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"Fred, do you want space or attention?"
"Spattention."
"You are an idiot, Frederick."
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It felt like hours had passed since Betelgeuse saw Sirius sprint towards the Castle. As soon as the older Black had perceived the uneasy voice of his niece slither into his mind, he had chased Harry and Alastor Moody without a second thought.
Betelgeuse, however, was petrified.
She could not move a muscle even if she wanted to, let alone assist Sirius. She remained seated on the deserted stands as the night embraced the sky.
Motionless.
As the statues of old endured the changes of the seasons, the Heir of House Black felt detached, impassive, dead.
The cold shell of the once ever beaming and lovely charismatic Cedric Diggoryhad been removed from the grounds. Nothing remained to witness the tragedy that had taken place except the grievous silence of the night.
Betelgeuse felt a presence beside her as she gazed up at the starless sky.
"Fred is with Ginny. She couldn't stop shaking and crying. Suppose we'll find them in our dorm."
Turning her head, Betelgeuse met her best friend's red and swollen eyes. She could not speak; he could not offer words of solace.
George gifted her with his best, alas, wobbly smile. The auburn-haired Gryffindor felt hopeless as he stared at the tragic change in the young woman's eyes. They were two molten grey pools of despair. He, who had always managed to make her smile, currently did not know how to return her eyes to their usual sparkle.
Betelgeuse raised her right hand and brushed George's freckled cheek with a feater-like touch. "Do not fret, George, your companionship provides me with enough consolation."
He smiled, cupping her hand with his larger one. "You're a Legilimens, aren't you?"
Betelgeuse stared, unmoving, into George's placid eyes. "Am I?"
The Black witnessed George flinch as he sensed her voice inside his mind for the first time, then the young man chuckled, shaking his head. "It took me years to figure it out. What kind of best friend am I?"
The grey-eyed witch's pale visage faintly illuminated with a reticent smile for the first time on that night.
"The best kind, George."
✩✩✩
"Miss Black?"
Betelgeuse turned around with George, peering up at Professor McGonagall. The older woman looked pale and tired; a look of defeat had taken the place of her usual stern frown. "Professor Dumbledore would like to speak with you in his office."
Betelgeuse and George rose to their feet as a contrite look took over Minerva McGonagall's face. "I am afraid the invitation is addressed only to Miss Black, Mr Weasley. I am sorry."
Betelgeuse saw George slowly nod as he embraced her once again. The Black followed with her grey eyes her best friend's figure become smaller and smaller as he approached the Castle.
"This way, Miss Black."
The grounds of Hogwarts appeared quieter than ever; not a single soul roamed the Castle. A kind of numbness and a sense of complete unreality were upon her. She could not think about anything that had transpired since the Triwizard Tournament had begun. She did not want to have to probe the memories, fresh and sharp as Muggle photographs, which kept flickering across her mind.
The sickeningly cheerful music of the orchestra.
Sirius' frantic screams.
Cedric's pallor.
Mr Diggory's lacerating cries of despair.
The Dark Lord return.
Her father's safety.
Her father—
"Professor," Betelgeuse murmured, "where are Mr and Mrs Diggory?"
"They are with Professor Sprout," Professor McGonagall replied as her voice shook slightly. "She was Head of Cedric's house, and knew him best."
They had reached the stone gargoyle. McGonagall gave the password, it sprang aside, and the two women went up the moving spiral staircase to the oak door.
It slowly opened.
Betelgeuse regarded Dumbledore, sited behind his desk, take his eyes off a pale and shaking Harry as Sirius stood motionless in front of Phineas Nigellus Black's portrait.
"Dearest," the older Black exhaled, taking long steps towards Betelgeuse; his face was white and gaunt as it had been when he had escaped Azkaban. In one swift moment, he had crossed the room. "Dearest, are you all right? I knew it — I knew something like this would happen — how?"
His hands shook as he held his niece tightly against his chest.
"What happened?" Betelgeuse inquired, borrowing her head into Sirius' chest and inhaling his familiar and comforting scent.
Dumbledore began to tell the younger Black everything that had transpired hours prior.
