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　　 𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐃 𝐀𝐒 she watched Victoria stroll along with Dumbledore, chatting merrily while they did so until they'd rounded the corner. Victoria had seemed the same as Alexis remembered her to be, though quite some years her senior. No aging lines had graced Victoria's face yet and no grey hairs were anywhere in sight. Instead, her features were more set in stone and defined.

'What do you mean she dies?' she asked with a screech and spun on her heels to face Hermione. She tapped with her right index finger on her fingers on the other hand and shook her head. 'You must be mistaken.'

'I'm not,' Hermione scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. 'We're going to the library and I'll prove it to you.'

'Fine,' Alexis scowled. She marched past Hermione and pushed Hermione's shoulder away with her own. 'But do not boss me around.'

Chrys hurried past Hermione to catch up with Alexis and held her hand in comfort. Even the faintest idea of Victoria having passed away caused shivers to roll down her spine in rapid speed. She'd always anticipated there was a possibility that any of them could lose their lives during their rebellion, however, hearing it out loud made it suddenly feel so real. Before it was a whisper of silent warnings, the truth sprinkled through it but never said aloud.

As quiet as the silent warnings, the doors of the library slid open. The soft luminous glow of the moonlight permeated through the huge windows looking through the corridors. Wands of rising branches became dancing silhouettes in the moonlight and were cast over the old-wooden floors. Hundreds of shelves were stuffed to the brim with as many books as could possibly fit onto them without causing any damage.

Chrys' tense shoulders loosened as soon as she stepped foot into the library. A combination of grassy notes and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness infiltrated her nose as she inhaled the familiar smell of Hogwarts' old book collection.

Hermione swished her wand before her as she walked over towards one of the long tables in the middle of the library. 'Accio, A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot,' she said and sat down at the table.

Harry's face showed the dreadful look he always had whenever his schedule would say History of Magic. To him, it was the most boring class in all of Hogwarts, though that could also be because of the one who taught the subject. He never understood why Charlotte did like the subject, but then again, Charlotte enjoyed every class more than Harry.

Raiden had to duck away when a book came soaring past him and pulled Eustace aside before he would've gotten hit by the book. The History of Magic volume gently twirled downwards until it lay flat onto the table.

'Someday, one of you is going to cause someone terrible pain, and I'm afraid that person is likely to be me,' Eustace huffed, still shaken up by the sudden flying book.

'It could honestly only be you, Eustace,' Peter retorted and grinned at Eustace's annoyed response.

'Will you two shut up?' Hermione scoffed at them. She was flipping through the pages, the rustling papers barely staying on the side of the book that Hermione was pushing them to. At last, she'd found the chapter with the name that used to make her shudder whenever she thought about it. Bellicose. The great details in which Bathilda Bagshot had written had haunted her dreams for weeks after their lectures had stopped. With a trembling voice, she began to read the summary at the beginning of the chapter.

'Bellicose (pronounced bel-i-kos) (September 1944 - November 1945) was a notorious group of self-proclaimed Aurors, consisting of Alexis, Azarios, Chrysanthemum, and Victoria. Not much is known of the four members from their time before their graduation from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1944.

'Bellicose's terrorisation started late September 1944, shortly after Chrysanthemum's father had been attainted for conspiracy against the Ministry of Magic. From September 1944 up to November 1945, Bellicose went after several Ministry employees, even going as far as to threaten their family if they did not cooperate.

'Their operation tactic was as followed, told and confirmed by the many Ministry employees they'd captured and tortured; Alexis was the spy and would gather information by infiltrating the British, American and French Ministry of Magic, Azarios was the brute force and would physically torture those they'd captured, Chrysanthemum was the strategist and would plan complex attacks against Ministry employees, and lastly, Victoria was the manipulator and would manipulate people's minds against themselves. Azarios and Victoria were believed to be the ones to have killed missing witches and wizards across the globe.

'Trying to seek a way to free Chrysanthemum's father, Bellicose committed numerous crimes against the Ministry of Magic, the Magical Congress of the United States of America and the Ministry of Magical Affairs of France. They'd finally succeeded in their mission on November 1 1945, once they'd broken into the building where Chrysanthemum's father was attained and disappeared afterwards.

'After the fall of dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald and the end of the Global Wizarding War, the group had seemingly vanished. Rumours had spread that all four had fled Great Britain and had started a new life.

