Chéri || Fred Weasley

lxxviii

After Madeleine killed Bellatrix, everything seemed like a blur. She couldn't remember how she had even gotten to her flat but she knew that Fred had something to do with it. Pain was such a powerful thing that because of the numbness in her mind, she couldn't even properly recall the events that followed after Voldemort's ultimate defeat. She hadn't been in her apartment in so long that it felt strange. It felt cold and empty as she stared blankly at the wall. She, felt cold and empty. A large void replacing her heart as it was ripped away from her chest cavity mere hours ago.

There were people moving around her, she could hear the faint noise of footsteps shuffling around but nothing mattered to her anymore. Madeleine was stuck in time. She didn't know how many hours she sat on her living room couch unmoving but a small crowd gathered around her. Their voices were muffled as the five figures she knew too well surrounded her and for the first time since she had met them, Maddie didn't want their company.

"Love, you need to eat something," Fred said softly as he held her hand but no response came from her as she kept staring vacantly at the wall.

"Maybe we should order food because if Elizabeth cooks there is a high chance that we would all get food poisoning," said Alicia.

"Or that the place burns down," added Lee.

"I want you all to leave," Maddie rasped and moved her gaze to look at Fred before removing his hand from hers. "I want to be alone so leave before I make you."

"Mads, you can't go through this alone," Liz whispered.

"Of course I can, it's my family whose dead, not yours," the blonde snapped. "So go celebrate that the war is over because I want to be alone so everybody out before I do something that we'll all regret."

Alicia, Lee, Lizzie and George left, well knowing that in the state Madeleine was she wouldn't feel anything if they did ended up getting hurt but Fred didn't move. "I'm not leaving," he crossed his arms over his chest. 

"I don't want you here, I just want to be alone so stop being an overbearing idiot for once in your fucking life and leave me alone," she spat and with all the remaining strenght she had, she pulled him up from the couch

"I will leave but if you think for a moment that I'll let you go through this by yourself, then you're wrong," he cupped her cheek before leaving, closing the door on his way out.

Once alone, Madeleine took out a bottle of tequila from the cupboard and started drinking. She couldn't cry anymore, her eyes were completely dry. Her heart felt numb as she opened the door of the room Clo and Harry shared during one summer and took a seat on her sister's old bed. It was the first time in months she had entered that room and she had never noticed the wall filled with pictures next to Clotilde's bed.

There were pictures of the two of them when they were little, smiling and waving at the camera. Pictures with Hermione and Ginny, Ron, Harry, Luna and Neville. Madeleine didn't know what she was supposed to feel looking at those old photographs but her gaze stayed fixed in one where the two of them were laughing, Maddie piggyback riding Timothee and Clo clinging the boy's legs when they were kids. It felt painful looking at the pictures, it felt painful knowing that the two of them wouldn't be able to make anymore memories. Just like those photographs, they were stuck in time.

Contrary to popular belief, grief was messy. It didn't really follow the neat order of diagrams in psychology books. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. Grief was terrifying for those who had never experienced it. Madeleine was not new to it, but grieving three people at once was simply overwhelming. The solution she found to her pain was simple. Isolating herself and dealing with it in her own way.