𝒯𝒽ℯ 𝒫𝓇ℴ𝓂𝒾𝓈ℯ𝒹 𝒪𝓃ℯ | 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲 |

#10 Worries & Broken Hands

The floating surrounding changed, my body was light without any orientation where I was. I felt weightless, without any gravity pulling me back. The voice in the back of my head was quiet, but it was there. Just that for the first time I wasn't scared of it. I tried to listen, to understand what it tried to say. There was another body floating in front of me, the same grey curtain over its eyes. But it wasn't Maribel, it wasn't Draco. It was me.

It wasn't scary seeing myself floating through the water, it wasn't frightening. I felt calm as I watched my arms and legs drifting in the current. My skin was pale as if all the blood drained out of my body and right as I was watching the grey eyes again, the nose of the body began to bleed, coloring the water surrounding us reddish.

„My child.", Iheard the voice saying. „Try to listen to the snake's tongue."

But I already tried to. I always did.

Waking up felt like the hardest thing I've ever done. But other than I expected, I wasn't cold, I wasn't soaked through with the ice-cold water, even though it still felt as if the very core of my body was frozen.

„Miss Fox", a friendly voice came from the dark end of my bed. A tall figure leaned itself forward to rest its hand on the edge, before wandering around to my right side. „Good, you're awake."

I closed my eyes and opened them again in the attempt to see through the blurry vision. As my gaze became clearer, I saw Albus Dumbledore emerging my side, letting his hand swing forward to lit the candle standing on my nightstand next to the hospital bed I laid in.

„Professor Dumbledore, sir", I said in a raspy voice, as I sat myself up. My throat felt sore as if I ran a marathon for 20 hours straight without something to drink. My lungs were burning in every breath I took. „What -„

„Try not to speak, my child", the man quickly said and reached forward to silent me up.

My child, try to listen to the snake's tongue.

„You're probably confused about what happened.", he continued and I simply nodded.

It felt unreal seeing the headmaster at my hospital bed with the rest of the room empty and dark.

I lost track of time, I could easily been asleep for the past 10 days and I wouldn't have known.

„Mr. Malfoy told us, that you broke through the ice down the lake of silence. He managed to pull you out before you drowned", Dumbledore continued and rested his hands back on the end of my bed as he came to a hold. His face, lightened by the candle, was peaceful and friendly, so I relaxed a bit. „It's a pretty place to go, I used to go there when I came to Hogwarts first. The inlet looks to innocent and beautiful surrounded with the forest, but under the surface is a current leading down towards the underground estuary into the black lake. Almost nobody knows about that." Dumbledore smiled at me with his eyes pinned in the intention to show me, that I, of course, didn't know that either.

„Is he okay?", I asked quiet and furrowed my eyebrows, before I flicked my gaze around the room, but all the other beds were empty. „Draco?"

„He's probably cold.", Dumbledore snickered. „But Madam Pomfrey could convince him to leave and get some rest for himself. He's fine."

The professor took a breath as if something came straight to his mind.

„Your sister was harder to convince, she was pretty concerned of course. Having a sibling that close is our biggest, but most dangerous gift."

The man seemed to become thoughtful. „If everything happens to them, no matter how small and insignificant, it affects you."

Dumbledore smiled at me, looking straight into my eyes as if he was staring directly at my soul and every secret I had.