"Fuck that hurt," Sirius groaned and rolled over to his side while I jumped off my broom that still hadn't approached the ground completely. A sharp sting shot through my leg when I hit the floor but I ignored it and made my way over to Sirius.
"I don't even get what happened—" I started while checking his body to see if he was bleeding anywhere.
"Violet don't move him. You could hurt him even more," my dad instructed from behind me as he came down to the ground with us, "they'll be looking for where we fell out of the sky. We have to get somewhere safe."
"Where! He can't walk dad I mean look at him!" I shouted and pointed down to Sirius who's leg was bent at an awkward angle.
"No—argh—i'm fine," Sirius tried to protest.
"The safe house is just a couple miles up. Hopefully we haven't missed the portkey. Grab his arm Violet yeah?" I follows dad's orders immediately, and shrunk all our brooms so I could fit them in my back pocket. I could feel my height shrinking slightly as Harry's features washed away from me, and mine were pulled forward.
"Where's Moody?" I asked as I tugged Sirius' arm over my shoulder, and lifted him off the ground with dads help.
"Yeah just break my arm too while you're at it," Sirius spoke through his clenched teeth.
"He's still back there fighting the rest off," dad explained, "you're very lucky your interference didn't cause something worse Violet—"
"Interference?" I said loudly as we walked through the dark street trying to make our way to the lit up age house ahead, "how is this my fault that I happened to save Moody's life!"
"Because you weren't focusing!" He turned his head sharply to me, "you were acting on emotions and impulse, not from the true direction of your Seer powers. Imagine if that curse that missed Moody had done worse. Maybe it would've hit Sirius' body instead of his broom, or smacked Hermione right in the back."
Sirius was just whimpering in pain between us not adding anything to the conversation, "I'm sorry," I apologized, " I couldn't just be there and let Moody get hit."
"I wasn't asking you to do that," dad answered, "You were so determined to come on this trip and use your powers but you have to keep in mind that if you're really going to save someone's life you have to think of the domino effect it's going to have. If you had been focused and put all your effort towards this, you would've known to knock Sirius out of the way before Moody."
"Awesome dad yeah, great time to lecture me while we're dragging Sirius away from a possible army of death eaters. Anything else you want to criticize me on before we're ambushed and killed?"
"Don't speak to your father like that," Sirius muttered out and I could see the sweat droplets on his forehead start to come down his face, " he might not be explaining it in the right tone or words but he's right. I'm grateful that you happened to save an Order member but with every action comes a consequence. In this war there's no room to make a mistake by acting on emotion." I closed my mouth and refused to talk any further. How dare they insult me over the way I went about saving Moody.
It wasn't my fault that the truth about my powers were hidden from me until two years ago, and i'm not a complete mastermind at controlling them.
"I see the portkey!" Dad said loudly and pointed towards the glowing lamp perched on the patio, "it's glowing! Walk faster!" I knew that when the portkey glowed that meant it was getting ready to transfer to its next destination. With all my strength, and my dad's combined we pulled Sirius as fast as we could to the house.
The small lamp started rising above the ground. I could hear Sirius' grunts of pain but I couldn't spare any time to slow down, and help the drag of his broken leg.
We managed to get to the steps when the portkey was hovering a couple centimeters off the floor. With all the force we could muster, the three of us leapt forward and grabbed onto the lamp as it started spinning into the air whisking us away.
The three of us spun rapidly, and were all of a sudden thrown from the lamp when we arrived at our destination. Sirius landed right on top of my stomach making the breath knock out of me.
"Sorry darling," he groaned and rolled off, his chest rising rapidly from the pain in his leg, "I truly don't think I can walk on this anymore."
"Understood. Levicorpus," dad muttered and Sirius started floating on his back, all the weight gone from his body.
"Much better," he sighed in relief and closed his eyes at the feeling of relaxation.
"Cmon let's see if the others are back yet," I said, ripping off the glasses on my face, and walked a couple steps forward to break through the tall grass and walk onto the open field, encompassing the Burrow.
"Thank goodness!" I saw Ruby sprint from the door over to where we were standing, slamming her body into mine first, "almost everyone missed their portkeys I thought you guys would too!" She cried and I could see her red brimmed eyes when I pulled back.
"We need help for Sirius," I said exhausted. The adrenaline from escaping death eaters in the sky, and trying to make it to our portkey was starting to wear off on my body.
"Of course!" Ruby exclaimed and ran inside to clear an area for him to lay down. There were two couches inside and one of them was already filled with someone on top.
