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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐃 𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐋𝐘 𝐖𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐋𝐄𝐃 through the leaves of the Western Woods. It perfectly mirrored the anger that Charlotte was feeling. Her furrowed brow and flared nostrils made even Harry take a step back from her as she was bristling with fury. 'How dare she?!' She lingered on dare a little longer, the emphasis of it roaring through the camp. 'How dare she put us through all of this again?!' She was pacing back and forth, her strides becoming shorter and sloppier the more she let her emotions take over.
'She has no idea what we've been through already trying to take him down,' Hermione added as she crossed her arms. She was furious too, but not to the extent that Charlotte was. One of the reasons being that both Harry and Aiden remained calm, even after Victoria had dropped the news.
Charlotte let out a low rumble of frustration that turned into a loud groan. She was flicking her hands in the air while she walked, as she had been for the past two hours. She was there for the sacrifices they had made, the pain stinging as fiercely in her heart as it did back then. To her, Victoria had invalidated everything they'd done. All of it was for nothing.
She spun on her heels, her eyes almost piercing through Harry's as she marched over to him. Her feet stomped onto the damp grass until she'd reached him. 'Why aren't you angry?!' she said, fuming so hard that she spoke through gritted teeth.
Harry felt terrible to see Charlotte in such a state. He too had lived through that anger when it got worse every day trying to find a way to defeat Voldemort. His eyes softened as he caught her gaze again and he smiled gently at her. 'Because this time, I can save them,' he mumbled, as tears glossed over his eyes. 'My parents, Sirius, Remus, Fred. We could save them all.'
Charlotte's anger left at once when he spoke, his voice so mellow and faint, that she remembered that he'd seen his parents in the flesh for the first time since their untimely deaths.
'I couldn't do anything back then, but I get another chance to do what I couldn't do before.' He was far more determined than Charlotte could've ever anticipated. He would not let this opportunity go to waste; he would never forgive himself if he did.
The survivor's guilt was not something that only Florence had had to deal with. Even though Harry was aware that most wizards and witches who'd lost their life during Voldemort's rise had not died for him, he could never quite shake the feeling that they had in a way. The guilt of him surviving while so many hadn't, had been keeping him awake most nights. His parents who had sacrificed themselves so he could live. Sirius, who'd come to his rescue and never lived to tell the tale. The way Fred had bravely fought until the bitter end, as well as Remus and Tonks and too many others to count. Most might have not passed to protect him, but some had, and that had always been too much for Harry to bear.
Seeing his father together with Sirius and Remus and hearing his mother's affectionate laugh, had ignited a fire in Harry that would never dim while this chance was there to take. He'd felt a lot of ways towards Victoria, but he would never be able to express his gratitude to her if he could avoid the mass slaughter that Voldemort would create.
