𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 | 𝐡. 𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫

𝟒𝟎 - 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐤

𝙊𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙖 𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙝𝙖𝙙𝙣'𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙝𝙚𝙧 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙠 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚, in fact, her head was hurting so much that it got to the point where she couldn't lift her head from the pillow the morning of Harry's task.

It was like someone was vaccum-sealing her brain while a troll used her skull as a thigh master.

But she needed to get up, for Harry, yet her head felt so heavy on her shoulders.

"Oh my god!" Exclaimed Hermione, walking into Ophelia's field of vision, "Phee are you okay?"

Ophelia tipped her hand from side to side to say so-so, yet Hermione ran to her side with a cloth and started wiping something at Ophelia's nose.

Ophelia's hands started trying to swat her away, until she looked at what was on the cloth.

Blood.

With a painful wince, she lifted her head up from her pillow to see that it was coated in her blood, alarmed she looked up at Hermione she asked.
"No one tried to... I don't know, murder me in my sleep again did they?" Asked Ophelia, in a very light humorous tone, though it fell completely flat.

Since it already happened the once, chances are it could happen again.

"No, I didn't see anything... go look at yourself in the mirror, Phee." Said Hermione, pointing to the doorframe of the bathroom.

Warily, Ophelia swung her bare legs out of the bed, having opted to wearing a large t-shirt as a nightdress the night previous, she carefully padded over to the door and without touching the door handle, swung it open.

She finally understood why Hermione looked so alarmed, her hair was completely white, and her skin was almost translucent given it was so pale and devoid of blood, and the blood... Ophelia had seen the film Carrie, but pigs blood had nothing in comparison to her reflection.

One side of her face was completely crimson, and her pale white hair was stained red, it was matted and sticking up from when she tossed and turned, and as she got closer to the person in the mirror she realised that she had been bleeding from her nose and her ears.

She looked like if the Bride of Frankenstein turned alternative.

"What happened last night Phee?" Asked Hermione, closing the bathroom door behind them with a click.

Ophelia stammered, she looked around the room as if the answer was going to be written in blood on the walls, but Ginny's graffiti career ended a while back so she was left with her memory for this one.

"I went to bed, had... a lie down because of my headache and now I look like I went toe to toe with fucking ghoul and lost," said Ophelia, frantically scrubbing her face, until she paused mid wash, she straightened up and stretched her hand out. The Book of Shadows came zooming into her hand, and with soap suds still clinging to her face she flicked through the old parchment pages until she came across the chapter she was looking for.

"Infernal Signs? What the bloody hell is that meant to mean?" Read aloud Hermione, looking over her shoulder at the chapter, Ophelia raised an eyebrow to her liberal cursing and pointed to a hand drawn image of a silhouetted woman in the seated Buddha position.

In the subtext Ophelia transcribed it from the original old English, she had gotten the hang of it since it was the language England used before Shakespeare went mad spitting out half the words in the dictionary.

"From what I can understand, in certain forms of magic, there are signs that are pinned to us as a more liberal form of divination, it can be a message from a guardian trying to show us the right path or it could be warning from the dead."