When Professor McGonagall walked through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room, Ivory knew something was wrong.

She wasn't exactly sure why, because McGonagall often came into the common room to give announcements about anything important that was going on in the school. Something was telling Ivory that this was different. Perhaps it was the grave expression on her professor's face, or the way her back was so straight it seemed as though she was on edge about something. Ivory had always noticed details, and she could tell now that something was wrong with McGonagall.

There was a sinking feeling in her gut that only got worse when she realized the witch was striding towards her.

Ivory was sitting on the couch in front of the fire, and quickly tore her eyes away from her professor to stare into it. She hoped it might distract her and perhaps calm her sudden unease. The crackling fire hypnotized her and she found her eyes were fixed on it. She was transfixed by the bursts of colour that the flames gave off.

"Miss Perkins?" Professor McGonagall asked. She placed her hand on Ivory's shoulder. Ivory, forced to look up at her, did so cautiously and nervously. "I would like a word with you outside, please." McGonagall's voice cracked in a way that Ivory had never heard it crack before.

Ivory hesitated for a moment. She thought of asking McGonagall why they couldn't just talk here, but she held her tongue and nodded wordlessly.

McGonagall's face looked grave as she led Ivory through the portrait hole, just outside the Gryffindor common room. The buzz of conversation that had been in the air in the common room faded away as soon as they had climbed through the portrait hole. The sternness McGonagall's face usually bore was gone and replaced with a pale anxiousness. She held a letter clutched in her hands, knuckles turning white from holding on to it so tightly. Right then and there, Ivory knew she had been right to assume there was something horribly wrong.

"Professor..." she started. "What is it?" She took a shaky breath.

McGonagall's eyes were sad, almost sympathetic... What would she have to be sad about? What was going on?

Her lips were tightly pursed together. "Ivory," she said, holding the letter out for the girl.

"No," said Ivory, shaking her head. She took it anyway, but didn't make any sign that she would open it. Her breaths were coming fast and she was unable to contain her nervousness. "Professor, please—please just—just tell me. I can tell you already know what's in this letter. What is it?"

"Ivory," she said again, "we received word today..." She went quiet, unable to continue.

"What? Word of what?" Ivory demanded forcefully, getting more and more anxious with each passing second. She just wanted McGonagall to spit it out and to stop beating around the bush. What was it? Was she failing Transfiguration? Getting kicked out of Hogwarts? "P-Professor, please... please just tell me what's going on..."

"Your parents have... oh, I'm sorry Miss Perkins... your parents have been murdered."

Ivory tilted her head at her, not sure she'd heard correctly. She must have heard wrong. "W-what?"

"They were murdered earlier today... by You-Know-Who and his followers. Their bodies were found inside their house," McGonagall said, "and the Dark Mark in the sky above the house."

"No," gasped Ivory, shaking her head vigorously. She crumpled the unopened letter in her fists. "No. No. No. It can't... That's not..."

Her hands shook and she clutched onto the letter. It couldn't be true... This was a cruel joke, or perhaps she was dreaming... She would wake up before she knew it and write to her parents again, telling them that she loved them and was anxious to come home over the Christmas holidays...

Professor McGonagall's eyes were wide and understanding as she placed a hand on her student's shoulder.

In that moment, Ivory's world shattered. Her entire world came crashing down on her. She was feeling way too many emotions to be dreaming... She trembled and felt sick to her stomach. Her teeth chattered as her bones turned to ice. It couldn't be... It couldn't be... They were fine, they were all right, they hadn't left her all alone in this world... They couldn't have done...

"I'm sorry, Ivory," McGonagall said, but Ivory barely heard her. The teacher's voice sounded to her like she was hearing it underwater, because she was drowning... drowning in sorrow and pain and an aching in her heart that made her feel like she could die of a broken heart.

Her parents, the only people she had...

"No," Ivory said again, shaking her head. "No! You're lying to me, you're lying!" She threw McGonagall's arm off of her shoulder angrily and turned on her heel, walking back through the portrait hole without looking back at the Transfiguration professor.

The two people Ivory loved most in the entire world... The only ones she would do anything for, and the only ones who would die for her...

She stumbled through the portrait hole clumsily, feeling a cold sense of nothingness. Her eyes burned with tears, but she wasn't yet crying.

She had never known a world without them...

She looked around the room, not actually seeing anyone around her. She was quite aware that people had begun to stare because her face had blanched, and she was also aware of the sweat beads that had begun to trickle down her forehead. Ivory was aware of the sensation of falling to her knees and she barely felt the impact of the floor.

And suddenly she was sobbing and shaking and choking and she couldn't breathe anymore. Ivory felt empty, absolutely empty, and so alone in the world, because the only two people she had ever truly loved were gone... She had never known true pain, because this was it... The pain of being orphaned, of losing the people she had never lived without... And yet she loved no one else in the entire, cold, lonely universe... No one else was there to soften the blow, because the only ones that could've made her feel better were the ones whose bodies lay cold and dead upon the floor...

Ivory placed one hand in front of her mouth and the other on her stomach, which felt like it had been turned upside down.

Why? Ivory wanted to scream. Why them? Why my parents? Why did You-Know-Who have to kill Muggle-borns? Why had my parents had to be Muggle-born? Why couldn't they have been half-blood or pure-blood, so I would never have to worry about them?

