Marina and Harry entered the Diggorys' tiny kitchen to find Amos hiding his face behind a copy of The Daily Prophet. "Did you sleep well?"

Marina had not slept a second because she had been too afraid that nightmares would haunt her pretty little mind if she closed her eyes, and Harry had woken up at least a hundred times because he had struggled to breathe properly. But she didn't want to bother Amos with their struggles, so instead, she asked him what had happened to Cedric while they had been asleep.

Amos put his paper down on the table, pointed his finger at an article, and then explained that the Ministry had found seven young witches and wizards dead in the hallways of Hogwarts. No names had been written in the paper, but Amos confirmed that Cho had been one of those who had passed away. Marina could not remember what happened after Amos had turned silent again. The pain of knowing that she had opened the Floo Network that the Death Eaters had used to get inside the school had caused to have a panic attack. When she came to her senses, she lay on Harry's lap while he read aloud from her father's diary to her.

Kreacher came back to her that morning after Apparating Draco to the manor. The Malfoy had been ready to go home and therefore had not put up any resistance when Kreacher came to help him out of the castle.

When Marina looked at the house-elf, she couldn't help but dream about long days at 12, Grimmauld Place. She wondered if it was safe there now. If the Death Eaters had been searching for her and Harry, they had probably already been in the house - and left after finding nothing but dust on rotting furniture.

She asked Harry what he thought: would it be okay to go back to Grimmauld Place just for a day to sort their thoughts out? It seemed like they were going to be on the run for quite some time. Besides, where else were they supposed to go?

After some minutes of thinking, Harry agreed that it was a good idea. The pair left the Diggorys a short hour later with the help of Kreacher's Apparation.

"WHAT IS A FILTHY HALF-BLOOD DOING IN MY HOUSE? TAINT OF SHAME ON THE HOUSE OF MY FATHERS-"

"Good morning to you, too, Grandmother." Marina blew air out of her nose and ran to cover the portrait of Walburga with a cloak that hung beside it. She turned back to Harry to discover that he was stiffening up behind her - and it wasn't because of Walburga's words. It was because he had understood that they were not alone in the house. And it was clear that the lion's first instinct was to protect his loved, and hunt down the enemy: not showing a sign of fear, he ran up the stairs.

"Stupefy!"

Harry cursed loudly as he arched backward. Marina took a step back just as his head hit the ground.

"Bloody hell, Hermione, that's Harry!"

Marina could relax her tense muscles when Ron and Hermione came to sight. Hermione had turned pink and was quietly muttering an apology, and Ron was reaching a hand out for Harry to take.

When the quartet sat down around the wide table in the kitchen just five minutes later, Hermione explained that they had come to Grimmauld Place alone the same morning. Harry asked about what had happened at Hogwarts the night before. Marina tried to focus hard on her cup of tea in hopes that she could somehow block out Ron's words, but she was failing miserably. Harry must have noticed that she was shaking, for he silently put his hand in her lap and used his thumb to rub circles on the inside of her thigh under the table in hopes to calm her down.

"Dunno where they came from," Ron said, mouth full of the chocolate Remus had left behind. "They came into the Common Room and began firing spells at us. There were lots of them, and we tried to fight back, but most of us ended up in the Hospital Wing. They even got Bill. I tell you, he's got nasty scars on his face now. The others were afraid of what Fleur was going to say, but she didn't mind them. She thought it made him braver or something."

"Most of the students were fine when we left," Hermione explained. "But... I don't know if you know, Harry... But Dumbledore..."

"I know he was murdered," Harry answered sharply.

Hermione gulped before continuing, "and some students were also killed."

"Well, that's one way to put it," Ron scoffed. "The Death Eaters went crazy - blasting everything and everyone they saw. You should have seen Bellatrix. She got into the Great Hall and-"

"What?" Marina gasped. Harry let go of his grip on her thigh, and the warm feeling he had created was replaced with cold air. Merlin, how she hated the cold.

