'Leave her in the Chamber' The words flashed through his mind with chilling coldness. His own tone so blank, it was unrecognizable.
'Let her starve to death.'
Adrian flinched so violently, his shoulder clipped the doorframe with a emphasized bang. The noise startled the two, alerting them of his presence.
"You!" Ron shouted, sniffling against the viscous snot in his nose, "You...you… you slimy git!"
"Ron," Skylar started, his voice sharp yet somehow understanding, "Ron leave it, he wasn't-"
"No!" Ron shouted, ignoring how the sound would likely carry into the kitchen, "He...He's a Slytherin, he was in on it, mate!"
Skylar looked torn, his brown eyes widening as he looked at Adrian in a silent plea.
"What happened to her?" Ron sobbed, on the verge of screaming in his grief, "What did you do to her?"
"I-" Adrian stumbled to make a noise, overwhelmed and in shock at the focused conviction. It was impossible the boy knew, he couldn't know.
"Ron!" Skylar shouted, one hand clapping the redhead's shoulder firmly, "Ron, mate, let him go. He wasn't part of it, mate. He's Mione's friend."
"Some friend!" Ron shrieked angrily, his face flushing horrendously, "Goes around making bloody bets, crawling to Malfoy and those other gits…"
"I make deals," Adrian countered sourly, sneering sharply in return, "A few that you've used if I remember right."
"No," Ron laughed ugly, "You just crawl from one bloke to the next, hoping you get a scrap from anyone."
Adrian recoiled in surprise, before it swiftly shifted to aggression.
"Excuse me?" Adrian hissed, almost shifting to parseltongue. Ron jutted his chin out, hands curling into fists.
"You heard me!" He barked harshly, "You're just a dog, crawling on your belly for everyone so you don't get blamed, you spineless coward…"
"Ron!" Skylar started, shoving the boy backwards and physically out of his accusatory trance, "Ron, mate, no. You don't know his life, it's different for him…"
"I do what I have to do to survive!" Adrian growled back, eyes glittering dangerously as his blood tingled for his other wand, to point and silence that mongrel, "You three have me to thank for everything."
"Right!" Ron laughed, trying to sound patronizing, "like Mione couldn't do any of that without you!"
Adrian opened his mouth to retort, he never had the opportunity to respond before the Weasley continued with his tirade.
"Hermione is smarter than you any day!" He continued, "So what if you got us potion ingredients? Mione would have found them herself! So what you found out that Chamber stuff, she would have found it anyways. You aren't important to us, you aren't needed, and you aren't our friend!"
"Alright that's it!" Skylar shouted, pushing Ron away so he was now across the room. Skylar outstretched his arms, holding them palm spread to form an imaginary barrier between the two boys, "Ron, Adrian's helped us out more than Mione could. Yes she's smart, but it would take her time to find that stuff, it helps to have another person looking!"
Skylar's voice was sharp, his face in a pointed expression yet somehow he still retained the gentle lilt to his tone. Ron opened his mouth to argue, and Skylar sighed, "C'mon mate, just because Slytherin wrecked your family doesn't mean the same didn't happen to him."
That jarred Adrian. Deeply.
"And you," Skylar turned, nodding to Adrian who still stood tense in the doorway, "I know we've gotten off on the wrong foot, but some of that's your fault too."
Adrian blinked, "Wha- my fault…"
"You haven't exactly made it easy," Skylar admitted, "although Hermione really is fond of you. You have moment's too, where you're a prat-"
Adrian flushed angrily and opened his mouth to argue.
"But," Skylar hurriedly added, "you're really not bad. Bloody good dueler and wicked at Care."
'What,' Adrian blinked, trying to think.
All semblances or traces of thought refused to form, dancing out of his grip like his occlumency barrier turned against him. He floundered, looking as shocked as Weasley.
"I think," Skylar started, his voice much more soft and gentle than he had used with either of them, "that Ginny would really have liked you."
