𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖜𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖞-𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖊𝖊
what must be done

✦

         ISOLATION ONLY BROUGHT him more pain. Maybe he deserved it, maybe he deserved the pain for not knowing his sister was a murderer and Death Eater, maybe he deserved it for naively ignoring all the warning signs Jasper presented him before betraying him, or even for allowing Thea in his life at all. Maybe he deserved to be alone, at least there he couldn't hurt anyone with his presence or be hurt himself.

Yet, when he looked around at the faces of his family, it seemed his isolation had hurt them. As he turned away from them, they only tried to reach other further only to be turned away by him. He didn't want to hurt anyone, he didn't want to be hurt anymore, but his isolation only brought them pain.

It reminded him of Maia, of when she turned away them all that fateful summer in 12 Grimmauld Place. He was hurt when she turned away from him, and now he was turning away from everyone else. The gut wrenching feel in his heart knowing that he couldn't do anything, watching his sister (when she was his sister and not a traitor) wither away without a care that everyone else was breaking because of her actions. It was a selfish thought then, and now he felt selfish for repeating the cycle, especially with how Nancy bit her lip and muttered about him joining her in a ghost form soon enough if his behavior didn't change.

He felt like a selfish prick, withering away until his features were sunken and more pronounced than they should be naturally. He knew the others didn't view him as selfish, the same way he never viewed Maia as selfish when she went through that until after the fact under some rage of being put through that stress, but he still felt selfish. He made them worry when they should be focusing on the war, he stole attention away when they needed to prepare themselves for fighting – not watching over a pain-filled boy.

He didn't want to be selfish anymore. It took a month to really open up, but the smiles on his mum's face made it all worth it. The cheer in Calypso's when he asked if she was free after work one day, the way tears filled in Sirius' eyes that he was going to be alright and not just another child lost to the Death Eaters. He was going to be alright. Everything was going to be alright.

Eventually, anyway.

It took much longer than a month to truly be back to the boy he used to. It took so much longer because there was too much to work through, enough where his mum even made him go to therapy once a week to work through the trauma he went through.

(She admitted to him, that night when she was a little tipsy, she had done the same after the first war. A young woman, barely even starting her twenties, losing her boyfriend and best friends in the span of a week and then being thrust into motherhood because she couldn't leave them to die. It put a lot into perspective for him, and he appreciated her so much afterwards although he felt even guiltier for his destructive behavior before.)

The pain didn't go away. It was still there, still plaguing him and holding him prisoner, but he chose to rise above the pain instead of submitting to it. Though his lungs burned and his hands ached with that phantom touch of Jasper, he stood up, he held other people, and he didn't let Jasper overtake his life and end it.

This was not how he went down.

He would not allow Jasper to keep controlling his life, holding him down, and killing him. He wasn't dying any more, he was in control and he was going to live. Jasper would be the one who burned, not him.

"I'm proud of you," Nadia smiled at her, eyes sparkling and twinkling like the stars. All he had done was eat dinner with them, engage in a little conversation. It was nothing, it was everything he used to do before, and she was proud of him for it.

He was a little ashamed of that, because this was such a small thing that meant so much to his mother even though it really shouldn't. It was just dinner and she looked like she wanted to cry because of it, causing him to be rendered speechless.

Even though it was something small, she was still proud of him. As his eyes turned to Sirius, he saw that same gleam of pride in his eyes along with all the understanding features on his face. Sirius knew, in some way, and he understood.

Maybe Sirius would never fully understand, maybe Leo would never utter a single word about Jasper and what he did (his hand twitched in a false pump of pain), but Sirius would always be able to understand just a little. He would still know enough, he had still seen enough, and he understood. That's what mattered.

Someone understood, and both of them were proud that he wasn't letting Jasper kill him softly again.

He reached up and brought Nadia into a hug, taking comfort in the warmth of a body rather than the empty feeling and disappointment of a ghost. Nancy tried her best, she tried to reach out and hold him, but it was useless every time.

But Nadia was alive, and she was holding him, and he felt the way his bones began to shift and ache because she held him so tightly but he didn't tell her to break away. He didn't want to leave her loving embrace, he wanted to stay there forever.

He should've never hidden from this.

✦

The valiant diamond wasn't supposed to sneak around. Of course, as she pondered that thought for a second longer, she supposed that a valiant diamond wasn't supposed to do anything at all except wait in her room for another command to come in. But Amara could not only be just that, because sometimes, when she was alone at night and chills ran down her spine, she remembered the feeling of hot cocoa in her hands and Nadia's kind smile warming her heart. It had such a soothing taste that never failed to make her feel just the tiniest bit tired, and soon she would drift off to bed again, warm and fuzzy the whole night.

Not here, though, because no one was sitting around waiting to make her hot cocoa and to give her a smile or hold her hands until they felt warm again. There was Demetri, but her father was cold, always cold. From his eyes to his icy smile, and then to the fingertips that sometimes brushed against her shoulder when he held her in place. Nadia was always warm.

And even though she covered herself with thick sweaters and pants, the cold always seemed to seep in somehow. The air was cold, the atmosphere, the eerie feeling she always had creeping down the halls. A chill always followed her, and she never found out how to rid herself of it.

It was probably foolish to be sneaking around, but at lunch Bellatrix Lestrange and Clarissa Halloway knocked at the front door and were promptly let inside, only for Clarissa to request a meeting alone with her father and for him to force her upstairs.

She itched herself and pulled at her hair thinking of what they wanted until finally she couldn't take it anymore. She had to know. Something in his face, something of almost hesitation to speak with them made her heart race just a little. The sick smile that coated Bellatrix' face, and the stoic one Clarissa held – though she was never one to show any emotion.