"Yeah! She set fire to the whole place and shattered the windows, and then someone tried to stop her but she just-"

"Bellatrix?" Marina said, needing him to confirm that he had spoken her name. "That's not possible."

"I'm telling you, she was there! Surrounded by some other foul Death Eaters."

"That's not possible."

"Why wouldn't it be possible? I mean-"

"BECAUSE I KILLED HER!" Marina shot out of her seat. Ron jumped back; Hermione smacked her hand over her open mouth; Harry's eyes widened. "I didn't mean to, but she was cursing me, and I was so stressed. I remembered a spell I had read in an old Potions book and tried it on her. Suddenly, she was covered in blood, and she fell to the floor."

Silence danced around the room for a long minute. Then, Ron gulped, "what kinda Potions book teaches you to slash someone?"

Somehow, all the pieces fell together with the thought of his name. The reason why she had recognized the Half-Blood Prince's handwriting... The reason why Snape had asked her where she had learned the curse... The reason why he had run to help Bellatrix while she was bleeding to death...

"Snape's," Marina declared, flaring her nostrils. He was the Half-Blood Prince. "Snape taught me the spell. Snape undid the spell after I killed Bellatrix so that she could live. Snape killed Dumbledore and Snape didn't let me fight the Death Eaters who were going to Hogwarts and Snape did the Unbreakable Vow and Snape didn't let Voldemort wipe out my memory last summer-"

"Why would Snape kill Dumbledore?" Hermione asked, choosing to ignore everything else that Marina had said.

Marina reached into her bag and found the locket Harry had found in Dumbledore's pocket. "I'm not sure, but I think it had something to do with this. It has my father's written note in it. I think it's a fake Horcrux."

"I don't think they know much about Horcruxes," said Harry, confirming that he had yet to tell his best friends about Voldemort's strategies to live forever.

Marina shook her head and turned to Kreacher, showing him the locket. He looked at it with bloodshot eyes. "You wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"

"No, Mistress," Kreacher shook his head, "Kreacher knows nothing."

"I think you do," Harry chimed in.

"And I think you should tell me everything you know, Kreacher," Marina said in a low tone, leaning closer to the house-elf. "Do I need to shove you into the room across the hallway to show you my family tree and remind you who I am? Or, no- actually, I order you to tell me everything you know, Kreacher."

Kreacher gulped for air, his hollow chest rising and falling rapidly. And he broke; he told them everything he knew about the locket: before Marina's birth, Voldemort had requested the use of a House-elf from his Death Eaters. Master Regulus had volunteered Kreacher. A great honor it had been, for both Regulus and Kreacher, for Voldemort to bring the elf to a cave beside the sea. The Dark Lord had presented Kreacher to a basin full of poison there. He had ordered the elf to drink the poison. And Kreacher had drunk and drunk until he had seen terrible things and until his insides were burning, and then, Voldemort had dropped a locket into the empty basin and left the house-elf to die in the cave. However, Voldemort had overlooked the house-elves' special magic binding them to their masters. Kreacher had been able to Apparate back to Regulus, and after seeing how Voldemort had treated Kreacher, Regulus had turned against him.

During Regulus' time as a Death Eater, Voldemort had made veiled references to his Horcruxes - that, Marina had read in her father's diary. Regulus had concluded that Voldemort had made a Horcrux and that it was the object that he had forced Kreacher to help him protect. Having reached these conclusions, Regulus had told Kreacher to take him back to the island he had been left. There, he had seen the Horcrux hidden away in the basin covered in poison. The only way to remove the potion from the basin, thereby making the Horcrux able to fetch, was to drink it, as Kreacher had done. Not wanting the house-elf to suffer more, Regulus had drunk the poison, which caused him unbearable pain. He instructed Kreacher to switch the true locket with a fake one, and to take the Horcrux home and destroy it. He ordered Kreacher to leave the cave without him, and Kreacher, with the Horcrux in hand, watched in horror as Regulus was dragged beneath the lake by an army of Inferi.

