Anguish

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9th February 2013, Malfoy Manor

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

With a sigh, I decided to not ponder on the matter, in my long life I have only spoken to him a handful of times. We might have been born as twins, but he was no better than a stranger to me. I guess that estrangement defeats blood after all.

Still, I decide against disintegrating his corpse and instead put it in my pocket dimension. Rose might want to have remains to grieve, to bury. It could end up giving her some form of closure.

I looked back and the room looked exactly the same as before the meeting. I just disable the wards that the Court used when holding their meetings and teleport home. No one will think that anything happened, and it would take days for people to realize the disappearance of the members of the Court. Let that be an unsolvable mystery that future generations of mages will ponder on and attempt to fix. With that done, I decide to teleport home.

In a blink of an eye, Malfoy Manor disappeared, and the familiar sight of my home was in front of me. Immediately, I was accosted by Selene who ran at me and hugged me, "I missed you. What happened?"

What the hell? Since when was she this physically affectionate? Selene was many things, but the passing of time had made her control over her emotions to be iron clad. Add in her general apathy, she was rarely expressive, let alone running to hug me when I returned from missions far more dangerous than this one.

I raised an eyebrow and replied, "You were right. The members of the Court of Shadows were a lot craftier than I gave them credit for. Not that it mattered, in the end. Did you get Rose?"

Selene let go and immediately returned back to her old apathetic proper self. That was weird, but I was too drained to care too much. I'll ask her about it later.

She nodded, "Yeah, I healed her up and put her to bed. She was just magically exhausted. The girl doesn't have the same raw power as you, but she's still very impressive, for a mortal, that is. Tell me, what could have possibly caused her to fall this deeply.

I sighed, "She was betrayed by her brother. He dosed her, knocked her out, and gave her up to be bound to the Court's whims. Thank God that my protections worked so she wasn't soul bound, but they used runic chains to bind her, which kept siphoning her magic. I broke the chains and nullified them, but she was exhausted when I used a portal to send her home for you to check on her, in case I missed something in my hurry."

Selene shook her head, "Rose is fine. She'll be up in no time, as soon as she sleeps off her exhaustion."

I nodded, the tension in my shoulders relaxed. We slowly walked towards Rose's room, since I wanted to check on my sister. Selene on the other hand, wasn't satisfied with what I told her thus far, "What of her brother? Are you going to let his actions continue unavenged?"

I raised an eyebrow, "Selene, what's going on?"

"What do you mean?" my wife responded, looking genuinely confused.

"You're not usually this passionate about the lives of mortals, including Rose's. In fact, you usually seem to just not care that much about them."

Selene gave me a warm smile, "She's your sister, Morrigan. A slight on her, is a slight on you, and you know how much I detest when that happens."

Selene was doing her best to avoid answering my question, which probably means that it's somewhat sensitive. She has been getting slightly more aggressive ever since my ritual in Wakanda. Had she thought that she had lost me completely and panicked? I didn't know, and to be honest, I don't think I can pry the answer from Selene herself, especially as tired as I feel now.

I just nodded and accepted the answer for now. I was going to revisit this later, but after the day I had, I just wanted to stay in bed and not leave for the rest of the day. We had arrived at Rose's room. She looked deeply asleep and a little too pale for my liking. I cast a few diagnostic charms and found no lingering issue. She just needed to rest. Choosing not to disturb her much needed sleep, we both walked out of the room, and stayed in the corridor outside.

Selene though didn't seem to let up her answer, "You didn't answer my question."

At my confused look, she clarified, "What are you planning to do about Nathan Potter?"

I just shrugged, "Nothing. There is no need to concern myself with the affairs of dead men."

Selene seemed shocked for a moment, and I could understand why. While I never liked or even tolerated Nathan, especially the man he grew up to be, I wouldn't kill him. I wouldn't really kill James or Lily Potter either. I might not consider them to be family, as they had failed me time and time again, choosing others over me every single time that it mattered, they failed every single test I gave them to be a part of my life, but what they did forged me into the person I am today.

Yes, I hated the Potters when I was younger, and that hate served as a motivation to train myself and my magic, to reach the limit of what I could do, when I was nothing more than an orphan on the streets of New York City.

Without their abandonment of me, without Nathan being hailed as the savior of Britain, I wouldn't be the same person. Perhaps, I would have stayed as a broken girl with half a soul, who used the same mindless magics as the rest of Britain. In a twisted way, I owe my life to them, and while I will never go out of my way to help or protect them, I wouldn't kill them outright.

Rose never really understood how much the Potter's abandonment affected me when I was younger, and she tried to do her best to get me to join her family. She didn't understand what it meant to suffer as a child, trying to find a way to feed herself, from either her abusing relatives, or during her time on the streets.

