I Will Follow You Into the Dark

Deep breaths were taken by Aurora as she lay in bed struggling to fall asleep, but sleep refused to visit her that night. It was as if the gods above had conspired against her and decided that alleviating her of the pesky thoughts that plagued her was not as enjoyable as letting them overwhelm her.

Most of them, pertained to the unsavory news that Margaret had delivered to her during lunch but a few, pleasant thoughts of Bill eased their way into her consciousness, bringing some comfort to her in those long hours for his company had made all the difference in the world to her.

If it hadn’t been for Bill running into her, Aurora would have continued her violent assault on the wall, only stopping once both her hands had broken, because being the stubborn person she is, she would have tried to avenge her first broken hand which would ultimately lead to her breaking the other.

Aurora’s not the most reasonable of people when angry.

Generally speaking Aurora isn’t very reasonable, things are done her way or not at all but when anger gets introduced into the picture the unruly monster within is given free reign and decisions that she will regret ensue.

“Fuck this,” muttered Aurora, throwing the covers off her body while she shimmied out of the bed.

Quietly, she slipped on her moccasins along with her oversized sweater so that the bitter cold would not pierce her being when she exited the dorm room and wandered into the hall where she would take the stairs down towards the common room.

Much to Aurora’s pleasure, the common room was completely empty upon her arrival. Almost immediately she uttered a spell to get a toasty fire going and picked a couch on which she would lounge upon while staring into the flames in silent contemplation, trying to figure out an answer to as to how her mother had so easily moved onto another.

Aurora just couldn’t wrap her mind around that.

How could Margaret move on so easily to another man after twenty something years of matrimony to someone as amazing as Javier? How could she turn her back on him when she hadn’t even sought out those that had murdered him?

If she’d brought his killers to justice then maybe Aurora would’ve been more understanding but the fact that her mother just sat at home playing aristocrat with all the other wealthy pure bloods instead of pursuing justice sickened Aurora.

Margaret has everything at her fingertips; connections, wealth, status but she wasn’t using any of them for good.

They were being used for pointless leisure, that’s it.

“Are you alright Rory?” inquired Hannah from the foot of the stairs.

Aurora turned in the direction of the voice. “I'm fine.”

“Liar,” shot back Hannah, clutching the blanket that was wrapped around her shoulders tightly.

“If you weren’t going to believe me then why’d you bother asking?”

Hannah plopped onto the couch. “Because proper etiquette said I have to. So tell me, what’s wrong?”

“Everything,” whispered Aurora, burying her face in her hands. “One fucking year and there’s another man. How does that work? The bitch claims that she doesn’t have enough time to look for his murderers but she has sufficient time to date. I just get so fucking angry thinking about it. My dad was a great man that loved her more than anything, but it’s obvious that their love was one sided, that he felt it all and she only liked the idea of him.”

“You’re being a very foolish cunt right now, you know that right?” Hannah reached over, placing her hand on Aurora’s wrist. “Perhaps Aunt Maggie isn’t being the best of wives right now but she loved your dad, that love is something that we can’t doubt.”

“Then how do you explain Edmund?” Aurora lifted her face.

“Honestly, I think he’s a rebound that she’s using to fill the void that your dad left, a lot of people do that when they lose someone, they just can’t handle the prospect of being alone so they get the first person that crosses their path. The good thing is that most of those rebound relationships don’t last because eventually the person realizes that the other is unfit to fill the place that their loved one once held.”

“Do you really think that’s it?”

Hannah nodded her head. “I think so, but don’t worry; you can keep acting like a bitch to her she totally deserves it.”

“How’d you know that was my next question?” laughed Aurora.

“Because I know better than anyone else that you’re a stubborn bitch that hates having to say that they’re wrong, it’s a horrible trait that I also suffer from.”

“We’re stubborn fucking bitches,” muttered Aurora.

“So where’d you run off to?”

Aurora smiled softly. “I was in the forest. Initially I was going to climb up the mountain but Bill asked me if I wanted to go smoke, so I smoked.”

“Bill?!” exclaimed Hannah, jumping up from her seat. “Fucking slag, you told us that you were by yourself and now you’re saying that you were with Bill? Oh Merlin! Oh Merlin! What were you two doing? Why were you with him? Oh no. You like him don’t you? I knew you liked him! That’s the only reason why you’d listen to the Beatles.”

“I don’t fucking like him! He was just there and wouldn’t leave. Honestly Hannah, when are you going to get the idea of me with Bill out of your head?”

“Never,” she declared, “Because I know that it’s going to happen. I can feel it! Just like I can feel that I'm going to get that other delectable ginger.”

Aurora’s face contorted into one of disgust. “Please tell me you’re joking. How can the twins be attractive to you?”

“Not them you twit! I'm talking about Charlie, that’s a man I’d like to tame.”

“Charlie?” Aurora pursed her lips. “Strangely enough I can actually picture you with him.”

“So can I, by the time I'm through with the ginger people across the land will refer to me as the ginger slayer.” Hannah had a dreamy expression across her face.

Aurora burst into laughter. “Fucking Hannah, you’ve put the most disturbing thought in my mind!”