Kreacher had never been able to destroy the locket, and he had continuously punished himself for it.

"Then the one Dumbledore had is fake," Harry concluded. "Where's the real one?"

The house-elf didn't answer. Marina leaned back in her chair, wiping away a tear.

"It's in the house," Ron guessed. "I think it's in the Drawing Room - that's the room he has spent the most time in all these years."

"Is it true, Kreacher?" Marina asked. The elf had big tears rolling down his crooked nose. It was clear that Regulus' death had left him with scars on his mind. But Marina had to continue, "I order you to show me where the locket is."

Kreacher led Marina into the Drawing Room. The others were left in the kitchen. While she closed the door, he paced to the other side of the room.

He had placed the locket in a glass case.

"Do you trust me enough to give it to me?" Marina asked softly. He did not open his mouth but did instead move the glass case away from the locket. Before reaching for it, she looked Kreacher deeply into his eyes, and smiled, "thank you for taking care of my father. I will never forget everything you have done for my family, and I will never forgive Tom for what he did to you."

Marina reached for the locket. A serpentine S, inlaid with glittering, green stones shone brightly against the corner of her eye. When her skin met with the Horcrux, screams echoed in her head, and the taste of blood lingered on her lips. The stench of death traveled through the room. She fell to the floor, feeling as if she was falling through it and further down through the earth. She saw images of Voldemort flash before her; he was gasping, stumbling backward. He knew.

Marina got to her feet again and sprinted back into the kitchen, clutching the Horcrux in her hand. "He knows where I am - he saw it when I touched the locket. We need to go."

But even if she rushed and ran and screamed, it was too late. Tom had seen where she was, and he had not hesitated to send Death Eaters her way. Just as she put the locket around her neck, she heard them marching up the stairs.

"If he can see your thoughts, too, you should've just closed your mind!" she heard Ron yell (she let his words travel in through one ear and out the other before they could get to her head).

Hermione got to her feet before any of the boys could. She stepped outside of the kitchen, pointed her wand at the staircase, and shouted: "Glisseo!"

Marina furrowed her eyebrows. She had never heard the spell before. Stepping out of the kitchen, peeking over Hermione's shoulder, she found that the staircase had turned into a slide. The three Death Eaters had fallen and were now rushing back to the portrait of the wailing Walburga.

Marina let out a chuckle, then, she heard a small crack, and suddenly, a Death Eater was standing right next to her. Tall and muscular, breathing heavily, he pointed his wand at Harry, and cried: "Incarcarous!"

Harry ducked under the table. The robes that had been created for the sole purpose of tying him up collapsed against the chair he had been sitting on. Hermione pointed her wand at the Death Eater, and said clearly: "Obscuro!"

A black blindfold appeared over the Death Eaters' eyes. He stumbled backward, almost leaning on Marina. However, before he could touch her, she let her knee dive deep into his stomach; he gasped for air and stumbled back into the kitchen, leaving a reek of salt from his sweat behind. Harry disarmed him right before the other Death Eaters Apparated into the room.

"Crucio!" one of them shouted.

"Protego!" Ron was quick to answer.

"Stupefy!"

Marina did not think that one of the Death Eaters had been aiming for her, but she now found herself blasting backward into the hall. She hit a wall, her head slamming hard against it, making everything turn red for a few seconds. But she sat up straight and smirked, not showing a sign of weakness. "That's all you got?"

The Death Eater that had stunned her pointed his wand at her again. "Petrificus Totalus!" Marina prepared to feel her body freeze, but nothing happened. She was still able to get up from the floor, which clearly confused the man. Irritated, he once again screamed, "Stupefy!" as if he needed to check that his magic was still working on her - it most definitely was. Marina flew up in the air again, getting thrown across the hall before meeting the door to her father's old bedroom.

Everything went red again. Marina heard loud cracking sounds and her own heartbeat as spurts of blood rushed through her veins. She felt multiple explosions of pain before she saw light again. For a second, she thought that she had died; that the Death Eater had cast the Killing Curse on her, and the light she was seeing was the afterlife. But pure horror would soon strike her.

