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EIGHTEEN MONTHS PRIOR

THERE WAS ONCE A GIRL, with hair blacker than a raven's wing, and eyes that glinted like emerald stars.

That girl was soft, mild, maybe even kind. All of which only served to spell weakness in this newfound world — one which fed on blood and anguish.

The cruel killed the kind. Weak would not survive this war, because there was a second war coming. Maybe not straight away, with mothers still reeling from the losses of their fallen sons, with the bodies barely beginning to rot and earth still yet to set.

But certain as the setting of the sun; a war would come.

The human condition was damned to forever be selfish in its simplicity, safe except for the few who managed nurture. There was only so long the people who'd once held the world at their fingertips could take such a heavy hand as the one they'd been dealt. They were suffocating. Dying, slowly but surely.

The girl knew as much. She felt it herself. Her sable hair dulled and thinned, she stopped brushing it — terrified of the clumps that fell at her feet. Her cheeks hollowed. Her eyes became lifeless. She was starving, they all were. The districts were starving — well, not all.

Sloth was starving, the bastard child of the Dark Lord's reign; a hideous necessity, for without them, who would work the labour that no other district dared to.

Lust was fast following, rations growing scarce, meals slipping away with every strangled portion. Even the Dark Lord's faithful had begun to feel the pinch. Rumour had it that the last of his men had departed the district not long after. The captains abandoned their sinking ships, whilst the sailors were left to swim until they drowned.

Voices in the bars whispered that even Gluttony had started to slip.

It was that strange phase in war, just after the fight, when the victorious reigned heavy, and the beaten cowered like dogs, terrified of a second strike. Then, slowly but surely, the rebellions began.

More than six months had passed since the Battle of Hogwarts and the rebels were becoming brave. Only small things at first, the hijacking of a wheat cart travelling from the heart of the farmlands to the outlying mills in Gluttony. Or the burning of a Crawler chariot in Greed.

As the weeks passed, enslaved farmers began to strike, food productions slowed and at some dire points, faded altogether.

Then burnings turned to bombings. And chariots turned to churches.
A war was coming, only this time, both sides would feel the fire.

• • •

  THE LAST TIME SEVEN had seen Seamus Finnegan, Draco had punched him square in the face and he'd practically chased them from his bar. She highly doubted he'd welcome the idea of working with the pair of them again...

  Nevertheless, she didn't dare tell Navy that, remaining silent as they were all instructed to ready themselves, bring their cloaks, and meet back where they had been in exactly fifteen minutes. Seamus Finnegan was awaiting their arrival in the tavern at the outskirts of Sloth, to discuss the details of the imminent attack.

  Draco and Seven walked back to their room in stark silence. And every wretched second that passed that wasn't filled with the sound of Draco apologising only made Seven's anger boil tenfold. Her hip ached deeply as she walked, the wound rubbing against her black leather trousers.
  Without a word, she pushed open the door, not bothering to hold it open for Draco as she stormed inside, grabbing her cloak from the back of a chair and then leaving as quickly as she could, unable to bear being inside that room with him for a moment that necessary.

  She didn't wait for him. Neither did he hurry to try to follow her, instead all too deliberately lingering behind in the room they'd once shared. The room where her blood still stained the sheets.

He was late back to their meeting place, much to Navy's displeasure. Seven was surprised that she didn't just leave him behind like she'd threatened to.
An acrid feeling settled in Seven's chest like a weight; if it had been her that was late, she didn't doubt they would've left her behind.

— But no, whilst Seven was seen as nothing more than a liability, a bystander to the cause — Draco's odd little pet that keened and preened at his every beck and call, he was undoubtedly seen as the catalyst for this movement.

He was important. He was worthy. He was needed
  All the while she was just a child that refused to stay home.

The thought only made her hate him more. Seven desperately needed to control herself, for the once slight flame of malice was fast growing out of hand. So much so, that when Draco finally appeared to join them, she'd almost been too caught up in her hatred to catch the small black bag that he'd nonchalantly tossed in her direction.

  She'd forgotten her bag. Seven scolded herself. How could she be so brash? So stupid?

  Thank you — she'd almost thanked him too, catching herself right as the gratitude welling in her throat met her tongue.

Something tugged in the corner of her mild, a memory struggling to surface. This time she didn't fight it, letting it overcome the air around her, and then all at once, she could see herself, back in Seamus's bar, with him clutching his bloody face from where Draco had punched him.

" — Oh and Seven." Seamus cocked his head, eyebrows drawn in as if he were hoping she'd take more from the exchange than just his words. "Remember what they say... A secret worth keeping is a secret worth seeking."

