#fromtheashes

Part One

~ Y/n ~

One Year Later

“Are you sure you’re ready to be back, Ms. Waters? Nobody would blame you if you wanted to take another year. Or perhaps we should revisit the idea of learning from home?”

I shift my gaze from the fireplace to Headmistress McGonagall, standing by her desk with a sympathetic expression that makes a ball form in my throat. “I’m sure, Headmistress,” I clear my throat and steady my voice. “I want to be here. I should be here.”

McGonagall sighs softly, thankfully not fighting me on the subject of my return to Hogwarts again. “Alright then, if this is really what you want,” she takes a step closer to me, her hands clasped in front of her waist.

“I want you to know that I understand why you did what you did. " Her tone softens even further as if she is sharing a secret. 

My eyes snap back up to hers as that damn ball forms in my throat again. “I got people killed, Minerva,” my tone comes across as more ashamed than I would prefer to show. McGonagall’s first name slips from my lips on accident; I guess that was bound to happen at some point. Having been through a literal war together. 

“You did no such thing,” her voice stiffens, sounding just like a professor again, her eyes narrowing as if she is about to give me a lifelong detention. “You did what you did because you care. Not because you wanted to get people hurt. That blame falls on Voldemort and those who willingly followed him.”

I will myself to believe what she is saying, having repeated the same thing to myself time and time again, night after night. “It doesn’t feel that way.”

McGonagall steps closer, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I can understand that. As I’m sure a lot of people could, all of them probably feeling the same way you do right now. That people died because they didn’t do something different,” her fingers gently squeeze my shoulder in a reassuring gesture. 

“That doesn’t make it true. You did what you felt was best, and who knows? Maybe you saved even more people in the process; best to look at the glass half-full in these times, dear.”

Her hand drops from my shoulder, and she straightens up. “Now, why don’t we head down to the Great Hall? The other students should be arriving soon. Have you decided whether or not you want to be sorted again?” 

“No, I’m not going to be sorted again,” I say as I follow McGonagall out of her office and down the empty corridor. I was sorted into Slytherin, and I want to stay there." My tone is more steady than I thought it would be, and I thank whatever God there is for it.

The silence that follows my response only lasts a few moments; the only sound filling it is our shoes against the stone floor before she finally speaks. “You realize some of the returning students in Slytherin may try to cause trouble, given that you didn’t take Voldemort’s side. They might hold a grudge.”

I barely blink as I listen to her response. Used to people thinking that Slytherins view the world just one way. Black and white, good and evil, all of that. I expect some students to feel that way, those who followed him willingly. But as far as I know, those who willingly followed him are either still in Azkaban, dead, or otherwise dropped off the face of the Earth. 

But there is a nagging question in the back of my mind, one I’ve never asked before. Whether it’s because I didn’t want to hear the bad answer or because I didn’t know how to face the alternative is still unclear to me.

“Are they coming back?”

~ Mattheo ~

The blood on my hands makes it hard to get a good grip on the fucker’s jacket as I drag him to the shallow grave where he will rot in the ground. This place is too good for him, too clean. But fuck it, what are you going to do?

“Just can’t help making a mess, can you?” Regulus raises an eyebrow as he watches me drag this fucker across the forest floor. The not-so-subtle mocking tone in his voice makes my fucking eye twitch.

I drop the fucker’s arms and stand up straight, my breathing heavy with exertion. “You could fuckin’ help, you know,” my words are clipped as I take a deep breath. “It’s not like I killed him myself.”

Regulus scoffs a dry laugh, pushing himself off of the tree he was leaning on, and brushes off his jacket. “True, you didn’t kill him. I did.”

This motherfucker. 

A low growl vibrates in my throat, warning him not to push me further, and he raises his hands in mock surrender as he grabs the dead asshole’s legs to help me dump him into his shallow grave. 

“Easy, tiger. You know I’m right,” he grunts as we drop the dead body in the grave, pulling out a handkerchief from his jacket to wipe his hands. “You just tortured him.”

