~Albus~

For a long moment, we stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring up into darkness. Though the battle had to be raging, it was deathly quiet in this passage. My lit wand hardly seemed to illuminate the darkness at all.

She was trying to disguise it, but Colette was already breathing more heavily than she had been. I couldn't tell what was going through her head or how much pain she was in, but it was more than she was letting on.

"Maybe I should carry you up? It'd be faster..."

"I'm fine," Colette insisted.

I pretended not to notice the apprehension in her eyes, contradicting her words. Instead, I just nodded. "Right. Well... I guess we'd better keep moving, then."

It was a slow and difficult process mounting the stairs. If I'd let her, I think Colette would've tried to put weight on her broken leg. However, though I trusted her in literally no other area, Adalyn did seem to know what she was talking about when it came to healing, and I was very willing to take her word that Colette could hurt herself beyond anyone's ability to help if she wasn't careful. Instead, I made sure she was holding onto the handrail and leaning on me so that we were both involved in lifting her up to the next step.

By the time we reached the second landing, she was trembling. Without asking her permission (she would've said no), I stopped and sat down at the top of the stairs we'd just climbed, gently pulling her down with me.

Colette tried to glare at me, but it turned into a grimace of pain as she tried to adjust herself. "What are you doing?"

"You looked like you needed a break," I said simply. It wasn't like she didn't already know that, after all. I'm sure she suspected I desperately wanted to turn around, take her somewhere far away from all of this until she could recover. I wasn't going to do that to her, but I also wasn't going to let her hurt herself any more than she already had. 

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I'm fine," she said, shaking her head. She'd closed her eyes tightly and was leaning against the wall beside her, breathing deeply. I didn't bother to point out that she clearly wasn't fine. We both knew she wasn't. I'd more been asking if she thought she could make it upstairs. Hopefully she'd actually tell me if it got to be too much.

"Are the painkillers helping?"

"A little."

"What still hurts?"

She hesitated, which was answer enough, but to my relief she did actually answer. "Everything."

"Oh. Um... maybe you should take some more?"

She shook her head without looking at me. "I've felt worse. Jumping off a building isn't as bad as the cruciatus curse, for example."

I pursed my lips. She was trying to make light of this, but I was still worried that she might not even make it. "You should've died, you know."

"Aren't I lucky?" Her tone was surprisingly bitter.

"It wasn't luck." I rested my elbows on my knees, leaning forward in an attempt to catch her eye, but she didn't look at me. At least she was listening, I guess. "I cast arresto momentum the moment I was close enough to do it, and you still almost died. If I'd been even half a second later, you probably would have."

"Thanks," she said softly.

"Were... were you trying to kill yourself?"

At first I thought she wasn't going to answer. She looked down, and even in the dim light I could see she had a faraway look in her eyes. After a moment, she shrugged, which was quickly followed by a gasp of pain. With eyes closed tightly, she pressed her arm against her ribs. When she finally opened her eyes and looked in my direction (though not at me), I thought she was going to change the subject, but instead she sighed. "Most people don't let themselves fall three stories with the intention of surviving."

I did my very best to keep a straight face. Over the past year, I'd seen her emotional and vulnerable more times than in the entire rest of our friendship, ten times over. Whether it was the pain, exhaustion, or something had truly changed in our friendship, I didn't know, but I wasn't going to scare this vulnerability away by lecturing her about this. I imagined she expected me to say all the things that were flashing through my head (Why would you think that's okay? What's wrong with you? That was a terrible idea!). Instead, I shook my head. "What happened?"

She got a faraway look in her eyes. "He... he wanted me to use it on Wren. The spell. I couldn't."

The spell. She still hadn't actually told me what it was, but the way she talked about it, the undertone of horror in her voice, I had to imagine it was something horrible. It didn't kill people, but perhaps it tortured them in some sick way? Caused permanent damage? I'd experienced so many unimaginable things in the detention center that I didn't see how anything could get worse, but dark magic was full of surprises.

