Her kness dug into the soft, damp ground, a part of her as dead as the boy laying on her arms. Her tears fell no more, her whole world still, the rain driping down marble cheeks as if to try and word the pain of a frozen soul.
Harry Potter was dead. After going through ordeals that would have destroyed a lesser man this last encounter with the other side of his coin had been too much to his luck. The coin had fallen on the other head.
The world around her shifted without warning. Violent, sudden, uneven, a crack on her mind. Reality distorted, and in the shift, she herself distorted too.
A million pieces screamed into the silence of an all-consuming void.
He was dead.
She screamed and the last of the pieces shattered under fiery wings, the cry of an eagle rattling the steaming air.
People stamped against the force of her pain, her anger, but she could not have cared less. There was nothing she could care for anymore, her soul had withered and died the moment he had.
He had been the greatest gift she ever had, and in the end her greatest curse. A part of her that she had never lacked for, but after having experienced the softening of that last jagged piece, the break of it had broken the whole.
She was a broken mirror of rage and fear, and in that moment she decided that if that was what she was bound to be then she would use her sharpness.
With a kiss from keratined lips she laid him down on the ground, his voice resonating on her mind, a distant memory of a meaningless moment.
'It was him. Malfoy senior. His greed and pride almost got us all killed. Ron's father told me he had been a death eater but got off because of his money. What else could you expect from a man like that?'
Burning eyes filled with the righteousness of the wronged lifted to the stands, falling easily on the pale haired figure, his long luscious tresses inflaming her anger further.
Pretender.
Mocker.
Murderer.
Coward.
Dead.
With the strength of a passion fixed on her leetle boy she threw herself into the air, the rain evaporating against her rage, men fleeing from her battle cry.
All except one. A face frozen on the torrent of her passion, eyes terrified, visage enraptured. The face of Lucius Malfoy grew fast as the space between them dwindled.
One second. Another one.
Inhuman arms swung with stolen strength, wood and fabric broke under talons she did not recognize, magic burned under a heat that had no equal, and then tender flesh conceded to steely revenge.
Lucius Malfoy was no more.
"Good"
Her whole posture straightened under the violence of hope, the flaming rage lessening against the stronger power of love. She warred with herself, not wanting to turn back to where she knew the body of her lover lay on the muddy floor, lest her body failed as her mind already had. She was hearing things; she could not trust herself.
Her eyes closed tight, her jaw clenched, her body trembled, and she turned slowly opening her eyes to a burning wing of white feathers that refuse to move, trying to spare her the sight. It moved eventually. Nothing ever stood between them, not even themselves.
He was there. Inert. Damp. Surrounded by people, wands waving over him. It was too painful. Her eyes clenched shut again.
"Look at me"
She laughed at the cruelty of fates. That her mind may break, her body turn to that of a beast and still she’d be cursed to listen to an imagined voice of the only person she ever wanted to hear. The bitter laugh of a ruined monster rang.
Fitting then that he would be the one to haunt her.
"Stop. You are not a monster. He is. Was."
Her eyes moved to the severed head laying in a pool of blood and silver hair. She saw her reflection on his dead, crystalline eyes and felt disgusted. Her own flowing hair of silver made her feel disgusted now, and not even it’s fire and light could erase the disgust.
Her taloned fingers raised again, and the length of her hair fell to the floor.
Tainted.
Cursed.
"Beautiful"
Her neck snapped again towards her Harry and green eyes met her. She burned again and her joy lit a candle of faith that could rival the brightest torch.
He would never leave her. Not even in death.
"Never."
She smiled and everyone around him retreated, wands lifting in her direction. She walked, slowly this time, over the ground her rage had scorched before. She kneeled besides him again, not paying attention to the shaking arms that aimed to threaten.
His eyes made an infinitesimally small movement, the rest of him staying still as death, but the fire of her rocketed again, stocked by his definitive presence in her mind. He was not dead. He was with her, and he would stay
"Forever"
She closed her eyes as she held him and then she could see more of him than she ever could before. His strength, his skill, his bravery and ferociousness. They were a part of her now. With her own talents she would be unstoppable.
A fierce grin split her face, her hacked hair following the line of her maniacal smile.
“I won’t stop, mon Coeur," She whispered in his ear, “I will cleanse creation from them. They will know the death they so boldly defy. For as long as your life pulses I’ll live, and as long as I live no enemy of you will, And only in death duty ends."