fragile self in a muggle that sworn her love and only ended up bringing her pain, with all the sorrow her life had been filled with all those years she spent by Tobias Snape's side, Eileen deserved a peaceful death. She deserved to leave this world that had hurt her and wrecked her so much in peace. Not even that could they grant her. Not even in her last breath Eileen Prince was fully free.

Lilith always thought she had never known her grandmother fully despite being the apple of her eye. Eileen Prince had been such a mysterious and secretive woman that Lilith knew there were many secrets and stories she had taken to the grave. And Lilith was at peace with that, what she was not at peace with was the way the Grim Reaper had taken her. She would never be at peace with that and she knew it.

As they walked the subterranean corridors back to the headquarters in absolute deadly silence, Fred couldn't take his eyes away from Lilith. The tears had already dried in her skin and her eyelids seemed to weigh as blocks of cement. She seemed gone, numb, almost as if her mind had shut down after suffering such a traumatic experience by surprise. It had been all so repentine...and so evitable at the same time had they planned it with more anticipation. Fred couldn't even believe his own thoughts. Fred Weasley, thinking about doing something with anticipation, that was definitely not seen every day. But the war had changed that part of him. Lilith had as well.