habet initium

Columbia Kempley Vitious, Acilino Vitious (mentioned), ARTWORK © *MikachuAttack
Elizabeth Kirsten Conrad © ~tomokos
Harry Potter Universe/Characters © J.K.Rowling
===

<sub>Elizabeth Conrad and Columbia Vitious, both Slytherin sixth years, quietly sat together in their shared room. The latter was clad in a thick, one-shouldered sweater--the other, in all black.

Lizzy watched herself, as dully as ever, in the mirror as she combed her hair to the side. Though the bristles were soft against her malt chocolate hair, her pale fingers were wound painfully tight around the engraved silver handle of the brush. Kempley simply sat on the bed behind her and flipped through an old, moss-covered Herbology book that was beginning to fall apart at the binding. Her green eyes didn't bother to focus on the scrawled text, however.

A soft chime that came from the direction of the Common Room alerted both girls to the time and they simultaneously froze in the middle of their activities.

Lizzy moved slowly and placed her small brush onto the vanity's marble surface without a sound. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply as Kempley shut the book with a click and placed it on the bed beside her. Kempley rose from her place on the lower bunk and glided over to stand beside her friend. She also looked into the mirror, but seemed to look past their reflections.

"It's time," she spoke, darkly, "we should head off." Kempley gently placed her hand over Lizzy's own slender one for a brief moment. With a squeeze, she briskly turned and made her way out of the room.

Lizzy opened her jade eyes and merely nodded to no one in particular. She slid her hands off the vanity and looked into her own eyes, no emotion apparent on her face.

---

"Go to your houses, no dawdling!"

Professor McGonnagal looked on wearily at the students then to the unusually dark clouds. Something was going to happen tonight but she couldn't be sure as to what it would be. There was sadness in the air, and a frightening aura that the woman had not felt in at least ten years. The old woman quickly ushered a snogging couple and a group of students who were playing cards out of the corridors and ordered a prefect or two to lead them back to their quarters.

Yes, something was going to happen tonight.

---

Draco Malfoy made his way into the Room of Requirement and met the eyes of Lizzy Conrad. She looked just was weary as he.

"Wondering where you were..." she whispered, her hands resting lightly on the Vanishing Cabinet's elaborately decorated paneling. The room was relatively quiet except for the soft clicking noise of Lizzy's nails against the iron.

She was shaking.

"Lizzy, please."

Draco turned to look behind him and watched as Kempley walked out of the shadows. Her once shining hair was dull and was starting to fade back into its original champagne-blonde color. It was how Draco remembered her from when they were children, but her eyes were nothing close to that of a child's.

She looked to Lizzy and nodded, though Draco noted she was also shaking. Kempley absentmindedly rubbed her forearm as Lizzy pulled out her wand.

Harmonia Nectere Passus

Tick

Tick

Tick

---

Kempley led the way to the Astronomy Tower, her cousin Acilino Vitious, Bellatrix Lestrange, Fenrir Greyback, and the Carrow siblings following close behind her. She quickly stunned the students who had happened to still be up and about and managed to evade an Auror that patrolled the hall. Their trek, however, was relatively quiet and without incident...for the most part.

As she reached the staircase to Dumbledore's office, a hand roughly grabbed her by the back of the sweater and shoved her into the wall. Kempley's chest was crushed painfully and she was sure a rib had cracked from the impact. The hand that had assaulted her, no doubt, was that of Bellatrix Lestrange. She could tell from the smell of leather and whiskey as it assaulted her nose.

The black-haired woman leaned into Kempley and hissed into her ear, nearly licking the shell of it. "I hope you haven't forgotten your duty sweetheart," she whispered, "you're such a fickle little thing..."

Bellatrix raised her free hand and slowly dug her nail into Kempley's left cheek, tracing her cheekbone. "Nothing like your brother," she hissed again, "but I suppose you're going to be fun too." She withdrew from Kempley and licked the blood off her nail, giggling as she did so.

"Bellatrix!" barked Acilino Vitious from behind them. Fenrir Greyback growled and made a gesture with his head, "Get a move on. We have no time to play."

