A hollowness inside her grows like a disease, decaying the once lighter moments she had shared in secret. Winnie Buldstrode stares at herself in the mirror, eyes as plain as autumn leaves, dull and crumpled under the weight of tears she had shed. The fire that burned feverously in her just a year ago had dimmed to a shadow of what it used to be. Blonde hair is stuck to the surface of her cheeks, and there is a tremble in her fingers as she feels a surge of mourning for the girl she once would.

She would've never allowed him to walk away, to leave her behind in her misery and guilt of whatever they had shared.

Winnie would've never allowed Theo Nott to forget her like she was a common thing like the dust upon his coat.

A girl born from anger was one thing. A girl born from heartbreak was death itself.

༺♥༻

         SHE is sick of it all. A million thoughts swirl through her brain as she sits in the Great Hall. None of them are particularly nice, however.

Millie and Theo sit next to each other, heads bowed in a murmur that not even her ears can reach. As they laugh with smiles, it seems Winnie finds the joke is lost upon her. Her reflection rings back towards her from the silver of her teacup. Her face is upside down, but she knows there is puffiness around the amber of her eyes.

Her teeth grit, and she feels a sudden urge to snap, perhaps the very spoon that reveals the poor of reflection.

Winnie, instead, forces her vision to float to her wayward cousin. Watching as the redhead talks quietly to the boy with platinum blond hair, wondering when exactly she became the one on the outside watching.

Winnie finds herself tired of watching.

Her feet carry her away from the Gryffindor table, and towards the snake's pit, where her heart surrenders to a man who instantly looks at her, green eyes void of emotion as Winnie barely glances his way. She desires to. She feels the tug in her stomach that yearns for his hands upon her and his sweet nothings to be hers to take in.

But he is not hers to take; he said as much just the night prior.

Winnie finds comfort in her cousin's eyes, who becomes aware of her presence when Malfoy nudges her. Winnie does well to avoid his eyes, too, the memory of the grip of death upon her shoulders in one that does not fade well.

"Can you come with Hogsmeade with me?" Winnie questions, grimacing at the near plead in her voice as she stares solely at her cousin, whose brown eyebrows frown and glances at the snake beside her. Winnie's law locks, finger twisting the cool silver ring on the surface of her finger. "Please, Lia,' she whispers, voice quieter. She feels Theo's eyes stare into the side of her face. She does not need to look to know where Cordelia's vision flickers to before her cousin nods.

For Cordelia's part, she does not question her erratic behaviour or the way Winnie's eyes does not travel to the boy she has become so close with – perhaps Cordelia already knows the truth that Winnie does not wish to admit.

Cousins that used to not go a day without speaking to each other, walk silently amongst the frosty trails leading to Hogsmeade. Their arms are linked but there is a silence so thick that it makes their tongues fat and swollen with the words that have gone unspoken for so long.

It's nearing Feburary and the outside world is bitter to the touch, Winnie's nose turns cherry tinted and runny as she sniffs, hiding her face in under her Gryffindor scarf. There is a bitter breeze kissing their skin, unforgiving and wicked as it burns her feveriously, It isn't until they find themselves ringing the bell of Three Brromsticks that Winnie breathes in a gasp of warm air. It constricts against her throat, making her skin itch to the temperature change that numbs her.

Cordelia disappears to order them Butterbeer, as Winnie moves around the crowd to find them a table. Settling upon a small, rounded table with scratches and knicks in the side, she sits. Fingers unwrapping the scarf from around her neck and she continues to sniffle, wiping at her frozen nose with her hand until she sees her cousin's maroon hair glancing around the room for her. Winnie waves a hand, signaling her younger cousin over as Cordelia, smiles, unreaching to her eyes, but a smile nonetheless.

Silence greets them like an old friend once more, smothering them in its warmth as WInnie swallows a gulp of her Butterbeer, warmth twisting down her throat.

"What are we doing here?" Silence disappears and leaves them with the gentle chill that trickles in from the fogged window beside them. Winnie shivers as she licks her lips, teeth gritting in her mouth as she eyes her cousin, who eyes her wearily with her fingers wrapped around the glass.

"Do you ever think about how different things are?" Winnie questions, voice twirling around her as she clicks her chipped black nails against the wood. Cordelia's eyebrows furrowed against her forehead as she looked down at her cup, a frown painting across her lips. ""We speak anymore."

'We got older, things happened-"

"Shit always happens, why should that change us?" Winnie questioned, cutting her off with a tilt of her head. The blonde is filled with exhaustion, it eats at her bones and drowns her mind. A never ending feeling that grows louder by the minute and blinds her with a furious need for similarity. Cordelia frowns from across her, eyes staring outside the window as the wind blows pillows of snow in the air. Tree branches brush and snap under the harshness of it all. Winnie finds herself sighing, shoulders slumping and teeth clippiing at the inside of her cheek. "I won't pretend I understand what is going on, but I just that I miss you cousin, and I find myself needing a friend outside of my house these days."

Cordelia's cerulean eyes travel towards her, there is a bitterness of emotion trailing towards Winnie from the redhead. Creating a taste of coffee grinds in her mouth as Winnie swallows, teeth grinding as she allows the emotion to travel down her spine. Goosebumps tickling her flesh before disappearing among the cool air.

"I miss you too," her cousins voice was faint, but sincere as her words wrapped WInnie in a familiar warm embrace. "I'm sorry for being so absent, I admit that things have been hard lately." It is a sentlement that Winnie knows well, perhaps for different reasons, but felt the same all the same as the girl lets her lips tilt up slightly, an olive branch reaching out to the cousins she has lacked contact with as of late.

