CURSED: FROM THE BEGINNING [D.M]

-(81) you were so so alone

tw// mentions of self harm

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ZILLIAH sits in the living room, her legs bouncing from the uneasiness within her. No matter how hard she tries, she can't stop her mind from ticking back into the past, reliving the very trauma she caused to the woman who is making tea for her and her companions in the kitchen. She is under the very roof of Miss Carmen Caylor- the muggle teacher who homeschooled her- the very lady she practiced memory charms on and put in a near-death situation, very well knowing of all its dangers but choosing to believe she could evade them. With every breath she takes, she feels the air choking her, the walls of the room caving in. She feels like her heart is going to burst out of her chest at any moment. She hopes it would.

"Please let me come with you to the hospital, Severus. I need to see she's okay. I need to tell her I'm sorry."

"You have done enough!"

With her hunger for knowledge and desire to fight against the confinements they put on her, Zilliah made use of her teacher. Miss Caylor treated her kindly and in return, she invaded her head and wore her down with every try. She made the poor lady lose her mind so much so that in the end, she could not even remember her own name. The day Severus found out what she was doing and took Miss Caylor to the hospital, refusing to let her come along, Zilliah rushed straight into the bathroom. Grabbing a blade, she cut right at the sinful hands that caused it all.

She cut and she cut on every inch of the skin on her hands and watched as the blood dripped down, and down, and down, feeling the hole within her only enlarging. She doesn't know why she did that- maybe to let out the guilt that was drowning her- maybe to escape the mental anguish that she was in by replacing it with physical pain. But whatever it was, it failed.

And she screamed.

She screamed until she felt like her throat was going to rip open in half. She remembers thinking how badly she wanted it to.

She was going to make her wish come true and end it all then and there. But her head was already giving out from the heavy blood loss and she couldn't lift her hand even when she tried to. And before she knew it, she was dozing off into the momentary peace she didn't deserve- not in that moment- not when she had wrecked an innocent person's life.

She remembers waking in the attic at the Emersons' house, bound by magic-restraining chains to her bed, meant to keep both her power and her actions at bay. Those chains were created to mess with one's head, a demon screeching through and through within you when you were put in them so that you cannot will your thoughts to focus upon the magic and use it to escape.

It was cruel and torturous. But she deserved it. It felt like pure hellfire but even when Fianna came the next day to remove them, she resisted. "Only after she gets out of the hospital", she had told her, earning a look of horror from the woman. But she broke off the chain from the bed and let Zilliah have it bound freely to her hands, knowing it'll be more convenient for her that way too. She wouldn't have to worry about sudden magical outbreaks in the dead of the night, endangering everyone under her roof.

Fianna would come into her room with meals in the morning and night but Zilliah would never touch them. At last, Fianna was forced to push that food down her throat in order to keep her alive.

For six months.

For six whole months, she was in those shackles, an ever-screaming monster in her head that could not even overpower her guilt. For six whole months, she never took food or water until and unless Fianna forced her to stomach it.

Crude and self-destructive, yes. But it never felt like enough of a punishment.

One day, Fianna had broke the news that Miss Caylor was discharged from St. Mungo's. And Zilliah finally allowed the chains to be broken free of her wrists. The demon faded into the shadows. But her guilt never did.