'That was until 1968, when Victoria was found murdered by the Killing Curse. It will forever be unknown what caused her untimely death as no leads have ever been found. She'd been covered in bruises and her wand's history had been removed. She'd been moved after her death and was neatly placed in a resting position, her hair brushed to the sides. Her hands were laid on top of her chest, holding onto her wand and a green rose. It had been speculated that a former Bellicose member came to seek revenge and felt remorse afterwards.

'Alexis, Azarios, and Chrysanthemum have never been seen since the incidents they'd caused in 1944 and 1945 and are still among the most wanted criminals in Great Britain, the United States of America and France.'

Chrys needed a moment to gather her thoughts, but all that she could feel was rage. 'The Ministry and history books have completely stripped us of our identity, heritage and mission. They didn't even mention our fight against Grindelwald's revolution. They twisted our narrative to make us seem like traitors against the Ministry. . .' Angry tears slowly rolled over the edge of her eyes and streamed over her roseate cheeks that felt hot to the touch.

She retreated herself from the group that had hoarded around Hermione as she was reading out loud. She'd gathered Kiano, Alexis and Victoria and dragged them down the path they'd been on, but she'd always thought that what they did was right. Yes, they were outcasts and wanted criminals since their ways weren't exactly legal all the time, but they didn't do anything remotely close to what had been described in that short summary of what the Ministry had made everyone believe in.

Her hand was itching by her side like it always had before. She'd been doing well since starting Bellicose, rarely feeling the desire to smoke, though now and again when her emotions were running too high for her to spit through, the urge would be irresistible.

She grabbed hold of her pouch, but before she could open it, another hand wrapped around hers. She looked up to see Aiden softly shake his head to her. 'You're going to regret it later,' he murmured quietly.

'I need it—'

'No, you don't.'

'I did this to them,' she told him, her eyes completely glossed over with tears. 'I did this to them. If I hadn't asked them to help me, none of this would've ever happened. I did this to them, it's my fault. . . They're social outcasts, the world is taught to hate them, because of me. I did—'

Alexis ran her hand through her hair, though she stopped when her silver ring caught onto her hair and stopped her from going further. It was the first time since she began wearing her ring that it got stuck. Her biggest fear was that she would've been forgotten about as time would pass, but the opposite had been proven. However, the thought of being known throughout history as notorious, wanted criminals who defied several Ministries of Magic all for the sake of freeing someone of the punishment of their crimes against the Ministry of Magic was awful. She was least upset with her own title as the spy of the group, but hearing that Kiano was a torturing brute force was hard for her to process simply because it was not the truth.

Her and Chrys were spoken of as though they had done less crimes than Kiano and Victoria. The latter two were painted as torturers and murderers and it hit Alexis' nerve. 'People are going to talk about you, no matter what you do,' she scoffed and crossed her arms over her chest. 'We've never killed anyone and we've never used an Unforgivable Curse.'

'We didn't do the things they accused us of doing and we didn't do it for the reason they said,' Chrys said at the verge of crying from all the guilt that had built up over the months.

'I believe you,' Aiden mumbled quietly. 'The Ministry loves to fabricate history.'

Chrys stopped holding back her tears as they flowed like rivers down her cheeks again. She shifted forwards and let herself fall into Aiden's arms, who wanted to make sure she wouldn't fall. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sobbed into his shoulder.

Aiden was caught off guard by her sudden embrace, but quickly composed himself. He wrapped one of his muscled arms around Chrys' waist to pull her closer towards him and used his free hand to gently stroke Chrys' long, chestnut-coloured locks. 'I'm sorry for not trusting you before,' he whispered in her ear and swallowed. 'I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. I—I have a really hard time trusting people.'

Red and blue flashes soared through his eyes as the events of his youth played in his mind. Behind the dark magic formed vague figures that slowly evolved into the faces of those he was supposed to trust the most. He squeezed his eyes shut until the memories stopped tormenting him.

Chrys pulled back a little to see if he was alright and softly laid her hand on his cheek. 'I'm sorry you've been hurt so much,' she said, unable to hide her sorrow for his pain. She leaned closer to him and left a lingering kiss on his cheek. A genuine smile brushed over Chrys' face when she saw Aiden's eyes lit up. However, she had to make herself let go of him as her mind won over her heart.

