Chapter 25
Chp 25
Rory had always thought that she would feel it, when her soulmate died. It wasn’t as if she had a special talent for divination. She hadn’t felt anything when her father died, and she couldn’t remember losing her mother. Even still, she always assumed that she would feel something inside her break when her true love died.
It was an entirely childish and romantic notion, but she held it nonetheless.
Aurora woke up feeling fine. She hadn’t even had any nightmares, which was actually unusual. She had had a dreamless, restful sleep, and woke up feeling particularly average.
She had been worrying about Regulus, of course.
She had been worrying since her wedding, before even. But today wasn’t a particularly worrisome day, she felt completely neutral as she padded down the stairs in her nightdress, wrapped in her mother’s robe.
She felt neutral, that is until she saw Dumbledore seated at the Potters worn kitchen table.
Rory trips on the last step, stumbling over herself in shock. Dumbledore raises his head solemnly, and she knew.
It was something in his eyes, usually sparkling with mischief younger than his years, and wisdom far beyond.
But now, he only looked at her with sorrow. Pity.
Aurora doesn’t do it on purpose, she doesn’t make a decision, she just screams, as if it was pulled out of her throat by an unseen force. She screams and screams and doesn’t stop screaming until footsteps sound on the stairs rushing toward her swiftly.
Effie reaches her first, taking her by the shoulders and wildly searching her for injury, hair mussed from sleep. She rears back in surprise when she notices the headmaster at her kitchen table.
“Albus. What is the meaning of this?” She questions, not unkindly. Effie manages to demand answers while avoiding rudeness or accusation.
“I come bearing terrible news, I’m afraid, Euphemia.” He pauses as more steps descend the staircase.
“We heard screaming, is everything alright?” James asks, rubbing his sleepy eyes.
“Headmaster! What are you doing here?” Sirius exclaims, before immediately panicking.
“What’s happened?”
“It’s Regulus isn’t it? He’s hurt. He’s…” Aurora chokes herself off with a ragged, wet sob. She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t bear it.
“I’m sorry children. Regulus Black has passed, in service to the Dark Lord, it would seem.” Dumbledore hands Effie a piece of parchment, which she scans with worried eyes, before looking at Aurora, then Sirius, then James.
“No.” Sirius says it softly, but the weight of it carries far.
“No he can’t.”
“He wouldn’t.” Rory agrees, unable to say more. Because it couldn’t be true, none of it.
He wouldn’t leave her like that, without a goodbye. Without so much as a kiss. They were supposed to die in each others arms, after a long and happy life together living side by side with James and Sirius and Remus and the others. There was no way he could be dead because he promised her. He promised her.
A high pitched noise draws her attention, it takes her moment to realize it’s James. He has collapsed on the stairs, knees supporting his elbows as he holds his head in his hands and rocks back and forth, making a high pitch whistling noise of such agony it physically hurt her to hear.
She drops to the floor beside him, nudging and burrowing into him desperately. He clutches her back, continuing to rock and silently scream.
“You’re lying.” Sirius spits at Dumbledore, ignoring Effie and Fleamont as they try to soothe him and their other children.
“You’re a fucking liar. There is no way Reggie would let himself die in service to that piece of scum. I don’t care what you say, I don’t care the he got the mark, I don’t care that he was sent on a mission. You don’t know anything.” Sirius is absolutely seething, baring his teeth as if he was in dog form.
“Darling-“ Effie warns lowly, standing down when Dumbledore waves her off.
“It’s quite alright, Effie. I understand this is shocking-“
“You don’t understand anything!” Now James is yelling, shooting to his feet and pointing at the headmaster with venom and rage unbridled.
“We told you. We begged you to do something.”
“Son, pl-“ Fleamont begins, only to be shut down.
“No, dad! We told you all! And now he’s” James chokes on his grief, face crumbling in anguish. Rory clings to him, burying her face in his neck, trying to soothe them both desperately.
She’s quickly losing track of what’s being said, overcome by the thoughts raging loudly in her head, unable to follow movements through her tears. She finds herself being ushered back upstairs, her back being rubbed as she hiccups and gasps for breath.
She registers the three of them being stuffed into James’s room, Effie kneeling down in front of them.
“I am so sorry.” She says it to each of them, and all of them at once, scanning their faces in turn with a worried, maternal crease of the brow.
“Fleamont and I will handle Dumbledore, you three stay here for now.” She pauses as she considers her next words, obviously struggling to choose how to approach this.
“This should never have happened. None of it, and I am just so sorry, children. Regulus…” She trails off as each of them wince at the mention of his name.
“Regulus didn’t deserve to die. No child deserves to die in service to this war, regardless of the side.”
“He wasn’t-“ Sirius stops himself with effort as Euphemia holds up a gentle hand.
“He didn’t deserve it, none of it, and neither do you. This news should have been given to you differently. Let the adults handle this now, yes?” Effie toes the line of comfort and lecture, of stern and gentle like no other. They all nod sadly. Effie looks at them for a moment before slipping out, apparently satisfied that they would stay put.
Rory stares at the door, unable to look anywhere else. She almost expects Regulus to walk through it, to tell them all it’s a big misunderstanding, some cosmic mistake.
The door remains closed.
Regulus remains dead.
Aurora dully registers the boys trying to speak to her, shaking her lightly. It’s as if her surroundings are underwater, her hearing muffled, her vision blurred. She bobs under the waves, feeling nothing.
She doesn’t know how long she is underwater, it could be minutes, or hours, it was impossible for her tell. Suddenly, all at once, as if her head breaks the surface, everything comes rushing into sharp relief.
