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　　 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐕𝐄 in the ether had travelled their way back to the horizon. The troops were ready to follow wherever their kings and queen would go. The centaurs and fauns and many Narnian soldiers were waiting for the royal approval to march, though it hadn't come yet. Glenstorm and Everett had enlightened the kings and queen and Eustace of the Archenlanders and Telmarines on the other side of the Western Woods. While this had made Caspian more hopeful for their victory, Peter couldn't help but have his doubts.

He'd seen with his own eyes what magic the earthly witches and wizards possessed and how strong it could be. When Victoria had told them that she suspected another portal to be present within the mountain, his worries only grew. One witch could easily take on tens of soldiers at the time, and that excluded the hags who were undoubtedly not on their side. They only had eight trained wizards and witches, and while Peter thought they were undeniably skilled, there were only so many opponents they could beat.

And though Florence picked up how to control her Narnian magic quickly, even she couldn't beat the lot that was awaiting them. As he panicked in his head over the outcome, he did allow his pride to take over. However, for once it wasn't about his own abilities. Watching Florence flourish over her new-found skills and realising how much hope she had to channel the ancient form of magic, made him feel like a proud older brother.

After Victoria had told everyone about how the Ministry had bound her gift as a child, she'd spent some time trying to help Florence train. It was rather interesting to witness as Narnian magic couldn't be taught. Aside from general directions to help guide her, Victoria mainly came up with things to practise without ever truly teaching Florence how to perform anything. There weren't spells one had to learn, but rather it was creation from one's imagination. When Florence saw the Dementor suck out Victoria's soul, she imagined a lion as a symbol of protection and her magic followed it.

The only way to learn Narnian magic was to have the ancient Narnian symbols imprinted in you. Somehow, the hag's magic had engraved those symbols into Victoria's skin, which Florence had read, etched it into her eyes.

Before the troops could be signalled to march, Kiano had requested Peter for a little more time, as one question had been burning on his mind. Standing across from Victoria, surrounded by all the others, he cleared his throat. 'I need to know, Victoria,' he said coarsely. 'I need to know the truth about how much mind-reading you've been doing without us knowing about it.'

Victoria's face softened at the tension in his voice and she took a few steps closer to him, mindful to leave enough space between them for him to be comfortable. 'I have never read your mind, Kai. Never,' she whispered and swallowed her guilt away. 'I wanted to. After what had happened with Tom, I was afraid you were going to betray me too and I'd been too blind to see the signs. But I didn't do it, because you're not him and I knew deep down you would never do anything like that to me.'

Kiano remained silent. He kept clenching his jaw, though Victoria could tell he wasn't angry. She'd seen this only once before when he spoke of his family. She wanted to hug him, but knew better than to do that. He pinched his hands into fists and released them several times to stop the burning sensation in his eyes until it hurt.

'Because I love you, Kiano. And I trust you with all my heart.'

Kiano stomped over to her and squeezed her into a hug. He still didn't say anything, but instead let a few tears slip through his lids and drop onto Victoria's shoulder. When he let go of her, she could see the expectant eyes of everyone else on her, wanting to know the same thing as Kiano.

'After my gift was bound, I hadn't read anyone's mind until my final altercation with Tom at Hogwarts. And after that altercation, I'd only used it on those we interrogated,' she said as her eyes glanced over the time-travellers, Muggles and Florence. 'I did read your minds at our first encounter, to figure out your true intentions and make sure you weren't a group of spies from the Ministry or Grindelwald. That's it.'

'Heck, if I could read people's minds, I'd have read a whole lot more than that,' Erin said and put her hands on her hips in a confident stance. 'You didn't use it with malice intents, only to protect yourself and those close to you. I think we can all kind of relate to that, can't we?' Her eyes shot at the Pevensies and Caspian, many of whom had done their own questionable action though usually also with the best of intentions.

Caspian lightly scratched his beard and unconsciously nodded. 'I agree with Erin,' he mumbled absent-mindedly, though not everyone seemed as convinced as him yet.

'If I may,' Raiden spoke up. 'I know we've all had our reservations about Victoria when we found out, I had them too. However, I can't say I'm all that innocent either. I've eavesdropped, heard conversations I wasn't supposed to hear, but wouldn't stop listening until the conversation was over. She could've continued to read us the entire time she was near us, but she chose not to. Once she knew you weren't intending on hurting her or her friends, she stopped.'

