Extinguished 🩵 Harry Potter [2]

iv ⟶ Grey, Through And Through

"Merlin, you were so cute!" she exclaims, pinching his cheek with her free hand. "I wonder what happened!"

"Might have something to do with being almost murdered every year." He shrugs, but there's an amused light in his eye.

Thea rolls her eyes, about to reply, when two panicked voices sound throughout the house.

"Harry! Thea!"

"We're in the dining room!" Thea calls out to Hermione and Ron, who come bounding through corridors until they reach them, their faces flooding with relief.

"We woke up and didn't know where you both were! Don't just disappear, please, we were terrified!"

"I found Sirius' room – it'd been ransacked before, but I found these."

He passes his mother's letter and photograph to Hermione, before muttering something about going to the bathroom.

Thea sighs. "I wish I could make him feel better, but we're all just as down in the dumps as each other."

"I know," Hermione says quietly as she folds the letter with the photo and places it on the dining table. She pauses for a moment, before her face fills with a little guilt and she looks at Thea.

"Thea, I'm sorry for snapping at you last night, I'm just worried –"

"Can someone come here a minute?"

Harry's voice sounds loudly through the house, and Hermione scarpers off with a quick, "I'll be back.", leaving Ron and Thea in a comfortable but thick silence as they exchange helpless looks.

☾

Thea is in a huff, lingering to the back of the others who are interrogating the House Elf, Kreacher about R.A.B. She knows vaguely who he is and why he's important, but it's starting to really get her down how little she knows about everything going on. She swears she won't mention it to the others because they have enough on their plates, but it doesn't stop the frustration bubbling under the surface.

" – and the locket, Master Regulus' locket, Kreacher did wrong, Kreacher failed in his orders!"

Thea startles at the loud scream from the elf, her attention now set hard on the trio's and Kreacher's exchange, realising that sucking it up will give her a lot more information than sulking and feeling sorry for herself, but feeling way too out of her depth to get involved, so stays hidden behind Ron.

Her eyebrows raise as Harry presents the elf with the fake locket and Kreacher is overcome with melancholy and collapses into tears on the ground.

"Overkill, mate," Ron mutters.

After half an hour, with Thea now at the front of the help in calming down Kreacher, the elf is finally sent on his way to find Mundungus Fletcher and the real locket.

"Thank Merlin for that. I would've given him something to cry about if he'd called me Lyra Vincent one more time."

"Thea! You don't mean that!" Hermione gasps, rather appalled.

"I do. How would you feel if someone had mistaken you for an evil, backstabbing bitch who tried to kill you?"

Hermione speaks so quickly Thea almost misses what she says.

"Are you sure she tried to kill you?"

Thea is so frozen in shock that before she can reply, Hermione starts talking again.

"I just mean that you said on that night she died, she was chanting something, like a song."

"Yes? What does that have to do with anything?"