Okay, so, fun fact, I’m a full time teacher and (technically) a full time student, which has been pretty tough to combine these last few months. I teach at a school for students with behavioural and developmental problems, which makes me job pretty draining at times. It also means that I haven’t had the energy to update “the veil of secrecy” even though a large number of months have passed since my last update.
It’s coming! I just don’t know when, so I’m sorry for that! But, since y’all follow me for snippets and inside info, I’ll post what I’ve written for the next chapter so far. This is all unedited and unrevised, I didn’t read it through, and much of it can change when I do post the eventual chapter, but here is a skeleton of the chapter that’s up next;
Ted, Marlene, and Dorcas worked through the night to empty the caved-in tunnels to save those still alive while recovering the bodies of those who died when the ceiling collapsed. Every centimetre of their body felt raw as emotion had been scrubbed of their souls to allow space for rational thought.
“My sisters weren’t in there,” whispered Marlene softly, her eyes focused on the lights coming from Hogwarts. It was early in the morning so the backdrop of the battle was pitch black and only made the fight on the Astronomy Tower fiercer. The two wizards were both determined to win the battle. They knew Dumbledore was waiting on something. On the one thing that would give him that advantage.
But for some reason, Regulus hadn’t been killed yet.
She just didn’t have it in her to feel guilty about it. Should she have told them that their assumption of Evan being willing to set Regulus on fire was incorrect? Yes. Would it have put an end to the battle? Probably. Was she going to take this guilt with her to the grave? Absolutely.
She wasn’t the only one who carried it.
Pandora knew. Barty knew. Sirius knew. James knew. They knew he wasn’t going to do it yet all of them had been content with keeping the others in that rose-coloured illusion.
And now they would have to pay for their game of deceit.
“Do you think they’re dead?” asked Dorcas, her voice too empty, too hollow.
Marlene shook her head. “I would’ve felt it.”
Dorcas wondered if the girls inside Hogwarts had felt it when their parents died. Did they claim that their family was alive, because they would’ve felt if otherwise? Or would grief hit them hard enough that they would wish for their prison again—a prison in which they lived thinking their parents were alive and looking for them.
“I wonder how many will live once this is all over.”
“How many survivors?” asked Marlene and Dorcas shook her head.
“They have this fantasy in their head that everything outside Hogwarts is safe. What will happen when they learn that outside is worse?”
Marlene stayed quiet for a moment. “Don’t make me think about that.”
Beside them, Ted stood and stretched his body before sighing quietly. “Five-minute break is up, girls, let’s go.”
“Thought you were staying here with the children?” asked Marlene, who’d declared ages ago that she was going to enter Hogwarts to look for her sisters no matter what happened.
“Yeah, well, the people of Hogsmeade got it. I changed my mind the moment half the castle caved in. They need help. We need to convince Evan to kill Regulus. If he isn’t able to be convinced, we need to distract him long enough to bring Regulus to Dumbledore.”
“Your wife will hate you if she finds out that you helped with Regulus’s murder,” warned Dorcas, and Ted held her gaze. His face was covered in dirt and blood and nothing was left of that sweet, jolly Hufflepuff that Dorcas had gotten to know after the first official Order of the Phoenix meeting.
“Are you going to stop me? Tell me now.”
Both blondes look at Dorcas, and she quickly looked away before taking a deep breath.
“No. No, I’m not.” Another thing she would forever feel guilty about, but the screams coming from Hogwarts were too loud to ignore.
The sun was coming up and they were nowhere near done with this fight.
Lily barely caught the familiar, screaming girl that tried to run past her towards safety. Her hand shot out and wrapped around a bony wrist. The tip of a wand pointed at her face but Lily quickly avoided the hex sent her way before cupping the girls face and forcing her to look at her. Familiar blonde hair was a tangled mess and big blue eyes—eyes she knew—looked up at her full of terror, before recognition sank in and tears welled up.
“Is my sister here?” whispered Melody McKinnon with the thinnest voice Lily had ever heard.
And maybe this was the thing that would stick to Lily until the day she died. Not the dead bodies scattered around her on the grounds. Not the screams that seemed to become part of the walls, forever echoing in their agony. Not the silver masks and green spells that were thrown around like they were Disarming Spells.
No, it was the confirmation that the McKinnon family was irrevocably ruined by this war. The McKinnon Family with hair just as golden as the sun, with smiles just as bright, and with a liveliness that shone so fiercely that it could bring joy in everyone that surrounded one of the family members. It was seeing the young girl that Lily used to know as one of the most cheerful people she’d ever met, be turned into just a shadow of that. Those eyes weren’t supposed to be sad.
None of the McKinnon family used to have sad eyes.
None of the McKinnon family was supposed to cower in fear.
“Buddy system, you stay here with me! Your sister is worried sick about you!” yelled Lily over the loud roaring surrounding them. Spells clashed against the walls surrounding them and Lily was ready to just about kiss Pandora out of gratefulness. The light-haired girl was throwing all she had at the Death Eaters surrounding them, ensuring that this distraction wouldn’t end up killing Lily.
Melody’s eyes flicked around them for a moment before focusing back on Lily. “Look at where we are! I don’t want to be your buddy, it’s dangerous here!”
Hmm… maybe not all of the McKinnon’s fierceness had left the castle. “True. Where is Margaret?” asked Lily quickly but Melody’s eyes already glazed over as another expression of unfiltered terror filled up every centimetre of her face.
“We are all going to die if we don’t hide…”
