We Will Shine {Book 6 in the Star of Gryffindor Series}

Chapter 34 - Bad Memories

~Wren~

I was shivering. Too cold, getting colder. Why? Why did I suddenly feel despair?

I was being roughly pushed down a narrow hallway that I recognized too well. I remembered this.

Magnus was the one pushing me, I thought. I remembered what I was scared of, what I thought he might do. Not this time. This time was something worse.

Twelve-year-old me hadn't resisted much, so I couldn't do anything but watch through my own eyes as Magnus reached out to open the door in front of us, then pushed me into the dark. The cold. The fear.

I could see the bars halfway across the room in the brief moment that Magnus's wand lit the room. And I could see the dementors, half a dozen of them, straining to squeeze through them. I couldn't remember if I'd known what dementors were or not at the time, but I scrambled back against the far wall, suddenly shaking and whimpering and terrified.

"Have fun," Magnus said, smirking at me. "If I remember, I'll be back later." Then the door was closed, and the light was gone.

I sank to the floor, curling up as close to the wall as I could and trying not to cry. Everything seemed more hopeless than normal. I could hear the raspy breathing of the dementors across the room, and squeezed my eyes closed and covered my ears, as if that could block out the noise. Maybe it was coming from my own mind.

And suddenly I was eleven, coming to in the middle of a dark corridor at school, standing over Rose Weasley with the horrible feeling that I was the reason she was lying on the floor, shivering and drifting out of consciousness. I turned and ran.

But then I was running somewhere else, a different hallway, and darting into a room that would give me anything I needed, including a way out. But I should have thought about how I needed no one to follow me, and it was too late and I could hear my friends behind me and there wasn't anything I could do anymore. And I turned around despite all my instincts screaming at me to just run and suddenly all I could see was the shock and pain and and confusion and disappointment in James and Astra's eyes and he was saying, "Wren?" in that horrible, heartbroken voice that had haunted my nightmares for years after.

"Why?"

"I'm sorry..." My voice was speaking, but I couldn't control it. I couldn't make this stop, go away. "I didn't have a choice... I didn't want to..."

"How could you?" Astra was angry, and about to cry, and suddenly my guilt conscience was stabbing so deeply into my heart that I would've gasped aloud if I wasn't simply watching.

"I can't explain," I was saying. "Not yet... not now..."

"You were behind this the whole time." Rightful anger. I deserved it, I deserved it, I deserved it.

"I... yes..." I'd been about to cry, but I hadn't let myself. I didn't deserve that.

The scene kept playing out. I watched every excruciating detail, everything I did wrong, every chance I had to beg for forgiveness and help, every chance to stay. Every chance I didn't take. That was the most painful thing about this memory. Not the fact that I'd sincerely tried to use the Cruciatus Curse on James, though that was horrible. Not the fact that Astra had been so angry, and rightfully so. It was the fact that I could've done the right thing, and I was too scared.

I was twelve and I was crying, curled up against the dungeon wall, begging God or the void to make it all stop, make it all go away, make it end, but it didn't. I stayed where I was, reliving every horrible moment of my life, of which there were already too many.