How Barty Crouch Jr had escaped from Azkaban with the help of his dying mother and desperate father.
How he had been serving as the most devoted and trusted follower of Voldemort.
How he had stunned the real Alastor Moody and brewed the Polyjuice Potion with the help of the fugitive Peter Minus and transformed the Triwizard Cup into a Portkey to make Harry meet his master.
Betelgeuse was only half listening. She felt Potter's thoughts run wild inside his mind as if he was speaking in clangorous outcries. The boy was so tired; he wanted nothing more than to sit there, undisturbed, for hours and hours, until he fell asleep and did not have to think or feel anymore.
There was a soft rush of wings.
Betelgeuse raised her head from Sirius' chest and watched, transfixed, as a phoenix left its perch, flew across the office, and landed on Harry's knee.
" 'Lo, Fawkes," Harry greeted quietly as he stroked the phoenix's beautiful scarlet-and-gold plumage. The mystic animal blinked peacefully up at him.
There was something comforting about the scene, Betelgeuse thought.
Dumbledore stopped talking. He sat down opposite Harry, behind his desk. He was looking at Harry, who, Betelgeuse noted, avoided his eyes. Dumbledore was going to question him. He was going to make Harry relive everything.
Betelgeuse felt for the younger boy.
"I need to know what happened after you touched the Portkey in the maze, Harry," Dumbledore declared.
"We can leave that till morning, can't we, Dumbledore?" Sirius asked harshly. He had put a hand on Harry's shoulder. "Let him have a sleep. Let him rest."
Betelgeuse agreed with her uncle as she felt a thrill of gratitude arise from the boy toward Sirius, but Dumbledore took no notice of Sirius' words. He leaned forward toward Harry.
"If I thought I could help you," Dumbledore said gently, "by putting you into an enchanted sleep and allowing you to postpone the moment when you would have to think about what has happened tonight, I would do it. But I know better. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you. I ask you to demonstrate your courage one more time. I ask you to tell us what happened."
The phoenix let out one soft, quavering note.
Betelgeuse suspiciously eyes the Headmaster, but she could not break down the impenetrable wall that his mind provided. She heard Harry take a deep breath and began to tell them.
As he spoke, visions of everything that had passed that night seemed to rise before Betelgeuse's eyes; she glimpsed the sparkling surface of the potion that had revived Voldemort; she saw the Death Eaters Apparating between the graves around them; she saw Cedric's body, lying on the ground beside the cup.
Once or twice, Sirius made a noise as though about to say something, his hand still tight on Harry's shoulder, but Dumbledore raised his hand to stop him, and Betelgeuse attempted to soothe her uncle by seizing his callous hand.
When Harry told of Wormtail piercing his arm with the dagger, however, Sirius let out a vehement exclamation as his eyes blazed with rage.
Betelgeuse gritted her teeth as she remembered the Ministry's incompetence. The Aurors had let him escape, and because of their fallacy, a just young man had died.
Dumbledore walked around the desk and told Harry to stretch out his arm. Harry showed them the place where his robes were torn and the cut beneath them.
"He said my blood would make him stronger than if he'd used someone else's," Harry disclosed to Dumbledore. "He said the protection my — my mother left in me — he'd have it too. And he was right — he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face."
For a fleeting instant, Betelgeuse could swear to have seen a gleam of something like morbid triumph in Dumbledore's eyes. "Very well," he said, sitting down again. "Voldemort has overcome that particular barrier. Harry, continue, please."
Harry went on; he explained how Voldemort had emerged from the cauldron and described them all he could remember of Voldemort's speech to the Death Eaters. He told how Voldemort had untied him, returned his wand to him, and prepared to duel.
But then, Betelgeuse felt a shift in the boy. He was reluctant to speak about something. His unguarded mind propelled the memories of what had come out of Voldemort's wand, and Betelgeuse caught it all. She could see Cedric emerging, see an old man, Bertha Jorkins, Potter's father, his mother—
Such despair.
"The wands connected?" Sirius inquired, looking from Harry to Dumbledore. "Why?"
Betelgeuse looked up at the Headmaster again, on whose face there was an arrested look. "Priori Incantatem, " he muttered.
