But at what cost?

She pushed open her bedroom door and found a catastrophe.

Coughing, she waded through the heavy smoke. Her chairs knocked over and cushions exploded. The curtains on her windows were burning, still sizzling in some places, the fire contained by the room's wards. Harsh sunlight pierced through the haze. To her right, the bookcase smoked, pages fluttering to the ground still. Copies destroyed, spines burst apart, covers burning.

Feathers covered her mattress. Her bedposts had cracked, and canopy tilted to the side.

She tried to rationalize. She tried to find the cause.

And a chilling dread sunk into her as she realized she did this.

Her magic.

She'd been attacked, and her magic had responded.

As they'd left, he'd dragged her from the room, putting out flames as she focused on his come on her chest.

She turned to her bookcase, staring at her companions over the past weeks. Burnt. Flayed. Gone.

The bookcase in her mind shivered. She'd been so careful to save the Malfoys today that she'd forgotten to save Harry.

A sob shook her, and she found wet tears already on her cheeks. She leaned forward on the broken shelves.

Her priorities had shifted somewhere. She'd thought Harry was safe, dead in the ground. But she'd betrayed him.

Her knees ached. She'd fallen onto them.

Harry was dead. Ron was lost. And she was playing house with the Malfoys.

She'd failed.

Her vision spotted as she sucked in air, head pounding, heart breaking.

Harry was dead. He wasn't coming back.

And she'd just told Voldemort that he was a Horcrux.

She couldn't fathom why Voldemort wanted that information. But she'd betrayed the entire last year of her life by offering it to him.

If only she'd thought to protect what was most important, instead of what was convenient.

A wailing sob shook her, breaking her eardrums as her fingers clawed at the bookshelf. She sat like that for what felt like hours.

A waxy hand on her shoulder. A whispered, "Miss?"

She shook her head, heaving for air. She didn't want to be treated this way. Like she was something precious.

"Mippy will fix?"

She choked, panting and sobbing. She shook her head. "I can't stay here. I can't—I can't sleep here."

Little fingers wrapped around her arm, and with a squeeze, she was in a different guest room, smaller and darker.

Mippy guided her to bed, pressing potions to her lips.

She took them without question, begging the world to release her.

Chapter End Notes

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Chapter 14

Chapter Notes

The long wait is over! But I'm sorry to say that I need to adjust my update schedule to every other Sunday for the foreseeable future. So the next update will be 10/20.

Thanks to SaintDionysus and raven_maiden . I roped them into a group text this week, and I think giving them each other's numbers was... the Wrong thing to do.