She barely had time to process his words, before a second memory forced its way to the forefront of her mind. Only this time she stood before Echo, his handsome face leering down at her, "You said it yourself, a secret worth seeking is a secret worth keeping."

• • •

A WICKED CRACKING SOUND struck the belly out of the air as five figured appeared out of the darkness of the alleyway as if stepping from between the shadows themselves.

  Fleur, the fable-faced Vela had elected to stay back at the compound. Seven couldn't much imagine her in combat anyways, which led her to wonder how she'd ever survived the war in the first place.
  Some sick part of her reeled at the thought of how many people must have died to keep a girl like that alive...

  Seven hadn't even known how Navy had managed to bypass the anti-apparation charms that kept the districts under the Dark Lord's unwavering control, allowing for travel between the districts to be strictly regulated.
  Instead, Seven had merely done as she was told, even as they were all instructed to lock arms. Draco's arm had forced itself around hers; shockingly tense. They'd stood side by side like two stony statues, neither willing to breathe, both wishing for it to be over quickly.

  Seven had not quite known what to expect from, unable to remember if she'd ever travelled in such a way before, but after the jerking tug behind her navel had subsided and her feet had found new ground, she knew for certain that she never wanted to travel that way again.

  "Are you okay?" Bill asked, trying his best to be subtle but nonetheless the question still echoed in the enclosed alley. "You look a little..."

  " — Like you've seen a ghost." George finished for him with a grin, and at that Draco turned to look at her; painfully unreadable as always.

  At that, she forced herself to stand straight, even despite the crippling nausea threatening to topple her to the floor. "I'm fine... It's just — been a while is all."

  "So you have apparated before then?" The younger Weasley looked suddenly intrigued, "By the way you reacted I guessed it was your first time."

  " — Of course I have." Seven snapped; not entirely sure if she was lying. It certainly hadn't felt like the truth — what with that strange dizzying feeling still clouding her thoughts.

  "Now is not the time for catch-ups." Navy's reprimand pierced the air like a mother scolding her children. Though of course, Navy looked no older than the rest of them and certainly younger than Bill. Seven wasn't entirely sure she liked the surly-faced woman, though that was neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. "Draco, you go first. Check for Crawlers and if it's clear — well you know what to do."

  Silent as a shadow, Draco pulled down his hood and stepped out into the light. A shiver crawled down Seven's spine. With his face so shrouded in darkness and towering height, he looked just like a Sin. He looked just like...
  She didn't allow herself to finish that thought. She didn't have to either, as a couple of seconds later whatever signal he was supposed to deliver evidently arrived. Navy ordered the rest of them to don their hoods, and with that, they all emerged from the alley.

  Nervousness crept up inside Seven's chest — not at all liking the idea of being back in this area of Sloth. Nothing had changed since she'd last passed through with Draco, though she wasn't exactly sure how much time had passed since then either. When had she stopped keeping track of time?

She guessed it had been about a week or so, though it felt like years. The air was beginning to get colder, the sky duller. Even the thick tendrils of inky smoke that billowed from the surrounding factories seemed to slow; growing lazy with the rapid onset of winter.
  Wrapping her cloak a little tighter around herself, Seven followed the others in a trance-like wander, even as they ducked into the same small bar she'd once struggled to escape.

  Inside the air was thick with fire smoke and drunken conversations. Words so unintelligibly slurred with ale that they hardly even sounded like Seven's native language at all.
  The men themselves were thick and burly and had long since stopped trying to scrub the coal dust from under their fingernails. Soot flecked their faces, settling in the tired lines of their sunken eyes, in the fabric of their clothes. Most of the factory workers in Sloth looked this way; tired, beaten down by life and with fists worked down to the bone.

  Though even in their drunken states, they all fell silent as Navy's men passed. Perhaps too entranced to speak, or maybe they saw the same similarity as Seven did.

  "Keep your head down." The whisper caught her off guard. She hadn't realised Draco had hung back to fall in step alongside her.
  "I don't need your help." She sneered back, practically shoving her way through the doorway Navy had just opened.

  Seamus sat just as he had last time she'd seen him, unblinkingly before a fire, periwinkle flames licking idly at the hearth.

  "I knew you'd be back." He said, not turning to face them, accent coiling through the air like hands beckoning them forth. "I knew you'd want answers eventually."

  The door slammed shut, Seven flinched and Draco shot her an odd look; almost scathing in nature.

  "Ah." Seamus' voice lulled slightly, eyes latching onto one cloaked figure in particular — the one with a lock of cherry-red hair peeking out from beneath her hood. "And I see you've brought yer little pet."

  ***
QOTD-Do you guys enjoy the flashbacks into Seven's past?