Cordelia accepts it with the uplift of her own lips.

"Can I just as one thing of you, a promise you have to swear to keep?" Cordelia questions, her hand reaching out to grasp Winnie's. The blonde frowns, gaze hardening as she sits taller, fingers gripping her cousins as a deep yearning for truth settles inside of her. "I need you to not ask about the strangeness that is around Draco and I, I know you wish to know but you just need to promise me that you will leave things alone."

Winnie's heart squeezes inside of her chest, staring the hardened, wide eyed gaze of her cousin as Cordelia grips Winnie's hand tightly. A life grip as tight as the bond between death and life itself.

Winnie Buldstrode is forgiving and naive when it comes to her dear cousin, she wishes for the best and only sees the good in Cordelia. Perhaps that is why Winnie forces a smile onto her feature's why her fingers grip back just as tightly as Cordelias. Why she utters the simple two words she never should have, "I promise."

Inside of her, is a war of her own brewing. For while she promises her cousin, there is a deeper loyalty brooming for the boy with raven curls and tanned skin. A boy who has held her hand and comforted her nightmares while Cordelia grew further and further away.

Winnie will have to choose one day, and even without knowing, the answer has already been given to her.

༺♥༻

          HARRY Potter spends more time in Dumbledore's office than he does anywhere else it seems as of late, returning only in the middle of the night with worries eating his skull.

The same can be said much later into the night, where Winnie is sitting with her knees covered by a blanket and a dying fire beside her as the door to the Common Rooms open. Hazel eyes flicking upwards as Harry freezes, violet dancing in under his green eyes and Winnie finds her heart swelling with despair at the sight. A boy who has already given everything to the world is forced to give more by the second.

"Harry?" Winnie questions, watching as the boy frowns as he closes the door behind him. The boy doesn't utter a word as he walks over, shoulders slumped and circle glasses falling down his noise. Winnie sits up further, drawing her knees to her chest as the boy sits next to her, an arm draping around her shoulder as he holds her close. Winnie, who used to flinch away at the touch of another has grown used to smell of treacle tart and a flowery substance that she suspects must be his laundry detergent.

"I don't know if I can do this Winnie," Harry admits quietly as Winnie frowns, laying her head upon his shoulder. Her finger twists a thread from the blanket laying around her legs, as she awaits for him to continue. Winnie has grown used to baring Harry's terminals, used to sharing the weight of his pain. While he goes to Hermione and Ron for facts and partnership, he comes to Winnie with his fears and doubts. "Tom Riddle... he's done things, made himself insvibile. I don't know how I'm supposed to kill him," Harry's voice is a whisper, swirling with the cracking of logs as Winnie finds herself sitting up, her eyes trailing towards him as Harry continued to stare deep into the fire.

"You can do this Harry, I know you can," Winnie argued, voice soft despite her words as Harry frowned, shaking his head. Winnie reached up, placing her hand against his chest, feeling the beat of his hand in underneath her palm. Warmth blossomed to her palm and fingers, "there is no one else more worthy in the world to do this Harry. You have so much love in her your heart Harry, I can feel it now. He has nothing, he has no one who truly loves him or cares, you do. You have people who will follow you to death-"

'I will not allow anyone to die for me," Harry argued, cutting her off with a sharp hitch of his voice. Winnie frowned, finding herself pressing her palm harder into his chest.

"That is not your decision to make, Harry," she spoke softly, taking her hand away from his chest as he looked over at her. A frown glimpsing across the tiniest of his lips. "If you think for a moment, I, or anyone else who cares for you, will allow you to fight him alone. You are a lot more daft than I believe you to be. I would follow you anywhere, even into death." As the words left her mouth, she realized she has never spoken more truer words than that. Harry, who swallowed thickly and offered her the tiniest of smile, reached forward to kiss the top of her head. Hugging her sideways as Winnie smiled, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding him close.

Silence greets them, instead of the chill she had felt with her cousin, she feels a warmth of happiness and content. It chokes her dry as her fingers clench tightly onto the black hoodie Harry has thrown on over himself, and it's in Harry's arms she speaks the truth she has been desparetly avoiding since the night before.

"Theo doesn't love me," she whispers, feeling the tightness that grows around Harry's arms as he holds her. Her eyes squeezing shut as the words linger in the air, Harry pulls away, looking at her face with a gentle care in his eyes that it almost makes her weep. "He came to see me last night, and told me that we could no longer do whatever we were doing. That he was to marry my sister, I was going to tell him that I-" Winnie pauses, licking her lips as the words cut on her tongue, tasting bitter and scornful. "I love him, Harry, and he doesn't want me." She admits quietly, feeling her lip tremble as Harry sighs, pulling her closer once again as tears kiss the apples of her cheeks.

Winnie is tired of crying, but she finds herself unable to stop as Harry holds her close. That night, when her tears dry and her chest heaves with a lightness she has been unable to obtain, she follows Harry to his bed. Neither one particularly wishing to be alone as she curls onto her side to face him, their hands linked and promises of someday having a better life between them unspoken in the air.

A bond shapes it's way between the two sleeping pair, wrapping around their interlocked hands and forming a knot that can never be broken. As the worlds asks for unforgiving amount of life and soul from their tired bodies

       — new chapter early for you guys because i love you all <33
       — university is really kicking my ass and i'm pretty sure i'm getting sick </3 BUT this chapter is short and entirely a filler chapter. next chapter will be longer and more important i promise. winnie's birthday is also coming up and i have something planned for that, i can't wait to write it!! xo xo love you guys