Green Eyed Monster | Draco Malfoy

109. An Impossible Balance

Well, everyone, this is it: the final chapter of Green Eyed Monster. 

Enjoy !

Chapter 109 – An Impossible Balance

I awoke slowly. It was surprising that I didn't feel groggy considering how disoriented I was. Despite the disorientation, it was easy to notice that I was having trouble feeling anything at all – there was only cool air that had settled around me and something solid against my back that was helping me stay upright. Where was I? Something deep inside me was churning, some sort of deep sense of dread that I couldn't latch onto, not when my thoughts were moving so slowly. I knew I had been outside last, I knew that I had been scared and surrounded by students and teachers, Order members and Death Eaters...but now I was alone in a room I did not recognize.

It was a decrepit room. Cross beams from the ceiling were beginning to bend inward because of the water damage from the ruined roof. Paint peeled from the walls like fingers reaching out to me, pointing toward the billowing curtains lining a broken window on the far wall. Light filtered in from the outdoors, illuminating the room like a Charm. And when I turned to look toward the rest of the room, the blackness from the only exit seemed to absorb all the remaining light in the room.

There was a black veil over the door, dancing within a breeze that I could not feel. The veil made my skin prickle with familiarity; even though I was not standing close to it, I could feel the presence behind it. If I got too close to that veil, I knew something would draw me in...

Just as it had the last time I had been near one.

The painfully familiar monster continued to dance, almost to mock me. Actually, part of me was surprised it wasn't mocking me...I wasn't hearing the familiar voices emanating from the cursed object, as I had when I had seen this monstrosity in the Department of Mysteries.

As if acknowledging that I was paying attention to it, the veil gave a particularly vicious lick of the carpet near my feet. I scrambled back on my hands and arse, trying to put more distance between myself and whatever it was. Scurrying back as I had let me pay attention to the other details of the room – back to the peeling paint, the faded artwork, and the two cribs lining the walls. One on the far wall, closer to the window; the other near the door – near the tendrils of the black curtain.

Where the hell was I?

But even as I thought it, the answer seemed to build at the back of my throat like a sob. I mean, clearly, it was not possible to have been where I thought I was...I had just been in Hogwarts' courtyard, I had just been in a battle. Even for the Wizarding World, teleportation without intent was a rare feat to experience.

With the distance I had gained from the black curtain, I felt confident enough to pad toward the soft glow from the broken window – perhaps it would allow me to find my bearings a bit more. When I finally stuck my face to the cracks in the glass, I was able to see that there was a small, tired town past these walls. It was silent as the town slept – but that didn't mean that I was not being watched.

Dozens of eyes watched me from the bleak starlight filtering through the shards of glass. Animals – so many animals – that I could vaguely recognize by their silhouettes were watching me with an unearthly form of patience...

But what were they watching? Why were they just standing here?

Where was here?

The panic I should have felt since I woke finally began to build as I took a step away from the window; the sea of gazes following with my movements. A sound at my back caught my attention, a sound that did not make sense.