Forgotten

15 | Consequences

a/n- just a quick reminder to check the trigger warnings for this book if you haven't already.

Bella had been in her room for hours. Normally she didn't mind the solitude, but this was different. It wasn't by choice that she was alone. It had taken her an absurd amount of time to even realise something was off about her bedroom, but most people wouldn't have noticed at all.

She had felt... panicked since she got back but blamed it on her interactions with Potter. It was her potion that had made her realize something was wrong. It hadn't hurt. The same potion she had been taking for months leading up to coming home, the same potion that she was still taking despite it already having done everything it had needed to. It had hurt every time. Bone deep pain that nothing could prepare a person for. A pain so similar to that of a curse that had been used against her in the past.

She hadn't felt a thing. Not even the burn as it travelled down her throat. Nothing had ever been able to counteract or stop it before. She had ensured that when she created it. Only one thing could stop a potion that strong.

An even stronger spell, a spell so powerful that it was impossible to overpower. One that she knew the effects of far too well. It was a variant of the mostly harmless charm, colloportus. It didn't have a name that Bella knew of, her mother never spoke the curses she'd created into the air... Allianne had mastered the art of non-verbal spells.

It locked the doors to the room from the outside, they could not be opened by anyone once the enchantment was cast. That was not the only thing it did; it cut off the connection of magic to the minds and bodies of anybody in the room. Which included her potion, for it was magic. 

Long term use of it could have devastating effects which she had discovered after two weeks of being under the spell. The lack of magic had not only drawn her close to insanity; it had stopped her ability to use magic entirely for weeks after the spell was broken. Nobody else understood what kind of effect that had on her at such a young age, the pain feeling like her soul was being ripped apart.

She knew that trying to break the spell would be impossible, so she sat, waiting for the inevitable. The skin on her fingers was red and raw from her nails picking against them as an outlet for the anxiety coursing through her veins. It distracted her from what was to come.

It had been hours since she had figured out what was happening and yet she still didn't know what she had done that would anger her mother enough to lock her in her room, not that it ever took much to anger her. But Bella couldn't remember anything.

The clock ticked by minute by minute until the hour came around again and again. It had passed six times, hitting the 1 on her clock, when her exhaustion took over her body but she didn't sleep, she just dazed. From what people had told her in the past, her eyes glazed over and seemed to stare into nothing. But they did not close. Often she was out of it during these.. episodes. She would come back to reality, confused and bewildered; but the most terrifying part of it all was that she didn't remember a thing of what had happened during them.

"You didn't think I'd forgotten, did you Arabella?" The voice was so close to her face that she could feel cold breath on her cheek. Bella knew that voice but she couldn't piece together all the clues her mind was giving her on who it was. 

"You've gone quiet now, haven't you? I remember when you would scream and cry at just the sound of my voice." The hand of the person that the voice belonged to reached out and grabbed her by the hair, pulling her to her feet and then higher until her toes didn't touch the floor.

"You were so young, hardly old enough to crawl around like the pathetic thing you were. But each time I would walk in the room you would scream, you'd lose your voice from the effect it had on your poor little throat, and of course sometimes I wished you didn't get it back but then I never would have heard you begging for mercy. Begging for me to stop the pain. But why on earth would I stop the pain when I was the one inflicting it? You've always been so stupid... If I hadn't carried you inside me for so long I wouldn't even believe you were my daughter."