Skin Of Pure Ice

chapter sixteen

My body moved faster than my mind. Theodore isn't here, Astoria is at my door, and suddenly I'm halfway down the staircase with her hand in mind. I didn't ask a single fucking question. I was too scared to talk. But I didn't know if I was more scared to ask a question or to get the answer.

I don't know how long I had fallen asleep but it was long enough for Draco and Theodore to be called to a mission and Draco barely surviving at St. Mungos. Just barely.

Narcissa is staring at the floor, Blaise and Astoria pacing back and forth. I couldn't seem to breathe. I didn't say a word. Just...thinking. Just thinking about his body laying on the hospital bed, his skin torn to shreds, and his heart...not beating.

"Why can't we go there?" I finally ask. I opened my mouth. "Why aren't we there at this very moment?" I ask another defying question. "Where's Theo?"

"Theodore is fine. He's still being checked out for minor wounds. Draco on the other hand..." Blaise didn't finish that sentence. "It would be too dangerous to even get you in there. That place's security right now is off the charts. Even if Astoria and I go, it's very unlikely we'd be allowed in."

"So, I can't see him and I can't know what's going on?"

No one answers my question.

Narcissa is staring at the floor. No emotion is across her face. She speaks softly: "I should go." We all pick up our heads. "Lucius won't be there and neither will Bellatrix. I'll go and write back." She gets up from her seat and heads towards the fireplace. "St. Mungos." And she disappears.

Nobody was able to get a word out.

I can't understand why I am not hyperventilating or freaking out. I'm just standing there looking back and forth between Blaise and Astoria. They're looking back at me worried. They are waiting for me to break down and cry.

"Do you need anything?" Astoria questions me, slowly creeping up.

"No," I say point blank. "I'm just going to go to my room and wait."

Wait, I did. I sat on my bed staring at the clock for three hours. Hearing the tick of each second and the chime of each hour. I'm going to go crazy if I don't hear back soon. Narcissa should've written back by now.

* * *

By what feels like hour four, Theodore walks in. He's limping but he's barely scratched. A slight scratch on his cheek and a few on his arms. I just keep looking at the clock. Is this the first step of grief? He's not even dead and yet I'm grieving.

"Roslyn?"

I don't answer. For the first time I stop glaring at the clock and shift my gaze to Theodore.

"Are you okay?"

I still don't answer. I blink down at the floor and back at him. My mouth just can't seem to move. I have no energy to talk. I'm only a mind and body at this moment.

"I haven't heard anything about Malfoy. No one won't tell me anything." Theodore still stands at the doorway of my room. "Ross, talk to me please." He starts to beg. "Astoria and Blaise told me that you haven't spoken to them for two days. Have you even slept?"

Two days?! When did this become two days?!

It hasn't been four hours and there's nothing on Draco, it's two days. He's dead by now.

I'm going to be transferred to someone else. I am going to be locked in a dungeon. I'm going to be starving and rotting. Though I don't care about that as much as I care about how I am just getting my memories back and the person I had onced loved and still do...is gone.