Matilda Matlock

So Sudden

Matilda saw the man kneeled before her, cloaked in black, his head hung low and his eyes not meeting hers.

She felt herself standing tall before the weak, vulnerable servant, trembling at her feet, his fear wafting off of him as if it were a strong stench.

"You disappoint me, Cotsnail," the cold, hissing voice fell from her lips.

"Please, my Lord, I beg mercy of you..." the man croaked.

Matilda stepped forward in a slow pace around the kneeling man, her long black cloak pooled at her white, boney ankles.

"You had an assignment," she spoke cooly. "Yet you disobey. I placed my trust in you, how shameful that it is you break it."

"Please... my Lord..."

"You call me your Lord, yet you find no meaning in that title," she continued. "I am no Lord to you. I am one whom you have betrayed for the sake of the wizard who challenges me at this very moment."

"I swear to you, I am still at your direction!" the man pleaded, quaking on his knees. "Dumbledore is no superior to you, my Lord! I simply did not succeed in my task, I ask for one more chance, I was to finish what you asked of me, I swear to you-"

"You lie, Cotsnail," Matilda whispered.

Cotsnail choked a small sob.

Matilda slipped her long fingered, white hand into her robes, withdrawing a wand.

The man looked up, hands trembling, eyes wide. He saw the wand in her grip and a small, croaking noise.

"P-please... my Lord..."

"You are no servant of mine," Matilda breathed. "Only that of my enemy's."

"D-Dumbledore is no threat to my allegiance... p-please, my L-Lord..."

Matilda breathed in deeply, eyed the shivering Cotsnail, and pointed the wand in her loose grip...

"AVADA KADAVRA!"

A flash of green light.

Matilda jolted awake, her body jerking involuntarily in the bed.

She sat up quickly, beads of sweat formed on her forehead and her scar searing with pain. She clenched her jaw to stifle groans of discomfort and rubbed her fingers on the spot, her chest heaving from heavy breaths and her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Stress and panic were flooding her veins... confusion, as well.

She felt the bed shift next to her and Harry sat up, running his hand along her arm soothingly as she continued staring straight ahead.

"What's wrong? What is it?" he said in a quiet, raspy voice.

Matilda gulped and shook her head a bit, feeling Harry slip his hand into hers.

"Nothing," she murmured. "It's nothing."

"It's not nothing," he said softly. "I know it's not."

Matilda turned to look at him, chewing the inside of her cheek as her heartbeat was finally slowing down at his touch.

"I had a dream."

"What kind of dream?" he asked, shifting in his seat.

His eagerness to help her made Matilda's heart warm, but it wasn't the time to acknowledge Harry's love for her when she had just had a vision of herself as Voldemort.