Marina was very much alive, but Harry was laying beside her on the floor, blood pouring out of a slash across his stomach and chest. He was not breathing.

"No..."

She wanted to scream, wail, but she could not even breathe. She felt her world fall apart, crawling to his lifeless body.

"Move away!" Hermione's suddenly cried. Marina could not see her; her vision was far too blurry. "It's a Boggart!"

Hermione came running into the room. She grabbed Marina's shoulder, a crack echoing as she Apparated them away from Grimmauld Place. Her words played on repeat in Marina's head as the flashing of colors of Apparation blinded them.

Green, blue, black. It couldn't have been a Boggart. Marina's Boggart was Tom. She had proven that he was her greatest fear to all the Slytherin and Gryffindor students in her year back when Remus was teaching at Hogwarts.

Red, orange, purple. She fell to her knees when the flashing of colors faded away, and her heart skipped a beat when Harry rushed to help her up. When she looked at him, she could still see empty eyes and a lifeless body, but she pushed it aside, and threw her arms around him, feeling herself shake violently.

Harry was in front of her. Harry was breathing. Harry was alive. At least she thought he was.

"You have the Horcrux?" he asked. After she had nodded, he leaned in and kissed her hard.

At first, Marina had thought that Hermione had Apparated them to the Forbidden Forest, but of course, she wouldn't have been foolish enough to go back to school grounds after everything that had happened. She had Apparated them to a forest where she and her family had gone camping when she was younger. They were supposed to stay there until they had made their plan on what to do next. No place was safer because if Voldemort got inside Marina's head again, he would only see tall trees - no buildings or objects that could tell him where she was.

The cold January weather made goosebumps rise. Marina asked Hermione to light a fire, which she did with a simple flick of her wand. The Golden Trio then used their wands to set up a tent, agreeing that they were all to take turns on sleeping so that if any Death Eaters would somehow find them, they could fight them off and alert the others before anyone got hurt.

Harry was the first one to fall asleep. Hermione stayed up to think, only to asleep next to him an hour later.

Marina was sitting by the fireplace when Ron approached her. He pulled out his wand, laid it on the ground, and sat down next to her in the snow. She didn't say anything; come to think of it, she had never been alone with him.

"Do you want to sleep?" he asked. She shook her head. "Do you not feel safe here?"

"I do. I just don't want to have nightmares."

Both turned silent again. Marina looked into the flames in front of them. If Ron only knew that Voldemort had made her kill his sister in her dreams... That she had used her as some kind of doll to train her killing technique...

"You're thinking of her, aren't you? Bellatrix. You believed you had killed her." He moved closer to her, looking at her. She did not look back at him, for she was still not completely comfortable around him. "You know, you're not alone, Marina. We're in a war. We're all killers. We've all got blood on our hands. When we fought at the Ministry last year, and when we fought at Hogwarts yesterday, we had to hurt and kill others so that we could stay alive ourselves."

"Do you regret it? Killing and hurting others?"

He shook his head, "not after everything they have taken from us. Do you?"

She nodded slowly, "some days, I feel trapped under the weight of every bad thing I have ever done."

"Remember when we were eleven years old with no blood on our hands? When our biggest problem was the duel between our houses? And now, five years later, we can't clean the blood out from under our fingernails." He scoffed and looked down at the ground. "But we've come too far to quit, haven't we? Maybe he'll wake up tomorrow and realize that he is no longer the hunter, but the prey."

"I'm just so tired," said Marina, her voice breaking. "He's always inside my head. Some days, I can't even tell if my body belongs to me."

"Marina." She finally looked at him when he reached for her arm. "Despite everything that has happened, you are still here. And you are not who you were before; you are not the girl who bowed to him and let him control you. You have realized who you are now. It's time to make him bow."