The playfully evil woman sighed unhappily and stepped back from Kempley. "Fine then," she pouted childishly and raised her arms into the air and sang, "off we go!"

WIth a happy whistle, Bellatrix skipped past Kempley and was followed by the other Death Eaters. Acilino, being the last one to follow, slowed his pace as he passed his cousin and gently wiped her bleeding cheek with the cuff of his robe.

Kempley kept her eyes closed and merely breathed slowly against the stone.

---

Lizzy ran as quickly as she could, keeping her pace to match with Draco's beside her. They made their way through the Forbidden Forest and past Hagrid's, stopping momentarily as Harry had caught up to them.

"Snape!" he screamed, out of breath, "He trusted you!"

She could see the fury in his green eyes, something she had never seen coming from the Boy Who Lived. He was livid.

"Go on!" yelled Snape, pointing in the direction of Malfoy Manor with his left hand.

With a final look at Harry Potter she continued to run with Draco beside her.

---

Kempley stood in the crowd of her peers, looking on at the body of the school's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. The old man was lying on the cold ground, his silver hair spread beneath him like the wings of an Angel. Not a soul muttered a word. No one could speak.

She stood beside her Herbology partner close to the front of the crowd, listening to those around her start to cry. Tears would not come naturally to her but thankfully no one noticed. Neville sniffled beside her and he reached between them to entangle his fingers with hers--it sent a painful jolt up her arm but she clung to his hand nonetheless.

A few moments later, a bruised Harry Potter made his way through the crowd and slowly went to kneel by the late Headmaster. Ginny Weasley followed and wrapped her arms around the crying boy, nuzzling his hair to quiet him.

Kempley looked to the deceased Headmaster's face and her eyes suddenly adjusted to the darkness surrounding them. It engulfed her. It filled her lungs and dried her heart, rendering her incapable of feeling remorse. The brightness behind her eyes returned though they did not contain the flickering light that was said to always stay alight within them. Her fingers loosened their comforting grip on Neville's larger hand and she breathed deeply, feeling her marked companions do the same though they were now so far away.

It had begun.</sub>

---
Takes place at the endish of Half Blood Prince. I layed it out like the movie because I honestly can't remember what happened in the book, it's been WAAAY too long since I've read HBP.

Characters in first panel (left to right): Hermione Granger (only her shoulder haha), Rubeus Hagrid (worst one I drew trolol lazy), Luna Lovegood, Minerva McGonnagal, Ginny Weasley (only her hair, trolol), Neville Longbottom, Desmond Watson ©*Becky-McBecka-Pants, Kempley Vitious © *MikachuAttack, Dean Thomas, and.....I made a cameo LOLOL. The girl in the bottom panel is Lizzy Conrad, ~tomokos's character.

I tried to incorporate the "movieverse" character concepts as well as my own, so they look similar to the movie versions but I gave them a bit of a twist. Mostly in the hair though LOL the outfits are pretty much the same. Luna's turned to the side because she's comforting Hermione (doesn't happen in the movie but, what can I say, I love drawing Luna from the sideee).

BAH. So I've been working on this forever. Coloring took me ages and I kept losing the motivation to finish this damn thing, but I finally found it somewhere between schoolwork and fatigue. I still don't think it's 100% finished but eh. If I work on this anymore I just might tear my eyeballs out. |D

Tried doing this in a graphic novel style but ended up drawing it out like a manga instead. SHWOOPS. I guess I can't break some habits when it comes to drawing.

Some of the anatomy is weird but look at all the fucks I give.

After much debate, I decided to just not put speech bubbles/lettering into this. I think it would have been too much. Hopefully you'll understand a bit of what's going on once you read the little story snippet that's above all of this nonsense c:

Ask if you have questions, I'll be happy to explain.

---
Colored in Photoshop CS5
Hogwarts in Panel 01 used from: [link]
Background in Panel 06: MangaStudio
All other color textures from: I lost the link to the site but I assure you they were "free for commercial and personal use". If I ever find it again (which I'm sure I will), I'll be sure to link it anyway.

LINEART (MangaStudio):