March 19th.

When Anna is woken up the next morning, she feels renewed. Excited. Happy. She certainly doesn't feel scared. Not at all.

Not even the teensiest, tiniest bit.

I mean, that would be illogical, right?

There's no way she could be leading Voldemort straight to Jeremy. Or worse, her parents. And there's no way Jeremy won't be at the castle. Or dead. 

No how, no way.

At least, that's what Anna's telling herself as her limbs suddenly get heavier than they were with the thought process.

She drags her arms up and swirls the toothbrush around her front teeth, back teeth, and so on. Then, she swishes her mouth around with some water. She spits it out with a splat! Next, she picks out her face wash from the cabinet behind the mirror in the bathroom and scrubs her face. She washes it off, then panics when some of it gets in her eyes.

"Ow, ow, ow," she mutters to herself as she claws at her eyes in vain, in an effort to get the wash out.

When she turns the water in the sink on and rinses out her eyes, she finally calms down.

She walks over to her closet where she meticulously picks out an outfit that says I'm-meeting-my-secret-brother-for-the-first-time-in-a-decade-and-I'm-mega-pumped-but-not-that-pumped-because-I'm-also-cool-and-stuff-also-I'm-really-scared-right-now-help.

But yeah, she wound up with a pair of jeans and a nice green t-shirt. She walks back over to the mirror and frowns at her raggedy hair.

She washes it out head-under-the-sink style and then blow-dries it to give it a fuller look. Finally, she carefully braids a couple sections of hair and pin them to the back of her head (curling the remaining hair, of course).

When satisfied with appearance, she does finger guns to the mirror and clicks her tongue.

Then, she cringes, thinking, Yeah, I'm never doing that again.

And her malevolent overlord watching from afar thanks her for that sentiment. (A/N Not me foreshadowing because tis I, tHe MaLeVoLeNt OvErLoRd WaTcHiNg FrOm aFaR!)

"Annie?" Arthur calls from downstairs. "Your friends are here!"

"Thanks, Arty! I'll be right on down," she responds, smoothing out her jeans.

She skips down the stairs of the Burrow where Lily and Marlene are waiting.

"Hey, Goldie," Marlene waves when she sees her.

Lily gasps dramatically, "It's been so long! I can't believe I'm finally seeing you again!"

Marlene shoves her with her shoulder, "It's been literally 20 hours, Chani. You've slept that long before."

"Have not!" Lily argues.

Anna and Arthur share amused glances.

"Are you two done yet?" Anna asks expectantly, tapping her foot.

Marlene and Lily sigh in unison, "Yeeees."

The blonde smirks, "Good. We ready?"

"Oh, we are ready," Lily assures her.

"We have wands-" Marlene begins.

"-And that's illegal-" Lily interjects.

"-Like she hasn't done it before, Lils. I mean, what? Anyways, we also have grenades-"

"-Also illegal-" Lily says patiently. Looking around at Arthur, she says, "We really don't."

Marlene stage-whispers, "We really do. Next, we have some snacks. Lily brought these muggle treats that were just released called Skittles. I'm much more interesting, so I brought a vintage Coca-Cola from 1927."

"Didn't those have cocaine in them?" Anna asks, her face scrunched up.

"Also illegal," Lily concludes happily.

Marlene pouts, "You guys are no fun."

Lily hooks an arm around Marlene's shoulder and uses her hand to make an 'L' shape with her fingers and slowly outstretches her arm and moves it from the left to the right.

"Let me paint you a picture. You are about to go on a journey with your mystical best friends to find her secret brother who was erased from her memory and is currently living in a castle out of a fairy tale. She is being chased by an evil wizard and her evil parents who are working for said evil wizard. That fun enough for you? Good," Lily says, then lightly slaps the left side of Marlene's face when she finishes.

Marlene grips her cheek exaggeratedly, "Lilith Rebecca Evans! How dare you? We need to take you to go to therapy for your violent tendencies. Oh, yes! Anna, I learned a new word! Therapy! Apparently it's where you go talk to someone about your problems for an hour."

"My full name is Lily and my middle name is not Rebecca," Lily points out. "And they also give you advice at the end. My parents have always kept me in. Some people are sort of old-fashioned about it and don't like it, but people in it are actually more stable."