“Not nearly enough,” I grit, pulling out a zippo lighter from my pocket. “He deserved worse than he got,” I place a joint between my lips and light it before tossing the lighter on the fucker’s dead body. “...especially for threatening her.”

I watch his jaw tick on the other side of the makeshift grave, the flames roaring and casting a glow in the night air. His eyes are down on the flames, on the dead body inside of the shallow grave.

“I know,” he finally breaks the silence that has built between us as I blow out the smoke from my joint, my hands and fingers still stained with blood. 

I ash the joint over the grave, the ash disappearing into the flames. “Do you think she’ll be there?”

He finally looks up, locking his eyes with mine, and I smirk when I see his eyes crack with a hint of vulnerability. “She better be,” he says, his eyes rising again to look behind me. I turn my head, following his gaze to the Hogwarts castle behind us. 

My fingers tighten around the joint, and my jaw clenches. The echo of my name on her lips is ingrained into my mind. The way she looked at us that day, surprised, a little shocked… but still y/n. Our y/n. The way that the dirt and blood caked her beautiful skin, a feral look in her eyes as she tried to reach us, and her voice hoarse from screaming all night during the battle.

Fucking beautiful.

And so damn vulnerable.

It’s another reason why we had to kill the Auror who ‘helped us transition.’ Which is really just the Ministry code for interrogating and torturing those of us who were technically still kids and weren’t sentenced to Azkaban.

How the two of us weren’t sentenced, I’ll never fucking know. Before the battle, we followed my father closely, his most trusted confidants, and killed without mercy. 

I can still remember the smell of his breath and the pain that would radiate throughout my face as his fist connected with my jaw. His threats to hurt y/n when nobody was around to listen made my blood boil every time. The fact that he was questioning her just for knowing us, for being our closest friend before the war…

Well, I got my pound of flesh. Several of them, in fact.

~ Regulus ~

If people avoided us before, they aren’t now. Their whispers follow Mattheo and me as we approach the castle gates, his hands now free of the blood from torturing that Auror, slicing through his body with the same calm brutality as they whipped ours with at the reintegration center.

But I don’t care because she is here somewhere in the sea of students. I didn’t lie when Mattheo asked me if I thought she would be here. I know she will. She has nowhere else to go. 

And I have nowhere else to be.

The castle lights glow against the night sky, and there are no bloodstains on the stone steps from the battle—it is almost as if it never happened. But just because you wash the ground and rebuild the walls, nothing will lift the lingering scent of death that clings to every molecule in the air.

Truthfully, I don’t want to be here, and neither does Mattheo, but it was either this or house arrest with another Auror teaching us. No fucking thank you. Besides, I’ve been away from mon chéri for too long already. (my dear)

“Black, Riddle. Long time, no see.”

My gaze snaps to the side, landing on Marcus Flint. 

Putain génial. (Fucking awesome)

He saunters up to me and Mattheo, a sly grin on his face that makes me want to bash his head against the stone wall he was leaning against. 

“Flint, I see they let you out of that cesspit,” Mattheo laughs from my side, his humor dry and sarcastic. “What made you decide to come back?”

Marcus looks off to the side, winking at a girl who can’t be older than a sixth year, making the urge to bash his head in seem even more tempting. “The ass, mate, why else?” Marcus’ gaze shifts back to us, a smirk on his face as he waits for us to agree with him.

“Ah, still the charmer, aren’t we?” My voice drips with condescension. Flint’s family all joined the Death Eaters willingly, but I was there when Marcus got his dark mark. I saw the hesitation in his eyes, the flicker of doubt that crossed them before he howled with pain at the spell that made him what he now pretends to be—one of us.

He blinks dumbly a few times before he laughs, patting my arm like we’re the best of friends. “You’re something else, Regulus, you know that?” He jokes, but his laughter dies, and he pulls his hand back the second he sees the danger in my eyes. “Yeah, well… I’ll see you guys around.”

“Save some bitches for the rest of us this year, eh, Riddle?” He turns his humor to Mattheo in one last attempt to rub elbows with people he doesn’t even deserve to look at. 