She felt peace for the first time that day. "Thank you, Ron." Looking down at his hand, she found his knuckles bruised. She tried to imagine what it had been like to fight in the battle that happened in the castle the night before. "Do you... Do you want to talk about what happened yesterday?"

He stiffened up, crossing his arms, scrunching his nose. "It's late. Shouldn't we go to sleep?"

"And wake them up?" Marina answered and looked through the small opening of the tent. Beneath blankets, Harry's chest was rising. "Just tell me one thing: did they kill anyone I knew?"

A thousand questions rushed through Marina's head when Ron turned and looked into the flames, bringing his hands close to them to feel any kind of warmth in the cold winter night. Was it selfish of her to ask? Did he think that she was too fragile to hear the names of those slaughtered? Did he not know who the victims were? Was he angry at her?

"Not anyone from your house. The purest blood shouldn't be spilled, yeah?"

But the way he bit his lip, moved his chin and scratched his neck told something different. "Liar," Marina said fearlessly. "Why are you lying to me?"

He stroked his hand through his hair, "I don't know if I should tell you. You're very vulnerable now, Marina. Try to get some sleep, and I'll tell you everything that happened in the morning, okay? I'm pretty sure 'Mione got something to say about it, too."

Marina opened her mouth, ready to lash out. But she soon realized that he was right. She needed time to process the ends she had witnessed. "Okay. But I don't know how I'm going to fall asleep now."

He smiled a gentle smile, "if you want to, I can watch the locket while you sleep. Since he's connected to it, it might be easier to shut him out if you take it off."

Though it was weird to admit, Marina found herself comfortable in Ron's presence. For the first time in her life, she trusted Ron. He didn't want her to be hurting. He wasn't like those who had raised her. She reached under her robe and found the locket, pulling her head trough it. "Just be careful with it. It's Dark Arts..."

She carefully put the locket in his hand. He was quick to close his fist around it. "Why, thank you, sweetheart."

A horrible feeling spread through Marina's body when she realized that the voice she had heard did not belong to Ron.

Ron's red hair was turning black and his entire face was changing; his eyes growing bigger, his lips thinner, his nose smaller, his freckles disappearing. The Ron Marina knew was no longer in front of her. In front of her sat a Death Eater, clutching her father's locket.

"No!"

Marina shot forward in an attempt to take the locket back, to snatch it out of his hands, but he was quick to dodge her. His wand still on the ground, she attempted to grab it. His response was to take a swing at her face, sending her stumbling backward. Intense pain radiated across her face; she felt red, hot blood pouring out of her nose and down to her chin, down her throat. She wanted to vomit when she saw drops of dark red, almost black, blood dripping on the snow.

She turned and tried to scream for Harry and Hermione's help, only to find out that they had now transformed into Death Eaters, too. One blond and short, the other tall and muscular - she recognized them all: they were the three Death Eaters that had come to Grimmauld Place, which meant that they had been taking Polyjuice Potions. And if they had gotten the hairs of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, then they must have captured them first. The Boggart Marina had seen had not been a Boggart at all...

The blond pointed at the fire the fake Hermione had lit, muttering "Aguamenti," and Marina had to watch as water killed the only warmth she had left. Her ears ringing, she lunged forward to steal his wand. He simply took a step back, lifting the wand over his head and drawing circles with it. The tent vanished with him and the two other Death Eaters, and suddenly, Marina found herself standing all alone in the dark, not being able to see an inch ahead of her.

She screamed out, a scream filled with both anger, confusion, and sorrow. She closed her eyes hard, searching for the memories of what had happened just an hour before. When she looked back at the memories now, she realized that the Death Eaters had been speaking with their normal voices all along. Tom had played with her mind and used the memories she had of the actual Golden Trio to make her remember their voices when the Death Eaters spoke.

Maybe this was a nightmare? She screamed out again. She didn't want to believe that she was on her own.

The January air made the tears on her cheeks turn to ice as she laid down on the snow, shutting her eyes tight in hopes that when she woke up, everything would be back to normal.

