Ch. 34: Cold Grounds

Song For This Chapter: If I Get High -- Nothing But Thieves

I couldn't recall when I had finally picked up the shattered remains of myself off the Great Hall floor. There had been cheers of excitement, or horror, or mourning. I couldn't be sure of anything. Harry Potter was alive, or maybe he was dead.

Nothing made sense.

I could remember the rough, bumpy surface of the stone halls as I trailed my fingers across them, making my way to the back entrance of Hogwarts, towards the cliff where the bridge used to stand. The air was still and cold as I stood on the edge of the rocks, peering down into the vast emptiness for the second time tonight.

My fear of heights was numbed by the fear that had become my reality. The fear of losing Fred.

I closed my eyes and willed myself, wanting to do it for a moment. It would be easy, like falling asleep after a long, hard day.

My lips quivered as more tears washed over my cheeks, streaking blood and tear stains down my face.

I watched as the clouds parted, the stars shining through. If I looked up and kept my eyes on the stars, I could do it, couldn't I? It would be like Alice, falling to my Wonderland.

A pair of arms tangled themselves around my torso and yanked me back, tossing me to the ground roughly. "What the hell are you fucking thinking?!"

I peered into the depths of her blue eyes; she was crying and angry and her shoulder shook as she tried not to cry in front of me.

"Jenna," I began, pushing myself off the ground. "I-I'm sorry, I wasn't going to--,"

"You think that was your only option?!" Jenna barked, her tears splattering onto her collarbone before rolling down and soaking into her blood splattered collar. "You think taking your life is what he would have wanted? What Lana and I and Blake and the Weasleys would want?!"

Sobbing, I clutched at myself, curling into a ball and gripping my arms around my waist, holding myself tightly, as if the tighter I held myself, the less I would fall apart; like I could force myself not to shatter.

Dropping to her knees beside me, Jenna joined in with me, crying hard and wrapping her arms around me, squeezing me hard. "I'm so sorry, Elle, I am so sorry."

I leant against her shoulder and let the tears flow as the wind picked up. On the breeze, shouts and hollers could be heard, but I couldn't make out the words, I was purposefully oblivious to the cold world.

"I wasn't gonna do it, Jenna," I wailed out into her shoulder, my voice muffled by her hair and her clothes, the faint smell of her perfume still, somehow, flowing out through the stench of blood and soot. "I w-wasn't."

Jenna rocked me, hushing me. "I know, Elle." She sniffled and pulled away from me; I felt like an empty jigsaw piece as she did, like part of me was off, absent, and never to be found again.

"I'll never be whole," I whispered, my eyes staring at the dried blood on my hands. His blood.

"I wish I could turn back time," Jenna admitted, starting to hiccup. "I wish none of this had-hicc- ever happened. I didn't see him my-hicc-self, but Lana went to the Great Hall to check the-hicc-... people. I haven't been in there yet. I haven't seen, but Blake told me what happened, and she told me she was worried what you were going to do."

My empty chest that had been silent for at least an hour suddenly beat violently back to life, wildly throbbing and thumping at an erratic pace. I wish I could turn back time. I latched onto that phrase, ignoring the rest of what Jenna had said.

"I wish I could turn back time," I repeated.

Jenna nodded, sitting down beside me on the ground. However, just as she sat, I was up on my feet. "W-What is it, Elle?" She asked, surprised by my sudden shift in attitude. "Is ... Are you all rig--" she cut herself off, but I offered her a broken, twisted smile as a flash of madness crossed my mind. "Is there anything I can do?" She fixed her words, knowing nothing could ever be all right again.

"No," I bit out, dusting off the rubble from the seat of my pants and the side of my shit where I had fallen. I tried not to watch her face turn sad and solemn at my blunt response. "No, but, there's something I can do."

I faced the ledge once more and Jenna clasped my hand, holding me back. "Elle, I love you. Don't do what I think you're thinking."

Smiling softly, I turned to Jenna and shook my head. "I'm sorry, Jenna. I didn't... I don't ever want to scare you. Don't worry about me," I pleaded with her, pulling my hand out of her's before gripping my wand tightly, "I've got to do something. I'll see you on the other side."

Jenna stumbled onto her feet and shook her head, clearly confused. "Wait, what are you going to --"

But, I had Apparated away before Jenna finished.

✧

From the outside, the finished mannequin of Fred and George stared down at me. His eyes bored into my soul and, though I could never decide which Twin it looked like more in the past, all I saw was Fred, watching over me as I stood in the night, frozen in place and trying not to cry as my bones filled instead with rage and an aching pain.

The mannequin was broken, stuck in place with his arm halfway between lifting his hat and revealing the rabbit beneath it. It was horribly fitting, and probably something that had happened during the Death Eater's raid of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

I pushed my way into the store, the door scraping and fighting against me. Once I was inside, it was clear why. The store room was a mess, paper, candies, bobbles and knick-knacks all strewn about. Fire had damaged most of the lower level, and the stairwell was missing a few steps, making it almost impossible to make my way up.

More tears leaking from my eyes, but I roughly wiped them away, sniffing and grunting as I managed to hoist myself up into the flat above the store. I was on a mission and I would be damned if I didn't do everything in my power to find it.

Fuck, I was already damned. Who was I kidding?

The aching in my stomach sharpened as I pulled myself up through the door of the flat and kicked the door open. The latch gave from the fire damage and I sputtered as the woosh of air kicked up ash and soot into the air. Coughing, I placed my shirt over my nose and shuffled into the flat, eyes searching the room, my mind racing through old memories, trying to think of where it was. Where it had been left.

It had been so long ago, I was momentarily afraid I wouldn't find it.

But, as if a glimmering, shining light of hope in my closing world being shrouded by the growing cloud of darkness, my eyes found it in the midst of the scorched rubble. Covered in ash and collecting dust in the back of a burned and broken closet, my luggage that Fred had brought from the Burrow all those months ago was knocked over. It had been damaged by the fire but was discarded and ignored by the Death Eaters that had destroyed the place.

Firmly, summoning the last of my strength that I had somehow acquired instead of turning into a blubbering ball of tears, I yanked at the melted locks, but they refused to open. Frustrated and filled with hatred, I grabbed the luggage and tossed it across the room. It hit a sturdy, stone wall and splintered open, raining debris and clothes across the bedroom floor.

I crawled to it, pausing only for a moment as my eyes met a pair of Fred's boots, the image of him kicking them off before flopping into our bed striking a chord in my chest, before rummaging through the clothes like a mad woman. Tears blurred my vision once more, though I had thought my tired eyes couldn't cry anymore.

Of the articles of clothing, I found one of his old shirts that I had stolen and packed away with me after my sixth year. It was long-sleeved and yellow pinstriped with a still, somewhat perfectly ironed collar. It smelt of him, before the war. Before we all smelt of perspiration, of blood, of fear.

It smelt of oak wood polish and honeycomb. It smelt of Fred. It was faint, but it was there, like an old, long faded memory from one's childhood.

Tears beaded the corners of my eyes as I folded the shirt carefully, tucking it back into the broken depths of the luggage before I continued my search, swiping the dew from my eyes.

It had to be here.

I knew it was in this pile somewhere.

It had to be.

I turned out the pockets on every pair of my jeans in the search.

Finally, after I had begun to lose hope, there it was, cold and hard and glimmering in my hand.

The Time Turner.

_________

listen to the song; you wont regret it