Elemental

Mom?

I think I might be dead.

I'm not sure. I might be, though. I hope not. I would have liked to say good-bye.

I wanted to be. For a terrible moment, I wished I was dead. I hope I'm not, though. Wow. That's embarrassing, screaming and crying in front of my friends and in front of You-Know-Who.

I am surrounded by white. I'm floating on a blank white backdrop. I look down to see myself wearing the same thing I wore before everything happened—my Gryffindor robes, oddly enough. Which begs the same question: Am I dead?

"I don't think so." I whip around, startled, to see Athena. My mother.

I don't know what to do. On one hand, she's my mom and a Greek goddess. On the other, I was facing You-Know-Who just moments ago. Where was she then? Where was she when I met Ralph? Where was she when Madison attacked me?

"Just say the name," my mom says, ignoring the last part of my thought. "At this point it won't do you any harm."

"At this point?" I repeat.

"If he's killed you, how can he hurt you anymore?"

If he's killed you. Confused but somewhat relieved, I ask, "What about the others?"

She smiles sadly. "You'll have to see that for yourself. Now, as for you—I'm not going to tell you, it'll just make it worse," she adds, seeing my expression. "You should hear it from a friend, not your estranged mother. Someone you know—and trust." She looks down sadly, almost as if she regrets not being there for me. But she shakes it off and informs me, "Here's the deal. You have to go back now."

"Back?" I repeat, excited, confused, and suspicious at the same time. "I was hit by the Avada Kedavra. The Killing Curse. Are you saying I survived?"

"Yes, I am," she replies plainly. "Do you remember the curse he used to torture you?"

"Unfortunately," I say bitterly. Just remembering it makes me want to scream.

"Well, that was more than a curse. A moment of something like that is—"

"Worse than death," I finish, knowing the phrase by heart from the gory tales of the Fields of Punishment. I try not to remember—it's not the pain that I can't take. It's that feeling of useless cowardice that the curse brings, the mental and emotional pain that only adds to the physical.

"To perform the curse," she continues, "You would have to have no soul, which Voldemort doesn't. But that's a conversation for another time," she adds hastily, seeing my puzzled expression. "Anyway, the victim can't be killed by the person who sent the curse. Think of it as a...as a disease. If you get smallpox once, you can never get it again—assuming you survive it in the first place, anyway. It's a little bit like that—you're immune to Voldemort now.

"So, I get to live?" I marvel, stunned by my good luck, which is incredibly rare for a witch-demigod-Element.

"Yes," says my mom, beginning to fade. No, it's not just her—everything is growing hazy. Even the background of pure white is mingling with the brown, muddled tones of Earth that have just started to come into view. "You will end up in the same place you were in before, about five minutes later. Good luck."

And then I'm back in real life. Someone is screaming. It sounds like Beth. I open my eyes and stand up, to general astonishment.

"What—how—" Voldemort sputters, for once at loss for words. I smirk his moment of weakness. "Well, never mind. I can still kill you all!" It's strange to see this immense, powerful, inhuman being caught off guard.

"No, you can't," I hear myself say, the words rolling off my tongue with no filter at all. "And you're about to die. Sorry. But not really."

I pull out my wand. I have never hated anyone so much in my life. He thinks he can kill me and all my friends and take over the world? Never gonna happen.

He can see the loathing in my eyes, but he doesn't care, nor do I. "This is where it ends." My hands don't even tremble. I'm going to kill him, finally, although he intends to kill me, I'm sure. But I have an ace up my sleeve: he doesn't know about the curse. Beth, Juliana, and Tiana have just realized what I'm about to do. I can hear their thoughts. This is it. It's time to put an end to this all.

"Avada—" I begin to yell, but Beth tackles me to the ground.

"Are you insane?!" she screams. "Do you know what happens when you murder someone? To your soul?"

"What—" I realize what must have happened. I lost control and let my anger get the best of me. And I almost went evil all while I was trying to protect my friends.

Exhausted by the confusion, I pass out.