Though there was a smile on Quinn's face, his face was sending all the opposite signals to Ivy. All of a sudden, she could notice the slight droopiness, the lack of the lustre in his eyes that made him seem intelligent at times and mischievous at others, she could even light bags under his eyes. It was as if a filter had been lifted over her eyes, and as she put aside her anger for a moment, she could see more and more.
"I. . . I am tired," said Quinn. "I have known about the Horcruxes for a very-very long time, and I don't know how Dumbledore does it, but it is a great deal of pressure for me knowing that there exists a madman who can't be killed without getting rid of immortality granting vessels. At first, I was all up for it— things seemed so simple back then— find and destroy the Horcruxes, kill the Dark Lord, and be the unknown hero by the end of it all— and it started great. . . . I had a bucket load of Basilisk Venom ready to torture the soul fragments till they die, and one already down the sack, then I got another one and burnt the ring to a crisp. . . But things are never so simple, are they."
Quinn heaved a heavy sigh. He glanced over his shoulder at the alcohol trolley near the wall with any choice of liquor he could ask for. "Do you mind if I drink?" he asked.
"You don't drink."
"I know, but I really feel like it could help," he sighed. The look from Ivy looked like she wanted to say something but was holding back made him chuckle weakly. "You don't have to say it; I'm not going to drink; it was just a thought." Both of them knew that Quinn didn't want to partake in anything that would leave him inebriated.
"You see, the first time I saw your brother, I always knew that that scar wasn't normal— I thought it was a dark curse injury that your family wasn't able to get fixed, but when I came to know about the Horcruxes, I began to suspect things, and when I looked closer my suspicions were true— the infamous lightning bolt of a scar was indeed a Horcrux. I don't know how that could be possible because Horcrux takes elaborate magic to create. . . but then there hasn't been a maniac who split his soul more than once." Ivy watched as even the talk of magic that would always make Quinn's face glow up failed to bring any joy to his face. "It may sound bad, but back then, I didn't care for your brother's well-being much; I would've preferred to help him, but the bottom line was that Harry Potter was simply. . . a Horcrux."
Ivy's face wasn't a pretty sight. There was hurt and alarm painted all over her face; she even hugged herself, a very out-of-place sight for someone like Ivy Potter. Quinn watched her, and the look of betrayal didn't make him feel any good. But it was true, from the very moment he had begun actively thinking about the whole Horcrux ordeal, he had found Harry to be an allowed sacrifice for the good of many. Yes, Harry had survived in the canon, but magic could be as unpredictable as methodical; who knew what would happen this time around.
"But then something happened which changed all of it," he said with a bittersweet smile. "I became friends with you."
"What?"
"I don't become friends with people easily, you know that. It was a miracle that we became friends, much less get together in an unorthodox relationship. If I had told a past version of me before things went up for us, he would've scoffed and laughed at me while patting me for better luck next time on the prank," chuckled Quinn with a tired smile, but a real one nevertheless.
"Okay, well, thank you for tolerating me," Ivy snapped in return.
"But with hindsight, I think you and me were bound to at least have a good rapport with each other even if we didn't get together like we are now. Don't you think so? I like people who appreciate magic. You had a personality that I could along with. And well, you being pretty didn't hurt, but I'm sure you have heard that plenty of times."
"Are you seriously flirting with me right now?" asked Ivy, flabbergasted— he had been down in the dumps just a moment earlier.
"Who other than I you would I flirt with?" said Quinn bluntly, and the frankly straightforward look made her feel conscious of what he meant. "Even before we started dating, you were close enough to me that I couldn't perceive Harry as just a Horcrux. I couldn't look at him as a liability; he was now an asset to be protected."
"And that's when things became difficult," she said in a half-statement, half-questioning tone.
"The realization kicked in later, but yes, that's when the easy-go-lucky attitude exited my body, and slowly life started to get real," said Quinn. "Things were tough during the Tri-wizard tournament and our time in the DA. I started to sit down with Harry more frequently than ever, and most of the time, I was acutely aware that there was a Horcrux near me, and he was your brother." Quinn paused, and for a few seconds, he rubbed the armrest of the chair in silence, staring at his hand. "I began looking into sure-fire ways I could subtract Harry out of the equation— or at least subtract the Horcrux in Harry's scar from him— and the more I looked, the more questions began to pop up, more problems surfaced, and the answers weren't flowing in at the same rate. As time passed, I began to put increasingly more time into the Horcrux research. Soon both my social and personal time was being dominated by Horcruxes. . . and last year wasn't good for me. . ."
