the quiet after the chaos | frank

[Deleted]

@frank

there was still a bright glow on the horizon where the castle stood. she was sitting safe in hogsmeade, having gotten out of the castle before the structure had fallen but she knew that other's hadn't been so lucky. she was sitting on one of the stone fences that surrounded the town, a woolen blanket draped around her shoulders and a cup of something hot in her hands. she'd yet to find her twin or her father and it was terrifying her. the fact they might have still been inside, that they might be gone. she couldn't believe this was happening again. the gut wrenching fear of not knowing what was happening. she'd tried to look for them in the castle, she'd tried to find any trace they they had left the grounds, asking everyone she'd come across if they'd seen them but no one she'd asked had seen them.

she'd made it out a few minutes before the castle had collapsed, caught in the scramble of students who had tried to help get the ones who couldn't move out. she didn't remember how she'd gotten to hogsmeade, though she had a vague memory of someone grabbing her arm and tugging her away from the castle. when she'd gotten to the town she had searched among the injured, the people who were tending them and whoever was in the streets of the small town. it was there she'd been taken aside by one of the medics, mostly uninjured she was lucky. she'd had some burns on her hands that had been healed with the wave of a wand, a cough that would go away with the more fresh air she breathed and in shock at the whole thing.

she'd been sat on the fence by one of the medics, the cup pushed into her hands and the blanket thrown around her before the medic had moved onto the next person. she sat there, holding the still full cup between her fingers, too sick at the thought of her family being gone to drink it. it was like the quidditch final all over again. her and her twin hadn't been able to find their parents. they'd not known for so long and their mother had been killed. she couldn't help but panic and be terrified that she was going to get that news again. she was going to lose her family, she was sure of it.

[Deleted]

As soon as the teachers recognized what was happening, Frank volunteered to be at the meeting point for the students and adults fleeing the castle. In his younger years, Frank would have been at the front, dueling the Purifiers who had slipped into the castle unnoticed, rescuing the students from the Fiendfyre, but he was not that man anymore. With his leg and reaction times nowhere near where it should be, he recognized he would be more useful outside the castle grounds. Part of him yearned to rush into the castle wand at the ready, but he had his twins to think about. He’d seen his son come through with a group of rescued students, but Caillen had yet to be accounted for. He tried to ignore the painful beatings of his heart. She would be fine, she was fine, she was her mothers’ daughter, she would get out of the castle safely. He repeated this mantra to himself, trying not to let hope slip away as more and more students hurried into Hogsmeade for safety.

One of the teachers who had stayed back fighting ran up to him to let him know Hogwarts had fallen, but Frank could not have heard him correctly. How could Hogwarts, which had stood for over a thousand years, had withstood attacks from Voldemort, have fallen? But he heard a loud rumbling noise in the distance, and saw the smoke billowing from the castles direction and his heart fell. All the memories of his Cat, his life at the school, gone. He turned away, not wanting to show a sign of weakness but his heart was breaking. Limping slightly, he made his way through the throngs of students, searching each face with increasing desperation for his daughter.

Then, all of a sudden, there she was. Sitting on a fence, a blanket draped over her shoulders and something hot to drink in her hands. Frank felt a cry escape his lips, and hurried over to her as fast as he could, not bothering to hide the tears streaming down his face. “Caillen,” he croaked, enveloping her in a bone crushing hug as the mug fell to the ground. “My darling girl, I was...I was so afraid I lost you like your mother,” he cried, not wanting to let her go. He was not so cursed after all; he had not lost a second family member in the span of the year, and he could not help but feel Cat was looking out for her family from beyond the grave.

@caillen

[Deleted]

@frank

it took her more than a second before she even registered that someone had said her name. she didn't lift her head though, there was no way it was the two people she desperately needed to see. she couldn't help but let herself feel like they were gone, there had been no word, she hadn't seen them since the school had been evacuated and maybe it was a quitting attitude but she couldn't help but feel the crushing weight of dread and grief in her chest. she'd had hope last time, she'd been strong last time, certain that her family would be okay but she'd lost her mother. there was something in her than refused to believe her father had made it out of the castle. she took something of a ragged breath as she gained some courage to lift her head to look at the faceless person who was speaking to her.

it was then she felt the bone crushing hug that they were giving her. her eyes widened slightly as the cup fell from her fingers and shattered as it fell to the cobblestones below their feet. she raised her own arms to wrap around her father tightly, her fingers grasping his cloak with an almost desperation. she wanted to speak but she found her words kept getting stopped in her throat, like she'd choke on them if she tried to talk. so she just hugged him tightly, burying her face into his shoulder as she sat there in the embrace still not really believing that her dad was there and he was alive.