𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜𝗜𝗜 ━━ 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗙𝗜𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗛 𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘
132. now there is no air

( songs for the chapter:
one last time — ariana grande )

(cara's note:
again, confusing chapter. ask questions
loads of time skips too!)

LAKESIDE
31st october, 1981

      𝗦𝗢𝗠𝗘𝗪𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 𝗕𝗬 𝗔 𝗕𝗘𝗔𝗨𝗧𝗜𝗙𝗨𝗟 𝗟𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗜𝗡 𝗘𝗡𝗚𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗗, 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗨𝗥'𝗦 𝗛𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗧 𝗪𝗔𝗦 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚. She did not know why, she could not breathe as she left Hogwarts and Apparated (with much struggle) to Scarlet and Sirius' house to find her best friend. Her chest was tight, and her guts were in knots. Scarlet Bridget knew how to take care of herself. Yet, as though a twin flame was bruising her soul, she felt a crack in her heart. 

      She could feel it, something being snatched. Something ruined.

      Her head hurt. Eyes fell upon the burnt house, the location she had kept secret. A secret she buried in her heart with a gold cage. Aurors surrounded the area, many of them. There were people everywhere.

      People were staring at her like they always did upon the height of the war, all those Daily Prophet papers with photos of her holding a bow and arrow, and mentions of her name every time she would successfully hunt down those werewolves and other creatures that supports the dark side. 

      They shot her glances, scrutinising her figure in an awestruck manner, up-and-down lingering gazes. She was practically bleeding with infuriating fire, shoulders swarmed and chin held high despite that look of distress littering her face. 

      Her dark brown hair were wet due to the heavy rain, pearls decorating and glinting on her head. The pitch-black bridesmaid dress of hers melting into the background of ink-coloured sky.

      To say the least, she looked gorgeous. 

      Some of them muttered amongst themselves at the sight of her, at the echoing whisper of her heels that followed Everest everywhere, "That's the Chasseur girl." This seemed reasonable enough, Everest rarely made appearance amongst the Wizarding World after she moved to a Muggle part of England. 

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Her closed-up throat uttered, and gathering the attention of a random woman, she cleared her throat with an awkward cough. 

The woman was elderly, a haunted look in her eyes, "You're the huntress girl." She realises. 

"Yes, ma'am, I'm Everest," she introduces out of politeness, hands shaking uncontrollably as she pulls out something from her purse, "I–I'm looking for my friend, have you seen her?" She showed her a small photo, ripped out from the edges.

     Horror encapsulated the woman's eyes.

      Please, please. Make it stop. I can't bear more loss. Please, make it stop.

"Her name is Scarlet..." she whispered, hopefully looking at her. "Scarlet Bridget, have you seen her?"

      The woman pointed in a different direction.

      Out of nowhere, the world caved in; truly, to the brunette girl, it felt like all the stars were suddenly travelling towards Earth, raining destruction — as though the sky was falling apart into a million pixelated pieces.

      Everest let out a scream, a wail that was so gut-wrenching, individuals surrounding them felt their own hearts break.

      She ran fast towards the scene, stumbling over and watching a very familiar blonde girl in a bloodied white dress being carried away. The dress she picked out, the girl she loved with every fragment of her heart.

      The world fell silent around her, suffocating her lungs as though she was trapped in a tiny little haunted place.

      Then Alastor Moody pulled her aside, a protective grip on her elbow as he dragged her to a darker corner, away from people who continued to stare. 

"Let me go!" She cried. "I want to see her, I have to see her. Please, let me see her!"

"She's a Death Eater, Chasseur." Moody declared, unfeeling. "Don't take her side, I don't want you thrown in Azkaban."

"NO, NO!" She screamed in his face, feeling her throat being ripped apart. "You know her, Moody, she's one of us. What the fuck is wrong with you people?"

"She's a Death Eater." He firmly stated. "We saw the mark, we have witnesses."

"This is lies! I want to speak to Dumbledore, there has to be an explanation." Everest did not know what sort of mess Scarlet bound herself to, whatever she was doing with a dark mark on the dark side, she believed her best friend. She will always believe her sister. 

Her lifeline.

"She was on the other side!" Moody growled in her face, ignoring the absolute, broken expression littering her skin.

"No, no, no, you don't understand, you have to fix this," she stumbled over her words, shaking her head. "She was probably spying, it was all part of the act to help us. Ask Dumbledore!"

"That is what they do!" Moody screamed back, "Manipulation, she manipulated you like she did all of us, stop crying over such a soul."