It made a person bitter to the soul, and in my case, I slowly stopped being a child. When you deeply understand in your soul that you are the only person who cares about you, then you either have to grow up and take care of yourself or die in the delusion that someone would save you.

Even if the Potters had found me before my travels in the past, I wouldn't have accepted them as my parents, not out of anger or malice – which I had in spades at the time – but out of lack of necessity. My sister, who had never truly suffered in her life, could never understand that there truly is nothing she could do to rectify the situation. And in a way, I think that even James and Lily Potter knew that.

For all my pretention at being put together when I was younger, I was barely holding on. I was a raging ball of hatred and spite, that wanted to burn the world. And I shudder to think what would have happened, if Atlan hadn't found me at the shores of Atlantis when I traveled back to the past.

I shook my head, trying to stop thinking about my distracting memories, "Don't worry, though. I'm not the one who killed him. Granger was the one that did it."

The moment I uttered these words, I heard a yell from behind me, "WHAT?"

I turned around and saw the pale form of my sister, barely standing up. Damn, we forgot to close the door and she must have heard me tell Selene about her brother's death. I nodded to her, confirming my words, and Rose fell as if her strings were cut, to the ground, and started sobbing.

I just walked towards her and knelt down, hugging her, "I'm so sorry, Rose."

It took a few minutes for the young woman to calm down. Selene who understood how delicate Rose's situation was, chose to leave the two of us alone, for me to comfort her while she mourned her brother. Even after she had calmed down slightly, she had a haunting look in her eyes, "He betrayed me."

I nodded, "He did, but he wasn't exactly clear of mind when he did so."

"What do you mean?"

I shrugged, "I examined his corpse when the mess was over with. He had a ring on his finger, one that belonged to the Court of Shadows, but his was different. There was this subtle compulsion to obey and submit to the Court. Add in the fact that they threatened his family, he folded without question. Sure, it wouldn't have been enough to force him to do it, but I think that the compulsion made him disregard any other choice except giving you up or giving up his wife and children."

Rose let out another sob, but controlled herself soon after, "you said that Hermione was the one who did it. Why would she do something like this?"

"I don't think it was intentional. She tried to sacrifice the Court in a ritual to bind me. It was an old ritual that she didn't even have a chance at understanding but did it anyway. She anchored the ritual on the rings that the Court members were wearing, which meant that Nathan was also sacrificed. She didn't know that he had a ring, only that the Court was forcing him to betray you. She planned on using this as a grab for power."

"How would that help her?"

I gave her a slight grin, "Chaos is a ladder."

Immediately, Rose straightened up, understanding how the Muggleborn had planned on killing off the most influential people in magical Britain, and using that to be the only sensible choice to rein in the inevitable chaos that she caused in the first place.

My sister growled, "I want to kill her."

"You cannot kill what is already dead."

She gave me an incredulous look and I burst into laughter, "you didn't think that I would let someone who had the gall to plan your enslavement, as well as trying to bind me, be without any repercussions? Of course, I killed her."

"What about the balance of power? What about all you said about keeping the peace, and maintaining the delicate political landscape in the magical world? Hermione was the obvious choice to keep order in magical Britain."

I let out an amused snort, "Oh, I think you misunderstand. Keeping the balance is important, if it can actually cause a shift in the natural world and have severe consequences. We're trying to avoid things like the summoning of Gods and Demons. Anything else, is just to avoid things being too troublesome in the long run. That doesn't mean that you can't toss things aside if it means that someone messes directly with you and your family. If the Granger girl hadn't used you, or tried to bind me, I would have left her be. Many people have done far worse to win their little games of power."

Rose seemed hesitant for a second before asking in a soft choice, "So, you did it for me?"

I nodded, "Of course I did. You are my sister, and I can't stomach the idea of someone hurting you, especially by deceiving you."

My sister looked away, "But not Nathan."

I shook my head, "No. He is not my family, he hasn't been for a very long time. I have made a decision long ago to ignore the Potter family entirely, choosing to distance myself from the people who hurt me when I was younger. I moved past it. I understand that there were many causes that led to their abandonment of me, I just moved past it. I don't want to have anything to do with the Potter family, except for you, that is."

Rose shook her head, "My brother is dead, Jasmine. Can't you at least pretend to be grieving with me?"

"I didn't know Nathan, Rose. I cannot grieve a man that I did not know, especially one who betrayed you so readily."

"I think I need to be alone right now."

I protested for a second, "I'm not sure that, that is a good idea."

"I said LEAVE!" my sister yelled at me.

I nodded, with a blank face and removed a small box from my pocket dimension, "This box contains what was left of Nathan's body after the ritual was over. For all that is worth, Rose, I am sorry. I know that he was your brother, and that you cared for him, deeply."

I put the box on the dresser and slowly left the room, making sure to close the door, this time. I pretended not to hear Rose's sobbing screams as I walked away.