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xxiv. Thea's Path
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THEA'S HAPPY THAT she manages to finish off her Transfiguration essay for McGonagall by eight o' clock that evening, so she shoves her things into her satchel before rushing off back to the Gryffindor Tower. Her pace and the beating of her chest speeds up when she remembers that Harry said he needs to talk to her.

She mutters the password to the portrait of the Fat Lady and scrambles through the hole, stumbling into the common room to find only Harry, Ron, Hermione and the fire.

"...I just think she knows more than she's letting on. You didn't see the way that Malfoy looked at her before, it was like...it was like they're friends or something."

A small intuition roars to life in her body, and she stays secluded by the shadows flickering against the stone walls, listening to her friends' conversation with bated breath. They're talking about her.

"Come on, Harry, are you sure you're not just...overthinking it?"

"Hermione, there's something between those four. Hedge, Strenegal, Malfoy...they all care about Thea, and I can see it in her eyes, she cares about them too."

"Harry, I think Thea's proven that we can trust her."

"I just...look, you both know I like Thea –"

"Understatement of the century, mate."

Harry sighs. "I just have a bad feeling in my gut...something seems off."

There's a pause. "Well, if you want to be cautious, you don't have to tell her about the lessons with Dumbledore, I guess..."

"Hermione, he's being a lunatic! Thea is trustworthy and I won't listen to you both talking shit about her behind her back! If you have something to say, just say it to her face."

"We're not talking shit –"

"Well you two carry on raising your concerns, or whatever. I'm just telling you I won't be a part of it, because I trust Thea, and she's my friend," Ron snaps, his tone harsh.

Thea feels a ripping flame soar through her chest, and she's never felt so sick in her life. She could scream her throat raw at Harry, but all the same she wants to hug Ron and never let go for having her back. The scarlet floor beneath her blurs to a flood of spinning colour and her head starts to throb, but she can't seem to stop herself from listening, clinging onto every pained word Harry speaks.

"Ron, surely there's a small part of you that doubts her! After everything, I just don't feel like I can trust anyone fully except you two," Harry says in a desperate tone.

Thea feels like her heart shatters.

"Well, I'd rather be wrong than two-faced."

"Two-faced? Ron, come on!"

"Harry, are you sure it's not just her friends you don't trust rather than her? I've seen you two together...and well, you look calm and...it's almost like you both forget everything else going on..." Hermione says timidly.

Silence. More silence. Harry doesn't fill it with a comeback, and she hopes, prays that he agrees with Hermione. She can't stay still anymore; her heart is working against her and her whole body feels like it's its own enemy.

Thea spins on her heel, not caring about the noise of the portrait alerting the three in the common room of her presence. Her entire body is shaking as she storms through the castle, her feet taking her in a direction that confuses her, needing the advice of only one person. It's not long before she reaches the gargoyle corridor, and then she feels like an idiot because she realises she'll need a password. She sighs, and thinks she'll have to write to Dumbledore to have a meeting with him, and turns to leave. She freezes when the grinding of stone fills her ears, and before she can change her mind, she leaps onto the top step. After a moment, she arrives in the Headmaster's office, and knocks on the door.

"Come in, Thea."

Her body fills with anxiety as she slowly pushes the door open and slips through, smiling at Dumbledore.

"I was hoping that you would come to see me. Take a seat. We have a lot to talk about, and all night."

Thea smiles again, as he pours her a cup of tea, and pushes a bowl of liquorice wands towards her. Her usual habit of linking her hands around the hot mug as a source of comfort comes back in full force after she's taken a seat.

They sit in silence for a minute.

"I...don't really know where to start."

Dumbledore chuckles a little. "Yes, you have seen a lot at such a young age, had to make decisions many adults could never dream of...That is why I believe you and Harry are acquainted, yes?"

Thea feels her face flush. "Well, really, that's why I came to see you. I just heard him telling Ron and Hermione that he doesn't trust me. And it really hurt, because I need him to trust me. And the only way I can do the right thing, by him and myself...it's to...I need to tell the truth."

Thea takes a deep breath, and she meets Dumbledore's eyes, which are peering over his glasses at her.

"They wanted me to be a Death Eater, like my mother. They wanted..."

Thea looks down. "They wanted me to join Draco and Jude. Eden's a work in progress, but the boys...they have the mark. And I think Draco's got a task to do, to help Voldemort."

Dumbledore carries on looking at her, and she meets his eyes again, feeling her own start to sting. "I just don't think they deserve to be punished, I want you to help them like you would for me. It's not their fault who their parents are."