"She was my best friend! I know her! I know everything about her, just—let me explain!" Everest screamed again, and then she shoved him in his chest, trying to get away, "Christ! You ruined everything, you ruined everything! She deserves respect, she doesn't deserve this, you fucking liar! You stupid, blind moron! She was helping! She was helping!"

      Moody stayed quiet, a look on his face Everest could not quite understand. He allowed her to take her rage out on him, letting her hit his shoulder and continue shoving him in a futile attempt to get to see the dead body of her best friend.

      The girl she grew up with.

"If I put you on that stand to testify, do you think anybody will believe a Bridget isn't capable of being a death eater? Nobody will believe that. Nobody even believed Albus." Moody lowered his tone, a shift in his one good eye. "You're young, you don't know anything."

"I've known her for ten years— I loved her since I was eleven — you think I don't know every single part of her? She's not like the others. You know her, you adored Scarlet," Everest desperately told him, and Moody allowed his eyelids to fall shut at her words.

      It was visible, so utterly visible, how impressed Alastor Moody would be every time Scarlet would succeed in a mission—she had been the only one around whom he acted gentler—more like a human rather than a trained, emotionless Auror. He would ruffle her long, white-blonde hair and verbally let her know that she has gained his approval.

      Knowing what she had done tore his heart out, Everest could see it. Everest wanted to ease that pain by making him believe Scarlet would never do this.

"Black spent that much time with Potter only to send his family to death, do you think these people ever cared for anyone? They'll always be like their family no matter how much you do for them." Moody looked away, and exhaled sharply. "Look—Scarlet Bridget is dead. What are you fighting for if she's dead?"

"Her dignity! You don't know anything. I'm not going to let you ruin her reputation when you put her through hell throughout her youth, you took her life and she let it happen with a tiny hope that you all would accept her if she risked her life, you ungrateful son of a bitch!" She kept on yelling irrationally, receiving odd looks from others.

"I don't know what nonsense Bridget filled your head up with but you're a Chasseur, you're a reputable huntress—don't admit to being the vulnerable victim." Moody scoffed, "When you have been a part of all this as long as I have, you learn to believe none of us truly knows anyone."

"You're not listening to me!"

Moody looked as though he had been struck by lightning, and he exclaimed loudly—enraged and defensive. "I am listening, I have been listening, do you think I don't wish with all my soul that she was innocent? I thought of her as a daughter, I trained her into a powerful Auror. I was going to walk her down that aisle! And she betrayed me! She used my instructions against our very own! I know how gruesome it feels, I am listening!"

      Everest took a step back with a tear escaping her eyes. He walked away and left her heart bleeding. Everest lunged forward and shoved him by his arm again, and he stumbled away.

      Yelling repeated words and phrases, she did not realise when she was starting to get dragged away. From her shoves, Moody stumbled back, allowing her to take her rage out on him. And a few Aurors gripped her arms tightly. She did not feel it. All she felt was the burning ache in her chest. All she heard was the crack of her heart.

      Her knees buckled, and her lungs lacked oxygen. She was drowning. Drowning in water and blood. 

      She couldn't breathe. 

      She did not get to say her goodbye. 

      She did not get to look into Bridget's eyes one last time, and hold her twin flame in her arms one last time.

"Please, she didn't do anything," she told whoever was listening. No one was listening. 

      Sobs and cries left her lips, and she felt the sort of pain that would never be mended.

      How could there ever be a world without Scarlet Bridget? A world without Scarlet Bridget would be a world without Everest Chasseur. 

      Everest would never, and she means ever make it without Scarlet's glinting irises, delicate smiles, ambitious expressions. An exquisite sight that melts hearts. The brunette Slytherin who lived on Scarlet's laughter and wittiness as though it was the air she breathed — how could she survive this without her?

      Scarlet was the air Everest breathed and now... now there is no air.

      A sharp pain ignited at the pit of her stomach, as though daggers were being buried within her organs, rotting pain encapsulated her figure.

      She was starring at the ground, her vision obscuring.

      And then all of a sudden, the ground no longer seemed so far away — as it neared rapidly, and her head hit the grass.

DAILY PROPHET: MURDEROUS FIANCE'S ON A KILLING RAMPAGE
2nd November

      The first Daily Prophet news came and went. Everest could not remember that first week, it was hollow and dull and faded into the back of her mind. Half senseless, she was. The first public news of Scarlet's treacherous acts were vague. It was more of a declaration rather than details. Everest did not want details — she could be sent into insanity under the Cruciatus Curse and still not believe a word of it.

      There were many about Sirius Black. Everest burnt all the papers, watching them rise into flames in the fireplace.

