Starlit Death ✹ harry potter (on hold)

𝖝𝖑. a price to has to be paid

              Ascella couldn't focus on anything other than Caelum. He was gone. How could it have happened? He was fine — or, maybe, he wasn't. It wasn't particularly hard to get in and out of Hogwarts, one pathway under the castle and you were in Hogsmeade. Perhaps Caelum had had enough. He didn't want to be known as the son of two, psychotic murderers, so he escaped the life he was burdened with.

              There were voices faintly floating from Dumbledore's office, murmurs that Ascella couldn't possibly begin to decipher, especially in the fragile state she was in. She knew, vaguely, that someone was stood beside her, and she suspected it to be Harry — or, perhaps, Ron —, but, regardless of whoever it was, their lingering figure was a slight comfort to Ascella, the knowledge that she had someone to lean on when she needed.

              Her irritation was beginning to surmount, surpassing her despair for Caelum. Her fingers were twitching by her side, the urge to reach for her blackthorn wand and blow the door off its hinges, and demand answers from everyone in the room — whoever everyone was. It was infuriating, to say the least — Caelum was her cousin, and she couldn't stand being left in the unknown.

              "Why won't they let me in?" She mumbled, quiet, but loud enough for whoever was standing beside her to pick up on it. "Why won't they fucking let me in?"

              "Ascella —" It was Harry, and there was an apprehensive hint to his tone. Was he frightened of her? Frightened of where her anger could lead her to, what it could lead her to do? Harry shouldn't be on edge around her, because there was no need to be. She was fine — she was sane.

              "No, it's bullshit!" She snapped, swivelling around to him, locks of crimson red sparking in vexation. "He's my fucking cousin, and they won't tell me what's going on!" She turned back to the oak door, her fist pounding on it furiously, but it didn't move an inch. Briefly, she could sense the mumbling of voices inside come to a halt, clearly all of them having heard the repetitive banging on the door.

              A light red blemish appeared on the side of her hand, a small, dull ache formed, but it didn't falter her in the slightest. She patted down for her wand, in the pocket of her jumper she had thrown on before all hell broke loose, but she couldn't locate it. She didn't bring her wand with her. She turned back to Harry, a gleam in her eyes that he had never seen before.

              "Have you got your wand?" She asked, a cold bite to her wands, and Harry flinched. It was a tone he'd never heard in all the years he had known her — it was harsh, and brutal, and portrayed no signs of mercy. It was disconcerting, and Harry was trepidatious on what would happen if she didn't get her own way.

              "Yeah," he replied, and Ascella smiled, just briefly, but it wasn't a smile he'd seen grace her lips previously. It was bitter triumph — but more so of an inhumane smile, one that wasn't of tenderness or content.

              "Let me use it," Ascella said, and Harry blanched, glancing uneasily at the slowly-breaking witch in front of him.

              "No," Harry defied firmly, strongly. He simply couldn't allow her to use his wand, as he wasn't sure what she'd do if she had her grasp on it.

              "No?" Ascella repeated, slow and calculating. This — this version of her was the true epitome of a Black heir. Not the affectionate daughter of Seraphina Laurent, whose anger rose when it was needed to, not unprecedented. No, this girl standing in front of him was the daughter of Regulus Black. The daughter of the Death Eater, the girl who was destined for darkness and a life of misery. This wasn't the Ascella Harry was so fondly used to. This Ascella, Merlin, Harry refused to think of what could happen if she was given free reign over the world.