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My brother was my hero.
His first year at Hogwarts was one of the loneliest of my life. He had been my guide, my guardian, and my friend. And suddenly he was taken away from me.
I cried the first night.
As a child I had always suffered from nightmares that would keep me up. My parents tried their best to soothe me after each terror, but they never could. Instead, it was Jacob who dried my tears and promised me I'd be safe.
He promised me that he would always protect me and that he would never leave.
The summer he returned home I was filled with nervous excitement. I was afraid he would have forgotten me. That after a full year at Hogwarts he would replace my company with friends and spells.
When he saw me he smiled, his eyes sparkling, and he pulled me into a hug.
He showed me his wand, but no matter how much I pleaded he wouldn't cast a single spell. Our mother was very strict about magic use outside of school, and he wouldn't dare break our mum’s rules.
Only a couple years later, an owl flew through the kitchen window, an imposing letter in their beak. I read the letter over my parent's shoulders and couldn't believe the scrawled words on the page.
Expulsion.
My brother, the best student at Hogwarts, had been expelled.
The day he returned home was completely calm and silent, but there was a palpable tension in the air. It was like the eve of a storm, only I didn't realize how large and destructive the storm would be.
When Jacob saw me, he didn't smile. There was a permanent scowl carved in his face, anger flaring in his eyes.
That night my family left the eye of the storm and destruction rained. I laid under the covers and pretended to sleep while the thunderous roars of an argument propelled around me.
I had never heard either my parents or my brother so angry in my life. They screamed at each other with a fury that scared me. Their words were nearly incomprehensible among the anger, but their was one word that was loud and clear.
Vaults.
I heard a door slam hard, shaking the walls of the house and then suddenly the silence seemed just as deafening as the screams.
An hour later, I crawled from my bed and walked over to my brother’s room. I hesitated over the door, before finally gently rapping my knuckles against the door, and pushing it open.
“What is it!” Jacob snapped, but then he saw it was me and he softened. “Did you have another nightmare?”
“Not one I can wake from."
His eyes turned away, and for a second I thought he looked guilty, but now I'm not so sure.
“I'm sorry about all of …” Jacob looked around as of he was trying to grasp an answer from the air. “… this.”
“It’s okay,” But it wasn't and more than anything I wish I had said that instead.
Jacob went quiet for a moment. His eyes gazing into something that wasn't there. In that moment I felt more distant from my brother then when he was miles away at Hogwarts.
“You're going to hear things,” Jacob said. “In the next couple of days. And I want you to know, that whatever lies they tell you it's wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I'm not the bad guy!” He shouted, and for a moment I saw something crazed in him. He took a deep breath and suddenly what I saw was gone, replaced by the brother I knew. “I'm just trying to find it and I will find it, no matter what. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong. Okay, do you understand that?”
He stared at me in desperation. As if my next words meant everything to him.
“Okay,” I said, and when he smiled I instantly regretted the words. “Now, get to bed. It's late and mum will be upset with me if she knows I kept you up this long.”
He turned away from me and looked over a book I only now realized was there. He used to spend hours reading his textbooks, but now that he was expelled it seemed pointless for him to still be pouring over the pages. I ignored it, figuring it was a habit that would take a while to break.
I walked over to the bedroom door and hesitated at the doorway. “I love you, Jacob.”
I waited, but he didn't say anything. His eyes were still glued to the pages. I walked out of the door in silence and that night my nightmares didn't end.
When I woke up my brother was gone. His bed was cold and unslept in. His trunk and most of his clothes were missing. He had runaway.
I thought that nothing could make it worse, but a couple weeks later the daily prophet was reporting on it.
Apparently the vaults I had heard about were more important than I had first thought.
My parents stopped reading the morning paper, but I would still secretly read it each morning.
They called him mad. Some articles even claimed he was working for Lord Voldemort.
More than a couple times I accidentally set the papers aflame.
The day I got my letter was one of melancholy for my family. My parents were proud, of course they were, but at the same time I could tell they were afraid of the possibility of me going mad.
Hogwarts had destroyed my family with a single letter, perhaps this one would just be another seed of destruction.
All I knew was that Hogwarts would be the one place I would finally have answers.
My brother had left me, he abandoned me. And I needed to know why.