      None of this mattered.

SCARLET BRIDGET'S WORK AS YOU-KNOW-WHO'S RIGHT HAND
Rita Skeeter, 16th November

      All Bridget got was an excruciating headline and all Lily and James Potter got was a headstone.

      The second revelation and the talk of Scarlet was the hardest. An extremely long piece of work done by Rita Skeeter. It was a harsh blow, a stormy-wave of the ocean throwing her against the shore. Everest was too filled with sorrow to even get drunk on misery.

      All she felt was smothering despair and resentment, crushed under the duality of it all.

      The entire Wizarding World celebrated upon the defeat of Voldemort by the boy who lived. Firewhiskey and all intoxicating scent of every measure of town, people sent off fireworks into the sky Everest spent hours screaming at.

      Nobody cared about the boy who lived. Nobody cared about James or Lily, practically dancing on their graves to the overwhelmingly loud country music.

      Everest Chasseur wanted to start a war of her own. It was a selfish thought but how dare they celebrate when her life is crumbled to ashes and dust after all those deaths? She wished for a way to go back to that bloodshed. She wants a way to use her bow and arrow to puncture the balloon of happiness out of them so they all know what she feels.

DISOWNED BLACK HEIR FOUND GUILTY FOR BRIDGET'S MURDER
3rd January

      You could give Everest Chasseur with all the mercy in the world and she could still never forgive Sirius Black. She was also never going to forgive Scarlet Bridget for leaving her alone and haunted in a world so lonely. She knew, in her heart, Black would never forgive himself either.

      Lupin stopped writing letters back and visiting after the New Years went by. Everest wrote to him, asked him to come over so she could open up about her timid, shocking secret as the bump grew on her belly, but he never responded. So Eve never told him. 

      Her blood did not flow strongly enough to show any of her rage towards him for stopping all contact. She did not go to the Black Lake that year.

      Every Daily Prophet's mention of her sent a gush of pain down her body, and yet... she never picked up the whiskey. She could not— not with the gentle bump on her belly. 

      Instead, she poured her heart out to her stranger, unborn-baby. Talking to it as if it will make anything better. Perhaps, this little something she was growing in her body was what Everest needed to distract her heart from forever missing her best friend.

      Severus Snape came over once to explain everything that was going on. He told her every detail; starting with how he and Scarlet have been working on potions of immorality, how she duelled Voldemort to make sure Hogwarts remains safe, how she sacrificed herself to save the little baby growing in her womb.

"She decided to sacrifice herself for the baby; as it was dying, she gave it her life," he told her, "it's ancient, complicated magic, since the baby was unborn, it was bound to find a loophole somehow — and that loophole chose you."

"Why me?"

"It found the one vessel that holds love for its blood, the child has Scarlet's blood," he explained, "nobody loved Scarlet more than you do, Everest."

Loved, it felt so ugly, so unpleasant to hear the word in past tense. Scarlet's death does not guarantee the erasure of her love for her best friend, "love," she corrected.

"Love," he corrected himself.

"And stop referring to my womb as a vessel." Unluckily for Severus, at that moment, Everest was going through a seconds away from snapping sort of grief which led her to yell viciously and kick him out of her house. 

      How could he introduce Scarlet into such self destruction, how could he aid and abet her in the mere thing that left Everest all alone?

      Scarlet would've survived... if it weren't for the baby.

      And if Scarlet did make it out alive, if she had decided to not save her child, would she still be dead at the hands of Sirius?

      In a few months time, Everest and Snape's friendship mended, reminding them of the old times.

      Severus visited often on holidays and she was grateful. They did not have much to do together, of course. He told her everything that there was to know. They talked. A lot. He was starting to be more tolerable.

      The papers with the mention of her name for the next few months kept being printed and printed...

MALFOY PRESENTS EDITORS WITH PENALTIES FOR FALSE ACCUSATIONS

BRIDGET'S NOTORIOUS ATTACK ON HOGWARTS

MALFOY'S TESTIMONY IN DEFENCE OF BRIDGET

SIRIUS BLACK AND SCARLET BRIDGET: TRAITORS OF THE ORDER

BRIDGET HEIRESS' SECRETS UNDER THE BLACK MASK

WAS BLACK'S MYSTERIOUS MURDER OF BRIDGET JUSTIFIED?

BRIDGET'S DESCEND INTO MADNESS

THE TRUTH OF SCARLET BRIDGET: ALLY OR ENEMY?

...

THE NIGHT BLACK PUBLICLY MURDERED FELLOW DEATH EATER
4th May, 1982

      That was a breaking point. Seven months and they still kept printing these bullshit! Everest visited the Ministry that day in a manic state.