"I'm not really sure what to say now other than let's get going," Anna declares. "And I hate to break it to you, Lilith Rebecca, but your name is Lilith Rebecca. Let me grab my wand, just in case."

Marlene and Lily nod and Arthur laughs again. Anna sprints up the stairs and rummages through her light blue suitcase until she finds her wand.

It's an 11 inch Dragon Heartstring wand with cherry wood. Something that has always haunted her was the way Dragon Hearts are the easiest to use for the Dark Arts. And the only thing about her wand that haunts her more is that the length of the wand makes it powerful and volatile, and cherry wood combined with Dragon Heartstring is the most powerful combination in all of wand-making. Which basically equates to her having the best potential power, specifically in the Dark Arts. 

Shaking away the slightly morbid thoughts, she heads back down the stairs, cringing at every creak of the wooden stairs.

"You ready?" Arthur says, handing her a handful of floo powder.

"I'm ready," Anna says determinedly. 

She is not ready.

"We're ready," Marlene and Lily agree.

Clearly, the three of them grab handfuls of the greenish powder and yell into the fire, "Nottingham Castle."

They appear inside a (thankfully) closed-off room. Wordlessly, the three girls make their way through what seems to be an art gallery. Eventually, they find a sign that says 'City of Caves' and duck underneath it. The girls peer around the sandy caverns and walk through.

"Wait!" Anna exclaims, pointing ahead. "It's the Hogwarts symbol."

"That it is, Lee-Lee," a new voice agrees, a wide smile on his face. "That it is."

The new voice reveals itself to be a slender blonde with icy blue eyes leaning against one of the cave entrances.

Anna stops in her tracks and Marlene and Lily exchange glances.

"What was the last thing you said to me?" she asks, her voice dangerously low as she pulls out her wand.

"That I'd see you soon. And you know what? I had a good feeling about today. I've been waiting for you for so long, Annalee," Jeremy says, a sad smile replacing the huge one.

Lily and Marlene squeal, hitting each other's shoulders excitedly.

Annalee rushes forward and hugs him. The older wizard leads the three girls into where his humble abode apparently is.

It's small. It has food locked in floating ice bubbles, a queen-sized bed, a couch, and (of course) a Disney movie currently paused playing on a TV.

"It's just like I've always pictured it..." Lily trails off, looking around.

Marlene swats her again, "We've known about it for less than twenty-four hours, idiot."

"But fairy tale!" Lily whines, which would've made Anna chuckle had it not been for her slack-jaw-edness.

"I'm Jeremy," Jeremy finally says to Anna's best friends. "It's good to meet you. Ginny's in the town buying a couple things, but she'll be back soon."

"You and Ginerva are still together?" Anna beams.

"Yep. Fifteen years and counting," Jeremy agrees. "So... are you going to introduce me to your friends?"

"Well the redhead is Lily Evans who I'm sort of living with at the moment. We met in first year and bonded over mutual hatred of this boy, James Potter. And yes, of the Potter family. We're all good friends now, though. Kind of. Sometimes Lily calls James an arrogant toe-rag, but we've gotten a good eighth or so past that. And the blonde over there is Marlene McKinnon who I actually met through Lily this year. I'm really lucky to have them both," the little sister surmises.

And just like that, they all talk as though they're old friends. Soon enough, Ginerva comes back and hugs Annalee in glee.

They catch up. Just as they're about to leave, a cold voice sounds from behind them.

"Well, well, Anna. I didn't think you could, but you found him. You found Jeremy," Tom Riddle says, his wand pointed and a smug grin on his face.

Ginny and Jeremy exchange looks, while Lily and Marlene look downright terrified. Anna, on the other hand, is completely calm.

"I don't feel as though you received an invitation, Tom. So I'd thank you to leave," she says coolly, teasing her wand gently with her slender fingers. "I'm sure you wouldn't want me to use magic, because then the whole ministry would show up. And I know none of us want that."

"However much fun that would be, don't you recall? I have a permanent concealment charm. Any magic you use, no one will ever know," Tom taunts, walking in slowly.

"Leave, Riddle," Jeremy says, going into battle stance. "You can't fight all of us."

