Magical Hogwarts

Korrine had her arm draped on her husbandÔÇÖs arm. Just the fact he was by her side and so much stronger then he was before, gave her so much comfort. Still four years was too soon for something this horrific to happen again. It had to be an ack of pure hatred and desire to produce fear, to wipe out a whole wizard family and lined up seven caskets. It seemed to much like the events so prevalent just 4 years ago.

She tried to wall off the horror of the idea that this might be the first of many attacks, but the fear acted like dark pulling liquid, which seeped into the cracks, soaking up into her thoughts of her soul. She let a tear slip out?á before she dabbed at it with her handkerchief. Still she chastised herself for it. She should be crying for the Conway brothers she remembered in school or their wifeÔÇÖs she had over for tea a time or two. They had lost not only their own lives but nearly all their children died with them.?á Now what is left of the poor Conway family, stands shattered.

Korrine glanced over at EnidÔÇÖs Grandson who seemed to be fighting his tears. The sight broke Korrines heart to see the boy in so much pain. If she was not mistaken, he was the one that was involved with the tree-girl scandal at Hogwarts. It seemed dark tragedy followed him, but anyone who looked at him now could tell he didn't want this.The poor boys heart looked about to break.?á She had to look away, across the slopes of Llygad-bychan and then glanced up at the blue of the sky to prevent her own tears from joining his.

ÔÇ£Garrick sweetheart. Give me a second and we will give our condolences." She squeezed his had before letting go if his arm. She walked over in her https://i.pinimg.com/564x/9a/84/68/9a8468c0e0dcb7c85502c57bf3802563.jpg' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>simple mourning attire and placed a rose on each grave. Spending extra time on the ones she personally knew. She stood after a number of minutes and turned to find her Garrick engaged in a somber conversation with another attendee. She decided to walk over to the que of morners waiting to talk with the family before they leave. She normally would not do this without the company of her husband but she was not sure how much longer was she going to be able to maintain her composure. She figured she could always motion him to join her before it was her turn.

She could overhear a ministry worker giver her condolences both professionally and privately. It sent a mix wave of emotions through Korrine. She was quite fond of Minister Shacklebolt, and his young representative seemed to be giving her condolences wholeheartedly but in Korrine's opinion this event should have been prevented by the ministry before it happened. How is anyone going to feels save after the war if things like this was allowed to destroy half of a town and eradicate practically a whole wizard family? The Frustrated thought ran through her head before she took a deep breath to compose herself. She had to fight all the past fears, that bubbled up to the surface. All the ones she had when she was in hiding. She was worried then, that she would have to bury her husband and her daughter and members of her Greengard and Hickey family in a funeral like this.

She looked about to find something to distract her and it was then that Korrine noticed the young blonde girl which stood in front of her. Examining the girl she noticed even though she wore a sleek modern woman's adult?á mourning attire, the girl had to be not much older than school age . It was possible that she was old enough to experience the horrors of the war first hand. She noticed the poor girls blank stare at the grass.?á The poor thing might be reliving her own memory.

ÔÇ£Are you ok my dear?" Korrine ask just above a tender whisper. Then continued softly, "It is a horrific tragedy. I assume you are a friend of the family.ÔÇØ

http://www.magical-hogwarts.com/index.php?action=profile;u=20451' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>@Keela Doyle

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4600124,-3.78457,3a,75y,354.09h,88.2t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMDlC0k2isJdZaJD8bZQrfFhMwPozCgO-Z6XGzc!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMDlC0k2isJdZaJD8bZQrfFhMwPozCgO-Z6XGzc%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya52-ro-0-fo100!7i11264!8i5632' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>Pen Pumlumon Llygad-bychan | Saturday 14 September 2002, 2:00pm

"What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us."
? Helen Keller

MILD TRIGGER WARNING: dialogue about death

https://www.google.com/maps/@52.4600124,-3.78457,3a,75y,354.09h,88.2t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMDlC0k2isJdZaJD8bZQrfFhMwPozCgO-Z6XGzc!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMDlC0k2isJdZaJD8bZQrfFhMwPozCgO-Z6XGzc%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-0-ya52-ro-0-fo100!7i11264!8i5632' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>

It wasn't raining. That would have been the stereotype, as well as being damned inconvenient.