      A few weeks ago, Dumbledore testified in support of Bridget— he had finally got to share his perspective after many requests. He received nothing in return but hate. Influential pureblood families were furious with him already for creating the Order, some calling him a fool for asking a Bridget to betray her own side. 

      Francis Greengrass had yelled out, "who the hell are you to ask people to spy for you? Let alone risk lives of mere teenagers!"

      Everest had gone to meet with Barty Crouch Senior within the Law Enforcement Department at the Ministry.

      Her one month old daughter was strapped to her chest as she hexed off the editors and guards here and there, blue and red blazing charms flying around the place roughly the second they tried to stop her from entering the Law Enforcement section.

"Miss Chasseur," Crouch stood at the end of the hall, regarding her with distaste at her violent resorts. He sighed, knowing she was not leaving until he heard her out, "come in."

"I want you to put me on the stand," she blurted out instantly, not bothering to greet him politely. She sat down opposite him, one hand against the back of her daughter's head for stabilising. 

Crouch chuckled in disbelief, "you know I can't do that."

"I want to testify in support of Scarlet Bridget, the world needs to know she's innocent," she said, "it's not fair; the way she fought and worked hard only to receive nothing in the end, it's not fair."

"Miss Chasseur," he ribbed the bridge of his nose, studying her closely. Those eyebags underneath her dull eyes, red lips frowning, "you're sick."

"I'm not sick just because I gave birth, you dense old hag." She snaps, "I can see you have something to prove by painting all these dignified heirs and heiresses terribly, what with your son, but not all of these people are deranged murderers. Not all parents are failures."

Crouch's face paled, "We gave you all the evidence that there is, you cannot be shifting blame and living in a bubble of delusion just because she's your best friend."

"You all are so drunk on power now that Voldemort's—" she said and Crouch flinched, "now that he's dead, you sent people to Azkaban without trials which is unethical and unforgivable!"

"The mere fact that you are defending Bridget and not Black tells me you are biased!" He yelled.

"Black is innocent too!" The words tumbled out against her control as she whipped around, hair flickering and falling over one of her shoulders. She did not mean to voice those doubts out loud. 

      Black, that man, killed her best friend. She was meant to want him dead, not hold onto a thread of hope that he might be innocent too.

      Somehow, that hatred was never enough. Everest blamed everything on Sirius because she needed to find someone to direct her anger at but she couldn't. She curses him in her sleep and yet finds herself defending him in her mind—

      Someone should have loved him enough to believe him despite all the evidence.

Crouch let out a mocking laugh, "I have had quite enough of this."

"We're not done—!" She stood up abruptly when he did, shuffling some papers into his file to leave.

He shot her a blazing gaze, "I'm so sick of the likes of Black and Malfoy and Bridget getting away with everything merely because their vaults are glimmering and they are heirs with pretty eyes. They have betrayed and killed innocent wizards and witches." He pointed a finger at her.

"I feel so sorry for Barty, you know?" Everest softly said despite the resentment she holds for that boy, eyes softening because she grew up with him, "Voldemort had more mercy and consideration for your son than you ever did — really, how fucked up do you have to be for your only son to seek validation from the darkest wizard? Have your reputation and status but nothing will ever save you, Crouch."

"Get out of my office!"

      Everest hexed him. She hexed him in his own office. She should not have, at least not when her daughter is right there strapped to her chest— watching the violent scene play out with her glimmering eyes and a tiny smile on her little face.

      Later, she was harshly escorted out by the guards. After all that went down for years, they stripped Scarlet Bridget's title down to 'fellow death eater'. Death Eater!

      The mentions of Scarlet Bridget came to an end slowly. The fear and despair-filled reactions to her name passed away significantly. The talk of the tragic heiress faded away. Yet... the heartbreak never did stop.

      From the infamous Slytherin group, Everest was the sole survivor, and from the Marauders and adventurous Gryffindor crew, Remus was the one to make it out—with the others either dead or declared insane and shoved in Azkaban. 

      It was the night when everything fell apart. And the ones that were left behind, utterly alone and drowned in the pool of their own misery, wondered if death would have been a better fate.

12 YEARS LATER

HOGWARTS
january, 1993

      Everest Chasseur missed Marlene McKinnon. 

      No... she did not only miss her. She dedicated her life to her. She never really moved on. Because every time she sees another girl romantically, she sees Marlene's eyes; she feels her soft hands caressing her hair and her lips on her skin. She couldn't move on. Marlene was not just her first love, she was her only love. 

