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To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

-OSCAR WILDE

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The day started off as just another normal Thursday, or at least as normal as it gets at Hogwarts, which admittedly wasn't saying very much. Double Potions and then double Herbology. Yuck and yuck, no offense intended to Slughorn or Sprout. The week was almost over, however, so things were undoubtedly looking up. Aeliana already made plans for the weekend to sneak off campus with Sirius and a few others through some hidden passageway they had recently unearthed, despite Dumbledore's numerous warnings. The number of mysterious disappearances had been increasing exponentially those last few months, but they told themselves the likelihood of anything happening in Hogsmeade, of all places, was slim enough to be worth the risk, and they would all be together, so everything would be fine.

Probably.

Sirius and James were idiots, after all, and idiocy didn't count for nothing.

Turned out it wasn't their own safety they needed to worry about.

Aeliana had been too embroiled in painstakingly chopping her pickled bat spleen into precisely even pieces— Professor Slughorn had warned them that uneven slices could turn the potion from a gnome repellent into a hair growing solution, and she had no intention whatsoever of spending the rest of the day trying to rid herself of a beard— to notice Professor McGonagall marching into the classroom.

"Ms. Gryffindor."

Aeliana jerked reflexively at the interruption, knife slashing down upon her glorified bird organ in a diagonal motion, ruining fifteen minutes of maddening work. She stared at the spoiled fruits of her labor in undiluted horror.

"Ms. Gryffindor," Professor McGonagall repeated, breaking Aeliana grudgingly from her distressed state, the professor's tone uncharacteristically tender.

"Yes, Professor?" Aeliana scrambled to her feet, bench scraping loudly against the floor behind her.

Everyone went quiet. It wasn't everyday that McGonagall personally came to reprimand someone in another professor's class. Aeliana could practically sense all the ears perking up, fishing for gossip. The gossip-mill has been rather lacklustre in recent days, leaving many in need of thee fix.

"Please, follow me. No need to grab your things," McGonagall added, as Aeliana started packing her bag. McGonagall peered around the room over thin-rimmed spectacles. "Evans, at the end of class, return Gryffindor's things to your dormitory."

"Yes, professor," Lilly responded, arching a brow at Aeliana.

Aeliana shrugged. She had no clue either.

Without further ado, McGonagall swept out of the room, leaving Aeliana to follow. Across the room, Sirius shot her a quizzical look.

"Is little-miss-perfect actually in trouble?" he asked, deliberately exaggerating his shock. "James, quick! Mark today on your calendar, because this has to be a first."

"Ha. Ha." Aeliana rolled her eyes, before striding for the door. She paused at the frame to send him one last warning glare, saying, "If I find out this is your fault, you'll be sorry."

To her surprise, it was not to her own office that McGonagall guided her to, but Dumbledore's. Aeliana couldn't help but ask herself what she could possibly have done in the past few days to warrant a punishment directly from the headmaster. Truth be told, she actually had done quite a few things to potentially warrant Headmaster-ly intervention over the years, but she was careful enough to make sure she was never caught.

My father is going to end me, she thought to herself as the door to Dumbledore's office swung open to reveal both him and the current Minister of Magic looking like they'd just returned from a funeral.

Aeliana hesitated over the threshold, floored at the unexpected fourth party. The Minister was involved in this, too? Even Sirius and James had never done anything bad enough to rope the Minister into the equation.

If I'm getting in trouble for one of James' and Sirius' pranks I'll castrate them both... Aeliana promised herself, and the thought managed to restore some of her good humour.

"Ah, there you are. Aeliana, it would be best if you took a seat." Dumbledore gestured to a simple, comfortable looking chair across his desk. "I'm afraid you are not here under the best of circumstances. There has been some terrible news."

"Okay..." Aeliana glanced nervously between the two professors and the Minister, who was fidgeting with his bowler hat, looking anywhere but her. Uncertainly, she sat down. "What do you mean, 'terrible news?'"

The question was greeted with silence. The Minister appeared as though he'd been force fed the gnome-repellent Aeliana had been working on in Slughorn's class, while Professor McGonagall let loose what sounded suspiciously like stifled a sniffle.

Dumbledore sighed. "Aeliana, I'm afraid there has been another attack."

Aeliana couldn't shake the dread that birthed itself in her stomach at the words, a mixture of fear and trepidation. That's not what she had been expecting this meeting to be about, but she should have known, nonetheless. The attacks had been growing increasingly deadly as of late, despite the best efforts of the most powerful wizards of the age, like Dumbledore and her father and brother. Only last weeka prominent Ministry official had vanished with what could only be werewolf marks left all over his house.