The family - meaning the four of them that were left - had decided on Great-Aunt Guinevere's advice not to inter their deceased in Rhayader, where there had already been enough magic exposure. Instead they chose a spot up in the Cambrian Mountains, on the slopes of Llygad-bychan a short distance from the start of Afon Tarennig, the mountain flow stream that fed the River Wye, which itself flowed through Rhayader and had been part of the establishment of their clan's hometown. DJ's father's cousin Gwendoline had arranged through her husband to have some Ministry folks on standby, in case the attack on Rhayader was targeting their family and someone tried to show up at the funeral and kill off the rest of them.

DJ hadn't been close to any of his relatives except for Great-Great-Aunt Ceinwen, who had passed away a year and a half ago. So why was he crying now?

The man speaking was one of those oddities of the magical world - a wizard with a background in religious tradition. So there was a lot of non-committal talk about "heaven" and "going with God" and "being in a better place," and DJ just wasn't sure whether he actually believed any of it. He was a casual, slightly agnostic, somewhat blasphemous Welsh Celtic polytheist (influenced by Aunt Ceinwen except for the blasphemy), and he was pretty sure that... when a person died, they were just dead. Because there were Grandpa and Grandma, definitely them, definitely dead, about to descend into a hole in the dirt to rot and decompose. Nothing else.

Though he stood mandatorily at the "front" of the small crowd, DJ stood alone. He would not hold his father's hand, his other distant relatives were obviously as uncomfortable with being near him as he was (he wondered idly if they thought he was guilty of Linnet's murder/Transifugration too), and although he his few close friends in attendance, they were not up there with him. He just stood there in his pitch black dress robes, watching with conflicting emotions as the seven bodies began to be lowered in. To make it worse, they were going one at a time, starting the furthest from him; Grandpa Trahaern would be last.

DJ clenched his fist. It didn't matter that he hadn't hardly spoken to any of them in years (or ever, in a few cases). It didn't matter that they were all old. This shouldn't have happened.

This wasn't fair.

A small grouping of people, for the most part bedecked in black, stood upon the hillside. The spot chosen for the burial was in fact rather picturesque, a small prominence where the land flattened a little after its initial rise from Afon Tarennig. From the aspect, one could look down upon the gentle valley; the green and ochre grasses sweeping to the river that eventually twisted and turned its way to the nearby muggle hamlet of Eisteddfa Gurig; and looking upwards, the mild rise of the summit of Llygad-bychan, carving its careful edge against the puzzled, charcoaled autumn sky. Civilisation appeared to be a world away, and the particular curlicue of the land meant that the unfortunate and familiar drone of muggle cars was missing, giving the place a certain eerie and perennial feel. As a place to lay for all eternity, it would be difficult to find somewhere more peaceful.

Several Aurors, or at least that was what she took those hulking figures to be, were prowling about at a distance, dressed in grey and with permanent frowns etched upon their faces. After the events ten days previous, no one thought it worth taking a chance, and although the perpetrators of the attack would be rather foolhardy to try and repeat their escapade in broad daylight, enough feathers had been ruffled back in Whitehall. In addition, assigning Aurors to the service gave the Ministry a chance to do something, or at least to appear to be. Such a blatant violation of the International Statute of Secrecy had left the government looking somewhat impotent.

And as such, she attended. Partly in an official capacity: if only to be the one from the Public Information Services to deliver the canned lines to Damien Conway; that old ÔÇ£The Minister offers his sincerest condolences upon this terrible occasion for you and your familyÔÇØ, which had to be wheeled out at every public tragedy nowadays because the press loved the emotional and the vacuous. And partly because it was, after all, for DJ. Nathalie had acted as a character witness for her former Slytherin classmate after the bizarre events that had led to his short-term stay at Azkaban. And now, for this latest, horrific tragedy to have befallen him, it felt only correct and proper for her to show her respects in person at least.