As long as you're by my side, everything will be alright, Harry

She survived the first night. She went numb the second. Without her wand, without the ability to Apparate, without anyone by her side, without food and water, without proper clothes, and without knowing where she was, her body became weaker than ever. Kreacher was still home, and he couldn't find her because she had freed him for his duties. Marina understood that winter wished to kill her with a kiss.

I'm losing everyone I love, please don't leave me

She was hurting psychically and emotionally on the second day. Her stomach was growling, her head spinning, and all she could do was cry. Salt on her pale and dry lips, she involuntary licked the salt away, only to find it returning a split second later. She went in and out of consciousness. When she was awake, she played with the thought of letting all the hurt go and whisper goodbye. Her skin was so cold it had begun to burn, but she swore she could feel her blood freeze to ice. There was no way she could move anymore. Glued to the snow, she felt her face getting stabbed a thousand times. She inhaled knives and blades and exhaled her last hope.

When all of this is over... You and I will settle down together, and we'll forget about this. We're going to win this battle, right? And we will grow old together

That night, while she slept, Tom called on her. He said he could give her water, food, and warmth - but only if she listened to him.

He wanted her to kill one more. Life traded for playing by his rules and coloring inside the lines he had created. Still, Marina would rather die than live a lie. My darling, when you are going to die, you don't go gentle into the good night; you rage, rage against the dying of light. He struck her with red lightning, and a pain she had never felt before burned her heart.

The night that followed was dark - so was her sleep, and so was the moment that followed after her passing. No light. No greeting with loved ones. No paradise. Just darkness. Slipping under ice, letting water enter her lunges, Marina Darya Black gave her last smile to the world that had been so unkind to her.

Dear reader, do you think the Death Eaters were proud of what they had done? Marina Darya Black's name echoed through Malfoy Manor when they met again. The world kept spinning, and she had left behind a legacy they would soon diminish. Draco had to stare at the seat where his best friend was supposed to be seated, wondering why Tom had ever let her die if she was part of his soul. Trust me when I say that he didn't dare to look down at his Dark Mark again. Narcissa could hold him close and wipe his tears, but she was just as shattered as him. Once, they had screamed Marina's name, but now, they were whispering it. And after enough whispers, Snape told the Order of the Phoenix what had happened.

Dear reader, do you doubt me when I say that when Harry got the message, he wailed and screamed like he hoped that it would somehow bring her back to him? That she could somehow hear his cry on the way to the afterlife and turn for him? Marina had died believing that Harry had been killed by Death Eaters. But the Order had saved him, and he was now breaking in Remus' arms. Marina Black had become a ghost; a tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and time again; an instant of pain; an emotion suspended in time like a blurred photograph. When Molly took the teacup that had been stained by Marina's lipstick and held it under running water in the sink, the last proof that she had been alive only a few days ago faded.

Dear reader, do you believe that death is a fate better than life? That when you die, you will stay in your lover's heart? That everything you wished to say, has been said? Truth be told, he hated her for leaving her. They had been young, believing that they had time enough to not only survive but to live. But they had been clueless about what life had planned for them. It was written in the stars the day she was born. When she had given him her name when she was only fourteen, she had given him her body with it. He had promised to love it. The girl who had never felt love before, the girl who had been laid on thorns before she had ever been presented to roses, the girl who had never let anyone into her heart, felt pure love. She did not understand what was happening when she fell in love the boy who had crept into her heart against her will, but she understood this: he would be the death of her. From the way that he kissed her with all the passion in the world, to the way chills went down her spine when he touched her; love was going to kill her, and she would let it. Would she still have kissed him in the Room of Requirement after she had produced her first Patronus if she knew that the kiss would kill her? Would she still have slept in his bed if she knew that it would result in her death? Would she still have danced with him in the Joke Shop, resting her head against his chest to hear his heart, if she knew that she would stop breathing a month later? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. If she knew it all then, she would still do it again. She would love him and die for him thousand times over. Lord knows he would do the same for her. But it was too late now. Only love and death had changed his life, and she was both.