"While I can, I really don't have to. Aubrey? Morenthius? Your children would like to say hello," Riddle jeers, waving behind him.

Two more figures step into the cavern. The two older Fawleys. 

"Aubrey. Morenthius. I wish I could say it's good to see you after so long. Actually, I just wish you weren't terrible people and even worse parents," Ginny says warmly, a huge smile on her face..

Tom looks mildly entertained as Jeremy puts a protective arm around Ginny and Anna straight-up grins.

"Very funny, Ginerva. I'm glad to see you and my son haven't separated yet. He does have a tendency to drive everyone away," Aubrey says coldly, putting a hand on her husband's shoulder.

Anna's smile only grows, "Right. Because the only consistency between the few people he has driven away is you! Moving on, what can I do for you, Tom?"

"Hand your brother over to me, step aside while I kill the bloodtraitor and mudblood, then join my Death Eaters," Tom says casually.

Lily and Marlene's (as this is their first interaction with Tom, and especially Tom and Anna) mouths drop open, looking between Riddle and Anna.

"I'm okay. However, if you give me your wand, I'm absolutely happy to snap it for you," Anna tilts her head innocently.

Marlene, Lily, Aubrey, and Morenthius all gasp at her lack of decorum. Jeremy and Ginerva beam at her proudly.

Tom, on the other hand, chuckles, and says, "Funny as always, Anna. But I thought you would want to get out of this alive. Not to mention, your little boyfriends are back in London in a house full of Death Eaters. It'd be a true shame if they were to... I don't know... get in trouble?"

As always happens in her conversations with Riddle, Anna's smile drips off her face, her conscious heavier than the moon itself.

"You wouldn't dare it," she says lowly.

"Haven't we already established that you can't kill me?" Voldemort grins cruelly. "We already know you're going to go down fighting if you continue on the path you're on. Let's just skip a step."

With a flick of Tom's wand, the overhead cave barrier crumbles down above them.

Without thinking, Ginerva shoves Lily and Marlene away, to the entrance. She jumps back in time to be hit with a blast of green light protruding from Tom's wand. She hits the ground, the light leaving her dark brown eyes.

But only Jeremy sees that as he pushes his younger sister out from where a particularly large block is about to fall. Unfortunately, in order to do that, he takes her place.

"No!" Anna, Aubrey, and Morenthius all yell at the same time, reaching towards where the blonde wizard had been crushed.

The three remaining Fawleys, Lily, and Marlene are left, separated only barely from the most dangerous man alive by the collapsed ceiling and the blood of the man who was a son, brother, boyfriend, and best friend that's currently oozing along the floor.

Anna's face goes stony and her eyes shift to her parents.

Her parents draw their wands again, aiming it to the area in front of them that's currently eroding as Voldemort tries to break the wall down.

"Go, Anna. You can make it out of here. We'll hold him off," Aubrey insists, not turning her eyes away from the wall and her now-dead son.

"No. I'm not leaving you here. He'll- he'll kill you. I'm just a disappointment, you all can go. I'll hold him off," Anna insists, manner changing immediately as she draws her own wand.

"Lee, we have to go," Lily says gently, tugging on her arm.

"No! I can't leave you!" Anna cries to her parents, ripping her limb back away.

The wall vibrates again and more dust crumbles.

Morenthius turns to look at her. With his free hand, he cups her cheek. "You were never a disappointment, Anna. I'm sorry it took so long for us to see it."

"Go, Anna," Aubrey says again as more pieces of the ceiling fall and the yells of Tom reverberate throughout the sandy area that was once a home to the deceased Ginerva Alison Thompson and Jeremy Morenthius Fawley.

And so Annalee Harriet Fawley, Marlene Marie McKinnon, and Lily Jane Evans run away from the small cave. They run faster than they ever thought their legs could carry them in the hopes they wouldn't hear the words that still manage to make their ways to their ears:

"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Just like that, Annalee becomes an orphan. Her parents: gone. Her brother: gone. And it feels like she's all alone.

A/N REDEMPTION ARCH! REDEMPTION ARCH! REDEMPTION ARCH! NOW GO, MY PRETTIES, READ MY (KIND OF) BEAUTIFUL RESOLUTION!