Next chapter at 300 comments! Dedicated to jessieros3

  A CLOAKED FIGURE stalked the streets of Greed, tall and unearthly in its movement, a shadow in its own right. Something in the way it moved sent those brave enough to watch from their windows at this hour hiding behind their blinds, praying it had not seen them.
  Crawlers peeled from their allies in its wake, like rats upon a feast of blood and bone and misery.

  "Is it done?" Asked the cloaked figure; voice cold and hellish as death itself.

  "Yes, my Lord." Bowed the Crawler, eyes downturned like a dog baying for praise from a volatile master, "The body hangs outside the bank with the rest, Fenrir has gone to appraise it at your request."

  The Sin said nothing, impassive and unreadable beneath its shroud of darkness, until, at last, it nodded, "Good."

•  •  •

  THERE SHE HUNG, looking as limp and dead as all the rest beside her. Fenrir knew better — knew his men's cruelties all too well. She looked like her mother the last time he had seen her, face bloodless, black hair a billowing curtain hiding empty green eyes. His hands acted of their own accord, pulling free his wand and slashing the girl down with a silent spell. She slammed into the stone, making no move to catch herself.

  Fenrir cursed, he had been sent to confirm the girl's death not negate it, and yet when he looked at the girl he couldn't help but see her mother. Couldn't help but regret all that he had done. So many wrongs, almost every step, every breath, and every choice he had ever made had been wrong. All except her. But even that he had ruined, mottled her memory with bruise-blue love and the acrid sound of her final scream as he tore her down. Another body, felled just as easily as the rest, and yet none had ever weighed so heavily on his conscious.
  Perhaps this small action, just the slightest flick of is wand, was Fenrir's idea of redemption. He had killed the mother, and so, would save the daughter. Save — he knew that was not what this was — saving her would be to drag her somewhere safe, to tend her wounds, to do all the things he always should have. But it was too late — he was too far gone, there was no hope for redemption now and he knew that.

  And so, he left her there, just as still and hopeless as he had found her, the half-severed noose coiled over her like a snake as he became one with the shadows and disappeared into the night.

•  •  •

  MEMORIES CAME AND went like strikes of lightning, too fast, too painful for Seven to grasp, but just enough to glimpse. A glint of pale hair beneath starlight, a cold kiss of wind against the side of her neck, she even could have sworn she caught a flash of someone familiar, but his face was distorted by nightmares.
  The figure swung his arm at her and she fell, crashing through the sky, arms-outstretched and flailing for purchase on clouds that slipped between her fingertips like smoke. She came crashing into the earth like some hell-bound angel damned from the sky, a wicked creature, hardly even human.
  And then the familiar figure was gone, leaving her wondering if he had ever really even existed in the first place.

•  •  •

  WHEN SEVEN FINALLY awoke, there on the cobble streets, she did not come to suddenly, or with a jolt. In fact, there were no outward changes when she finally clawed her way back to consciousness. But inside, everything had changed.

  Seven had always been a woman of ire, born in blood and raised in the ashes of a damned society. But this time when she opened her swollen eyes, something was different. She was different. There was no place inside her left for hurt, for ache. Instead, she had awoken to be the very embodiment of female rage.

  She became wrath itself.

  It took her hours to drag herself to her knees, bruised and broken as she was, and even longer to crawl from outside the bank, the sun beginning to dawn against fiery clouds as she finally dragged herself into a nearby ally way. Still not safe, nowhere was safe, not anymore.
  She slumped against the red-brick wall; empty. No tears came, none even dared to threaten her. She tried not to think of the origins of the darkened stains and tears in her clothing as she felt for her wand. It had been taken along with her bag, her letters. She couldn't cry, not yet, not when the rest of the world still promised to swallow her whole.
  Later, when her hands were stained with so much blood she couldn't tell what was hers and what wasn't, when she had torn through enough men — heard enough screams to fill that great, gaping hole inside of her, then, when she was safe at last and all of this was over, she would grieve the loss of herself.
  Then she would scream and cry, scrub her skin from her bones, tear her hair out so that she could never be held down by it again. Then, she would let the realisation settle. And it would destroy her.

  But for now, she would fight.