Unfortunately she had had her fair share of funerals and memorial services in her time. The first had come with the end of the war; and with it the burying of the dead. Her own father had no corpse to inter, but many others did. Initially there had been the more dramatic funerals; individuals with perhaps chequered pasts but much too public a persona to prevent any issues with their very communal, open burials. And afterwards came those Death Eaters who had been too controversial; labelled murderers and thugs and criminals and so had to be dealt with in much smaller, private ceremonies, away from prying eyes. A sense of camaraderie but not much else. Bury them and forget about them as soon as possible, because any connection to the living could lead to career suicide and an associated eternal shunning.

And of course at Hogwarts itself, the dead and the martyred had had to be remembered. She remembered the seemingly endless memorials, the sycophantic crying and the holding of hands; girls one moment unable to stand, their knees buckling with the weight of sheer despair and devastation, and ten minutes later giggling amongst their cohorts. The bleak cynicism of remembrance, a gallows humour, oh god not another memorial.

And then had come the fire at Hogwarts, and more death to those so young. But that had been different; those apolitical corpses wrapped in soiled white sheets in the Great Hall, and the smell and the taste of charcoal and iron in ones mouth. And together everyone could mourn for those poor children. And mourn they did. Nathalie thought that historians would one day look back upon the fire and the dome and consider this the very tragedy that should have brought the wizarding population of Britain back together again. Perhaps it had, momentarily. It had felt a very cross-community catastrophe, which were, apparently, always the best sort.

Thusly she had approached the Saturday with that youthful cynicism; IÔÇÖve seen death whatÔÇÖs the big deal, as she had dressed and readied herself. She had considered wearing her official Ministry robes - lavender with silver trim and presumably designed by someone with very little taste - but it seemed somehow more fitting to come dressed in mourning as a citizen; as a friend. And therefore she had dressed in her formal black robes over a simple black dress, and she had blown the dust off of her old black witches hat with its crumpled conical crown, which seemed to have no purpose nowadays than to add the finishing touch to any formal graveside ensemble. It had the added bonus of making the wearer veer rather close to the Professor McGonagall side of the clothing spectrum, which was either a bonus or a faux pas, depending upon the situation. And so she stood there upon the hillside amongst an equally sombrely-clad group, and the strangely precise parallel grouping of seven wooden coffins seemed surreal in its overindulgence. But as anyone who had been to more than enough funerals grew to learn rather quickly, it was not the remains that caused the problem, but rather those left behind. Therefore she had watched DJ, seemingly apart from the rest of his family group, head slightly bowed as they began to lower the bodies, and the weight of sadness pressed down upon them all. To see a family ripped asunder was difficult to watch. By her shoulder a lady sobbed quietly.

What exactly had occurred ten days previously? An act of terror, was the official line at present. A rather brazen, brutal and careless slaughter of the innocent. And to make matters worse, the proprietors - DJÔÇÖs relations - had been nothing but fine, upstanding pureblooded citizens. Alarm bells had been rung back in London, naturally, but mostly for the violation of the Statute. From NathalieÔÇÖs perspective the true horror of the crime - the murder of purebloods - had drawn far less attention and horror than she would have liked, and that truly had chilled her blood. The idea that some strange, perverse fanatic was waging war upon the civilian population was certainly distressing, to say the least.

In the smothering quiet of the hillside the coffins were interred, and the silence was only broken by the harsh cawing of crows in the distance. An autumnal breeze was coming off the moorland beneath them, bothering the folds of their long robes about their legs. The ersatz-minister or whatever he was intoned a prayer of sorts, and believers and non-believers alike bowed their heads and responded in kind for the benefit of the Conways. Upon its conclusion the group slowly broke up and dispersed, and an awkward line formed for the mourners to offer their sympathies to the family, where hands where shook and murmurs of sensitivity were shared, but still DJ stood to the side, apart, strangely disconnected from the rest. Ignoring the others, Nathalie pushed through the gathering to her former housemate.

DJ appeared different from the last time she had seen him. Admittedly, that had not been the best of circumstances; a gloomy and cold courtroom of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was enough to make anyone look poorly. He looked more adult now, changed perhaps, and wore the cloak of mourning as would be expected of anyone who had been through such a taxing emotional strain. The blonde stopped before him, and looked at his feet momentarily in deference.