A cruel and charming smirk tugs at the corner of Mattheo’s lips, a look of mock amusement in his eyes. “Don’t count on it, Flint. But I might try to leave some of them interested,” his words are good-natured, but his tone is anything but—filled with the same sense of entitlement and ego that has followed Mattheo our whole lives. 

I scoff a chuckle and shake my head as we walk around Marcus, not waiting around to hear whatever fumbled response he musters up. 

A group of older students is formed around the entrance to the Great Hall, waiting to be re-sorted. I get it; war changes people and leaves marks that go deeper than physical wounds, but that’s no reason to run from your house. To abandon your family.

Or, what you have left of it, at least. 

~ Y/n ~

“Lost, Waters?” Millicent’s grating and nasilly voice grinds against my eardrums as I sit down at the Slytherin table. Her sickeningly sweet, vanilla perfume wafting through the air even four seats down. The sarcasm in her voice is unmistakeable and filled with venom.

Fitting. 

I let out a small huff of breath, turning my head away from her. “Good to see you too, Bulstrode,” my voice comes out surprisingly even and controlled, turning to look at her with a raised eyebrow in an attempt to look even more aloof. “Have a nice summer?”

Her jaw tightens, along with almost every other Slytherin at the table as if I just killed her cat that she drags with her everywhere. The entire table going eerily silent.

Weird. 

“Best not to talk about what you don’t know…princess.” 

My breath catches in my chest, his warm breath cascading down the back of my neck, a hint of smoke on his breath that overpowers Millicent’s sickening vanilla perfume. I’d know that voice anywhere. Low, rumbling, with a charming cockiness that makes you want to both kiss and slap him.

“Mattheo…” 

I barely breathe his name, turning my head to look up at him, Regulus standing beside him. "Regulus..." Their presence demanding respect like always, but there’s a flicker of something deeper in their gazes. Almost…vulnerability? As if they missed me as much as I missed them. The sight of them standing in front of me, bringing up a storm of emotions inside me.

The corner of Mattheo’s mouth tugs up in his signature cocky grin, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his robes. “The one and only. Miss us, princess?” His low and playful voice hits my ears again, bringing me back to myself. 

I clear my throat softly, my gaze flickering to Regulus and his calculating and reserved expression before looking back at Mattheo. “Yeah. It’s good to see you both,” my voice comes out more forced than I intended it to. I am happy to see them, but it’s not the same as before. 

Mattheo’s eyes narrow, his charming and aloof expression cracking slightly. Clearly not pleased with my lack of enthusiasm, but he masks it quickly with another charming smile. 

“Yeah. I can see you’re practically jumping out of your seat,” he responds, the tension and sarcasm in his voice evident as he sits down next to me, Regulus sitting down on my other side without a word, per usual. 

I stiffen in my seat, my fingers drumming against my thigh under the table over my robes. “Well, I’d ask what you guys have been up to, but apparently that’s a touchy subject,” my gaze flickers to Millicent again, who has gone back to her conversation with her friends. 

“Nobody is ready to talk about it, petite étoile. Best not to pry,” Regulus’ French accent comes out soft and silky, like a ribbon ready to wrap around me and pull me closer to him, drawing my gaze to his. The way his black hair falls in little curls down his forehead makes me want to push them back, to run my fingers through them like I used to. (little star)

I swallow and straighten up in my seat, forcing myself to look away only to find Mattheo still sitting on my other side, their bodies forming walls on either side of me, and I thank whatever God there is for the sorting and re-sorting ceremonies beginning. McGonagall’s stern voice calling the Great Hall to order and giving me an excuse to not respond as they get up from their seats on either side of me, and move further down the table when Draco Malfoy and Lorenzo Berkshire take their seats further down the table. 

“See you around, princess.”

Mattheo’s words linger in the air, playful, but with a lingering darkness. It’s not a question but a statement, as if nothing can keep them away from me. 

Not even me.

Part Two (In progress)

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