Author's Note: I am officially a high school graduate! Yipee! *promptly bursts into tears* 

Anywho, it's been a mere three days since the end of high school and the start of my existential crisis, so I decided to numb the shock with updates! I hope you all enjoy, your comments and votes and reads do warm my writer's heart. <3 

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Chapter Twenty-Seven

It was apparent as soon as she settled next to Rose at the Gryffindor table for breakfast the next morning. Her friends went quiet and averted their eyes, even chattery James was silent as they struggled to find words to say.

Savannah feels her back tightening with stress and anxiety, and her eyes sting with a familiar sensation. “Say something, won’t you?” She snaps at Peregrine. The girl flinches and turns curious eyes to her friend.

“Are you accepting what happened?” Peregrine whispers. Savannah’s mouth tightens and she looks at her clenched hands. She breathes out and shakes her head.

“No, no I’m not. How can I?” She begs as she looks up at Rose, Peregrine, James, and Geoffrey. James shakes his head while Geoffrey pats her hand. Rose watches her with guarded eyes.

“What are you really thinking, Rose?” Savannah asks. Rose shakes her head before getting up. The girls walk swiftly outside, with Peregrine twisting her hands in front of her to quell her nervousness.

“What I’m really thinking is that how is that possible?” Rose wonders when they reach an empty patch of snow covered grass. Savannah scowls.

“That what is possible? That I repressed it for almost thirteen years? That I killed my parents to keep them from continuous torture? Or that the only person who was able to get closed to me with wild magic of his own was the one guy I absolutely loathe?” She questions. Rose holds up her hands.

“How could you kill them? How could you take that decision into your own hands?” Rose demands, her face heating up as she nearly yells. Savannah appraises her before waving her palm in a small circle. Rose suddenly finds her senses blunted as colours and air whirs past her, her body almost suspended in air.

It settles down and she is alone. She goes to stand to find Savannah and give her a piece of her mind when she realizes that she can’t. She’s bound, with chains, to a wall and sitting on a damp floor in a painfully bright room. Surrounding her are figures in dark black cloaks, with blackened metal masks covering their faces. She flinches back into the roughly cut stone as one kneels before her.

“Ready for your turn?” The voice is a sick whisper, filled with excitement. She spits in his face.

“Go to hell!” She snaps. The robed figures part to reveal one of Rose’s old nightmares.

Hugo was lying prone on the floor, his eyes staring straight into the ceiling unblinkingly. Beside him lay their mother, her hand reaching for her son to help him as her own wounds bleed into the floor. Her father, her brave, temperamental father who always brought her a slab of chocolate over the summer and during the school months when he had heard that she had had a bad day, was being held upright by a pair of fighters, bleeding also and with a wand jabbed into his neck. His eyes stared furiously at his still son, unconscious tears flowing down his face as he took in the horror that was occurring to his family.

“Take the girl!” The figures cheer and clap, jeering as Rose is unchained and dragged over to be dropped beside her brother. Rose feels her stomach tighten as she distinguishes men and womens’ voices.

“Not her! Take me!” Ron starts to struggle once more, but the death eaters merely shake him in their arms and he breaks off with a groan. A hand, startlingly cold, touches Rose’s and she jerks her head to stare at her mum. Lavender’s beautifully scarred face is cut open once more, her eyes shining with ferocity and a plea. Her other hand is latched onto her brother’s body, causing Rose to shiver with the pain of the question.

“Rose! Rose please.” Her head spins as she looks at her father. He breaks free for a mere second from his captors and throws her an object, his eyes holding the same question as her mum’s. The same question that would be in her brother’s if he was alive.

Without hesitation, Rose grabs the wand stolen from one of the death eaters and turns to her mother. Her heart breaks into pieces as she stares into her lovely brown eyes.

Make your choice. Save them? Or let someone else murder them? Savannah’s voice echoed around the room and Rose tried to apparate, as her father had secretly taught her. No good. That meant that the room was warded. She closes her eyes, knowing one way was left. How could she have judged her friend? How could she have wanted her to pay for what she had done?

Tears break through her eyelashes and spill onto her cheeks as the green light flashes through her mother, and then her father, taking them away from this horrible place. As the death eaters surround her, growling and thirsty for revenge, Rose turns the wand on herself, the green light reflecting against her own eyelids.

Before the spell can hit her, she’s spinning again and falls abruptly against two pairs of arms. She’s sobbing and instantly clings onto the arms that smell of forest glens and the stiff scent of the lake.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers over and over. Savannah hugs her back tightly, pulling Peregrine into the hug.

“I’m sorry too. For making you go through that. Do you want to take Aslan to see your family?” Savannah asks. Rose nods weakly and lets herself be led to the forest’s edge.

Aslan is waiting for them there and without a word; he brushes his head against Rose’s.

Take faith little one; your flock is well and safe. She clambers onto his back and hugs his neck tightly as he takes off. All she can think about is hugging her parents tightly and telling them that she loves them.

….

“Why did you do that?” Peregrine asks as they leave Professor Malfoy’s office after explaining where Rose had gone.

“She’s lived her entire life in such a close-knit family, where betrayal is the worst thing that could be done and where every single member is cherished after Fred’s death. Hearing that I willingly took away my own parents? I was worse than Tom Riddle, who killed his own father’s family in revenge for being muggles. She needed to understand that I didn’t murder them. I saved them from having to watch me tortured even more, before killed. I saved them from having everything ripped away before being murdered by filthy creatures. I saved them from everything.” Savannah explains softly. Peregrine takes her hand in comfort and they walk to their first lesson.