#it's funny how it all started because I wanted to draw angsty cursed Lith

[slytherinliththorne]

The Fate of the House of Thorne

Inspired by my secret santa from last year, what a timing am i right and the Dead!MC challenge by @dat-silvers-girl​ (i think). I recommend checking out the info about Lith’s curse before proceeding, tho it’s not necessary.

Warnings I guess: character death (no shit sherlock)

Lith was dying. She hadn’t been able to tell where the bird ended and where the woman started for a while now. She had taken spells and fangs and claws, without the slightest hesitation. Her body felt tired, beaten and utterly broken.

Dying felt like shit, she decided. 

The strength was leaving her lungs and she thought of Talbott. Her poor beloved, lying as an eagle, motionless. Before they got separated, they had promised to meet up in the Great Hall after everything was over. That, of course, never happened.

She thought of their last meeting, prior to the battle, years ago. 

They had fought. Lith wanted to help Undesirables. Talbott had tried to dissuade her from that. She had gotten angry and asked him to quit as an auror instead, now that the Ministry was obviously in the hands of Death Eaters. Talbott refused and Lith banged the door on her way out. She had gone back to Mexico to check on her family and when she came back she did exactly what she had intended. 

What an awful thing it had been to see him for the first time in 3 years in the familiar hallways, surrounded by the enemy. The flood of emotions had threatened to let out a torrent of tears. Relief, happiness, fear. She was obviously happy to see him alive, she had wanted to apologize for a long time. But at the same time he was about to get attacked, she couldn’t rest just yet.

If Lith had known that he was going to die anyway, she would have hugged him so tight. She would have kissed him with tears in their eyes and she would have told him how sorry she was; not for doing what she did, but for leaving him behind. Sure, there hadn’t been much time for that, but they should have risked it. At least they might have died together.

The black feathers slowly crept over her neck, getting closer to her face. She could even feel a few behind her ears. 

She had heard stories of how past Divideds had died. Getting murdered through their Companions, using too much energy until they collapsed, dying while being in their Companions bodies, merging fully into them till death. There hadn’t been a Divided in the Thorne bloodline for so long, that it all sounded foreign. Yet it was happening to her. Her grackle Companion had disappeared into her chest the moment she let go of Talbott’s body and lost it. Lith knew he would not come out again.

“Thorne? Is that you?” Someone called out for her, yet it felt so, so distant. On a closer look, Lith distinguished a familiar mess of brown hair rushing towards her. “Hey, get it together, idiot!”

Merula fucking Snyde. And in Death Eater’s robes nevertheless. Lith would have laughed if there had been any energy left. What came out instead was a choked snort. 

Merula got down, leaning closer to inspect her. 

“Battle’s over, Death Eaters retreated to their master.” 

“And you’re still here.” Gods above, her voice sounded terrible. Merula glared at her.

“Does it matter? I’m the one who’s saving your sorry ass.”

“No, you are not.” Lith coughed and looked at Merula’s startled face.

“Say again?”

“You are not…,” coughing again, “saving me, I’m going to die no matter what you do.”

Merula decided that arguing with a half dead delirious freak was going to get her nowhere. She grabbed one of Lith’s feathered arms and attempted to lift her up. 

“Leave me, I’d rather spend my last moments lying down than being dragged like a doll”

“Were you always this dramatic, Thorne?”

But Merula laid her down. She got her wand out, probably resorting to healing her there herself. Not that it would work, a simple spell would not break a curse she had unsuccessfully tried to get rid of for years.

“I’m scared, Snyde,” she admitted. “Terrified as hell.”

“Shut up”

“I don’t want to die”

“And you will not, now shut up!”

“I’ve always been… so afraid of death, even before Rowan. I was also scared of growing all wrinkled and old, but I suppose that won’t be a problem anymore.” Now that it was really over.

“I will make it your problem, don’t you worry about that.” Merula looked like she had something to add but stopped when she eyed Lith. 

She was now sobbing uglily. She found out she still had energy to feel stupid for crying before the person who had hated her the most in their school years. “I’m scared, hold me…”

“I said you are not-”

“Please…please, I’m scared” Lith pleaded, weeping. “I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go…”

In that moment, Merula recognized there was nothing she could do but give in to the dying witch’s request. 

Merula held her rival’s hand one last time before it went limp. There was no need to close her eyes, for they had been blocked by the black feathers that now covered the entire body beyond recognition.

Lith had died.

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I...never intended to write this whole thing. It just happened. Merula’s appearance was a surprise to me too. Also, don’t worry this is not canon she will not die in the Battle of Hogwarts. 

After thinking about it a while, I decided I do not want Lith to break her curse, I won’t allow her. Both in the canon storyline and in this AU, she will die from it. It just seems...right.  She will live a good life but die to the thing she is afraid the most. someone’s gotta take one for the team as in someone gotta stay cursed to balance the ones who do break theirs jk. 

I also projected a lot with this, I myself am very scared of death. I even wrote a whole paragraph explaining the reson behind the way her curse works and how it relates to my fears and desires when I was feeling really down earlier today, but I won’t post it because I’m okay now.