05 | S H A D O W S

every step that I takeis another mistake to you.

   YOU SEE, WE have our ways to find out. Disobey, he will die. Tell anyone, he will die. You better give into your fate. It's the only way to save him.

   Ember rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling, Lucius Malfoy's words echoing through her mind like a death sentence. There was no room left for any other thought. So she lay here in the shadows, where she belonged, letting the darkness consume her; or was it the other way round?

   Many things she didn't understand yet. What she understood, was that Dumbledore had betrayed her. She now knew why he didn't want her to stay with Harry at Privet Drive, all alone amongst nothing but muggles. She had already guessed it, but now she knew; she was a threat.

   The Girl Who Lived In The Shadows. With a bitter taste, Ember thought back to Rita Skeeter's ridiculous article about her, this stupid headline ... A joyless chuckle shook her chest, and the darkness seemed to join in. The thought alone of what Rita would write now, if only she knew ... Ember closed her eyes.

   What she needed were more answers. But where would she got them? She couldn't just ask without breaking Malfoy's demand. Well, she couldn't ask anyone here in this house; she couldn't ask Order members. But that didn't mean she couldn't ask anyone at all.

   Pulling his letters out of her nightstand, Ember looked for hints. The logical result to think of would be that Draco had simply betrayed her. That he had sold her to Voldemort by the first given chance. But somehow she just couldn't believe it.

   Obviously Mr. Malfoy didn't know Woody. But if this all had been a trap right from the start, if this had been their plan, why would Malfoy be so delighted by the bird's 'mistake'?

   No, it was more likely that they had caught her owl ...

   "Hey Em."

    Her door opened and Harry stepped in. Ember's body stiffened, but she sat up. He shouldn't be here. Alone. With her. For days now she had managed to keep out of his way, what wasn't that easy, because ever since he got acquitted of his charge, he was in a way better mood and permanently trying to make up with Ember. Acting like she was still hurt by his words when he had arrived, she spend most of her time in her room. Harry had accepted it — until now.

   "Ever heard of knocking?", she said in a plain voice.

   "C'mon, Em, you can't still be mad", he sighed as he kept standing by the door. "I already told you I'm sorry, what else do you wanna hear?"

   "I'm not mad", she muttered, shaking her head. "I just — I don't know, okay? Would you please just leave me alone?"

   "No." Crossing the room, Harry sat down at the end of Ember's bed. "It's enough, you can't lock yourself up for forever. We're returning to Hogwarts tomorrow, I want to put an end to this dispute."

   "Harry, we don't have a dispute, I just don't feel like partying downstairs, that's it."

   "No one expects you to party", he groaned, and Ember could clearly feel his frustration boiling in his guts. "Merlin, Ember, why don't you want to talk about what happened?"

   "I guess out of the very same reasons you don't talk about it either", she whispered into the darkness. "You could have died any given second of that night. I don't want to think about it, but my head is playing it all over, and it's enough to involuntarily have to rewatch these scences all over. I don't need to invite them."

   "You were dead, Ember."

   "I wasn't —"

   "To me you were." He fumbled on the bedsheets, not looking at her. "When I was at the graveyard, when I fought with him, our wands somehow linked ... All of Voldemort's curses were replayed in reverse. I saw the — the shadow of Bertha Jorkins. An old muggle. Cedric." He paused, his voice shaking, but Ember understood.

   "Mum and Dad?", she breathed, sitting up, a lump in her throat threatening to suffocate her.

   He nodded; Ember could see him swollow hard. "And you."

   "M—Me?", she stammered, eyes widened, before blinking in confusion. "But that's impossible ..."

   "I didn't know what it meant back then", Harry explained, his voice quiet. "The only thing I understood was that these were all the people Voldemort had murdered. And you were amongst them. I didn't think about possibilities. I thought I had lost you." He closed his mouth, silence fell over the twins, and Ember didn't know what to say. Fortunately, Harry was the first to regain his voice. "Dumbledore later told me what it was about. Priori Incantatem. The curses in reverse."

   "That doesn't explain —"

   "It does", Harry cut her off. "Voldemort tried to kill you. But it didn't work."

   "Obviously", Ember scoffed. "So where is my scar?"

   "This isn't funny, Emmie", Harry said, his voice deadpanned. "Something happened with you back then. Something —"

   But he was cut off by an excited owl floating through the open window, throwing a letter into Harry's lap.

   "Woody!", Ember exclaimed. She hadn't expect he would return, and her heart jumped, but immediately sacked down as she watched Harry examining the letter. With a frown, her brother lifted it up, first looking at Ember, then his eyes wandered to the other letters laying on her nightstand, everyone wearing the same handwriting.

   "D.M.?", Harry asked, his voice dangerously plain.

   "Okay, Harry, before you lose it, let me explain —"

   But he didn't. "I waited", he whispered, his eyes narrowed to slits, the parchment crumbled in his fist, "for over a month for you to write me. A full month, Ember! And you didn't give me even the tiniest life sign! But you had enough time to write Malfoy?" He threw the envelope at her. "Say, are you fucking kidding me?"

   "Harry, please —"

   "I was worried!", he thundered, jumping from the bed. "I was about to lose my damn mind out of fear that something had happened to you!"

   "I was not allowed to write you!", Ember yelled back. "Explicitly you! Ask the great Albus Dumbledore! Scream at him, not at me! It wasn't my decision to come here and leave you alone!"

   "But it was your decision to write a Death Eater's son during the whole summer as it seems like!"

   "I had reasons!"

   "Oh, reasons, yeah?" With a jolt he flung the door open. "You know what? Take your reasons and leave me alone, okay? Obviously your new best buddy is perfectly replacing me!" And the door banged shut, leaving Ember alone with a flustered owl and nothing but the shadows.

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