Hogwarts Legacy: The Price of Power

No Goodbye Is Forever

For Matilda Weasley, the three days after the fight in the Room of Requirement were perhaps the most trying of her entire life. For the last seventy-two hours or so, give or take, she had flown between Hogwarts, the Ministry, and St Mungo's, trying to make sense of all that had happened over the last year, those things she had missed, those things she had overlooked, those things she had deliberately ignored out of fondness for those three wayward Slytherins, her suspicions both confirmed and completely obliterated in light of the things she learned.

It seemed that once again Dracaena Hoctina had saved the wizarding world with a little help from her friends. The details were still somewhat scant, but she'd learned enough to know that without Dracaena's intervention, the world would be a much darker place.

Matilda sighed, a bone-weary, soul-spent sigh that left her bowing at the shoulders, her head lowering, the weight of all she knew pressing against the back of her skull, too heavy for her to lift properly.

If only Dracaena had told her. If only she'd said what she was doing. If only, if only, if only. Perhaps then, things wouldn't be so sore. So painful. So bleak, when everyone should have been celebrating. But Matilda knew as well as the next person that even if Dracaena had come to her with her concerns, she wouldn't have handled it in the way that it needed to be handled. She wouldn't have believed the Ministry itself, a mighty force, had been corrupted from within. She would have insisted that Dracaena, Sebastian and Ominis stayed in the castle, safe from harm, where they never would have uncovered whatever it was that meant they had all been saved.

Now, Matilda found herself walking through the halls of St Mungo's, the bustling, busy corridors strangely quiet to her ears. It was a dreadful thing, what happened in the end. If only it could have been avoided. If only she'd listened to her gut and been firmer, sooner, with the Hero of Hogwarts. If only she hadn't been so concerned with keeping Sebastian out of Azkaban. If only she hadn't been so concerned with keeping the Gaunts from interfering at Hogwarts. If only she hadn't been so fond of Dracaena, wanting her to have the freedom she deserved after all she'd already done. If only. If only.

If only.

It was a terrible thought. A torturous thought.

If only.

The Ministry was in a flap, of course. Minister Spavin had arrived back in London the day after it happened, and Minister Nott had been arrested. Something to do with casting the Imperius curse, it seemed. Spavin had been reinstated as Minister for Magic immediately, and had spent the next two days demanding statements from all involved, from those that knew, but none of the students said a word. They kept their lips pressed together, waiting, hoping for the news that would never come.

The news that Dracaena would be alright.

Matilda paused on the stairs, her hand on the railing. She closed her eyes, willing the prickling at the back of them to cease, to wait, just a little longer.

She'd given the news to Sebastian and Ominis an hour ago. The news that Dracaena, whilst alive, would never be the same again. That they could never see her again after today.

Her brow furrowed a little as she remembered the encounter with the wild-looking Healer the day before. A strange man, with long hair and a thick beard and an intense expression had cornered her in a quiet hallway.

"She will never be the same," he had said, his voice serious, his hand snapping out to snare her upper arm. He had strangely rough hands for a Healer. "She no longer has magic. She will not remember the last three years of her life. The things she sacrificed are beyond our understanding, and it is vital we do not damage what is left of her mind. She must never know what happened. She must never know of our world."