The witch gazed into Harry's green eyes and it was almost as though an invisible ray of understanding shot inside her mind.
"The Reverse Spell effect?" Sirius continued sharply.
"Exactly," Dumbledore stated. "Harry's wand and Voldemort's wand share cores. Each of them contains a feather from the tail of the same phoenix. This phoenix, in fact," he added, and he pointed at the scarlet-and-gold bird, perching peacefully on Harry's knee.
"My wand's feather came from Fawkes?" Harry asked, amazed.
"Yes," Dumbledore replied. "Mr Ollivander wrote to tell me you had bought the second wand the moment you left his shop four years ago."
"So what happens when a wand meets its brother?" Sirius questioned.
"They will not perform properly against each other," Betelgeuse spoke for the first time as she met the sparkling blue eyes of Dumbledore. "If, however, the owners of the wands force them to do battle a peculiar and rare effect will take place. One of the wands will compel the other to regurgitate spells it has performed — in reverse. The most recent first and then those which preceded it."
"Well said, Ms Black," the Headmaster complimented as he shifted his attention to Harry. He looked interrogatively at him, and Harry nodded. "Which means," Dumbledore added slowly, "that some form of Cedric must have reappeared."
Betelgeuse noticed Harry nod again.
"Diggory came back to life?" Sirius sharply challenged as he met his niece's perturbated grey eyes.
"No spell can reawaken the dead," Dumbledore heavily spoke. "All that would have happened is a kind of reverse echo. A shadow of the living Cedric would have emerged from the wand. Am I correct, Harry?"
"He spoke to me," Harry said. The boy was suddenly shaking again and Betelgeuse laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. "The— the ghost Cedric, or whatever he was, spoke."
"An echo," Dumbledore expressed, "which retained Cedric's appearance and character. I am guessing other such forms appeared — less recent victims of Voldemort's wand—"
"An old man," Harry stated, his throat still constricted. "Bertha Jorkins. And—"
"Your parents?" Betelgeuse gently voiced, meeting the boy's misty eyes.
"Yes," Harry answered.
Sirius's grip on Harry's shoulder seemed painful. "Lily— James," he mumbled to himself.
"The last murders the wand performed," Dumbledore spoke, nodding. "In reverse order. More would have appeared, of course, had you maintained the connection. Very well, Harry, these echoes, these shadows ... what did they do?"
Harry explained how the figures that had emerged from the wand had prowled the edges of the golden web, how Voldemort had appeared to fear them, how the shadow of Harry's father had told him what to do, how Cedric's had made its final request.
At this point, Betelgeuse was pervaded by profound sadness as she caught Harry looking around at Sirius.
The older man had his face in his hands. He could not speak.
Betelgeuse silently thanked Morgana for her uncle's strong mind. Otherwise, Dumbledore would have glimpsed the thoughts that gripped her uncle's mind and his concern for his younger brother.
For his secretly alive little brother.
"I will say it again," Dumbledore began as the phoenix rose into the air and resettled itself upon the perch beside the door. "You have shown bravery beyond anything I could have expected of you tonight, Harry. You have shown bravery equal to those who died fighting Voldemort at the height of his powers. You have shouldered a grown wizard's burden and found yourself equal to it — and you have now given us all that we have a right to expect. You will come with me to the hospital wing. I do not want you returning to the dormitory tonight. Betelgeuse, I believe Mr Weasley has been anxiously waiting for you for a long time now."
Betelgeuse nodded as she met the frowning eyes of her uncle.
"For you, Harry, a Sleeping Potion and some peace," Dumbledore continued. "Sirius, would you like to stay with him?"
Betelgeuse saw her uncle nod. He gripped Harry's shoulder and helped the boy stand from his seat.
The group walked out of the office, and as they parted ways, Sirius spoke, looking toward his niece. "I'll write to you as soon as possible. Try to rest, if you can, dearest."
Betelgeuse's sole response was a slow nod as she felt her uncle's arms encircle her slender shoulders.
What tragedy would expect them in the future?
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Hello loves,
I know you missed me.
I do apologise, life's busy and I've just found a moment to write this new chapter. I hope you'll enjoy it.
Love.