ÔÇ£DJ, IÔÇÖm sorry for your loss.ÔÇØ She met his eyes. The official declaration first. ÔÇ£The Ministry of Magic, and Minister Shacklebolt himself, extend their sincerest condolences upon this terrible occasion for you and your family, and assures you that no stone will be left unturned until the perpetrators of this horrific act have been found, and punished to the full extent of the law.ÔÇØ

A pause. ÔÇ£And, IÔÇÖm sorry, too. IÔÇÖm so sorry. I donÔÇÖt know what to say.ÔÇØ She put her hand upon his forearm. ÔÇ£I canÔÇÖt imagine what you must be going through. What can I do?ÔÇØ

Seven.

A ripple of unease passed through her as she surveyed the coffins, neatly arranged on the otherwise-breathtaking Welsh landscape; despite the fact that she was well-covered by her https://www.pinterest.com/pin/363454632427583272' rel='nofollow noopener' target='_blank'>outfit, she felt a chill quite unrelated to the cool breeze off the moor. This was only Keela’s second trip to Wales; the first was at the beginning of the month, and under considerably brighter circumstances. Had it really only been two weeks since she’d last seen him? The lightning storm and his Animagus transformation felt like a lifetime ago.

Quinn would almost certainly lose her mind if she ever found out that Keela had been here today. The Gryffindor alumna had signed with the Falmouth Falcons exactly two weeks ago, of which Quinn had been promoted to Captain in July. No doubt if Quinn could read her mind right now she’d have some choice words for her about image and the company she kept in the context of fact that she now represented and reflected the organization… but while Keela knew her cousin meant well, she also knew Quinn still harbored strong suspicions that DJ was – in fact – a murderer, and the women had never seen eye-to-eye on that particular matter. He was one of her oldest friends, and she’d be willing to bet her newly-acquired dream career in his defense if she could. And now, with several of his family members dead, he needed support – and she’d be damned if she wasn’t there.

Keela didn’t fully understand the references that the current speaker was making, using words like ‘heaven’ and ‘god’, and soon she found her mind wandering. What was wrong with the world? All was supposed to be well after Voldemort’s defeat once-and-for-all nearly four-and-a-half years ago. Why were people still being targeted and murdered, and under suspicious circumstances? Too many questions and not enough answers, as usual. Hadn’t the wizarding world seen enough horror and suffering to last a lifetime in the past five years alone? People were dead, and before their ‘time’. And here she was, worrying about the upcoming Quidditch season…

Here and there, her gaze would drift back to the stony-faced DJ; and every time it did, a fresh wave of sorrow constricted her chest. On more than one occasion she’d had half a mind to simply stalk up to the front and physically stand with him in solidarity, chin up and glaring at anyone who dared to so much as raise an eyebrow in his direction. But no, that wouldn’t do… this was his family’s loss, his loss. She had no right to intrude. If he’d asked her, she would have been up there in a heartbeat; but he hadn’t, and so she’d stayed put, head inclined slightly out of respect. Somehow in all their years of being friends, Keela couldn’t recall having met any of the deceased family members, though she had heard a great deal about them.

With each coffin brought forward, one by one, the leaden feeling in Keela’s stomach grew steadily heavier. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he was feeling right now. The faces of her parents, siblings, grandparents, and many cousins and aunts and uncles drifted to the front of her mind; then a wave of nausea rolled over her at the thought of them in those coffins, and she forced herself to refocus her attention on the procession, trying to keep her mind blank. She’d make a piss-poor Occlumens – that was almost certain.

The procession finished, and Keela was immediately on her feet, weaving her way through the throng.
‘Get to DJ’ was her immediate thought, repeated like a mantra; as long as she focused on that, she was able to safely shove her own family’s faces out of her mind.

But a familiar blonde had reached him first, and the Gryffindor slowed her step. Then the recognition clicked into place and Keela tensed, pale blue eyes narrowing slightly. She didn’t like Nathalie Wilkins, to be perfectly frank. The older Slytherin had been nasty to the younger students, especially after she’d been made Prefect; nonetheless, two years ago when the creatures attacked and Nathalie was trapped in the corridor outside the Gryffindor Common Room, it had been Keela who had dragged her inside to safety. It was also true that Nathalie – like Keela – had served as a character witness at DJ’s trial. That had to count for something; though it had surprised the Gryffindor.

