CURSED: FROM THE BEGINNING [D.M]

-(23) she'll pay for that

ZILLIAH tries to fight the body binding curse- like she tried to that day in the ground- like she tried to that day back at home- like she tried to that day in the hallway. She tries but atlast, it's all she can do.

Restrained, not being able to move a single nerve, she lays there, an odd calm washing over her. She is worried about Sirius and angry at Draco. She is. But she can't quite.. feel it anymore. She doesn't know why.

Draco kneels down beside her, taking her wand and tucking it inside his robe before setting his hand down on her unmoving face, slowly caressing her cheeks. And she remembers how much she had loved it. She remembers how charming and soothing she had found it before. But not now.

Not now because not the slightest ounce of any type of feeling rise within her at it- not the usual warmth that his touch used to offer nor the loathing she felt for people that controlled her life. All she can taste is a terrible and venomous emptiness. And she very well knows that it is not the curse that did it.

Draco begins to straighten back up in her vision and soon enough, he picks her up from the floor and carries her back to his room. "I'm sorry. You left me no choice", he had said on the way, but she just closed her eyes at it, tuning out everything but his strained heartbeats.

On reaching the bed, he had settled her down on it and as it was a temporary curse, he had used it on her twice again as time passed by. But as he picks his wand up to use it a third, he halts, his silver eyes sweeping apologetically over her figure. "I'm-", he gulps, composing himself. "I'm letting you free, alright?" There is a certain hesitance in him as he speaks but he mutters the counter curse nevertheless.

She feels the effects of the spell ebbing away from her body. And as she can move again, she sits up in the bed, cross legged, her eyes resolutely fixed upon the door, the hollowness persisting inside.

He remains standing, in caution, waiting for her to rage out or attempt to escape. But it doesn't come. She just stares and stares, her mind cooking up the worst case scenarios as an all powerful dread silently tortures her within.

She doesn't know how long she sits like that. Or how long Draco stands there in front, expecting her to throw a tantrum at any given moment. After what feels like days and months, the door swings open and there stands Severus, relief breaking out in his otherwise neutral face.

His gaze flickers over to Draco for half a moment before it rests back upon her. And he makes his way upto the bed. And she knows. She just fucking knows.

But, no. She is going to hold out against all odds. She is going to keep her hope. Atleast
until she hears what Severus has to say.

"Sirius Black..", he halts right at the foot of the bed, his eyes careful and calculating, his voice low and reluctant- "..is dead."

Shattered and gone, split into a million pieces, the very life seems to slip away from her. She shakes her head in protest, almost as if that could change fate. "No.." This is not happening. This is not-

"Zilliah", Severus' voice anchors her back into this cruel and wretched reality, and she can make out the tiniest bit of sentiment in it. "He is gone. There is nothing you can do to cha-"

"He is not- he is not gone..", she finds herself murmuring. And she almost wants to laugh at herself for it.

"He is. You've got to accept that."

"No!"

"Zill-"

"NO!"

She stands up in an instant and pushes past him, almost tumbling down to the floor as she does, but she somehow maintains her balance. She can see Draco reaching to stop her but for some reason, he doesn't. She doesn't care why.