The hysterical girl imagined her mother's eyes glistening with tears that would never be able to leak, her dad's glazed over with death... Their bodies on the ground, dead and cold and lifeless and gone from the world... They would never see her graduate Hogwarts, never see her grow up and get married and they would never be able to see her children if she ever had any... She would never be able to hold either of their hands, never be able to hug them again... not even for one last time, because they were already gone, and they had gone too far to be reached...

Her lunch crawled back up her throat and Ivory retched onto the floor. She was clutching her stomach and her head, and everything hurt, but not more than her chest and the muscle deep inside her ribcage... The one that pumped blood through her veins, though, now, it hurt so much that she thought it might just stop.

Someone fell to their knees next to her. With a flourish of their wand, whoever it was cleaned up the vomit from the floor. The person tried to talk to Ivory, but she didn't hear anything. She still clutched the letter to her chest, which was constricting painfully.

"Ivory," said Remus Lupin. He shook Ivory by the shoulders. "Ivory, please, tell me what's wrong. I want to help you, please come with me. Please."

But she didn't answer. She couldn't answer. Remus's eyebrows furrowed with worry as he stared down at her. He appeared so concerned...

"Are you sick?" he asked.

She looked at him through her tears. Ivory's watery eyes met Remus's and he understood and recognized the pain with which she looked at him.

Remus instantly knew there was something much deeper wrong with her; he had known this girl for seven years and, even though they had never known each other too well, he had never seen her break down as she was breaking down now. he wanted to take her away from the watching eyes of the rest of the Gryffindors lounging around in the common room.

"Do you need something?"

Ivory didn't reply; she only continued to look at him helplessly. His face was blurred by the tears in her eyes and they streamed down her face faster. She felt like she was going to throw up again, or have an anxiety attack, or that her heart would shatter into even smaller pieces than it was already in...

"Ivory?" said a new voice.

Ivory's head was spinning, but she found the strength to turn around slightly, only to see Sirius Black. He also knelt down beside her, attempting to block the girl from the view of everyone else who was watching her nosily.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked Remus.

Remus gulped but didn't respond.

Sirius gave Remus an inquisitive glance, but the latter knew as much as he did about what Ivory was so distraught about.

Both boys leaned down to grab one of Ivory's arms and slung them around their shoulders. Remus and Sirius half-lifted, half-dragged her. She let herself be dragged somewhere, barely aware of what was happening around her. All she saw were glimpses of images that were blurred together around her: she had seen stairs, but her head was spinning and her eyes were too blurred for her to be entirely sure.

As they helped her, she spluttered and choked on her own tears.

Ivory finally collapsed on someone's bed, realizing that Remus and Sirius had brought her to their dormitory.

"Oh, there you are, Moony, Padfoot," started James Potter, emerging from behind one of the dormitory's four-poster beds and coming into sight. "Wormtail and I have been waiting, what kept—"

The bespectacled boy stopped mid-sentence as his eyes fell on Ivory, who was weeping on Remus's bed. His lips parted in shock and he looked to Remus and Sirius for an explanation, though they had none.

"Ivory?" said Peter Pettigrew tentatively, who had also noticed the girl. He advanced towards her.

The last thing Ivory wanted was to explain to people what had happened... No, she could never, ever say it out loud... If she said it out loud, it would make it true, and she didn't want to believe it...

She thrust the unopened letter that she had clutched tightly in her arms out to anyone, and Remus took it from her, casting a furtive glance at her before opening it. He read it over and Ivory watched his face fall through her tears. Understanding again flashed through his eyes and he was suddenly unable to look at the poor girl. Peter, James and Sirius had all looked at the letter by now, and they all looked just as grim.

"Oh, Ivory... I'm so sorry..." Remus started, but he was apparently unable to find anything else to say. He didn't know how he was supposed to react, or what he was supposed to tell her...

Ivory rocked back and forth, her knees tucked underneath her chin. "I w-w-want to d-d-die, j-just let me die!" she shrieked.

"No, don't talk like that," James said gently.

Ivory shook her head and cried harder, burying her face into her knees. He didn't understand, none of them understood real pain... None of them knew at all what she was feeling... None of them had any idea...

"N-no one l-left," she panted, trying to make them understand her. "I—I ha-have no one l-le-left, don't any of you und-d-derstand?!" she continued, her anger flaring up. "NO ONE! I-I-I'm alone! They're g-g-g-gone! He t-took them! Y-Y-YOU-KNOW-WHO T-TOOK TH-THEM FROM ME!"

The four boys stood around the weeping girl silently, unsure of what to say to her. They had greeted her and talked to her and laughed with her before, having known her since first year; but never had they seen her in so much pain and anguish. At the moment, each one of them just wanted to protect her from the pain and couldn't stand to see her like this. She had always just been to them Ivory Perkins, the headstrong girl who always had a comeback for whatever people said to her; the girl who sometimes didn't pay attention in class; the girl who didn't care about her grades but was still clever and wise; the girl who never let something slip past her unnoticed; friend of Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon and Alice Fortescue.

They had never known her to be so weak and vulnerable, but Remus, Sirius, James and Peter knew that if anything was to break Ivory Perkins forever, it would be this.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Author's Note:

This is going to be different from my other stories. They will slowly piece Ivory back together...

Their ship name is Remory. Just saying.

And in the next chapter will be some Remory moments. Comment your thoughts on the story!