Next chapter at 100 votes & 300 comments!
— Dedicated to aaliyah_selenator
TWs for death, blood, gore, burning alive, torture.

  PRIDE WAS THE ONE to throw the first curse, a beam of deadly green light sent lurching towards his prodigal son.

  Draco threw himself at Seven, knocking them both to the floor as the gentry erupted into the most inhumane, terrified, mournful sounds people could make. A body fell. Though not its initial target, the curse had hit someone else. An innocent.
  Seven's gut lurched with the thought, more so when she looked back to see the distraught wife howling grief over her fallen husband. The woman tugged at the body, pulling at his suit and pleading him to return to her. In half an hour he'd be cold as the stone he lay upon.

  They scrambled to their feet, trying to hide themselves amongst the raging crowd. Screams filled the air, and people ran in every direction, throwing themselves against the doors but to no avail. Unlike the rebels, the general population of Pride had been stripped of their wands at the entrance of the ball, and so were left defenceless against their tyrannical leaders.

  "Bombarda!" Draco yelled, trying his own hand at freedom, first aiming his wand, then the windows, even trying his hand at the glass ceiling. Nothing budged, only the nearby tables and chairs as they were blown scattered across the floor. "Fuck!"

  It happened in a split second, but to Seven, the world slowed. Time gave way and so did her breath, stolen by the sight of the murderous Sin.
A flash of wild black curls and feral eyes pierced her's through the thrashing of the crowd, Sloth's wand pointed at her Seven's chest as she began, "Avada —," And then she was blown sideways by a jet of ruby red, dashed across the marble floors and left in a writhing, screeching mess of her own.

  The curse had come from the side, not from Seven or Draco. They looked at each other in a mix of horror and disbelief.
Then from the thick of the writhing gentry, Echo appeared, grinning and handsome as always, "Fancy seeing you here." He said, shockingly calm and entirely as if he hasn't just saved Seven's life. Echo's demeanour was in stark aversion to the abstract terror on Draco's face, though it seemed less so at his friend's arrival.

"Blaise," He hissed, dragging him deeper into the protection of the crowd, "What are you doing here?"

  Spells bounced off the walls, some striking out the light of candles and others blowing great holes in paintings that hung from the high ceilings as the Sin's raged; searching fruitlessly for their fugitives. Regardless of the damage to the decorations, the structure of the building itself had remained painfully sound.

  "Believe it or not, you and Navy aren't the only ones who want the Sins dead." Echo snarked, yanking Draco down to avoid yet another curse. "— Get away from the doors, they're no use, there's no getting out of here until those two are dead."

  "— No," Draco's eyes were wide and afraid, "You don't understand, there's a bomb — we need to get out of here, now!"

  The colour drained from Echo's face, "...What?"

  There was a collective scream as another body was cut down from the crowd, soon another followed, then another. "They're killing them!" Seven cried, and certain as she'd said, the Sins began to cull the crowd in their search.

  "Draco," Echo said urgently, ashen-faced, "You're certain there's a bomb?"

  He nodded quick and grim. Every second spent was a second less lived.

  "Well then," Shrugged Echo, "Looks like we're going down either way," There was a tragic acceptance in his words, almost like he'd never expected to leave regardless, "Might as well take those bastards with us."

Spells flew; some from Sins, some from places Seven couldn't quite work out, odd angles from in between where the gentry cried. She forced her way back across the centre of the ballroom, towards the ruins of the wine fountains, the two men tailing.

"Ah! There you are!" Screeched Sloth, sending a jet black curse hurtling past Seven's head as they threw themselves behind one of the upturned buffet tables. Behind them, one of the already desiccated fountains smouldered.

"Please tell me it's not just you," Draco said breathlessly, "Blaise, please tell me you brought people."

A cry pierced the sound of the gentry's terror, guttural in its inherent primality — like a wounded animal. Through the crowd, there was a sudden flash of white-blonde hair as Pride was launched backwards by a curse, the left side of his face a bloodied mess.

"Six." Echo assured him. But then all too quickly Pride regained his feet and an almighty surge of flames erupted from his wand, cast into the belly of the crowd.
If death had a sound, the one that followed was certain to be it. Despite all the suffering and loss she'd witnessed, Seven had never heard anything like it — never seen anything like it. This was a slaughter.
The Sins were killing their own civilians, and for what purpose; to find them. The knowing that this was all their fault was almost worse than the watching.

Everybody was screaming. Everybody was bleeding. Innumerable bodies lay broken, black and charred with their limbs jutting out at inhuman angles. Echo looked as though he may be sick, or cry, possibly both, "Four."

Suffering had never known a home like this, never found a cruelty like this. Seven covered her mouth to stop herself from sobbing.

People were on fire. And not just the dead, but the living too.

A woman ran across the floor, her dress alight, streaks of crimson flames devouring the silken fabric. And in that brief moment, she was a portrait, a tribute of war. A tableau of inhumanity. Awfully beautiful and beautifully awful. The human embodiment of agony as her face contorted into a gut-wrenching cry as the fire, insatiably starving, reached her skin.

Seven had never seen someone burnt alive before, but the way the woman's porcelain skin melted like wax made her stomach lurch. Sickness found her and she threw up all her hope, until her lips were cracked and nothing inside her remained.
It didn't take the woman long to fall — a writhing, terrible mess — but it took her long to die.

  Draco pulled Seven close, trying his best to shield her from the view, "Don't look." It felt like forever. It felt like hours before her screams finally quietened, replaced by the dissonance of a thousand others.

Fire reflected in the tear-stained irises of Seven's face as she watched the world burn.

  "Come out, come out!" Chanted Sloth, practically skipping about the ballroom, "You can't hide forever! Come out, come play!"

  A crash rung the air as the Sin sent one of the tables flying, "Nope — not that one!" She jeered, "What about this one —," The table next to theirs launched itself into the air, smashing against the ceiling with such force that it shattered, raining a thousand wooden shards down upon the terrified gentry below.

  "We can't stay here," Seven said quickly as she could, suddenly ripped from her grief and painfully aware of the danger they were in. "We need to already out so we're harder to find!"
  Draco opened his mouth to protest, but Seven was already gone, sprinting across the ballroom and shoving her way through the crowd.
  Sloth bellowed with joy, jeering as she sent spell after spell in lieu of the newly revealed girl.

  Seven tried her best to dodge as she ran, but her dress was awkward and slowed her significantly. The marble beneath her feet cracked and split with Sloth's scarcely avoided spells.
Seven aimed her wand down at her skirts, "Vera Verto!"

They vanished, shrinking in on themselves to reveal a bodysuit of Luna's design, similar in pattern to the dress but fit for fighting. Then she took aim, "Avada Kedavera!"

Quicker than the spell could reach her Sloth waved her wand and a nearby man was dragged in front of her by invisible strings. Seven's killing curse hit him right between the eyes, as his knees gave way and his body crumpled.

Sloth grinned and Seven turned to run.

"Crucio!"

Pain erupted. First in her thigh as it buckled beneath her but it quickly spread. She fell to the floor. A disease of the most hideous agony coursed through her veins. Seven writhed and shrieked, unable to do anything but seize as every nerve in her body was set alight.

"— Seven!" The scream that followed that was not her own, so raw and tortured that it killed her to hear it. Somehow the sound hurt her more than Sloth's curse ever could.
It pained her like being ripped apart, like having her heart torn from her chest and crushed a thousand times over.
But most of all it killed her because she knew deep down that it came from Draco.

And then the world around them erupted into fire and gore as Seamus' bomb finally went off and all her pain went away.

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QOTD - Other than Seven/Draco, who's been your fav character so far?