✔️ 𝐔𝐍𝐋𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐃 → 𝑐.𝑤𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑙𝑒𝑦

07 | S T R A N G E R S

   IT WAS LATE at night, but Charlie Weasley's mind did not find the rest it so bitterly needed. Things were bad. Pretty bad. Voldemort had taken over the Ministry. Harry Potter was on the run. Daily life started turning into nightmares. Muggleborns vanished, people got abducted, tortured, murdered. Charlie's family was observed by the new regime. And Charlie himself had to return to Romania, pretending to go on with his normal life, not getting anyone suspicious by staying with his family. By protecting them.

   Sitting in the darkness of his living room, it was again and again that Charlie Weasley's mind drifted off, and always — really always — finding its destination in Anastasia Voinescu.

   There had been a reason, why it was him, Charlie, who Dumbledore had given this task. He must have known that somehow he'd get out of this alive. Did he also know that there was a way to persuade her? And if there was, how on earth would Charlie ever find out?

   No answer was given to a hundred questions roaming his brain, but one. Yes, one thing above all of this was more than clear. Charlie couldn't just sit here and do nothing. He couldn't just wait for some bad news to come flying through the window. No, Charlie would not give up! He needed to do something, anything. He wanted to help, and he wanted to fight. Therefore, there was just one option left to him.

   He needed to go back into the forest. He needed Ana. 

 •✧• 

   Ana's eyes snapped open, red glowing in the darkness, feeling every muscle in her ears tensed to the far away noises that sounded muffled through the walls of her small cabin. She was wide awake on an instant, flinging her legs out of her bed, running for the door. 

   Through the gap of her curtains she could see flashes of light breaking through the night, and a satisfied smirk appeared on her lips: There was someone naive enough to attack her! Her heart started beating faster. For weeks now she was looking for an opportunity to let her wrath run free. Whoever was outside there in the forest, they would regret the day of their birth.

   Red lights fired out of her own hands bursted her door open, and Ana stepped into the cold night that was given as a first sign of the approaching autumn. But the silence she was used to around this time of the year now was torn apart by yells, curses, colourful lightnings. Silhouettes were rushing in between those flashes, hooded figures.

   "HEY!", Ana screamed, throwing up her hands and red lights formed to lines, like ropes wriggling around the intruders, and silence fell over the glade that withheld her home. "What in the name of great Morgana is going on here?"

   She didn't expect an answer, as she paced towards those strangers; her forces had muffled their voices. The hooded people wore masks underneath their robes. Death Eaters. Ana smirked, leaning closer to one of them.

   "The Dark Lord finally found the courage to send his lackey after me?", she purred. "I assume you aren't one of his important fighters. He must have known you won't return. That must be the very same reason why he isn't coming for me himself, don't you think."

   The Death Eater struggled against his cage of blood red light. "Do you want to speak, my friend?", Ana asked, and watched him nod. Her grin grew wider, her red glowing eyes got reflected by the silver mask covering his face. "Do you want to tell me about your regrets? That you didn't mean it? That you will leave and never return? Say, do you want to beg, little coward?" Another nod. Ana pursed her lips, watched him for a second, as more red glowing light wrapped around the man's throat.

   A snap of her fingers, and his head slid off his neck, the light faded, and with a thud his head landed on the floor, his knees gave in, and as she turned around, the rest of his body fell like a chopped tree. Three more of them were left. The next one she killed without even looking at him. Heading over to the third man, she froze. This one didn't wear a hood, neither a mask.

   Obviously, he had been the one the Death Eaters had fought. Her curiosity won, and instead of taking his life just like she did with the one before, she strode towards him, slightly tilting her head, step by step, until -

   Red glowing eyes widened, her lips parted, as she breathed, "Charlie ..."

   It was this second, Ana's guard fell, and she noticed it all too late. Those crimson lights faded off Charlie's limbs, as she kept on staring at him for a moment longer than she should. "What on earth are you doing here?", she hissed, her eyes narrowed. "Didn't I tell you to never return?" But then her eyes grew large once more, as it dawned on her. "You led them here, didn't you?"

   "No", he gasped, growing pale in the full moon's light.

   "You sold me, Charlie Weasley!", she seethed, feeling an unknown ache in her stomach. "Did you think if they'd attack me, I'd turn myself against them? You fool!"

   "Ana, I didn't - watch out!"

   Ana twirled around, but it was too late. The curse out of the Death Eater's wand was flying straight ahead her, and all she did was watching it, utterly motionless.

   "Protego!", Charlie barked, and only inches in front of her face the curse crushed against an invisible barreer.

   Mouth agape, Ana's eyes snapped at Charlie - the second curse hit her straight in the chest, she could hear Charlie's scream, saw another flash of light, then the glow in her eyes died and she fell ... fell ... fell ...

 •✧•