𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐍 (2) || 𝘙𝘦𝘮𝘶𝘴 𝘓𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘯

𝐗. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐘𝐮𝐥𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐥𝐥'𝐬 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬

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Edith opened her eyes, gasping at the stinging sensation of cold around her legs. The autumn air nipped her skin, whipping her dark hair back over her shoulders.

Silence had never sounded so loud.

A frightened breath leapt from her throat as the woman looked around. The water below sloshed and splashed at her movements as she took large steps back, stumbling out of the dark waters of the Black Lake.

She continued to scramble backwards, flinching away from the water as if it had burned her straight to the skin.

Her chest heaved, the air leaving her in horrified bursts. Edith's back slammed into a tree trunk, her hands flying back to grip the bark. It dug into her skin, failing to ground her as a panicked mantra flew through her head, her tired mind finally catching up to the situation.

She stared at the Black Lake. The very lake she had stumbled out of. Her jeans were soaked all the way up to the thighs, proving just how far in the water she had been.

The Durmstrang ship floated in place all the way across the lake, unmoving, steadfast and silent.

This was worse than the forest, this was worse than the panicked thought of the Astronomy Tower...

Edith's breaths quickened as another realisation washed over her.

She trembled violently, truly unsure if it was the cold or sheer terror that reached her first. Both hit her like trains.

She could've drowned, she would've drowned if she hadn't 'woken up'.

Edith's panting quickly turned into strangled sobs, the weight of everything that had led up to this point became more than she could bear.

"Why- why is this ha- happening!? What's fucking wrong with me!?" Edith shook her head frantically through her words, coughing through another strangled breath.

Her cries echoed across the shoreline, but no one ever came running.

Daria never emerged from the treeline, that warm, bold smile on her face as she took Edith's shaking palm in her own.

Sirius' face didn't rise from the bark under her nails, a kind look in his eyes as he promised her everything would be okay.

Harry never came running through the trees with Hermione and Ron behind him, the three teens never enveloping her in a hug that she so desperately needed.

Murphy never soared across the lake on a no doubt stolen broom, crashing against the soaking shoreline before carelessly scrambling to a stand, running forwards and reaching her with their eyes so full of the love they held for one another, cracking a joke as they cried together.

Remus never apparated into view with a sharp cracking sound, striding around the trees to take her into his arms, a palm on the back of her head as he muttered into her ear, telling her, no- promising her that it would be okay, that he was here, that she could stop looking over her shoulder, to stop staring at the doors of her quarters with such apprehensive eyes, stop letting paranoia destroy the beautifully soft soul he had fallen so desperately in love with.

... but no one ever came.

This was too far, this was too much. She could've died. She could've died.

Reduced to just another name in her diary, the family tree she had made screamed in her mind. Was this the year Death caught her? The year she would join her mother, father, brothers, and countless other ancestors?