Harry James Potter. The last name she thought of. She thought of the way his eyes would crinkle when she told him a bad joke and the way he would purse his lips when he was frightened. She thought of the way his hair would always get messy when they slept in each other's arms, how when she told him that he snored he would shake his head, laugh it away and leave kisses on her forehead. She thought of the way he would hold her hand and dance with her, their bodies swaying slowly, even though he was the worst at it. She thought of the way his fingers felt on her skin when he caressed her scars, how his eyebrows would knit together when he discovered a new bruise on her leg, how he would look into her eyes and tell her about the revenge they would once get on those who had wronged them. She thought of how fearless he was. Love of her life. Always sacrificing himself for others. Never afraid to earn new scars. Never afraid to bleed. She thought about the way that he cried, the way he would push his head deep into a pillow and wail and shake and only stop when she hugged him. She thought of how she would never see his face again. How she would never kiss his lips, his nose, and his scars again. How she would never dry his tears, wash blood off his pale skin, and numb his pain again. Little Marina. Little warrior. Little darling. Daughter of ocean and flames. You will never know how loud he screamed when you died.

You were born on June 1, 1980. You thought your life was simple. You were raised by the Dark Lord, who you thought was your father. You grew up in Malfoy Manor with Draco Malfoy, who you thought was your cousin, by your side. You spent your childhood dreaming about meeting Bellatrix Black, who you thought was your mother, and learning from Narcissa, who you thought was your aunt. When you were eleven, you were sorted into the Slytherin house. You spent your first year at Hogwarts hating the Boy Who Lived. You bullied bloodtraitors and mudbloods. When you were twelve, the Dark Lord began training you to kill. When you were thirteen, you showed every Gryffindor and Slytherin student in your year that he was your greatest fear. But only Harry knew his face. When you were fourteen, you were told you needed to make Harry fall in love with you. Your name fell out of the Goblet of Fire. The Triwizard Tournament gave you harm enough for a lifetime. The same year, you defended Hermione when she was bullied by Snape. Do you remember what happened then, Marina? I know you do. You earned Harry's trust, but you had to be punished by torture by the Dark Lord the same night. Weeks later, you went to the Yule Ball with a boy from Durmstrang. He tortured you, too. He told you that your father had been a useless traitor. It didn't make sense to you then, but did it right before you died? Your father was never Tom. You killed the Durmstrang boy, didn't you? And it haunted you for the rest of your life. When you came back to the place you called home the day after, you were given a gift. A snake. Does it make sense to you why you were given it right after you had taken a life? Later that year, you discovered that you had powers the others did not have. When you saw silver on your body, you doubted Tom for the first time in your short life. He came back right before the summer that year. He made you fight Harry. He made you torture him. But Harry didn't seek revenge. Instead, he protected you when Tom tried to fire spells at you. Love of your life. Always sacrificing himself for others. Never afraid to bleed. When you were fifteen, you received your Prefect badge. Do you remember how proud you felt? But the feeling you had was killed when Umbridge made you write I shall not pride on your own skin. Harry was by your side the whole time. He dried your tears. You dried his blood. You kissed for the first time, and spent the Christmas break with him. That was the time you learned that you were Regulus' and Darya's daughter. Sirius told you that, but he died a few months later. When you were sixteen, you cried and screamed and blamed yourself for everything that happened to those around you. Tom killed Louis, wiping away the last of your innocence. You tried to distance yourself from Harry. But he wouldn't let you. You are now dead, Marina, my little warrior, and you died with more questions than you can count. You died on January 25 1996. Your life was never simple.

Dear reader, this may look like the end of the story; but it isn't. The end of this story may not be pretty, but if you have been paying attention, you know that Marina Black did not like endings. So she simply made her own a beginning. Shed your past life like you are a snake shedding its skin; your body is not who you are. If the lord takes your soul, send out a cry from heaven; the angels are listening and staying silent is going to bury you.

If you wish to be reborn, you have to die first.