It never mattered what the conversation turned to, she always sat there with the same expression. When she led Amara to the Dark Lord with the task to kill Dumbledore, calculating eyes that were dark brown – almost black – and a protruding upper lip with her head held high. Arms always crossed, too. Demetri was cold, but she was ice, and Amara liked to meet her eyes.

She knew it was dangerous, and she would be in a great deal of trouble if she ever got caught, but it would be worth it – at least, she hoped it would. The nagging in her brain telling her that it was something important, something about her, pulled her towards the study door, where voices could be found talking inside.

They were not murmurs, no attempt of keeping the conversation private, probably because for so long Demetri lived alone with only his house elves so there was no need for discretion. And even now, with his valiant diamond, he never saw a reason to keep quiet. He thought she was still upstairs, and the house elves never checked in on her, so there would be no one to change his mind about this belief.

"The girl killed Dumbledore," it was Clarissa's voice, as emotionless as ever. Bellatrix was a loose cannon, but Clarissa...Clarissa always methodically thought out what she was going to say before it ever came out. "You must have heard the legend of the Elder Wand as well."

"It was read to me as a bedtime story," Demetri replied, "I hardly see why a bedtime story concerns Amara."

Her heart spiked. So it was about her...and yet, they didn't want her to know about it. Curiosity clung at her harder, and she leaned in a little more.

"Demetri, you can't be foolish enough to think that it's just a bedtime story. The Dark Lord has been looking for the Elder Wand for a long time now, and the location has been found."

There was a pause, and Amara's heart ran wild with the silent seconds that passed. Then: "Dumbledore had the Elder Wand, didn't he?"

"Until his death," Clarissa confirmed, and her heart dropped.

The story of the Three Brothers – the Deathly Hallows – she remembered it all. Nadia, with her warm voice, tucking her and Leo in at night when they shared a room. A mix of muggle and wizard stories, though they always favored the muggle ones. This one, though, this one always stood out to her, because Leo always proclaimed that he was going to win the Elder Wand and be the strongest wizard ever. They would fight over the other two, because she wanted the Invisibility Cloak if he got the Elder Wand, and neither one wanted the Resurrection Stone.

She knew this story, and she knew what it meant for her.

"Now the Dark Lord has it, yet it doesn't respect his command," Clarissa continued, "Because it should belong to the person who killed Dumbledore."

She was going to die.

"What must be done, shall be done," Demetri vowed after another beat of silence, and everything inside her froze for a second, because Demetri just gave them the clear that he would not fight them when it came time for his own daughter's death.

She wanted to scream for a small second, to cry for another, but what would that accomplish? Why was there any surprise inside her that he would do this? He was willing to kill Leo, to kill her family, why wouldn't he be willing to kill her if it meant serving the Dark Lord? She was just a puppet, a valiant diamond, not a person.

"Good," Bellatrix crowed, cackling loudly, as if she was enjoying the thought of watching Amara die when the time came for it.

Quietly, she scurried up the stairs again, to her room where it was cold and nothing would ever be able to warm her again. Her chest ached and she couldn't breathe, and tears sprung to her eyes yet they never fell. With everything she had done, being the sacrificial lamb to save her family, killing Dumbledore and plenty of others, she never saw herself being the one killed.

She was always willing to sacrifice her life, and now that was actually going to happen. Amara Carrow – no, Maia Greene – was going to die. And there would be no coming back from this.

✦

In muggle London, there sat Maia Greene with a cup of tea. Soon, as she raised the glass to her lips, a boy in a black suit joined her. She adorned the same clothing as well, because why wear color when preparing for a funeral, and looked at him not with a smile but with a sad look of understanding.

She did not look well, but neither did he. Sunken features, as if on the cusp of death as well, and she took another sip before sitting the cup down.

"We won't be able to stay here long," Draco noted, and she nodded, already knowing that. They only had a limited number of time before they would be beckoned back home for another mission, or just to be locked up until needed. But right now, they had a little freedom, and she planned on using it wisely.

She wasn't sure how to even say it out loud, whether she should ease him into it or bluntly say it, though it wouldn't matter in the end she supposed. How she phrased it did not change the facts, it just changed how she presented them, and his reaction to her words wouldn't change either.

"They're going to kill me," she told him in a soft tone, no emotion leaking out. She wasn't even sure what emotion she was supposed to have in this situation. Was she supposed to be panicky? Sad? Scared? All she felt was numb, because all she ever felt was numb, perhaps because her death had been looming over her head ever since Dumbledore's, because she knew she was supposed to be the one who was buried six feet underground.

"What?" Draco recoiled, shock coating his features, and she could only offer him a small smile.

"I killed Dumbledore, I got his wand, and now they're going to kill me so that he can have it," Maia continued, "I don't know when, I don't know where, I just know that it's coming."

"And you aren't trying to run away from it?" Draco asked her next, disbelief in his tone.

She laughed humorlessly. "And go where? I can't go back home, they won't accept me, and no matter where I run they'll always be able to find me. At least if I stay they won't hurt anyone else," her eyes then turned to him, "They won't hurt you..."

He looked down, and soon his hand was reaching for her own. She thought of how she kissed him before, and he kissed back, and how they had repeated that motion again because the two of them coming together was a good look for their parents, but it meant nothing. They were all still hollow kisses, unfulfilled forever.

"But you'll be dead," he countered.

She shrugged. "Yes," she agreed, because there was no use in fighting the inevitable, "And you'll be alive, and you'll stay alive. My family will still be alive, too. That's what matters now."

Not for the first time in her life, Maia Greene was just too far gone to be saved. This time, the gone didn't mean losing her freedom, it meant losing her life.