Raiden had a gift of his own when it came to speaking. He was more than simply eloquent, his wording could turn around anyone's opinion. Victoria had first noticed it when they met, though after that he'd faded more to the background of helping without intruding as the loyal knight he was.

'I have my own secrets. There are some things that I have never told anyone. Does that make me an untrustworthy person, simply because I haven't shared them? She's given us a choice. We may join, but we don't have to. That's more of a choice than Aslan has ever given me or any of us. My choice is to follow her and to trust that she does the right thing.'

'That is my choice too,' Edmund said, as he stood with his arms crossed surrounded by his family.

'Mine too,' Eustace said and swallowed.

He stood ever so bravely, though Raiden felt the need to hold his hand. Eustace's clammy hand that was twitching with nerves didn't waste this opportunity and firmly held onto Raiden's steady hand.

Alexis raised her hand over her head, her sharp gaze piercing into Victoria's. 'I only have one request,' she said. 'Abernathy is mine. That prick told me that I was too weak to be an Auror when I first met him, we'll see about that.'

The royal approval was given and the march had begun. Hermione sped up so she could walk next to Erin. 'That's a beautiful necklace,' she said to her, her breathing heavy as she tried to keep up with Erin's swift walk. 'Where did you get it?'

Erin had a hunch that Hermione had grown curious about her necklace since the library visit. She smiled since Hermione had been the first person to ever ask her about it. Perhaps that was because she was surrounded by men most of the time, but even so, nobody had ever seemed interested enough to find out. 'Everett gave it to me. It was his late wife's wedding ring. He had no children to pass it on to, so he passed it onto me,' she said.

'Everett is sort of like a father figure to you then, isn't he?' she continued. If there was one thing Hermione thrived at, it was coming up with new questions to the answers of her previously asked questions. 'Did he also give you the leather bracelet you're wearing?'

'He is like a second father figure if you will,' Erin answered with a smile. Though she was dreading where they were going, she couldn't help but feel excitement about Hermione's interest. 'My siblings gave me my bracelet. And—' She paused to watch Hermione let out the breath of air that she'd already taken to ask a new question. '—to answer your next question. I have three siblings. Jasper, Josiah and Toria.'

A loud horn was blown and the troops stopped marching. In the distance, they could see the followers Grindelwald and Tom had gathered as they no longer hid behind an invisible cloak of sorts. The drying lands of the Western Wild felt serene in the latest moments of the night, though nobody even wanted to think about the ending of what was about to commence.

Peter nodded his approval to Victoria, silently reminding her of what they'd agreed upon. Victoria's gaze shifted shortly to Edmund's, the short comfort that eased her shoulders allowing her a moment of clearance in her storm of fury. She focused her attention back onto Tom as she slowly approached him by herself.

Tom did the same and the two of them met in the centre of the battlefield, their heads held high as if victory was already theirs to claim. 'You don't have to put all of them through this, Victoria,' he said, knowing he'd ruffle her feathers of guilt.

'I could say the same about you,' she retorted.

'Your last chance to join me, my love.'

The way he spat out the word "love" made Victoria's heart ache. She felt incredibly stupid that it had ever sounded genuine to her and she hated that he still used it when addressing her, especially for the reason he used it. However, she wouldn't show him that, never again. She began to slowly walk in a circle around him, her words nothing more than whispers haunting his ears. 'I think it's safe to assume after your little Dementor gift, I will not join you,' she said.

She stood before him again, knowing how eager he was to talk. Listening wasn't his strength, he only wanted to be heard. Though Victoria had heard enough from him during their time together in the mountain. It had taken every last bit of energy she'd left, but reading glimpses of what he was hiding after he'd tortured her and let his guard down was worth it. 'I must admit, it's clever of you wanting to learn how to control Narnian magic after reading about it in the Forbidden Section, and using it to ultimately betray Grindelwald if you somehow manage to win.' She watched as his lip twitched and his eyes sharpened. 'However, thinking that I would teach you any more than I already have is the most dense you've ever been.'

