Skin Of Pure Ice

chapter nine

I put my hands to my lips and let the feeling of his lips on mine sink in. Drag me upon the pond I was standing next to. Utterly stunned. Speechless. Breathless.

I don't know what I am feeling. Shame, yes. Shock, well definitely. And familiarity. So much of that. Too much of it, even.

Why is it there?

How can it be there?

Who allowed it to be there?

Not me, of course. Him? I doubt he would even think of it.

My head spiraled.

S

           p

      i

r

         a

     l

e

    d

D

o

w

n

Curved and twisted. Like a strand of DNA was just imprinted on my lips and I don't know when it will leave.

I feel trapped.

Get me out of here. Get me out of here. Get me out of here. Now. Now!

I can feel myself lose balance but wouldn't allow myself to fall.

I don't fall but tears do. Down my blushed cheeks and curved lips. Trembling.

"Roslyn, dear?"

Someone is saving me. It can't be him. The voice is too feminine. It's there on the tip of my tongue.

I am back in the kitchen. With my mother. Oh, my mother. How I missed that voice. Where am I? I am somewhere.

Sitting down at the table. Freshly poured tea in front of her and a paper. The Daily Prophet.

"When did you get here? Why aren't you at Hogwarts?" Bags in my hand and the door closed behind me.

The tears were non-stop. They wouldn't leave me alone.

I have never once uttered the name of 'Draco Malfoy' in my home. My throat would never allow me. Yet, my mother knew. My mother knew without a word of him speaking.

"He's...Oh, mum!" My body and voice break. Lora runs to me and wraps her arms around me. "I can't, I just..." I trail off, crumbling to the floor. My mother followed me down. "This hurts, it hurts so much."

"Tell me, love, what happened? What did he do?" Concern stained her voice.

I didn't care how Lora knew. I didn't care who said it. I figured it was Oliver.

"He's a Death– Death Eater." The vomit rises and rises and I swallow it back down. Acid piercing my throat. "I don't– don't know how– how." I gasp through my words. "It just hurts. Make it stop, please, Mum, please! Why does it hurt so much?"

"Because, as much as it hurts to still think, you love him," Lora tells me, smoothing down my hair over my forehead. "You still love him. He betrayed you, yes, but in all of our twisted minds in the world, you still love him. A love that strong would hurt this much."

I gasp back near the pond and the world fades.

* * *

I wake up back in my bed with Narcissa beside me. With a cold towel pressing against my forehead. There's a nurse too. The same one I barely remember when I first woke up in the Manor.