      No matter how much time had passed, she never fell in love again.

      She hated the universe for what it did to her. Whilst she watched every other person run to their loved ones at the end of the world, it was Everest deprived of anyone who would be there for her. She had no one. She hated Sirius Black. She hated him more than anything else in the world—the pain she felt upon receiving the news, the anger—it burned her alive.

      Everest loved Scarlet. And Black took it all away. He took everything away from her.

      Then again, a hollow, unexplained part of her heart always gnawed at her conscience, screaming at her every time she would think of Black with burning hatred. Even with all the evidence against Scarlet, Everest continued to believe in her innocence. Everest held onto the image of the girl she once knew and did not let anybody change it. 

      Does Sirius not deserve to have somebody who would believe him despite everything?

      Eve remembered visiting the Black Lake on every new year's day with a handful of flowers—daisies, primroses, lilies—which she turned into two flower-crowns. Except unlike their youthful years, she is accompanied by a haunting silence instead of Scarlet's presence. 

      As it turns out, only one of them kept their promise.

      Whilst Scarlet's soul faded, Everest stayed right where her best friend left her, haunted in the sweet memories. Somehow hoping, one day, when she visits the lake, she will find Scarlet standing there. One day, she will wake up and find out life played a cruel joke on her, and everyone she ever loved was still there. Still alive.

      The night her family left the country, she started to tell her acquaintances that she has seven brothers and a sister. However, after Scarlet's death—even after half of the equation was gone, she never really did stop saying she has a sister.

"Hey, S." she lightly spoke to herself. It didn't make her feel mad, it brought her peace to pretend—just for a mere moment—that Scarlet was still there with her. "Chiara received her Hogwarts letter last summer, she was so excited—she almost set the couch on fire."

      Everest, over time, learned to stop defending Scarlet's name for her daughter's sake. After all, it would not be a good look to hear her speak for a woman who is universally acknowledged as a Death Eater psychopath. Quite literally. Chiara deserved better than to be called insolent words for something out of her control. 

      Chasseur knew that she would have to tell the girl the truth about her identity sooner or later.

A deep chuckle left her throat. "She instantly picked a fight with Narcissa's son—she just cannot stay out of trouble; the girl's got a thing against Slytherins—can you believe it? My own daughter!" She exclaimed to nobody in particular, rolling her eyes.

      "I see a part of all of us in her, you know, it's like she took a flower from all of us and bundled them together into a garden," her voice started to become softer, as though she might cry. But she didn't, why would she be upset if Scarlet was listening to her? "Your wittiness, my gossiping ability and she's great at pulling pranks, I mean... someone has got to carry the Marauders legacy... and the way she talks about everything, it reminds me of... Black." 

      Haunted, Eve felt haunted.

"Before Christmas, I got a 1000 words letter from an angry McGonagall, apparently Chiara teamed up with the Weasley twins to set red flies into the Slytherin dungeon—I was so disappointed, I mean, c'mon! Why Slytherins!"

      She laughed and turned to her right, almost expecting another elegant laughter to follow. It didn't. It never did anymore. She was thankful to Professor McGonagall who would allow her to visit Hogwarts even after all these years, the professor always had a soft spot for all her students.

"You're the bravest woman I've ever known, Scars; I hope Chiara, someday, turns out just like you," she blew a kiss towards the lake, hoping on her feet a little due to childlike excitement that the Black Lake always brings out in her.

      Watching the sun's glow glinting in the Black Lake, and the way the motion suddenly flowed differently, Everest's delusional heart almost thought of it as a response from her best friend—through nature as it may be.

      The prejudiced purebloods and her family hid the pride they felt about Scarlet's alleged work with the Dark Lord and grimaced at the mention of her name in public. The Order was left feeling betrayed and refused to have faith in her innocence. The rest of the good side of the country never accepted her as one of their own.

      The world hardly ever knew Scarlet Bridget.

𝑪𝑨𝑹𝑨 𝑹𝑨𝑵𝑻𝑺

you don't have to read this but I just need to ramble about why this entire chapter is dedicated to everest. MY GIRL.

this is the first friendship I wrote where there is no room for misunderstanding 'cause know exactly what the other is feeling. sort of like twin flames.

they're practically soulmates. they looked out for each other. It's always been just them.
SINCE THE VERY BEGINNING. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THESE 2!

Ik fighting and making up is an essential part of friendship but NEVER falling apart bcs they understand each other so well is so much more meaningful to me. their relationship was a breath of fresh air IMO.

I know its unfair for eve to survive whilst she lost everybody else. I just couldn't kill her off cause... you know...