“The letter.” She gasps, breathing hard, exhausted from treating water already. She wants to let it take her, let in sink her down down down.
“Padfoot, the letter.” She pleads, gulping down air. She licks her lips, tasting salty tears, and thinks of the sea.
Sirius nods once, seeming to understand immediately. He slips out of the room and returns quickly, parchment in hand.
James has his arms wrapped around her, tucking her crouching form into his own and nuzzling his cheek against the top of her head. She has no idea when this happened, it feels better than drowning, and it’s James, so she doesn’t mind.
With shaky hands, she takes the letter from Sirius. Desperate, unreading eyes scan the page, unable to understand the words; Regulus’s words in Sirius handwriting.
“I can’t.” She sobs wetly, handing the paper to James, who takes it with extreme reverence.
James clears his throat once. Twice. He wipes the tears from his eyes, cleans his glasses, and takes a deep breath.
James reads.
My Rory.
I feel I have known you since before I knew you. Like I have known you since before we were born,in this life, when we were just star dust.
I imagine you drifted past me, a shining ball of light, and I heard your laugh or saw how brightly you shone and must have decided to follow you anywhere.
I have known you in every lifetime, and I will find you in every single one. Insect, or element, mortal or magic. In every universe I find you. In every reality, I adore you. If you have fingers, I peel your oranges to keep them clean and kiss each fingertip for good measure. If you were a moth I would adorn the finest flame with a case of colored glass for you to admire and keep you from burning. If you were a feather I would wrap you in pastel tissue paper and carry you with me in my pocket wherever I went.
You are my heart, it beats for you, and for this reason we cannot be together now, but we will be. When it’s safe.
I speak in absolutes because it is the only language I know in which to love you; and I love you absolutely. I love unconditionally and irrevocably. I love your laugh, I love your stubbornness, I love your compassion, your wit, the way your eyes look when you listen to music, like you can read the notes in the air. I love the way you scrunch your brow when you’re cross, and the way your cheeks get pink when you sit by the fire.
I love the way you love others, and the way you make me love the world in turn. I thank the stars everyday that I know you, and I pray to them that I will never part from you. I know we are apart now, but please know we are together in the way that matters. You are with me always, in my heart, in my mind, in my very bones. I love you. I will see you soon. I love you. Give James a kiss for me. I love you.
If you miss me, look up, we are looking at the same stars.
Yours, forever
R.A.B
“He didn’t write one for you.” She croaks, looking at James and seeing her own brokenness reflected in his eyes.
“We were supposed to have more time.” James’s lower lip quivers, which is all the warning Sirius needs before enveloping him.
The three of them tangle themselves together in a knot of collective grief and limbs. They cry and soothe and sob and rock together as a unit, holding each other aloft as the waves break against them hard and freezing and relentless.
Eventually, they all stop fighting and let the water drag them down into unconsciousness.
——————————————————————
If the days after her wedding were dark, this was pitch. No depth, no texture, no relief whatsoever; just unending blackness. Rory was at the very bottom of the sea, buried in the ocean floor, unmoving and frozen. If she wept, she couldn’t tell. If anyone came to see her, or move her, she was none the wiser. All she felt was this crushing weight pinning her in place. Her sorrow had buried itself deep and sprouted poisonous roots, shooting out from her heart and coiling around her throat, her wrists, her ankles, even her eyelids were weighed down by her grief.
She mourned, that much was clear, but it wasn’t the bleeding heart of a widow; it was a dead thing rotting in her chest, festering and eating away at her from the inside.
With time, Aurora became dimly aware that there were others there with her in the wreckage. A part of her knew that Sirius had lost his only brother, James his first love, but she couldn’t unpin herself from under the anvil of her own loss.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She refuses the idea that they were doomed from the start. They had every reason to believe they would have a long and happy life; and not just Regulus and Aurora, but James and Remus and Sirius and Pandora and everyone. They were so young, full of potential and literal magic. How could it all have gone so wrong?
Desperately, she searches for someone to blame. Dumbledore; he could have helped and chose to do nothing.
Orion, who let his household metastasize like a cancer and infect his only sons.
Walburga, who beat and starved and raged at her children and crammed them into ill fitting molds until they broke under the pressure.
The Dark Lord, Voldemort, who remained a faceless and blurry figure that served only to sow hate and discord into a world that could have been wonderful.
That was it, really. At the end of the day, all of this could be traced back to Voldemort, a man she had never even met. A hateful figure that she only recently even learned of. It seemed nonsensical that someone so removed from her every day life could destroy it so thoroughly, it was ridiculous actually.
How could some faceless person, backed by other faceless people be allowed to sow such hatred and discord?
How was it fair that her entire life had been uprooted for a cause she wholly disagreed with?
It wasn’t fair at all. In fact, the injustice of it made her so angry her blood boiled. She clung to that anger like a buoy, let it lift her up from the depths until she broke the surface.
It was nothing less than agony. Cold and sharp and searing, the sheer impact of her grief tore at her lungs and throat and eyes; proof that she had indeed been crying this whole time.
Aurora breathes and lets herself feel it, lets herself feel the love that is still there too. The love that will never ever go away. She lets the spark of it ignite the flame of her fury, heating her up and fueling her like a coal powered engine of wrath.
She burns.
All her love for Regulus that no longer has anywhere to go, all her sorrow for her family and future lost, all her frustration at the failings of the adults around her, it turns to something else. Something white-hot and searing.
Revenge. All that was left was revenge.