Not wanting to intrude on their conversation Keela hung back a short distance, fixing her gaze in the grass some thirty feet ahead of her but watching the pair in her peripheral vision for some subtle clue to invite her approach.

She’d ended up zoning out, hardly noticing another’s presence beside her until the person addressed her directly. She heard the soft voice long before she actually processed it, and when she did she glanced up, blinking stupidly. Keela vaguely recognized the face before her, but her brain was still struggling to catch up and couldn’t quite recall who the older woman was.

“I— yes, I’m alright, thank you. It certainly is,” she managed quietly, casting a more obvious glance at DJ. She nodded in response to the next inquiry, her brain still feeling a bit numb. “DJ is a good friend and was one of my Yearmates.”

Keela paused awkwardly. How exactly did one go about making conversation at a funeral aside from talking about the deceased? She sighed inwardly.
“May I ask how you know the Conways?” Perhaps her response would help Keela to place her name, because now it was going to drive her mad.

All the while she watched her friend closely, increasingly wanting to break away and go to him with each passing second.

 

DJ blinked a few times as Nathalie approached him. To say his relationship with her was.... actually to say there was any relationship between the two of them was stretching things a bit, but she'd gone from not unkindly ignoring him while they were both in Hogwarts -- or so he had thought -- to their little tête-à-tête while he was in Azkaban where she offered to testify for him and subtly suggested that evidence could be mishandled, in exchange for possible favours in the future. And she had provided character witness during the trial, and it must have helped since he'd been declared innocent and released back to the public. But then there had been nothing. Probably she was caught up in Ministry work, while DJ had his last year of Hogwarts to finish, but there had been no owls, no "random" encounters in Hogsmeade... nothing.

She stopped short of him looking at the ground, either examining their shoes or hiding a tear or maybe just looking prim and proper. You could never be sure with Nathalie. And then she met his gaze - always a bit of a forceful thing - and started an official statement. Of course, he knew why she was approaching him with the legal language, and not his dad or Great-Aunt Guinevere or "Aunt" Gwendoline. They'd already established that connection during the Azkaban interview. And to be fair to her, since they'd gone to school as well, they knew each other and she didn't know any of the other Conways.

After she finished her professional-yet-heartfelt recital, she paused for a moment and then offered a more personal note of commiseration. At first it scared DJ, because any time you started to speak personally to Nathalie Wilkins, you ran the risk of dropping your guard to her seeming sincerity and then possibly getting bulldozed over by her ambition. But this was different, she wasn't cultured and practiced, she knew he was devastated, and it put a chink in her own armor. Or so it seemed. In a way that scared DJ even more, but he didn't flinch when she brushed the forearm of his mourning robe sleeve and posed the innocuous question.

"No, not really," he answered her softly. And really what could she do? Yes, she'd just said Minister Shacklebolt had authorized the DMLE to find the perpetrator; would her department be involved in that? Would she be directly involved in it? But even finding out the culprit's identity, even punishing or killing them, wouldn't bring back the family. Someone who did something this big almost certainly didn't regret it, so they couldn't be reformed.

Or maybe she was asking about what could be done, personally? Subtly he turned to face the landscape, leaving her hand behind, and stared out over the mountain range and thought about that. There was no change to he and his father's home life - unlike most of the Conways, they lived in Llanfarian, 30 miles away from Rhayader. Food would still be brought around by Mabel, or bought by DJ, and left mostly uneaten by Robert. They had lost no clothes, no possessions. Wait was she asking about something more intimate? Nathalie was an absolute stunner, to be sure, but... he felt nothing about her that way. Never had, mostly because she had seemed so unattainable in school, and now timing was definitely a factor in the lack of interest. Assuming that was what she meant, anyway. Again, that was the trouble with her -- you never could be sure what she meant.

