Malfoy Amongst The Chaos

Chaos Control

<06>

Wanda

Harry's hands dug deeper into the back of my hoodie as Buckbeak lurched sideways, the hippogriff's screech piercing the near-silent night.

"Shh! Buckbeak, it's alright!" Hermione whispered.

She was pressed against the wall of the seventh floor, her fingers clutching Flitwick's window frame. Terror was written all over her face, which was crystal clear, her deep brown eyes glistening as absent moonlight reflected in them -  

"Alohomora!"

The window clicked open and Hermione shuffled back along the ledge, her feet one slip away from plummeting into the endless black void beneath her. My hands readied to catch her. As the darkness ebbed at our figures, she glanced my way - I knew it was my turn - and Harry, who I knew without looking was behind me watching for Sirius' face, tensed as he realised it too.

My fingers tremble lightly as magic spills over them and I lift Hermione into the air with a gentle blanket of red, lowering her gently onto Buckbeak's back and undoing the tangle that the night's breeze had twisted in her hair. Sirius appears at the window and his face looks back at me, gaunt and azkaban-worn, his hair ragged and dirty - but he is hopeful, he is smiling.

I can save him.

The red glimmer restokes beneath my skin and bubbles over my fingers, an identical scarlet ripple spreading out under his shoulders and circling his undernourished arms. I slowly pull him out of the window frame, my magic rushing to support every part of him-

a beat-

The magic is gone.

His face - there is no longer hope etched across his skin, there is terror, there is pain-

I'm falling backwards, the darkness blurring into another scene I've seen before - my hands are still outstretched as curses fly everywhere, there is chaos leaping from them, swirling and more defined, blistering red and ten times as powerful - but still too slow; the curse hits him anyway. My feet are back out from under me, my screams make no sound. The building is destroyed; a wreck, my living room a sea of rubble; but I'm still reaching, a catastrophic explosion echoing all around me. 

Another hand reaches out - a hand wearing my mother's rings.

I lunge to grab it but am plummeting the moment my fingers try to close around it. The war-ridden sky gets smaller as I fall and fall and fall...

I do not hit the ground.

The dorms are completely silent but for the whistling of the September wind outside the windows and the gentle snoring of the other girls. My feet are cold beneath my duvet, my arms and chest still tingling with fear. My uneven breaths slowly return to normal as I bring my knees to my chest, hiding behind the curtain of hair that swings forwards over my eyes - 

"SIRIUS! NO, SIRIUS!"  I cringe against the ringing shout, squeezing my eyes shut as if it will make the image go away. "NOOOOOOO!"

The shaking of Harry's jaw as the scream splinters through the Death Chamber is as vivid as the raw scream itself, permanently ingrained in my memory and as torturous as the cruciatus curse. I could've stopped that. My best friend - his heart breaking - I could've prevented it if I had only been quick enough.

I know the grief he feels every morning when he wakes up... when the post owls soar above us at breakfast, when every night the fire lies face-less and dormant. I block out his mind but I can feel the pain of losing what he thought he'd gained, of having, just to have it snatched away again; I can feel it because I know what it's like, I know what the grief of losing your most treasured feels like.