Was it a good idea to press her about that right now? I couldn't tell if she simply hadn't realized I didn't know what she was talking about, or if she didn't want to tell me. But why wouldn't she want to tell me?

I shook my head. We weren't going down that road, not till Colette was ready. I'd find out what the spell did sooner or later, after all. "So... so you fell instead?"

"It seemed like the only way out," she whispered.

"Was it?"

Colette glanced at me, frowning as if she didn't understand the question. "I mean... I suppose I don't know. It was the only logical thing to do."

I couldn't imagine that was true. More likely that Colette had been through an even worse hell in the past month and a half than we'd seen at the detention center. More likely that she'd been so beaten down and broken that the hope of any alternative beyond death seemed impossibly out of reach. Well... I guess falling to her death probably did seem logical at the time, now that I'd considered all that.

"How are you not dead?"

Her question startled me out of my thoughts, and for a moment I just blinked at her. What had she said earlier? They'd shown her my body?

My face was heating up with shame. I'd just left her there, left her to be pushed so far that suicide had seemed logical. I'd spent the past month and a half in relative ease and comfort, comparatively. My worry over her wellbeing didn't hold a candle to what she'd experienced, clearly. "Um..." I wanted to turn away, but I felt like I needed to look her in the eye. "I'm sorry. I... I didn't want to..."

"What do you have to be sorry about?"

If I hadn't been able to see the bruises all over her, the dried blood in her hair and on her clothes and seeped through the bandage on her head, I would've thought she was back to normal, just from that tone. The annoyed, sounds-judgmental-but-really-isn't-meant-to-be voice she used when someone had said something stupid, or at least something she thought was stupid. I almost felt relieved to hear it, but it was out of place right now. "What?"

"It's not like you made a deal with Welling or something, did you? What else would you need to be sorry for?" My eyes widened, but she wasn't really asking if I'd done that. Somehow, despite the fact that the thought had gotten into her head at some point, her faith in me hadn't failed. Oh Merlin, she deserved so much better in a friend.

"I... no, of course I didn't do that." I shook my head as if that might clear away the thought. "No. I'm... it's just... I swear, I fought him as hard as I could. I didn't want to leave."

"Fought who?"

I hesitated. She'd understand as soon as I told her. She'd know I'd abandoned her there when the DA had rescued me. In a small voice, I said, "Teddy."

Now Colette was blinking at me as if I was speaking gibberish. "Teddy? Teddy Lupin?"

I didn't ask her what other Teddy I could possibly be talking about. It wasn't the time for jokes. No, I just sighed and looked down at my lap. "I'm so sorry. I was begging him to take me back, to not leave you alone. He wouldn't listen to me."

"You were rescued..." I glanced up to see the realization hit her that she'd been abandoned, but instead of anger, there was a smile spreading across her face. "Thank Merlin," was all she said. I stared at her. She... she wasn't upset?

When her eyes met mine again, they were misty, but I also saw a glimmer of something that hadn't been there a moment before. Hope, maybe. Something I hadn't seen since before this all started. "All this time I thought you were dead, but you were rescued. You were safe."

"I... yeah..." This wasn't the reaction I'd expected, and now I didn't know what to do. "You're not upset?"

"You can't be serious." She shook her head slightly. "Of course I'm not. That's... that's amazing, Albus."

My eyes were getting watery all of a sudden, and I didn't want to cry. I didn't know how she'd react to it, for one thing, but it also seemed odd that I would be the one to cry when she had only just escaped a living nightmare by throwing herself off a building, essentially. I wasn't about to make this about me, even though the relief flooding through me was almost palpable.

She looked down just then. "They said you'd died. Killed yourself in the showers." After a shaky breath, she shook her head again. "I... I didn't believe them, but they showed me a body, and I didn't know what to think..."

Part of me didn't want to know the answer to my next question, but I knew I had to ask. "Was... was that what broke you?"