•  •  •

  HER DAYS PASSED like blood from a clotted wound. Slow. Painful. Never healing, never transpiring quite as they should. Forever half-healed only to be torn open again by the slightest wrong look. A glare in the market from a seller who thought the dishevelled look of her could mean nothing but trouble. Or the drunken men that stumbled out from the bars as the sun began to sink, always looking for a few seconds too long, always as unpredictable as Seven was guarded.
  Every look felt wrong, even the innocent; a son clinging to his mother's hip, an elderly man concerned by the dark purple bruises beaten across her face. Seven did not want to be looked at — to be thought of — perceived. She simply wanted to pass in the same way the wind did, the presence of it known, occasionally felt, and bitter cold to those who dared stand against the raging tide of it, but most of all; untouchable.

  On the third day, she spied a man in the market with the handle of his wand protruding from the pocket of his sable robes. At once her eyes locked on the blackthorn wood like a beacon to all that ailed her. Her lack of magic the past few days had left her feeling even more vulnerable, and so in this man's foolishness, she found a solution.

  Weaving through the busy street behind him, Seven was careful enough to keep a distance until the moment he stopped at a stall, examining the lengths of calamine cloth that looked like silk, but when touched ran like water through his palms.

  To any observer, it looked as though she had just brushed past him, though as Seven emerged from the back end of the market, she now clutched a wand tightly in her fist. Stolen magic thrummed through her palm, vibrating up her arm; unruly and untamed, calling out for a master it couldn't find.

  She tried only simple spells at first, cautious that the wand was not her own. It was larger and made from a different wood and core; unicorn, perhaps, she thought.

  After several failed attempts she managed to unlock the back ally entrance to a butcher's. Once inside the storeroom, she loaded her arms with raw goods. Later that night, she managed a small fire, the flames green-tinged and flickering as she attempted to cook some of the meat and the rest she fed to a stray dog.
  It wasn't an act of kindness, in fact, she was anything but, it was only that Seven knew the meat would not keep outside like this, even despite the looming cold of winter.

  And all the while she watched, listened, for any sign of Draco. She knew full well he wasn't coming back, but still, she found herself coming out onto the streets to watch the nightly broadcasts of that day's killings with the rest of the district people. The largest of the broadcasting screens hung alongside Gringott's bank, but Seven couldn't bring herself to go back there yet. So instead she gathered with the rest of locals outside the Justice Building, scanning the display for a flash of white-blond hair or pale grey eyes. None came.

  As the days continued to bleed by she grew more accustomed to her new wand. She continued to steal food, clothes, and even coins from the pockets of particularly ignorant merchants. None of it made her feel better though. None of it did anything to fill that gaping hole in her chest.

  At night, when she returned to the shadows of her alley sometimes others would come to warm themselves at her fires, and sometimes she would let them. They never spoke, never came too close, always cautious. Seven like it that way — the way they looked at her as piously as a numen, staying only as long as she would allow. And in the mornings they would be gone, passing just as unnoticed as the rest of the street dogs.

  Seven pulled the hood of her cloak down over her head as she emerged from the alley, she felt safer that way, with all her femininity hidden. Her hair messily braided and knotted at the nape of her neck, unable to betray her as it had so many times before.
  She knew she couldn't carry on like this forever, living on borrowed time and a stolen master to disobedient magic. Waiting. Always waiting, and for what? Draco wasn't coming back, nothing was going to change unless she made it. Those old parts of herself were not going to come back. And still, she found herself waiting on their return.

  The magic, at least, she knew how to solve.

  Her wand was not her own, this magic would never fully obey her, and so she set out onto the streets of Greed, looking for her victim. It didn't take her long to find him, hunched over a fist full of golden coins.

  "Gindelby." She said, which caused the goblin to start.

  It looked up at her, eyes like black marbles narrowed to hostile slits, "How do you know my name?"

  Seven was not about to tell the goblin that she had frightened his name out of one of the nomads that had come to warm themselves by her fires by holding that faulty wand to his neck.
  "I need your help." She said, holding out a swollen brown pouch that jingled with coins. The creature's beady eyes immediately locked on the pouch, reaching out a gnarled hand for it, but Seven jerked it up and out of his reach, "Will you help me?"

  Gindelby hissed a frustrated breath through pointed teeth, then turned, scurrying towards a blackened shop, "Come."

***
QOTD- What do you think Seven has planned? Where is Draco?