Title: So Close, Yet So Far
Author/Artist: rosevalleynb
Character(s): Terence Higgs, Alicia Spinnet, Greyback
Pairing(s): Terence/Alicia
Rating: M
Warning(s): Beware of character death and a fate unknown.
Challenge(s): Written for the , prompt: children of the depression. Written for prompt #2 Snowstorm
Word count: 5x100
Author's notes: Not a very happy story... sorry about that.

Read on AO3 or below the cut.

As the cackles continued around her, Alicia lifted her eyes to the grey sky. Crystal flakes danced in the wind and around her head. A thin layer of snow, so serene and innocent, had covered the green hills around her for as far as she could see. The only thing missing were the twinkling lights in the trees in the distance. But even without that, it was almost something off a Christmas card.

Almost.

As a shuddering sigh escaped her lips, she dropped her gaze, back the snowy grass she was sitting on, back to her trousers torn at the knees. Although the cold wet was already seeping through the fabric and her fur boots, she didn’t feel it freeze her overheated skin. She didn’t feel the sharp manacles cutting her wrists that were bound together behind her back.

The pulverised remains of their wands lay in a small heap in the snow, next to the Portkey that was meant to take them to an Order safe house in Ireland, not a wherever they currently were. It was supposed to take them far away from their families and the war, far away from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and his Death Eaters.

Alicia swallowed hard as she tried to come to terms with the fact that they’d been betrayed. Someone had tampered with their Portkey. They had handed them over on a silver platter to the beasts excitedly whispering behind her.

Her lips trembled uncontrollably as she lifted her gaze a little higher, to him, to her love. Terence lay on his side, facing away from her. His usually blond hair stuck in wet pink strands to his scalp. The dark red puddle below his body stood in stark contrast with the snow. He hadn’t moved since Greyback had crawled off him with his face drenched in blood and grinning like a madman.

“Terry,” she whispered barely audible. “Get up, please, get up.”

A calloused hand gripped the back of her neck, squeezing hard. The smell of blood and decay and pure filth washed over her. She hated how it warmed her skin. She hated that she had to share the same breath as that beast while her Terence lay there, cold and unmoving.

“I wonder if you’ll taste as good as him?” Greyback's grip tightened as he licked her cheek. “Hmm, tasty little slag. But first, my men would like to play a bit, love. You don’t mind, do you, love?”

Crystal snowflakes danced in the wind and around her head. So peaceful. So unbelievingly serene. It was Christmas all over again, when she and Terence had been happy in that deserted shack in Cornwall. On the run, but happy nonetheless. As the three other men closed in on her, wringing their hands and licking their lips in anticipation, that momentary tranquillity evaporated and reality hit her like a Stinging Hex.

Someone had betrayed them.

Alicia lifted her head up to the grey sky again, her mouth wide open in a silent scream.