"Thea, I was hoping you'd come to see me because I have something to show you. I have a memory from your father, that he left for you himself."

"What?" Thea's heart starts to beat faster. "My father's alive?"

Dumbledore nods. "I believe so."

Thea leaps out of her seat, as Dumbledore summons over a small, silver bowl, that's half filled with the clearest water Thea has ever seen. Dumbledore reaches into a glass cabinet, that is intricately designed with gold patterns, and selects a small vial. Inside is a blueish substance, floating around, until Dumbledore pulls off the stopper and pours it into the bowl. He smiles at Thea.

"Place your head into the bowl, and you will be transported."

Thea takes a deep breath, before leaning over the bowl, and she starts to tumble through nothing but white, her heart racing. It takes a moment, before she lands hard onto a wet, dark street, hearing panicked shouts from a few streets away. For a moment, she's paralysed, until a young man, probably around his early twenties, comes sprinting past. Thea frowns, not recognising him, but is drawn towards him, and breaks into a run herself. It's not long before the man begins to slow down, and she realises with her heart plummeting into her stomach that he's her father. He turns down a small street, with beautiful cottages lining the sides, and walks through the gate of one. She follows him into the house, and jumps in fright when he starts to yell.

"Lyra! We need to talk!"

Thea frowns.

"Daddy?" A small voice pierces the air, and Thea realises she's looking at the two-year old version of herself.

Strange.

Her father scoops little Thea into his arms, and strokes her hair.

"Where's your mummy?"

Little Thea smiles. "Upstairs. Movie?"

Her father laughs, but the older Thea recognises how broken it is. "Maybe tomorrow night, T, mummy and I need to have a talk tonight."

Her father places little Thea onto her play mat, and she starts to drive her toy train around the floor. Older Thea follows her father upstairs, her heart pounding in her chest.

"Lyra! Please, come and talk to me."

Thea watches her young mother come slowly into the hallway of the upstairs, and she's taken aback, her breath freezing in her chest. Thea looks exactly like her.

"Des, please –"

"No! You...I can't believe you've done this!"

"You don't understand, my sister –"

"She was using you! Like...you've been using me."

"Des, stop –"

"Lyra, for once tell the god damned truth! Ever since Lily and James made me the secret keeper, I could feel you trying to look into my thoughts, and I – I couldn't understand why you were so obsessed with wanting to know where they were..." Thea can hear the crack in her father's voice.

"You've misunderstood –"

" – But ever since Thea told me about the new tattoo mummy has, I figured what was going on. You joined them. This whole time, that we've been fighting with the Order, you've been trying to tell Voldemort –"

"Don't say –"

"Where my best friends are, to get them and their son killed, to rip me away from Remus, Sirius and Peter!"

Lyra sighs. "Des, they want Thea."

Her father freezes. "Excuse me?"

"They wanted to kill us all when they found out you were a Muggleborn, and the only way they would stop would be for me to make a deal, that when Thea was older, I would have made her the perfect Death Eater. And I thought that if I...I offered up something better, they would leave us alone."

Desmond shakes his head, starting to walk away. "You're selfish, Lyra. I can't believe that...you joined them. The people who hate me, who hate your own daughter. For what?"

Her father's crying, and her mother's running after him downstairs. Thea follows, her heart pounding and her eyes filling with tears. She can see everything she sees in her mother now, only there's a sense of naivety, that she truly believed her father would still love her after she wanted to trade his friends' lives for their happiness.

"Des, please! I thought we could be happy!"

"No, Lyra, you thought you would be happy if you just dumped your mistakes on James' and Lily's doorstep! Are you really stupid enough to think they would accept a trade-off? They'd kill James, Lily and Harry, and they'd still come for Thea, for us!"

"Des..." All three of them are crying now, and Lyra's putting her hand on her father's face, which he puts his own hand over.

"You've thrown everything away, Lyra..."

Thea inhales the heavy air, noticing her two-year old self has sneaked into the hallway behind her parents.

"Daddy?"

Lyra and Des look at her, and her mother scoops her into her arms.

Thea frowns when her father kisses her infant self on the head, strokes Lyra's hair one last time and speaks. "I love you both. But I have to right your wrongs, Lyra."

"Des, I haven't actually told them anything about James and Lily...you block your mind, very well..."

Thea can feel the fury radiating from her father. Her mother starts to speak, but her voice turns blurry in the memory, and she watches her try and touch her father, who jolts back at the touch. He takes out his wand, and points it at her mother, and little Thea. His arm trembles.

