The first thing Sage feels is soft grass, the kind that hasn't been trodden on for a long, long time. Her fingers dig into it until they find the earth, still warm and sodden underneath her. It's cold here, and her t-shirt is damp with sweat and dew. Her tongue tastes like something sour and decaying, and she's not sure what it is.
On either side of her, the boys scrabble in the dirt.
"Harry," says Sage. "Cedric."
"What happened?" asks Cedric. "Did we win? Are we out of the maze?"
"I think that was a portkey," says Harry, and Sage thinks he's right. "I don't think we're even in Hogwarts anymore."
Sage thinks he's right again, because she lifts her head to look around and sees white fog, grey headstones peeking out behind them, and black sky overhead. It's deathly silent except for their breathing. Sage is terrified.
"Let's just get the portkey and go home, yeah?" asks Sage, pointing to the glowing blue cup metres from her grasp. "Let's all hold a handle and get back to school."
"Why did it transport us here?" Cedric wonders. He stands (the two younger students follow suit) and walks forward. Sage wraps her arms around herself and shivers. She's unsure if it's because of the cold, or is it's because she's very, very scared.
"Boss level of the tournament?" Sage suggests. "Big scary yellow turtle you've got to defeat, or something."
There's movement from opposite them.
"Master, there's three of them," says the figure, softly, but they still hear him. Harry moans and clutches his forehead. Sage knows what that means.
"Kill the others," says a strange throaty voice. Sage has heard that before, so many times before.
"Cedric, get down!" She screams, dives towards him to drag him to the floor, becomes tangled in a whip of green light that makes her body shudder and go still.
Harry chokes. Cedric drops to the floor beside her.
"Get up," he says, her head between his hands, "Come on, Sage, get up. Get up."
Harry's frozen to the spot and he watches as Cedric is hit by green light too, and his body slumps down beside Sage's, his hand still on her cheek.
The castle mourns Cedric and Sage. There's a beautiful ceremony in the grounds of Hogwarts with lots of crying students and teachers speaking about their best memories of the students. All of Sage's friends throw food to the Giant Squid, who Sage was friends with. There's a lot of people at the lake, because a lot of people had their souls touched by the Laurent girl.
She's buried near her and Arielle's house in their little village, surrounded by pretty wildflowers in all colours of the rainbow. It's a tiny, intimate ceremony, just how Sage would have liked it. It's Flick, Remus, Hermione, Stevie, and a large black dog. Remus creates a stone statue of a raven to go on top of her headstone. The real raven stands next to it atop the smooth stone, crowing a mournful song. Everybody disperses, after a while, to go back into the Laurent house, except Hermione.
"You're the worst person I knew," she says, sitting on the stone path leading to the burial site. "I hate you. You tell me you like me then get yourself killed. I hate you, Sage." She traces Sage's name on the headstone. "I think I liked you too, deep down. I thought I liked Krum, but I didn't. I liked you. So just stop being dead so I can tell you, you arsehole."
A soft breeze shifts the flowers around her. A tulip digs it's own roots out of the flowerbed and blows onto her feet. Hermione smiles.
"You softie," she says. She places the flower under Sage's name, and stands to go back inside.
The war counsel begins. Everybody moves into the old Black house, away from the Laurent residence. The place grows cold, cobwebs form in the corners, and the corners get dusty. Remus visits often, sometimes with Sirius, and they make sure the flowers are watered and that Conner gets his food. They daren't let the bird die, but the stupid thing won't leave Sage.
Summer continues. Harry returns, sullen and unsympathetic. Nobody knows what he went through. Nobody else saw Cedric and Sage die. Only he did. And he's the only one that's allowed to really, truly mourn for them.
Nobody talks about it. That's the thing that annoys him the most. Nobody talks about the sacrifices those two children made for each other, for Harry, for the world. Neither Sage's nor Cedric's name is not mentioned once around the house. He asks Hermione about Sage, and she leaves the room. Harry's angrier than one boy ever should be. He's also sadder.
September comes, and the train feels cold without her. Stevie and Ripley sit together, one last time, because they've decided they don't really like each other without Sage to mediate their battles. They talk about the girl, about her stupid rainbow socks and her lovely angry eyebrows and that raven that used to perch on her shoulder when she walked around in her rainbow socks looking angry.
Harry, Ron and Hermione are at the back of the train, where they normally are— but then Ron and Hermione get pulled away to do Prefect things, and Harry's left alone to his feelings. Hermione makes a stop in the toilets to have a five second cry before they get to the Prefect compartment. Ron sees Ripley and smiles, and she gives him an unamused look.
The beginning of the year goes rough, but people start to move on eventually. Harry starts up his Anti-Umbridge Club. Dean goes back to pining from a distance. Hermione gets closer to the girls in her dorm, because they all were brought together by Sage and they'll be damned if her death pulls them apart. Neville suffers the most, because now he has nobody to protect him from Snape.
But everybody gets along with life eventually. Fifteen comes and goes, and all of the people who used to love Sage get older. The end of their fifth year is exciting and terrifying and heartbreaking. When his godfather is murdered, Harry wonders if he's with James and Lily and maybe Sage.
Their sixth year is hard. Hermione misses Sage, more than she can imagine, and when Cormac invites her to the Slug Club's Christmas party, she says yes. Because Sage would want her to move on. Sage would think it was hilarious, she thinks as she hides away from her date behind some curtains.
And then, Dumbledore dies. Everybody mourns, everybody knows this is the beginning of the end. Harry's heart breaks and then gets stronger, because he knows what he has to do. Bill and Fleur's wedding passes, the world turns to shit, the trio go on the run.
And all the while, Sage is six feet under. She rests peacefully, her hands clasped over her wand and a sprig of the herb she's named for. She doesn't move, her chest does not rise or fall. Sage is dead, her skin is cold, her fingers black and rotting at the tips as they have been since she was fourteen. Her eyes see nothing, her ears hear nothing. She sleeps through the worries of the world, her mind nowhere but the blackness of the void she lives in.
In the autumn of 1997, on All Hallows Eve, three shrouded figures enter the garden of the little cottage. One has a wild nest of hair atop her head, one has the features of a creature of the night, and one has smooth, snakelike skin and two slits for nostrils.
The last one casts a spell over Sage's resting place, his wand high above his head. The air feels strange, warm, too hot for late October. The grass over Sage's grave warms the woman's whole hand when she presses her fingertips to it. The flowers shift even though there's no wind.
Their hair starts to whip around their faces, cloaks flapping as the breeze picks up into a howling wind. The earth underneath their feet seems to shift, only slightly but enough to notice, and the man steps backward. He stretches out his arm, wand pointed towards the grave. This girl will rise again; he has heard of what she can do and she will be under his control.
Clouds gather over their heads. The world is dark now, even though it's only early afternoon, and the wind threatens to bowl them over. The dirt covering Sage's body shifts.
And then, five black-tipped fingers burst through the moss, grab onto his ankle, and pull hard. The soil falls away as a girl emerges from the dirt, skinny and coughing up weeds. She kneels before him, dusting earth from her hair and her eyelashes, and looks up at him.
"Hello, Miss Laurent," greets Lord Voldemort.
a/n: i regret nothing. thoughts n feelings in the comments. this shit boutta get real dark >:)