"Oh my lord George," I gasped and went to go inspect his injury further, "what the hell happened to your face?"
"If you're trying to ask me how i'm still better looking than Fred, i've been asking myself the same thing since we were born," George chuckled lightly and I rolled my eyes at his stupid idea of a joke.
"Your ear you dummy," my eyes widened further as my fingers lightly traced the skin going up his jaw, where a large gaping hole was instead of an ear.
"I'll be okay," he shrugged with a smile and I hear Sirius groan out again from the couch beside me while Mrs. Weasley attempted to fix his leg.
"Ah there she is!" Sirius pointed when Hermione walked in alongside Harry—or at least I thought it was Harry, "next time you tell me to break a leg Hermione, might want to rephrase your words a little.
"It's just a muggle saying," she gasped in response when she saw the weird crooked angle of his leg.
"You're both okay!" I ran over to Harry and Hermione hugging them each individually, "has anyone else—" but the look on their face answered it for me. Besides us three and George no one else had come back yet.
I turned to Ginny to see her placed in the couch, while wiping the blood off George's face. I could see both on her expression and Harry's that they just wanted to run into each others arms but somehow they kept themselves at bay.
A boom thundered from inside the house and I took my wand out immediately at the sound.
"Dear it's okay that just means someone's arrived," Mrs. Weasley reassured me, and we all rushed outside to see who had come back.
Riding on a thestral, I watched Fleur and Bill land softly on the ground, both of them looking unscathed.
At the same time another boom echoed within the bubble surrounding the house and out of instinct I held my wand up. Pointing it at the section of the grass that was slightly ruffling, I lowered it when I watched one of the Harry's and Tonks walk up looking just as tired as the rest of us.
I knew Ron was the one partnered with Tonks so I breathed out and watched Hermione sprint over to embrace him as soon as they stepped foot through the grass.
"Deserves that. Brilliant, he was," Tonks said out of breath and hugged Remus tightly, "I wouldn't be standing here without him."
"Really?" Hermione said shocked.
"Always the tone of surprise," Ron chuckled and Hermione gave him a warm smile back, taking the glasses off his face.
"Is that everyone?" Remus asked looking around and I felt my heart beat a million times faster. If that was the last of the portkeys then why weren't Fred and Mr. Weasley back.
"No Fred isn't here yet," I said hurriedly and tried to look through the grass again, expecting some kind of ruffling to appear like earlier, "why aren't they back yet?"
"Violet i'm sure they're okay. Last time I saw them they were fine—" Harry put his hand on my shoulder and tried to comfort me but I pulled away.
"Last time you saw them was twenty minutes okay, you have no idea!" I spat back at him furious. I didn't care that he was trying to help, he could be getting my hopes up by assuring they were okay when he hadn't even seen where they went.
Kingsley came up beside our group and watched the grass and the sky, with his wand outstretched, waiting for anyone to come.
Twenty seconds went by and the only noise heard was Sirius groaning out in the house, while they attempted to shift his leg back into place. I spotted the tiniest shimmer of light in front of the grass towards my right and I sprinted towards it.
Fred and Mr. Weasley both landed softly on the ground and had their arms around each other, neither of them looking hurt.
"Oh my gosh!" I cried when I reached Fred and threw myself on top of him, "when you guys didn't come back I had no idea if you—"
"Are we the last back?" Mr. Weasley asked curiously when he saw all of us formed in a group outside.
"Yes I think everyone's here," I responded, wiping my eyes from the tears that threatened to spill over. Fred's hands were on my waist and I relished in the feeling, knowing it served as a reminder that he was okay. He was safe.
"Where's George?" Mr. Weasley asked when he noticed the redhead missing from the ranks our welcoming committee. No one spoke, and that seemed to say volumes for the pair who had just returned, since they ran straight into the Burrow and found the two men on the couch.
George's eyes were shut while Mrs. Weasley was dabbing some liquid on the skin by his gaping hole. I went to go stand by both Ruby and Ginny who were leaning into each other, and they handed me a warm mug of hot chocolate.
"How you feeling, Georgie?" Fred asked as soon as he got to the couch, sitting on his knees to look at the injury closer
"Saint-like," George said, his eyes fluttering open.
"Has something affected his brain?" Fred asked, quite startled at the comment
"No im saint-like. I'm holy," he laughed and pointed to the hole on his head, "I'm holey, Fred. Get it?"
