NEMESIS || Draco Malfoy

59

[Touching, wearing or even being in close proximity to Cursed Objects might bring any number of consequences with it. So to say, what the exact and immediate effects are will never be sure until you or the people around you can and will notice.
Yet, despite the clarity, this book will be your best guide to identify common curses, what to expect, how to treat them, and when to know it is too late.]

My eyes scanned the pages as a yawn rattled through my chest. Trying my best to be comfortable in a chair that was simply not meant to be, my eyes diverted from the third book in the past week to claim it was the best guide to identify curses and or other magical injuries.

It was tiring, frustrating to know I've wasted all this time for nothing and nothing once more.

As my eyes continued to flicker through the room, acknowledging the empty hospital beds before they fell on Malfoy's, I was startled to find his eyes connecting with mine right then and there.

I exhaled loudly, clutching the book between my hands tighter as my eyes narrowed in on him.

"You're not supposed to be awake," I observed, trying to seem unfazed by the sight as my fingers continued trailing along the spine of the book in my hands.

"Well, I've slept for the past ten hours, Adreanna." His voice mocked me, brows raising cockily as he took me in. If he was surprised to see me, he didn't let on. "I've gotten plenty of rest. Thank you for your concern, though."

With a shake of my head, my attention fell back onto the book, opening it to skim through the pages mindlessly. There was no higher purpose but to distract myself from his insufferable attitude.

"I'm not." My clarification was accompanied by a shrug. "—concerned, I mean." I huffed as I flipped through another few pages, feeling my patience running thin with both him and the book.

"Ah." A wide smirk formed on his lips, gracing them in a self-satisfied and victorious way— a completely insufferable one. "That's why you've been here every single day? Because you're not concerned?"

It was obvious he was enjoying this, revelling in my apparent abundance of concern that I hadn't even fully confronted myself. Up until now, I had been rolling with it, not wasting a single thought on how this must've looked.

"It's called common decency to come and check on you, arsehole—" I muffled, not daring to take my eyes off of the paragraphs in the book. Attention on anything other than that excited glimmer in his eyes whenever he knew he had the upper hand was more than welcome. "Once, by the way. This is the first time I'm here."

No, it wasn't. But despite being conscious, he was asleep all the other times in the past week and couldn't have noticed my being there.

"No, it's not."

Or maybe he did.

Though suddenly, my attention wasn't on the insufferable blond in the hospital bed before me anymore; even his words were nothing but distant background noise as I reread the sentence I had just stumbled upon once more.

It described similar things to what I had noticed in Dumbledore's office that night; limbs dying off— blackened, charcoal-like skin, and went on to say this;

[This type of curse would rapidly cause the death of anyone who came into contact with it, although in certain cases, the spread of the curse could be slowed down by magical means.
If you have the needed magical proficiency and manage to slow the effects of the curse, no doubt within a year, your time will run out either way.
Regardless of the methods of delaying the spread, there is no known way of removing or completely stopping this type of curse.]