To my surprise, Colette shook her head. "I just... I just stopped responding to anything. Catatonic, almost. Like it broke me past the point of being usable, I guess." Her hands were trembling now. "Stillens came. That's what brought me back."

I let out a slow breath. That made sense. The one and only time I'd met the man, he hadn't wanted anything from me, so it was easy to resist, but I couldn't imagine the pressure Astra and Wren felt from him. It might have been even worse for Colette, after so many months of torture.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her expression hollow, peering into the darkness below us. "I couldn't do it. I tried, but... it was too much."

"It's okay," I said soothingly, scooting closer to her instinctively so I could rub her back. She flinched, but didn't even tell me to stop. Not a good sign. "You lasted so much longer than anyone else could have. It's not something to be sorry about."

Her eyes were squeezed closed, and the pain in her expression had nothing to do with her physical state. "They took me to the manor, I think. Some huge room with the windows all boarded up. And Stillens kept coming, day after day. I can't do occlumency, Al."

"It's okay. Most people can't."

"No. I... I couldn't let him see in my head. So... I made a deal with him. I'd create his spell if he never did legilimency on me, never even looked in my eyes. I'd stop for good if he even tried, purposefully blow myself up with a spell gone wrong and maybe even take him out with me?" She shook her head. "It sounds ridiculous. I... I don't think I was fully there, if that makes sense."

"It doesn't sound ridiculous. The fact that you even tried to make a deal with him—that he agreed to it—that's remarkable." I hesitated, but she didn't continue on her own. "What... what was the spell?"

"He didn't tell me until after. I wouldn't have agreed."

"You were his prisoner. You were doing the best you could."

She was shaking now. Was it with repressed sobs, anger at herself, or the physical pain she was in? I couldn't tell. I took one of her hands in my free one, and she didn't pull away. She was still just staring into the darkness. The hollowness of her expression came out in her voice as she said, "He wanted a spell that could take away someone's ability to do magic."

I blinked in surprise. That was so outside the realm of reality that I never would have even thought about that, but I guess genocidal maniacs were good at coming up with horrendous ways to defeat their enemies. Was that even possible, though?

Colette was finally watching me, now that I'd finally looked away from her. The shame in her expression as she looked down again made my heart clench. How could she not see that it wasn't her fault?

"Stillens kept his end of the deal, unfortunately," she whispered, "so I had to keep mine. And it worked."

I still couldn't wrap my head around what she even meant, so even though I was afraid it might make her spiral more, I asked, "How... how does that even work?"

"Very dark magic. Irreversible magic, I think." She bit her lip. "It should be unforgivable."

I nodded slowly, squeezing her hand in mine. "It's okay, Colette. It's not your fault."

She shook her head, eyes growing dull. "The incantation is utno magici. You'll have to say it too, when we're up there. It... it doesn't just cut off your connection with magic. It doesn't work like that. There are biological differences between wizards and muggles, of course, and this... it basically rewrites a person's DNA. Takes whatever magic they have inside them and shrivels it up until they have nothing left."

Though I wanted to comfort her, I had to admit that sounded horrific. I didn't want to know what she'd had to do to learn all of these things. But no matter how bad this sounded, no matter how deep and dark the magic she'd delved into was, it wasn't her fault. She was acting like this should make me pull away from her, condemn her somehow, but it just made me want to pull her into a hug she probably wouldn't want and never let go. I couldn't imagine how horrible all of this had been for her. 

Right then, I remembered why we were huddled in this dark stairwell, why we were trying to get back to the man who'd put her through all this pain. I was starting to understand why some werewolves might intentionally hurt people, because I wanted nothing more than to go snap his neck, but that wasn't what we were doing. Colette wanted to take his magic away. "So... you're going to use his own spell against him?"

She nodded stiffly. "I... I know it's a horrible thing to do, but... half his power is in intimidation alone, and if we can take away his tools of intimidation..."