"I still, uh, know how to get a hold of you if I do though," he turned back to face her. "I appreciate the sentiment, Nat. Both from the Ministry and from you personally. Thanks for being here."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw his dad being semi-held up by Gwen as others expressed their condolences. Aunt Guinevere was not far away, someone having thoughtfully conjured a seat for her, and the other few attendees were mostly awkwardly mumbling. Normally you'd want to try to keep the family's spirits up or concentrate on the good memories, but the terrorist act that had caused all these burials was overshadowing everything and nobody really wanted to be the one to try and crack a joke or start a group hug. On the margins of the group, he saw Keela speaking with... an older woman who he didn't quite recognize, although Mr. Ollivander was standing not far from her engaged in one of those subdued conversations he'd just been observing, so maybe it was his wife.

Keela... he was much closer to her than to Nathalie, even though the former had been a House rival and the latter had been a Housemate. Unlike with Nathalie, he'd interacted so much with Keela that they'd gone from frenemies to best friends. "Excuse me," he said to Nathalie and then again to another woman he didn't know who had only patted him on the shoulder, and he slowly made his way across the mountaintop toward Keela.

 

He happened to meet her eyes, then, and the Slytherins parted ways; rather selfishly, she was pleased to note that he had moved away from her. Quite frankly, she didn’t trust Nathalie further than she could throw her. Keela respected her, in a way, for her intellect – but, when Nathalie was involved, there was almost always a sly ulterior motive.

Before the older witch with whom Keela been conversing had a chance to respond, Keela had already politely murmured her excuses and set off briskly towards her friend, heart thump-THUMPing in time with the rustle of her footfalls in the tall fescue. She had no idea what – if anything – she was going to say to him; no arrangement of words would really do the situation justice, in any case.

More often than not, Keela was outwardly impassive (likely even to a fault, at times); but she wasn’t heartless. She was a passionate person who felt and cared very deeply, but who often hid her softer edges beneath a razor-sharp one of sarcasm and dry humor. She was very particular about the people allowed to see her in the exceedingly rare circumstance of a completely unguarded state – she could count them all on one hand.

DJ was one of those. Through all the mocking and bantering and [mostly] good-spirited competitiveness that defined their friendship, at some point their relationship evolved to the point where she never doubted that he’d always have her back, and she his – no matter how many times they argued or disagreed over dumb things. When it came down to it, she’d sacrifice that devil-may-care façade of hers in a heartbeat. He had a similar façade, too. And as he drew nearer, she felt that ache in her chest again: it was clear to her from his expression that the cracks were beginning to show.

In this moment, nothing else mattered. Wordlessly, she reached out to embrace him tightly with both arms, resting her chin gently on his shoulder; looking at the backdrop of mountains and moor behind him without really seeing them.

 

As he looked up again, he noticed that Keela had broken off from her conversation - she must have been watching him too - and had broken away and was coming to meet him. A little flutter in his chest and a ball of heat in the pit of his stomach prophesied something, but he wasn't paying much attention to it yet... he was in uncomfortable robes, feeling uncomfortable being surrounded by uncomfortable people in an uncomfortable location for an uncomfortable reason, and all he wanted was some familiarity.

By some subconscious signal they both veered a little further away from the rest of the crowd before meeting roughly in the middle of where they had stood. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and fit her jaw in the crook of his neck, and he gently, politely, put his hands around her back.

And finally let himself feel.

"Why them?" he sobbed into her shoulder. "Why were they killed?"

Lights on the family tree are being extinguished, one by one, by one, by one...

He stumbled and almost lost his balance, but he couldn't stop ugly crying or asking questions that nobody knew the answer to.

"What did my family do to deserve this? How could the Ministry let this happen? Why wasn't it---"

He stopped completely still, terrified and enlightened by the thought, and then still gently but decisively pushed Keela away, giving her a look of haunted, terrified realisation. "Why wasn't it me. It was supposed to be me, wasn't it? The Dome, the Gauntlet, the Inferi, Aunt Ceinwen, Linnet, the trial.... it's always been supposed to be me." He whispered, not able to muster voice any longer, "I should be in that grave."

 

She felt the anguished shudder ripple through him before she even heard him speak, and alarm seized her.

‘Merlin help me,’ – she thought wildly, fleetingly – ‘I am absolute shite at this ‘comforting’ thing… What possessed me to think I’d be in any way equipped for this?’

