Briar's seventh year at Hogwarts had only been getting worse. She had been able to avoid Snape for the most part during her time there, but the control Voldemort and the Death Eaters had begun to exert on the school was suffocating, and the light seemed to be slowly fading from many people's eyes. It was all sickening to Briar.
Despite the danger it put her in, Briar had been helping Neville, Luna, and Ginny run Dumbledore's Army in the trio's absence. She spent much of her free time in the Room of Requirement with the others, but she periodically had to return to the Slytherin dorms to take showers, and sometimes she would go back to spend the night in her bed there still.
Even though it was much more uncomfortable to sleep on the makeshift bed on the floor with Neville, she still preferred it over having to return to the Slytherin Dorms. She felt like she was in utter danger every time she stepped into the common room, purely because Snape was there.
Today, she had been hurrying back to the Slytherin dorms for a shower when she stepped into her dorm to hear loud crying. Briar froze in her tracks when she realized that Pansy was sobbing on her bed, and Millicent and Daphne's faces were ghastly pale beside her. The pair of them had empty looks in their eyes, and their still hands on Pansy's back seemed to do nothing to console the girl.
Briar dropped her bag on her bed and wondered, "What's wrong? Pansy, is someone hurt?"
Pansy simply shrugged her shoulders in response, and this made Briar's heart pound in her chest. She rushed forward and questioned, "Who is it? Who's hurt?"
Millicent just shook her head and sighed, "No, no. No one is physically hurt."
"Did Malfoy do this?" Briar asked next. She was studying the three girls as she waited for a response, and she was completely unnerved by how unlike themselves all three of them were.
Pansy shook her head no. Briar put a hand on Pansy's knee and prodded, "Then what is it, Pansy? What's happened?"
All four girls were silent for a few moments until Pansy blubbered, "How are you not afraid?"
"What do you mean?" replied Briar instantly. Her voice was sharper than she intended it to be, but the other three girls didn't even react as they had gotten used to her sharp tongue long ago.
Pansy was crying too hard to explain herself, so Millicent meekly spoke for her. "We're so terrified of what's happening, and you seem...unaffected. Pansy doesn't understand how all of this doesn't make you feel afraid."
Briar licked her lips and took her time in choosing her words. The other three girls just sat by and waited for her response since they all hoped they could learn how to be more fearless from Briar. They never wanted to feel this way again.
Briar took a deep breath and finally explained, "You may think I'm not afraid, but I am...I'm constantly terrified that something could happen to Neville or Sirius or Remus or Folsy or you three or myself, but I can't show that. In this environment, I can't let anyone see how afraid I am because my fear could get me killed if someone interprets it the wrong way. So outside of this dorm room, I act unaffected because I have to. I pretend to be fearless to make the younger kids feel like someone good is in control. I have to act like all of this isn't destroying me, but trust me, I'm not doing well with all of this either."
A silence settled over the room as they processed Briar's words.
Pansy had mostly stopped crying, and she used a hand to swipe away the tears that had coated her face. She didn't meet Briar's eyes as she murmured, "Did you know that Draco's been crying himself to sleep every night? The other boys don't know how to react and asked us for advice. They'd never seen Draco cry before."
"Blaise and Theo had panic attacks in the common room today. We had to try to calm them down," Millicent added softly, her gaze also averted.
Daphne tugged her bottom lip into her mouth and admitted, "They only were able to calm down after I used that practice thing you told me about. The one with the senses?"
Briar nodded and confirmed, "And this helped?"
All three girls nodded with their hands folded in their laps and eyes sunken.
Briar tapped each of their knees and gave them soft smiles before she commanded, "Lean on one another. You're afraid, and you have every right to be, but you cannot do it alone...I know I'm not around as much lately, and I'm sorry for that, but I need to know that the three of you will choose the right side when the war arrives."
"War?" Millicent croaked with eyes wide and bottom lip quivering.
She reached for Millicent's hand and murmured, "Yes. You-Know-Who wants to start a war. He wants bloodshed, and I need to make sure that the three of you will help us - not him - when that happens."
Slowly, all three girls nodded in agreement.
Briar stood up after a minute of quiet and planned to grab her clothes to shower, but Pansy whispered, "We've heard rumors...about something terrible happening to you this summer...Are they true?"
With her chest squeezing, Briar looked at each of them and nodded. "Yes. I was forced into accepting the dark mark, but I am not a death eater," Briar pushed out with her lungs tight.
"Can we see it?" wondered Millicent, and she winced as soon as she asked it. She quickly added, "I don't mean to trivialize it because I'm sure it-"
Briar waved her off and murmured, "It's fine...Um, sure, I guess I can..." She took a couple steadying breaths to calm her racing heart, and then she dragged her sleeve up her arm to show them the dark mark etched into her skin.
Daphne and Millicent teared up as soon as they saw it, but a fire lit up in Pansy's eyes upon seeing it. Pansy spat, "They did that to you?"
"Yes," admitted Briar, her expression tight and weary as she looked at the physical reminder of her trauma.
Millicent's voice was small when she whimpered, "Did it hurt?"
"Tremendously, but it rarely does anymore," Briar sighed as her eyes roamed over the snake and skull tattooed onto the soft flesh of her forearm. It made her feel sick to look at it.
She yanked her sleeve back over her skin once more and gave them all tired smiles. She announced, "I'm exhausted and terrified and hurt, but I push on and hide those feelings out there because I have to, but we will win this war when it comes...It's just a matter of time, and all will be set right again."
-
They had just been teaching all of the members of Dumbledore's Army some defensive spells before dinner, but Briar noticed that while everyone else had started to file from the room to get food, Luna had plopped onto one of the makeshift beds with a distraught look replacing her normally dreamy gaze.
Neville was talking to Ginny about plans for what they needed to teach the students next, so Briar lowered herself onto the bed beside Luna. The flaxen-haired girl turned to Briar with her lips quirked into a goofy half-grin, but Briar could see that it didn't reach her eyes.
"Are you alright, Luna?" inquired Briar with her lips poised in the subtlest of smiles.
Luna shrugged her shoulders and murmured, "I don't know...If I'm being honest with you, Briar...I miss my friend."
Briar nodded and asked, "Was your friend a Muggle-born?"
"Yes. I suppose that is why she was not allowed to return, but I miss her...She's a Hufflepuff in my year. She's a lovely friend. If such labels weren't meaningless, I might even call her my best friend," Luna murmured. Her head tipped back as she spoke, and her eyes scanned the rafters above, possibly searching for the nargles, which Briar still didn't fully understand.
Briar didn't know how to respond to these statements. She couldn't imagine the feelings of loss Luna was surely feeling to be without her best friend this year. Briar finally decided to set a hand overtop Luna's. This made Luna drag her eyes back to Briar's with a curious look to her faraway expression. Briar assured her, "I don't know when or how, but I know you'll see her again. I just know it, Luna...We can win this."
Luna was quiet for a few moments, her eyes drifting about the room somewhat randomly as she thought to herself. These actions would have made any other individual think that Luna was kooky and hadn't been listening, but Briar understood that Luna just processed information differently than others, so she sat in silence patiently as Luna's eyes reassumed their usual dreamy glaze.
She sighed, "I'll be honored to fight alongside you, Miss Briar Black...This war is coming soon. Some things you can just tell, can't you?"
Briar nodded in agreement. She murmured, "I've been feeling the same way." Her eyes drifted over to Neville and Ginny, who were hunched over a table of spreadsheets with stressed expressions on their faces. All of this was preparation for the fight, and everyone could feel the change in the air lately.
War was coming.
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