My eyes widened. "Oh, that makes sense." A moment later though, I was frowning again. "Why couldn't you just let me go up and do it? You could've gotten somewhere safe where you could rest."

"It won't work, I told you." She finally looked over at me again, the seriousness in her expression undercut by the resigned look in her eyes. "I know what I'd have to change so that anyone could use it, but I'm not going to make those changes. I told Stillens it was the most difficult part of the spell. I thought he might wait until I 'figured it out.'"

"Did he not?"

Colette pursed her lips. "No. He just... he just made me use it."

My breath caught. No wonder she felt so much guilt. If he'd been forcing her to use it on people, she'd already seen how destructive it truly was. "Oh. Oh, Colette, I'm so sorry."

"I was trying to work on a counterspell, secretly," she said, completely ignoring me. "But I haven't had any luck. I think it might be irreversible."

I shifted down, crouching on the step below so I could see her face better with her head lowered. She didn't protest when I took her hand in both of mine. That wasn't a good sign, and neither was the defeated, sorrowful look on her face. I wasn't going to let that stand. "You know it's not your fault, right?"

"Objectively, that's not true."

"It's as much your fault as my lycanthropy is your fault." I shook my head. "Stillens forced this on you. He forced you to make the spell, and he forced you to use it."

But she was already shaking her head. "At the end of the day, no one can truly force you to do anything," she said quietly. "You can always choose to just face the consequences. And I didn't."

"Because you were alone." I paused, trying to figure out how I was supposed to make Colette see reason. She was supposed to already do that by default. "You were alone, and scared, and no one could blame you for what you did."

"I could've been stronger."

"Clearly not." I leaned forward, forcing her to make eye contact with me. "You survived months of torture, of watching me get tortured, and never let on that it was affecting you at all. You're the strongest person I know. If he broke you down to the point where you gave in, it was because you had resisted as much as you were capable of. Literally. It's not your fault."

"I could only do that because you were there," Colette said softly. "I could only be strong because of you."

"I feel like that just proves my point." I pursed my lips, trying to think of a different tactic. She wasn't going to let me compare this to the guilt I felt about the manor raid, no matter how similar the feelings truly were. What else was there? "Don't believe me. Fine. But you don't hold anything Wren did against her, do you?"

She stared at me for a moment, seeming caught off guard, and I struggled not to let out a sigh of relief that she hadn't already thought this through and rejected the idea. These situations were as close to being the same as anything possibly could be.

"Wren was a child," she countered. "I'm an adult, even by muggle standards. That's not the same."

"It is, though." I closed my eyes, resisting the urge to beat my head against the wall. Why couldn't she see? If only Wren were here—she'd know how to get through to her.

Colette gently pulled her hand from my grasp, and I opened my eyes to see her shaking her head sadly. "It's okay, Albus. I know I have to live with this. We need to focus on the present."

We most certainly did not, not when she was this unstable, but I could tell she was absolutely done talking about this, at least for now. I sighed heavily, looking up as I did. "We're halfway there. Are you sure you don't want me to carry you?"

To my surprise, she hesitated. After a moment she shook her head, but the hesitation was enough for me to pounce on. "It's really no trouble, Colette. Let me enjoy the one perk of being a werewolf, okay? Besides, it'll be a lot faster."

I have to say, after the heaviness of the past few minutes, there was something absurd about that. Colette blinked for a moment, then laughed a little, seemingly in spite of herself. That triggered a laugh from me as well. "I bet you never thought lycanthropy would come to your aid, did you?"

She laughed. "I can't say I did."

"So can I carry you?"

"I'm really fine," she protested, but when I raised an eyebrow at her, she sighed. "If you insist, I guess."

As gently as I could, I hooked one arm under her legs and the other behind her back. Colette still winced in pain as I jostled her leg, but the trip up the next two flights of stairs was over in only a few minutes, no break needed at the top.