"The whole wide world of ear-related humor and you go for 'I'm holey'," Fred laughed with him, "that's pathetic.
"Reckon I'm still better-looking than you," he teased and my eyes always filled up with tears again from their loving banter.
"Ah well looks like we can finally call hummingbird dear," Mr. Weasley chuckled, hugging Mrs. Weasley from the side.
"Hummingbird?" Ruby asked and I turned my head towards him, "what does that mean?"
"Oh just a silly old thing," Mr. Weasley said but I rose my brows and silently asked him to explain further, "it's just a little code Molly and I have. if we don't have time to talk we just say hummingbird and that means all of our children are safe." I nodded my head at the idea, thinking it was a pretty safe code no one could figure out—
"As beautiful as this is I have to ask where's Moody?" Sirius spoke up from the other couch. I glanced around the room and saw he was right, Moody had never returned back to the Burrow, but surely he was right behind us when we saved Sirius from hitting the ground.
"About Moody," Bill stepped forward, "he's dead. I saw him fall off his chair and we couldn't catch him in time." At Bills announcement I dropped the mug that I was holding and heard it shatter into pieces on the ground.
"Careful no one touch the glass!" Mrs. Weasley spoke firmly and pulled her wand to take care of the mess. I could feel both Ginny and Ruby touch my arms but I couldn't comprehend what they were saying.
In the end I hadn't saved Moody.
I had failed.
I turned on my heels quickly and walked out of the house, needing some fresh air before I went into a panic attack.
It didn't make sense. I had pushed Moody out of the way when a curse was thrown at him; I had done my job but then why wasn't he standing here with us now?
Not even looking to see where I was going, I pushed through the grass wanting to get away from where everyone was. I couldn't imagine what they thought of me: a useless girl who couldn't even control her powers enough to save someone.
I got to a small opening that was a small circular form of land and I fell to my knees atop it. Shutting my eyes, and inhaling a deep breath, I screamed as loudly as I could.
The nose pierced through my ears but it seemed to numb out the pain my head was feeling from not being able to save Moody.
Flashes of images raced in front of me and I watched my dream playback again in my head, sped up faster.
—I saw the scene play out from a third person point of view. Rockwood's mask came off from the harsh pull of the wind and I could see his words form the killing curse slowly. His wand was directed at me, at my back, as I was diving down trying to catch Sirius from falling.
The green light escaped Rockwoods wand and instead of it hitting me straight in the back, Moody dove forward on his chair and took the impact for himself—
"Violet! Violet stop screaming you're okay!" Someone yelled from beside me which snapped me out of my trance. Apparently during the dream I was re-seeing, I continued to scream like before and I winced from the burning feeling in my throat.
"Are you okay?" Ruby asked me, knelt at my side with her eyes big and wide.
"Yeah yeah i'm fine," I shrugged off, "let's just go back—"
"No you need to talk about what happened!" Ruby insisted, "I am sick and tired of you handling all this emotional baggage on yourself. This is what the rest of us are here for Violet, to help you!"
"You can't help me!" I looked to her sharply, "I had the opportunity to save a man and I couldn't so the blame falls on me."
"You can't possibly think it's your fault Vi," Fred looked at me with sympathy and tried to grab my hand.
"No im tired of everyone feeling sorry for me! At the end of the day my dad was right! I wasn't focused tonight and I let my judgement be clouded my emotion, and that mistake cost someone their life," I stood up quickly.
I stomped away from the clearing I had been screaming in and tried to make my way to the Burrow.
"Vi slow down!" Fred called but if anything that only made me speed up. Why was everyone trying to comfort me over what happened, I deserved the blame.
"Fred," I turned to him and breathed slowly to force myself not to yell, "I'm glad you're okay. But I really need to be myself right now."
"Cmon you don't mean that—"
Letting my emotions get the best of me I channeled my frustration towards him, "I don't want to be with you right now! Can't you just leave me alone for once!"
I could see his face look slightly crushed but he looked down and nodded slightly.
What was I even doing talking to Fred we were supposed to be giving off the impression that we weren't seeing each other anymore, but here we were clinging on to one another.
No one bothered me when I entered the Burrow, not even a glance in my direction which I was grateful for. I had no idea which room was mine, so I randomly picked a door and closed it behind me.
I couldn't help the tears that flowed down my face. Both from the loss I didn't prevent and the exhaustion over the last few days.
I sat there, curled against the doors, crying my eyes out until my body forced itself to drift off right there on the floor.
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