"What are you doing, Des?"

"Obliviate."

Then, he sprints out of the door, and Thea follows him as he winds through the town that she now knows is Godric's Hollow. It's not long before they crash into someone, who looks almost as broken as her father. It's Lily Potter.

Her father pulls her into a hug, and she hugs him back.

"Lil, what are you doing out here? It's not safe..."

"Des, we're already not safe. Sirius...he said he saw Lyra meeting with her sister, he thinks she's going to –"

Her father shushes Lily, and takes her arm, Apparating them back to the Potter's house. They sit in the living room, where James has Harry on his knee. Thea smiles, her eyes welling up again.

"Yes, my wife has tried to find out where you are, yes, she has joined her sister and the Death Eaters. My Thea saw her Dark Mark, and told me about her new tattoo...I'm so sorry –"

"Hey, it's not your fault," Lily smiles, and James nods.

"We were considering changing the Secret Keeper anyway, and Dumbledore agrees...we don't want to put Thea in danger of losing her father."

Lily adds, "We think we're going to change it to Peter. He said he'd be honoured, and it's less obvious than Sirius isn't it?"

Desmond nods. "Yeah, course. I – I Obliviated them. Lyra and Thea. They don't have any idea who I am."

Lily and James frown. "Why?"

Desmond looks at his lap. "I was trying to...I was trying to fix what she did, I want to keep you three, and Thea safe. I need to hide, I couldn't let Lyra see into my head, and I couldn't let Thea remember anything about where I might have gone."

Thea wants to sob until there's no tears left...her father sacrificing everything for others make her heart flame, and she wishes with everything that he would have taken her with him.

"But what about Thea? She's left with a Death Eater..."

Her father looks down. "It's the only thing I can't fix. She'd be in more danger with me."

A silence forms.

Lily smiles. "Well, you can stay here for a night. I'll make some supper."

Thea's pulled into a new morning, the same memory but part of another day. It's 31st October, 1981, which she can see on the Daily Prophet copy lying on the table. Thea doesn't recognise the house, but she can see a young man sat in an armchair by the window. She would put money on the man being Remus Lupin. She realises her father must have stayed here, must have changed Lily and James' Secret Keeper to Peter. Thea's constantly haunted by fate, wondering why any formula of the Potters putting their faith in their friends turned into their deaths.

"I don't like any of this, Remus," Her father sighs, as he takes over two cups of tea. "Something doesn't feel right."
Remus smiles weakly. "You've done everything you can."

Her father looks down. She wonders what Remus knows. If he really knows the depth of her father's sacrifice.

It's not until it goes dark that her father's running through the streets of Godric's Hollow again, and he bumps into someone again. Only it's not Lily this time, and the person doesn't hug him. Thea watches in horror as her father's shoved to the ground by Sirius Black.

"How could you do this?"

"Sirius, it wasn't – get off me! It was Peter!"

Sirius freezes, and they both stand up, running through the streets. Thea wishes they would stop running, a stich growing painfully in her side.

"I...I found out that Lyra's one of them, she kept trying to look into my mind to find out the secret...I found Lily the other night, she was trying to...she was trying to get to me, said you'd seen Lyra meeting with her sister and put two and two together...but we changed the Secret Keeper to Peter..."

They start to run faster, and Thea's heart shatters when she sees the destruction replacing the beautiful cottage the Potters lived in...

Thea's dragged back into Dumbledore's office, dumfounded. She drops into her chair opposite him, her heart racing and tears falling down her cheeks.

"He tried to save them..." is all she can manage.

Dumbledore looks over his glasses. "But he couldn't. Everything else was against him. Could he have stopped your mother's betrayal, could he have stopped Peter's? No, he couldn't. But he acted out of his own heart, Thea, that is what we wanted you to see. I appreciate you coming to me tonight, for telling me the truth."
Thea smiles a little.

"I see so much of him in you...your parents have both carved out clear paths, and you may choose either one. I implore you, choose your father's. Be selfless, care for Mr Malfoy, Mr Lestrange, Miss Hedge, but Thea, do not lose sight of your own beliefs."

Thea walks in silence back to her common room. A growing headache that she hadn't noticed when she reached Dumbledore's office has now turned into pounding agony, her brain feeling like it's about to fail. The flames in her chest feel wilder than they ever have, and for a moment, she leans against the wall hoping it will pass, but it doesn't...and she slides to the ground, plummeting into a blackness.