Still, we paused after I'd set her back down on her feet. There was a closed door in front of us, and Colette wasn't sure how many people would be on the other side. She didn't have enough strength to fight, and I was still using a borrowed wand, so I didn't know how much we could reasonably handle. I was about to suggest she wait here when she glanced over at me. "Were you happy? To be out?"

I turned to stare at her in surprise, even though I knew the answer immediately. "No," I said. "I wasn't. I was just terrified for you."

She looked down, but I caught a flash of sadness. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." I pursed my lips for a moment, wondering if I even needed to say this right now, but I ended up shaking my head. "They knocked me out, and I woke up in the Lupins flat. I've never been that angry, actually. Even over James..."

Now she was looking at me again, surprise on her face. "Why would you be angry?"

"At Teddy. I told you, I didn't want to go. He... he dragged me out, against my will, kicking and screaming." I bit my lip. It probably sounded ridiculous to her, but it still felt justified to me. "I didn't talk to anyone for days, really. And then... when we found out you'd disappeared..." I swallowed, tears welling up in my eyes at the thought. Colette was right next to me, fully alive, but I still felt the anguish of that night like a knife in my heart. "I ran away."

"I'm sorry, you what?"

"It was only to Gideon and Vinnie's, but I made them swear not to tell anyone else. Especially the Lupins. And my mum. And Astra..."

Colette pulled away from me as much as she could while still having to lean on me for support. She was staring at me in shock. "None of them know where you've been?"

"No."

"Not even Astra?"

I looked down. "I didn't say I was proud of all my choices." With a shake of my head, I reached for the door. "Let's get this over with."

To my surprise, there was no one in the room we walked into. I suppose they were all down in the battle, and I suppose I also shouldn't have been surprised, since Colette had already told me this way would be barely guarded at all. She pointed to a large, curtained archway across from us. "That's where they were," she said softly.

My feet felt rooted to the floor. I stared at the curtain, wincing as a faint scream of pain came through. I couldn't tell if that was from the battle below or one of my friends, but either way, it was horrible.

Colette glanced at me. "You realize Astra's less than twenty meters away, don't you? And she doesn't even know you're alive?"

I shrugged. "Did they see you fall?" When she nodded, I shrugged again. "You'll be more shocking than me, then. Don't worry about it."

"That's not what I'm worried about."

Though I tried to meet her eyes for a moment, I ended up ducking my head. "There's not time to fix anything now. I'll just have to make sure we all survive." I raised an eyebrow at her. "We're all going to survive. Especially you. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, no matter what it takes."

Now she was the one who looked away. "Focus on them before me, Al. They're more important."

"You're my best friend," I said without thinking about it, though as the words came out I recognized they were true. I didn't really have a hierarchy of my friendships, but... Colette and I had walked through hell together, and I was going to make sure we made it back out again.

Her eyes had actual tears in them. She had to reach up and wipe them away with her blood-hardened sleeve, but she managed a smile. "You're too good for me, Al."

"I'd argue the opposite, but I think that's what makes a good friendship." I leaned my head against hers for just a moment, the most affection I could show without hurting her or causing her to fall.

Her face had turned to stone when I looked back at her again—the unmovable Colette I was used to seeing. I held back a sigh of relief, then blinked away a few pesky tears as I realized that she'd chosen to let me see all of that. It hadn't just been exhaustion. Whatever had happened between us in the detention center... it was still there. As she met my eyes, I marshalled my expression into something serious as well. "We're going to make it."

Her expression softened just a bit. "You can believe it for both of us."

~~~~

I asked you guys a long time ago about what you thought a fourth unforgivable spell would be, and one of you said a spell to take away someone's magic which was so incredibly exciting to me because I'd only just thought of this plot point.

Question of the Day: Do you think a spell like this should be unforgivable? Or is it necessary or even good in some circumstances?

Answer: You know I love me some gray areas lol, like I do think this should be unforgivable but a good argument might change my mind.

Vote and comment!

~Elli

Word count: 4233