She couldn’t think of anything to do, though, except to keep holding on – so she did. He stumbled, and her grip on him instinctively tightened, doing her best to physically hold him together as he emotionally unraveled. He was mumbling questions, and she had no answers and nothing with which to even reassure him. She felt helpless, and she hated that feeling.

But then something changed abruptly; he held her at arm’s length, then, and she instinctively folded her own arms across her chest, wary. Then she caught the horrorstruck expression on his face, and a chill went down her spine. Her mind reeled, trying to follow the conclusions he was rapidly drawing, the dots he was hurriedly connecting. He thought all these incidences were linked? But how, and why? Automatically she shook her head, slowly at first and then more adamantly.

“I should be in that grave.”

At the last, all of the breath left her lungs in a WHOOSH as though she’d taken a Bludger straight to the stomach, and any semblance of a thought process that she’d had came grinding to a halt. The mere suggestion of him dead made the bile rise in her throat, and the first reactive thought that came to her mind was: ‘Well I’m bloody glad you’re not,’ but even for someone as intense as Keela it felt off-color and insensitive. The main difficulty, though, was getting her voice to work again.

“Don’t ever say that,” she finally managed to get out, though it was hardly more than a strangled whisper. She knew he hadn’t meant it in that way, but she still meant it.
“Listen to me. Listen.” Her tone was pitched low but fierce, as much to try to reason with him as to anchor herself back to reality. She nearly took hold of his arm to emphasize the last word again but caught herself at the last moment, not wanting to attract undue attention; she flexed her fingers in agitation instead. She didn’t even truly know what she wanted him to listen to, for she hadn’t the slightest clue of what she should say. All she knew was that she had to break that runaway train of thought.

She took a steadying breath, taking a plunge.
“The Dome, the Gauntlet, even the Inferi… all very old magic, triggered by the final battle of the War. The Curse Breakers said so, and they worked the case for months. The Gauntlet even tried to kill me and Val, remember?”
It wasn’t a false statement: the pair of Gryffindors had nearly been crushed by the high stone walls of a semi-sentient maze, and on multiple occasions. It was an experience she was not enthused to repeat.
“And your great-aunt… she was quite old,” she murmured, but instantly felt weird saying it. She didn’t like trying to reconcile people’s deaths.

She had no good explanation for what had happened to these seven family members, aside from chalking it up to a random and horrible act of violence. And the incident with Linnet, and the trial… that did feel more sinister, but she was afraid to acknowledge it for fear of making things worse. She couldn’t really think of anything to connect the two incidents.
“I… don’t have a good answer for the rest,” she began hesitantly, “except that people do psychopathic shite for… no reason at all sometimes.”

Keela stopped short, then, wondering if she’d gone far enough – but decided to say one thing more.
“Anyway. Whatever the hell is going on: it will not be you. I won’t let it.”
She, of course, had no way of guaranteeing this – but she meant every bit of it nonetheless.

 

The moment passed like the words he'd spoken -- over in an instant, but its echoes filling the space between them. His innards were trembling with a combination of fear, horror, and weakness, but he remained standing as Keela stood, just as impacted by what he'd said as he was himself.

And although she wasn't "mushy" or emotional, she was practical, and realistic, and most importantly she actually understood DJ almost to a fault. Her arms tensed and her hands clenched but she didn't reach back out to try and embrace him again, letting him have his space, but still speaking quietly and directly to him. She pointed out that the Olde Magick had affected everyone - although he privately thought everyone could have been innocent bystanders, until she reminded him that the Curse Breakers had traced the trigger to the Battle of Hogwarts, and he had to admit he didn't think anyone could plan that sort of thing out years in advance.

Remember Aunt Ceinwen was tough, especially considering he was at yet another Conway funeral as they spoke. But she had meant more to him than the seven bodies they'd just put in the ground combined. Though the nominal matriarch of the Conway clan, Ceinwen had always forged her own path (part of that later in life was the dementia, the family knew), and she'd always encouraged all her siblings' descendants to do the same. It was Aunt Ceinwen's eccentric influence that had gotten DJ into Welsh polytheism. She'd been so concerned about the Dammit Dome that, as soon as her hundredth birthday party wrapped up, she had promptly moved to Hogsmeade to "coordinate" the rescue efforts at Hogwarts (meaning, provide moral support and good tea). Gods, he missed her.