Erin's finger slowly slid over the worn paper of the book that Hermione had read from. She could feel the letters against the skin of her fingers from the ink that had lightly swelled up the paper when it was printed. She furrowed her brows until her small scar was barely noticeable as she tried to remember the words Hermione had read out loud with the words on the paper, but she just couldn't understand what was written down in print.

'You seem confused,' Hermione stated as she watched Erin stare at the book.

'I um—I can't read actually,' Erin admitted. 'Nor write.'

'How come?'

Erin glanced up from the paper to look over at Hermione and shifted uncomfortably on her chair. She was taken aback by how much concern could be read off of Hermione's face and she reminded herself that she didn't need to be able to read words. She could do everything that she needed to be able to do and she shortly held onto her leather bracelet that was strapped around her wrist.

Hermione noticed the glistening of a silver ring that was secured on a leather necklace around Erin's neck. Though once Erin realised what Hermione was curiously gazing to, she swiftly wrapped her hand around the ring and pushed it into her shirt.

'Doesn't matter,' Erin muttered and gestured towards the book. 'What matters is that none of this explains what just happened.'

'Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only person to be able to give us any answers is Victoria,' Raiden interjected, though he didn't await anyone's answer before he continued. 'Shouldn't that mean that our priority is finding our way back to Narnia?'

'How are we going to do that?' Alexis asked. She became a little frustrated by the fact that Raiden kept bringing up going back to Narnia, while no one knew how. Pushing the matter back into the conversation wasn't going to help. She knew he was right, they all knew, it was the obvious question with an answer that no one had.

The moonlight that filtered through the stained glass window that was overlooking the group shone more vividly as the faint sound of a scream echoed against the book-filled walls of the library. The others had to squint to look at the intense beaming rays of light until a figure came running through the window and managed to momentarily keep running through the air.

'Florence,' Edmund whispered astonished.

As Caspian, Peter and Edmund were closest to the window, they created a human net that caught Florence. Peter and Edmund wanted to bombard her with so many questions, but Florence didn't seem like she would stop sobbing any time soon.

'I don't know where she is,' Florence cried out.

'You have to calm down first, Florence,' Caspian whispered to her. Florence's shoulders shook violently as she kept crying and she shook her head, trying her hardest to steady her breathing again. Caspian cupped Florence's cheeks in his large, calloused hands that were not used to the softness of Florence's skin. Her tears wetted his palms as he softly stroked her tears away. 'Look at me. Everything is going to be okay.'

Florence's breathing hiccupped in her throat, the uneasiness that she experienced every time Caspian was close to her made her mind go numb. 'I'm—calm,' she said with a slight quiver. 'We have to go back to Narnia right away. Victoria, she—' She stopped, unsure how to tell the others what had happened.

'Where is Victoria?' Kiano's booming voice broke the barrier of silence.

'She could be anywhere at any time. . .' Florence admitted quietly.

She began to tell where they'd been held hostage and about Victoria's mystery disappearances. She kept trembling when she told them about the Dementors that had been sent after them and their escape from the mountain up to her creation of the portal and accidentally sending Victoria through another portal.

'Dementors cannot be seen by Muggles,' Charlotte suddenly interjected.

'Who says I'm a Muggle?' Florence retorted.

She rubbed her hands together and waved them around her until her signature white-golden luminescence surrounded her fingertips. As she created a new portal, she could feel the burning sensation of stares on her back, but she couldn't be too bothered about it. Narnian magic was about hope and belief and being able to create with the simplicity of a thought. She'd found her way back to the Pevensies and Eustace by continuously thinking about finding them and so now, she was hoping with all her might that she could lead the others back to Victoria. . .

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Hi y'all!

This. Chapter. Took. Forever. To. Write. I swear none of the writing gods were with me on this one lmao. I have something really cool planned for next chapter, so perhaps that's why writing this one was less fun. We'll see how well that one goes hahah.

Some of you perhaps have seen my message on my message board. I kind of took a week's break from writing this book due to recent events that happened here on Wattpad. The detox has been great and it's been treating me well.

Thank you again for the incredibly support. I can't believe we're almost at 9K reads so close after reaching 8K reads! I also reached 500 followers yay!

All in all, it's been a good week, I hope yours is too.

Thank you for reading!

xx Theresa

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