Tom scoffed out a laugh, one corner of his lips curling up into a half-smirk. 'If you think I'll be intimidated by you reading my mind, you're gravely mistaken,' he said and grabbed her arm to pull her closer to him. He stared into her eyes, though the closer she came to him, the more his eyes lowered to her lips. He found herself having missed her sweet scent, though wasn't certain why that was. 'I'm surprised your friends are still here. I'd assumed they would abandon you once they found out about your little secrets.'

'Of course you'd assume that. You only care about yourself,' Victoria hissed at him as she struggled in his grip. She didn't want to be this close to him ever again. She hated him and she reminded herself about her disgust of him, and after he'd tortured her and she'd watched him murder her, it wasn't all that hard to feel her blood boil. 'I've never read Alexis' mind. Or Chrys' or Kiano's,' she continued, the hatred spewing from her face. 'Not even after you'd shattered my trust. I forced myself to continue to trust them by reminding myself that they are not you.'

Tom strengthened his grip on her as her fury had rubbed off on him. While love was unknown to him and being happy about anything non-sinister, he could live off of someone else's anger and use it to empower himself. 'How much do you really trust them?' he asked her. Though there was genuine curiosity behind his eyes, he already seemed rather certain about her answer.

Victoria looked him dead in the eye, thinking to herself that he somehow still managed to surprise her with his ignorant questions. 'With my parents' life,' she said and though she couldn't reach for her necklace, she could feel the familiar coldness of the stone against the palm of her hand, the memory of it imprinted in her touch.

'Not even your own? That's pathetic.' He scowled his last word so harshly, Victoria had to break eye-contact. He hated pathetic people, as he hated many more things. However, the weak and pathetic had a special place in his hate-fueled heart.

'If you don't think I'd sacrifice my life in a heartbeat for my parents, then you don't know me at all,' she argued back and ripped her wrist free from his grip. Her skin felt raw and it burnt as a red circle appeared. 'You think you're so clever, but still don't understand that I'm a Hufflepuff through and through.'

Tom fell to his knees as the power of the mountain heightened Victoria's strength. She dug into his brain, ready to rip everything apart, shred his memories to pieces and break him from the inside. However, her moment of dominance was short-lived when Tom's wand slipped out of his black robes. He too could feel the connection to earth through the mountain and tightened his grip on his wand in anger. His eyes found a target and with a twist of his wand, he released a bright green whirlwind.

The spell travelled so fast, it could barely be seen until it hit Aiden's chest. Aiden let out a sharp gasp for air as he stumbled backwards and fell onto the ground. The rushing sound of the spell was deafened by the horrified screams as Hermione, Harry and Charlotte dropped next to him. They cried out his name in desperation for a response, but it never came.

Harry could still hear his words. Aiden wanted to save his parents more than anything, save them from a fate they never deserved. Fred and George were two of his best friends during his time at Hogwarts, though ever since Fred had passed, George turned to himself, losing that spark he shared with his twin brother. If there was anything he could do to bring them all back, he would've. However, that chance was taken from him before he ever could.

Chrys pushed everyone out of the way to reach him. She crashed down besides Charlotte, the sobs leaving her mouth as she cried at the sight of him. She was thinking of every possible solution to undo the curse, however, there was no solution for it. Her hand lowered to his cheek where her kiss had lingered only so shortly ago. It slowly found its way to his heart as tears rolled down her cheeks, no longer feeling his heartbeat. Her heart felt shattered as the pain stung in her chest. She slowly turned her head towards Victoria and squeezed her eyes shut, before she looked away again.

Victoria seemed ablaze in the earliest minutes of dawn, her anger for Tom soaring through the deepest chambers of her heart. 'You will pay for that,' she said through gritted teeth and took out her own wand. 'I'll make sure of that this time. . .'

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Hola-la-la-la-la,

Oh perhaps I should be a tad bit more emotional....Hello everyone :')

May Aiden rest in peace, I loved him but it wasn't meant to be. Thank you sweet Adri for creating him, I had a blast writing about him and getting to know him.

This update was already sooner than the other ones lately, so I'm happy about that. Only a few more to go! However, please bare with me as fighting scenes aren't my forte, so it takes a while before I'm satisfied lol

Thank you for reading

xx Theresa

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