And finally... at least she had the good sense to admit she didn't know about today's burials or about the entire poisoning debacle. But psychopathic shite, yeah, that sounded pretty accurate.

As Keela talked, DJ found himself calming down, getting a little more grounded in reality, or at least as much of the reality of the situation as they could comprehend. His fingers opened and closed subconsciously, and while his insides weren't shaking anymore, his outsides were now. He swallowed, hard, a few times, and let out a heavy breath to catch his respiration back up to "normal."

But what meant the most was her promise. 'Whatever the hell is going on, I won't let it be you.'
He knew, and he knew that she knew, it was potentially an impossible promise to make - there were obviously forces beyond their understanding, at least as regarded this most recent misfortune. But the sentiment was clear, and he was at a loss for words at how to respond.

"Thanks," he finally managed in a slightly strangled voice. "That.... means a lot." All of a sudden he just wanted to be off this mountaintop, and not riding the emotional roller-coaster any longer. The family was supposed to be meeting back in Ponterwyd for a "dinner," like the most logical thing to do after putting one's relatives in the ground was to eat something... and he just couldn't handle it. "I, uh, I need to be alone... for a while," he said quietly. "I'll check in with you though, I promise. Like, no later than tomorrow night. Okay?" He was ready to Apparate away on a hair-trigger, and didn't care of anyone else wondered where he went, but Keela at least needed to know what he was doing.

 

She hadn’t quite grasped how fervently she’d made her idealistic declaration until he thanked her for it; and she was caught very much off-guard by the depth of emotion in his voice. It made her own throat constrict all over again.

Suddenly self-conscious (a completely foreign concept for her), she looked out across the landscape, almost afraid to look at him.
“Sure, don’t mention it,” she mumbled, reactively folding her arms more tightly around her torso. She whose love language was almost never via touch had the curiously overwhelming urge to do just that, but she wasn’t oblivious: he was practically vibrating with the antithesis, coiled like a spring, exuding an aura of wanting to flee. Maybe he needed to literally do just that.

So when he said he needed to be alone for a bit, she wasn’t entirely surprised. Now her chest felt tight again.
“Sure,” she murmured back. “Yeah, of course.”

“I’ll check in with you though, I promise. Like, no later than tomorrow night. Okay?”

She answered with a subdued nod.
“Best expect a one-woman search party if you don’t.” She paused a moment, then quietly added: “You know where to find me.”

‘…if you need anything’ was the intended conclusion to the last, but she chose to forego it. He knew what she meant.

 

Grabbing her own body even more like that, Keela looked quite cold... or maybe she was just trying to keep all her feelings inside and not let them spill out. DJ could identify.

But she understood him, again. Who would want to stay any longer than they had to at a grave, much less a mass grave?

He nodded back at her, glanced at his dad and his family still in their own conversations much further away, almost called out to the nearest relative, and then thought, Fuck it. They'll figure out that I'm gone, or not.

"Go home, Doyle. Thanks for being here." He took a slow step toward her and kissed her sweetly on the cheek, and then backed up enough that he wouldn't blow her eardrums out, and spun in place, concentrating on the park just outside Llanfarian where -- only a few weeks ago -- he'd first turned into an eagle and been the happiest he'd ever been in his life. Maybe there was some residual positivity there.

CRACK.

 

She followed his gaze back in the direction of the freshly-dug earth; a trickle of people had begun to depart but most were still gathered, his da included; the poor man had looked as though the slightest breeze would have knocked him over, but he seemed to be well-attended for the moment.

DJ evidently thought so, too.
“Go home, Doyle. Thanks for being here.”[/i

He had a point; there wasn’t much sense in her lingering, seeing as the primary reason for her being there was about to skip town.
“‘Course,” she replied simply.

He closed the distance between them, left a chaste kiss on her cheek (but slowly – she felt his breath on the wispy flyaways around her ears that she could never quite tame), and Disapparated with a CRACK.

For a long moment afterwards she stared at the spot from whence he’d disappeared, her thoughts in a hundred different directions. She sighed, finally relaxing her body language, and drew her wand.

“See you, Conway,” she murmured at last, and Disapparated in turn.

[[ END ]]