⫶⫶⫶ ᴇ ᴅ ᴇ ʟ y ɴ ⫶⫶⫶
― Edelyn Aurélia Black learned
from a young age that h e r o e s
aren't always the ones who win.
They're the ones who fight. And
so, Edelyn fights, until the green
lying dormant beh...
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FINALLY THE TRUTH: HE HAD TO DIE.
Harry's heart pounded fiercely in his chest as he draped the Invisibility Cloak over his shoulders and stepped out of the Headmaster's office, the ghosts of Severus Snape's memories flashing through his mind. "So the boy...the boy must die?" Snape had asked. "Yes," Dumbledore had replied. "And Voldemort himself must do it, Severus. That is essential." And so, such had been his job all along: to walk calmly into Death's welcoming arms, and in dying, dispose of one of the few remaining links Voldemort had left to life — the Boy Who Lived was nothing more than another Horcrux that needed to be destroyed.
The corridors were empty as he made his way toward the Great Hall; even the portrait people were missing from their frames. The air was eerily quiet, and all he could hear were the soft tip-taps of his shoes meeting stone and the loud thumping in his chest — how strange it was that in his anticipation of death, his heart only pumped harder, valiantly keeping him alive.
But its beats were numbered. It would soon have to stop.
Rounding a corner to descend the stairs that led into the Entrance Hall, a horrible wrenching sound was heard and Harry came to a sudden halt. His body froze. His stomach lurched. There, with her palm pressed into the wall and body keened over as a mixture of Aberforth's bread, cheese, and mead spewed onto the stone steps, was Edelyn, colour draining from her face with every heave.
After a few seconds, she coughed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before stumbling sideways to distance herself from the pool of mess around her feet. Nearly tripping over, she slammed her back against the opposite wall, and Harry winced at the loud thud, fearing for a moment she had snapped her spine. He watched in silence as she then squeezed her eyes shut, and felt sick when he noticed her chest rising and falling at much too quick a pace and the drops of blood forming on her bottom lip.
An ache rose up his throat and into his cheeks; she was in pain and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing he could do to take it away because there was nothing he could do to change the fact that Remus and Tonks were dead. That Fred was dead. And Harry suddenly felt ripples of cold undulating over his skin. Tears began to prickle his eyes and he wanted nothing more than to throw off his Invisibility Cloak and reach out to her. To hold her in his arms until her body stilled and heart steadied. To kiss her cheek and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
But he couldn't.
He couldn't because it would make what he had to do so much harder. Because once he felt her hand in his, he wouldn't want to let go; he wouldn't be able to let go. And how could he possibly tell her that everything was going to be okay when nothing was going to be okay? When in less than an hour, he was going to leave her just like so many have now left her?
No, he said to himself. I have to walk away. He had decided long ago that there would be no goodbyes or explanations, not to Ron or Hermione, and certainly not to Edelyn. This was a journey they could not take together.
