The Plight- Malfoy x Reader

Girl on Fire

There were screams coming from another room.

Muffled. Far away.

I followed the sound, something inside of me yelling at me to move faster.

It was coming from upstairs.

I ran up up up.

The screams...the closer I got the more I could hear the pure terror of those shrieks—the kind that meant something horrible was happening.

At the end of a hallway, behind a far off door—that's where it was coming from.

I moved in urgency—but my running felt too slow, so frustratingly slow. I panicked, willing my legs to go faster.

Go go go go

I finally made it and grabbed the handle.

I burst through the door—and the muffled screams turned ear piercingly sharp and clear.

I choked at the scene.

There was the girl burning to death in the fireplace, screaming in unrestrained agony as she writhed on the soot covered floor.

I turned—there was a man and a woman in the room.

A man that was smoking and reading a paper on the couch.

A woman held a book as she lounged lazily, her feet in the man's lap, fanning her face with a hand as though the heat from the fire was making her hot.

Neither looked up—to me or the girl.

I ran up to the fireplace and fell to my knees desperate to put out those flames—I tried to reach out to grab the girl but there was an invisible wall of some sort—my hand moved and clawed against it to try to find an open spot, or some way to move it, to no avail.

The screams in my ears were terrifying, the girls eyes pleaded as she looked at me. She was becoming a husk as her skin burned.

I pounded on it, then threw myself onto the shield over and over and over.

Nothing.

"HELP!" I yelled at the two people lounging, "HELP ME GET HER OUT!"

But they still acted as if they couldn't hear me—as if there was nothing happening at all, neither looking up or even flinching at my efforts.

Acting as if there wasn't a girl burning in the fireplace in front of them—screaming in a deafening pitch. That I wasn't begging for them to help as tears began to fall.

I turned back to the girl but looked to my hands—they had caught fire somehow. The flames must have leap out past the shield.

I yelled in shock—- falling backwards, trying to pat out the flames on my pants.

But then—it spread up up up my arms, my neck and down down down to my feet.

And I was screaming in panic and I looked up but there was no longer a girl on fire in front of me.

Instead I was looking out to the two people lounging—uncaring, unbothered, oblivious.

This perspective... I looked down to see that now I was standing in the fireplace.

And that I was the girl burning.

——-

I was fire—skin scorching, boiling, turning to ash.

Something like cold water drenched me and I awoke, surrounded by smoke.

I gasped for air but I couldn't. There was no air.

My lungs filled with soot and ash.

My body was being dragged away and I couldn't quite hear anything until—

Cold wind hit me—a relief.

There were stars above me.

My body stung—there was smoke that had begun to escape through the wind over me.

I was placed on a cool ground—both pain and relief.

I rolled over to cough—something like dark, wet ash was coming out of my lungs. Someone's hands were on my shoulder and back.

My lungs were emptied and I gasped a breath—the cold air slightly stinging on the way in.

I rolled onto my back again—any strength I'd had was suddenly gone.

Otto's face was there over me and was whispering something—a blue light shot from his wand. But he wasn't looking at me—-he was looking down at my body.

Something cool engulfed my body. Like being suspended in water.

I heard footsteps and shouts.

"My god!" it was Lucius's voice. His face, both their faces, blurred in and out.

I groaned.

"Y/N! What—" his face was above me, his voice and expression full of fear, "What in merlin's hell happened in here."

"She—and her entire bed— were on fire," I heard Otto reply.

Lucius whispered the same words as his son—more relief washed over me. Lucius was kneeling next to me. When had he started kneeling?

I sighed as more moments passed, my breath feeling less labored and my skin less like it had been blistering..

My eyes drifted closed and I focused on the incantations of Otto and Lucius.

Minutes past—how long had it been? It felt like forever but suddenly that feeling of being suspended in water ceased.

The cold air hit me and I opened my eyes.

And suddenly I was shaking—but not from the cold. From the trauma to my body, or maybe the fear or both.

"Get the blanket," Lucius demanded and I turned my head slowly to look at him.

Everything felt dry.

"Lucius?" I asked through a dry voice, "Why—what happened to me?"

"It's fine. You're fine," he reassured in a whisper as he brushed my hair with his hand, sounding more like he was reassuring himself rather than me.

He turned to grab the blanket from Otto and took his hand away.

His hand was covered in soot.

Lucius helped me sit up as he wrapped me in it.

"How the hell did this happen?" Lucius hissed at Otto as he hauled me up in his arms and stood up.

"I think...I think she lit herself on fire," was Otto's reply.

I felt Lucius stop.

"You mean—"

"Yes. With magic."