Quinn shook his head. It wasn't good at all. The entire year, his mental state was like a glass full of water up to the brim, threatening to spill over with a single drop or gentlest of gust, and Snape's death was the thing that broke the dam— for a couple of days, he had shut down completely, letting the Sins take over for a time longer than he would've permitted if he was sane. But at the same time, right now, some part of his mind interpreted them as the last moment of true peace where he was free from any sort of conflict— even if that state came because of giving up on everything.
"You know, somewhere down the line, I began to realize what was truly at stake; that if the Horcrux weren't taken care of, the Dark Lord would've threatened millions of lives, if not more," said Quinn with a harrowed look. "Do you know, destroying the Horcrux is not the hardest part of the problem? The hardest part is killing Voldemort," he said, and Ivy reacted, but he motioned her down. "There are many who have accomplished much in magic, revolutionary achievements that will go down in history, but there are only a handful of people who have reached levels of combative power that Dumbledore and the damned snake bastard have achieved— they can level down cities on their own, wipe out armies, magic or non-magical. They're almost impossible to kill; if one comes looking for you, it is advised to escape rather than attempt confrontation. I said this about Dumbledore before; the same goes for Voldemort; killing them is nigh impossible when they can decimate everything and anything around them."
If there was one thing he couldn't agree with in the canon timeline was the fight between Voldemort and Harry. Voldemort could've killed everyone in the Great Hall with a flick of his wand without breaking a sweat. His agreeing to duel Harry was Voldemort saying that it was enough of playing around and he was taking over to finish everything on his own. Quinn had gone dueled Harry, and he had faced Voldemort; both of them weren't even on the same planet.
He looked at the red door of the room; it was the only 'striking' thing that stood out from the rest of the interior of the room. He simply stared at it. Ivy noticed it and asked,
". . . What are you doing?"
"A couple of times in the last years, but mainly in the past few months, I'm visited by this one thought, it is same every time. It always comes in the evening. . . always. . . just before dinner time," said Quinn, and his eyes were locked onto the door with Ivy trying to figure out if she was missing something. "The thought always starts with imagining what my life would be if the Dark Lord and Horcrux never existed. It goes the same for me every time—" he smiled "—I would be somewhere in Europe or Asia with Eddie and Marcus on our trip," which he knew, despite his many attempts to convince himself otherwise, wasn't going to happen, "having the best time before Eddie starts traveling with his Quidditch team, Marcus with studying under Uncle Elliot, and me going to stay with Mr. Alan for the apprenticeship. . . I imagine me visiting you and Daphne during Hogsmeade weekends or whenever we miss each other— I have gotten pretty good with my apparition, and I can create Portkeys, so it wouldn't be a problem to pop by whenever I want. . . I imagine enjoying the world and doing the craziest of things with my best friends while I also take little time to explore some magic here and there, you know, without it distracting from the purposes of the trip. . . I imagine myself not knowing anything about Horcruxes, anything about how to cripple people, with much less knowledge of how to break people down, and without knowing what it feels like to take a life and live with it— that last part always feels plastic because I can't escape from it— it is called living with it, after all, can't just imagine it not existing . . ."
While Quinn's tone was positive and his words full of warmth, Ivy noticed how his demeanor grew weaker by the sentence. The person she knew to be strong no matter what seemed to shrink into his chair. She got up from her chair and almost leaped to his side; Ivy knelt in front of him, taking his hand into hers.
". . . And then I'm back. . . In a room inside my suitcase, or under the mask hunting Snatchers, or in a shitty corner who knows where talking to people I didn't know, almost always under a fake face because I know my grandfather will find me. Always I console myself that the best part of the day, dinner, a hot and delicious meal, is ahead of me," Quinn was now staring into Ivy's eyes as he spoke every word, which now contained a faint hint of a quiver in them. "I walk out in the open from where I am and always stare at the sky, and the same thing passes through my mind. As I look at the evening sky, I always feel tempted to just give up," Ivy's eyes widened, "give up on the life as a runaway, stop being a Death Eater hunting masked Vigilante— hand over the Horcrux and my research to Dumbledore, and leave everything behind. A part of my mind speaks to me, says that this was never my duty, that I don't have to deal with Voldemort— I should leave it to Dumbledore and the Ministry, that they would take care of it. . . and I should live my life, having fun without all the unnecessary stress."
The bitterest of smiles crept over his face as he pointed at the red door, "I had the same feeling right now. . . that this, what is happening between us too difficult, and I should just leave because I don't think I can fix it anymore." He grasped Ivy's hand and leaned forward, "I don't want to feel like this, but I can't help it. . ."
Ivy stood up, sat down on his lap, wrapped her arm around him, and hugged him tightly while whispering words into his ears. She felt him clutch at her clothes. Ivy couldn't see Quinn's face as it was dipped away from her, but she could tell what was happening from the wetness she could feel on her clothes.
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FictionOnlyReader - Author - I don't want to write anything for this chapter here.
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