"Was it the Death Eaters again?" Aeliana said in disgust, leaning forward precariously on her chair and placing her hand on Dumbledore's desk for support. "The poor family... Who was attacked this time?"

"We wanted to be the ones to tell you, before the news breaks." A pause. Professor Dumbledore reached over his many trinkets scattered atop his desk to squeeze her hand. Looking into her eyes, a few shades darker than his own, he cautiously began, "I'm so sorry Aeliana. There is no good way to say this."

"Say what?" she asked, growing concerned over the pitying looks she was receiving from the adults in the room. "Just tell me who was killed, so I can have Father send their poor family help."

"Aeliana... you're father was among those attacked," Dumbledore informed her gently.

Aeliana felt her throat go dry, as if someone had used a jynx to replace it with sand paper. "But he's alright though," she managed to get out.

The Minister looked away, but, to his credit, Dumbledore did not. "No, Aeliana. There were no survivors."

She suddenly couldn't breathe.

"That's not possible," she choked. "I only received and owl from him yesterday! And— And no one is more powerful than my father! No one! Especially not while the rest of the family nearby to protect him!"

"It wasn't just him, my dear girl," Dumbledore continued sadly, the age lines in his wrinkled face more pronounced than ever. "Your entire family... they have all perished. You are all that's left. You alone weren't home during the attack."

She didn't notice herself falling to the floor until she felt multiple pairs of weathered hands lifting her up. Words were being thrown around nearby, but she couldn't make out meaning through the roaring in her ears.

"No." She could feel herself hyperventilating, stuck in an endless loop of hearing the dreaded news over and over again. "No, no, no, no-"

Strong hands gripped her shoulders, shaking her, though not unkindly. Aeliana looked up to discover worried blue eyes boring into hers through half-moon spectacles. "-Aeliana, take deep breaths. In and out. Yes, just like that. Now, again-"

"You're lying!" she protested, shaking her head vigorously. "My brother and father were too powerful to lose! They can't be dead! They can't be! You're wrong! No one could possible kill all of them!"

"Please, child-" the Minister attempted to soothe her, but she couldn't take any more.

Aeliana shrugged off Dumbledore's hold, only to step back into Professor McGonagall. Whirling past her, Aeliana lunged out the door before anybody could collect enough wits to stop her.

She flew down the spiral staircase, catching her robe on the golden gargoyle statue. When multiple hard yanks wouldn't dislodge it, she whipped out her wand and simply cut the offending piece of cloth free. She needed to get away from there. It couldn't be true. They were lying.

Students began pooling into the halls as classes came to a close. She shoved past meandering bystanders, earning herself confused and reproachful looks.

The halls gradually cleared as pupils spilt into their next classes. Before long, Aeliana couldn't see through the moisture coating her eyes, but kept on running, until she felt a force violently yanking her back, practically dislocating a shoulder.

"Bloody hell, have you lost your mind? Pay attention to where you're going, Lia!" a familiar voice admonished. "If you're going to try flying, use a broomstick, idiot. The moving staircase isn't here right now, you almost ran right over the edge..." Sirius trailed off into concerned silence as he took her in. A handsome face framed with dark, shaggy locks peered closer, frowning. "Hey, what's wrong? Does it have to do with McGonagall pulling you out of Potions early? I swear, if you're this upset because you didn't get a perfect score on our last Transfiguration exam..."

"They're all gone, Sirius," she whispered more to herself than to him, collapsing at his feet as all fight left her body. "They can't be gone, but they are. Every last one."

"What? Who?" he demanded anxiously, shaking her shoulders. "Who's gone? You're not making sense."

Her nails dug so deep into her palms they drew blood, but she had never cared about anything less. If anything, she needed the pain. It didn't make sense to hurt so much without any physical injuries to match.

"I'm all that's left," said Aeliana, repeating Dumbledore's words as their full meaning took hold, like a fist squeezing tightly around her heart. "I'm all alone. They're all gone."

Vaguely, she noted Sirius's musky scent as he pulled her off the ground closer to his chest. He was warm, and felt like safety, a safety she knew she would never truly feel again without the weight of her father's protection hanging over her. She let herself sink into him without struggle, hardly even registering the frantic words coming out his mouth, asking over and over who was gone.

She didn't say. Couldn't. If she spoke the words aloud, they would become true, and she couldn't bear that. It couldn't be true. She couldn't be all alone.