'Leave her in the chamber.'
He flinched, viciously and in such a way his chest physically ached.
He missed Lutain so dearly.
Ron looked scrutinizing, his face pinching tightly, "Fred and George say you're not bad," Ron admitted sourly, "and she was closest with them."
'In the chamber?'
"Right," Skylar started brightly, "she loves..." Skylar faltered slightly as he corrected himself, "Loved, flying horses, the winged ones ya know? What were they, uh…"
Skylar trailed off awkwardly, glancing at Ron who looked as if he was somewhere caught between brooding and mourning, "Granian," He quietly confirmed, "drove Mum up the wall with how she wanted one out back."
Adrian stared, yet behind his open eyes he saw the excited expression of his father tugging and pulling him further down.
'In the chamber? All alone?'
"No," Adrian cleared his throat, from where it felt like it was closing on him, "Aethenon are the only species registered in Britain."
Ron seemed baffled, and in a few seconds his expression shifted through a scale of different emotions. Anger, sadness, satisfaction, curiosity, and caution. It settled on something neutral, bland yet with the smallest touches of acceptance, "Yeah, that one. Got Charlie to try and make a stable out back."
The idea that housing an Aethenon at the Weasley estate was even possible, was laughable. The creatures were huge, and required enormous amounts of fodder and grain just for daily life, not counting the exercise and expensive riding gear.
Somehow, the mental image of a little girl trying to persuade loving parents that they needed one was charming. Bittersweet in a hollow aching way.
Adrian had taken that, had taken her away from them.
'Leave her in the chamber to starve.'
Adrian had killed Ginny. He hadn't ever thought of it like that, so bluntly stated in his head. He knew that he had killed her, he left her to her demise.
The ramifications of his actions hadn't ever set in, they hadn't ever occurred to him. She had just been a first year, in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was a casualty in war; she held no more significance than a shirt Bellatrix had ruined during training. She had died, but it felt more to him that she had...expired; her use and her ability had ended, she was the shed Lutain left behind as he continued to grow.
He had never thought of her as someone with individual dreams and desires, an individual life that everyone would mourn and miss and remember.
She hadn't...she hadn't (or had she always been?) a person, in his eye. She was just an object, a possession of the wrong side…
He had left her behind, left her lying in a pool of water too weak to stand or speak.
He had turned his back on her and left her on the floor.
"I mean he didn't," Ron added on, now deep in the throes of nostalgia, "well, he did, but it was more of a shack. The Gnomes got in after a week, we used it as a quaffle post, see how far we could chuck gnomes in it."
Her hair had spread around her fallen form, outstretched like stringy wet rays of sunshine. Her complexion was far too pale, like spoiled milk.
"That's what that shed is?" Skylar asked intrigued, "I always thought it was for gardening,"
"Merlin no," Ron almost smiled, "Charlie was proving to mum he and Gin' could have a pet, although Charlie wanted a dragon…"
His father had been so happy, his expression thrilled and so lifelike Adrian could have felt cooled skin.
Adrian didn't even curse her, he left her to perish like a muggle.
"You okay there, mate?" Skylar asked, his smile faltering as he caught sight of Adrian's rapidly paling complexion, "You looking a bit peachy there…"
His father had laughed, he had smiled and crooned sweet words of praise and pride as he turned and walked over wet stone.
"Ron, go get-" Skylar started, his voice sounding muffled.
Adrian didn't notice.
Somewhere over the sounds of Tom Riddle laughing in his head, he had heard the desperate breathy sounds of Ginny sobbing.
He had walked away and left Ginny Weasley crying alone in the chamber, he had walked away.
Hadrianus Selwyn killed Ginny Weasley.
It suddenly didn't sound as alluring as it once had.
He teetered, and heard Skylar give a cry of alarm.
'Leave her in the Chamber.'
'All alone? In the Chamber?'
'Let her starve to death.'
....
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