“Overdramatic slag,” teased Hannah, “Now that you’re laughing I think we should go back to the dorm.”

“But I can’t sleep,” complained Aurora.

Hannah buried her hand into her pant pocket, pulling out a fat blunt along with a lighter. “A few hits of this should get you sleepy.”

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” questioned Aurora – Hannah shook her head – “Well I love you.”

Effortlessly, Aurora lit the blunt and began taking long deep hits from it, relishing in the calm feeling that the smoke filling her lungs gave her, marijuana is truly natures glory and not a terrible poison like other people deem it to be.

“This is some good shit,” coughed Aurora, the quality of the weed surpassing her expectations.

Hannah released the smoke from her lungs. “It’s from that batch that Duke gave me awhile back.”

“Duke?” questioned Aurora. “When did you see Duke?”

“A long time ago, remember when we visited for your dad’s birthday?”

Aurora’s eyes widened. “And the weed lasted that long?”

“Yeah, I charmed it so it wouldn’t decompose and it’s still pretty good,” Hannah brushed her golden blonde locks out of her face. “Whatever happened with you and Duke? I never asked.”

“We came to a common consensus that it was best for us to see other people,” Aurora laughed, “Well I came to that conclusion and just kind of tricked him to agree to it.”

“Do you still talk to him?”

Aurora cocked her brow. “I hardly talk to people here and you think I'm going to be wasting my time writing him? Damn Hannah, this weed fucked you up.”

“Ha-ha,” she laughed sarcastically. “It was an honest question.”

“I know it was but I never bothered keeping in touch with him. My stunt with him didn’t really mean anything to me, he was just an arrogant asshole that wasn’t attracted by my beauty and I had to conquer him, you know how it is.”

“Sometimes the things you say make me think you’re a man in drag,” mumbled Hannah.

The blunt ended up being exactly what Aurora needed to venture into the land of dreams but her stay in the land of slumber was short lived for she awoke exactly at 5:50 to throw on some workout clothes and brush her teeth to practice with Harry.

Practice was exhausting, by the end of they were both collapsed atop the moist green grass struggling to steady their breathing, but the burning sensation that they felt in their muscles filled them with a sense of accomplishment.

After a few minutes of relaxation they got back on their feet, ready to practice the summoning spell that Aurora had promised to teach him the day before. Harry’s first few attempts were unsuccessful but after twenty minutes of intense practice he finally got it right.

“Do you think I have a chance at making it through this?” inquired Harry on their walk back to Gryffindor tower.

“If you stay focused on the task then you will,” responded Aurora. “Everything else has to take a backseat to the tournament.”

Harry sighed. “You’re talking about my squabble with Ron aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Aurora stopped walking and turned to look at him, “I get that he means a lot since he’s your best friend but worrying about him when there’s a more important thing to worry about can be deadly so just tune him out, if he’s worth your friendship then he’ll come around.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“Then he doesn’t deserve to be your friend.”

No other words were spoken during their walk to the tower. The moment that they entered the common room they each went their separate ways; Harry to contemplate her words and Aurora to fall asleep for a few hours before lunch; breakfast would have to be skipped.

Hours later Aurora’s slumber was interrupted by someone violently shaking her. Curse words flew from her lips but the person didn’t stop instead they yelled at her to wake the fuck up, that’s when she finally gave in and snapped her eyes open.

“What the fucks your problem?!” snapped Aurora, sending a pillow hurling towards the person.

Margaret caught the pillow midair. “Get out of bed now.”

“No,” Aurora growled.

“How dare you treat me like this?”

“Don’t act like you’re the fucking victim! That’s all you ever do! You know that you deserved my blowing up on you, you know that you deserve my hating you!”

“Your father would roll over in his grave if he knew how you were treating me,” cried Margaret.

Aurora got out of bed. “My dad would applaud me for calling you out on your bullshit! I don’t even know what you’re doing here! I told you that I wanted nothing to do with you and I meant what I said!”

“Rory . . .”

“Don’t call me that,” snapped Aurora. “As long as you’re with that man, I'm not coming near you.”

“Try to understand . . .”

“You’re the one that needs to UNDERSTAND how offensive it is to bring some stranger into my life when I still haven’t gotten over my fathers death! You need to understand how entering a romantic relationship when the person that killed my father is still out there makes me feel, because it’s obvious you haven’t thought it out! It’s obvious that you never once stopped to think about how I feel because all that matters is how you feel!”

“That’s not true,” cried Margaret.

“Of course it is! Everything revolves around you! Moving to England, getting a boyfriend . . .”

“I moved the family to England so that you could get better!” argued Margaret.

Aurora gave a butchered laugh. “The only reason we moved here is so that you could get rid of me and act like you actually did something because you haven’t done shit! After dad died all you did was ship off to the healers so that they could give me some potions, you tried sending me to a therapist but not ONCE did you take the time to sit down and just talk to me but you couldn’t do that, you couldn’t fucking do that for me.”

“I didn’t talk to you because I didn’t know what to say!” Margaret began sobbing.

“Excuses, you always have a good excuse for not doing anything.” Aurora grabbed her sweater from the pile beside her bed. “Just leave me alone, when I want to talk to you I’ll find you.”