When Aven Selwyn is tasked to work with Draco Malfoy in repairing the vanishing cabinet by the hand of Lord Voldemort, the last thing she expected was for Draco's best friend to become involved. Caring for someone isn't something on Aven's agenda, b...
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(ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴇɴᴛʏ: ғᴀʟʟɪɴɢ)
She was falling. Her arms were outstretched and flailing as she clawed for a rope, a hand- anything to catch her. Her eyes felt dry despite the fresh tears invading them, and she tasted her hair as the wind blew it wildly against her face.
She braced for the impact. She waited to feel every bone in her body shatter as she hit the pavement beneath her. For her head to split open and stain the sidewalk. She could see the indignant form of Voldemort so far above her, perched over the edge of a roof. Her roof.
Her robes flapped. They looked like wings against the wind.
Aven's mouth was frozen open in a silent scream. There was no sound omitting from her lips; or maybe there was, and it was drowned out by the sounds of birds screeching around her and rushing water.
Water. The word came to mind so suddenly that it was matched with the coldness that swallowed her. It took a single thought of the ocean and then she was subdued in it. And no matter how hard she kicked and struggled, she was dragged deeper and deeper from the surface until her feet touched the rocky bottom and her lungs heaved.
Webbed fingers of the merpeople closed around her ankles. Their touch burned her skin and tore at her, like flames spreading up her calves. Bubbles floated from her mouth as she cried out.
The webbed hands moved up, higher and higher up her thighs and shoulders until she faced the monster. Her mouth closed in confusion. The merperson she'd been expecting lacked the warped green body and tangled hair.
No. Instead it wore the face of her father. But then it changed, like a light had been switched on. It changed to Bellatrix Lestrange, then Antonin Dolohov. Draco Malfoy, Narcissa Malfoy, Lord Voldemort, and then her mother. Her mother, who stared at her with such deep hatred that it hurt more than the water in her chest and the burns on her legs.
That furiously hateful gaze was so painful that it woke Aven up.
And she sat up in her bed, drenched in sweat rather than ocean water. Her arm burned rather than her leg, and her eyes were wet, not dry.
She released a haggard breath. It shuddered her entire body and caused her to close her eyes in hope to compose herself. Her mouth tasted briefly of blood from where she'd bitten her tongue, and the darkness of the room was no longer a comfort.
Her hand slipped beneath her pillow, locating her wand. She flinched from the coldness of the ground on her feet, muttered a 'lumos', and grabbed her robes and undergarments. She was cautious of her dorm-mates, silent as she tread through the room. Once she successfully locked herself into the bathroom, she placed her clothes on the hook on the back of the door and clutched either side of the sink, head tilted down to stare at the drain.
The wood of her wand tickled the skin of her right hand and the marble sink was chilling on her fingertips. She rose her head a fraction higher, and she tracked the fall and rise of her chest in the mirror. Aven took shallow, quick breaths, standing still at the sink until they evened out. She turned on the faucet and cupped her hands under the stream, splashing her face.
