Between the Cracks // 𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓦𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓵𝓮𝔂

28. A Little...Friend

Chapter 28: A Little...Friend

What Leigh hoped would be revenge for the last time she failed to get rid of a forget-me-shock dementor, ended up being the opposite. While the charm was ready on her tongue, and the wand was ready in her hand, there was something else which was not as successful, and she was once again caught up in the whirlwind of symptoms dementors normally caused.

The confidence she displayed moments before disappeared in the span of a few seconds, when she had repeated the words again and again, but, like before, nothing had happened. Not even a sliver of light exited her wand. Regardless of the memories she tried to focus on.

She had tried to block it out the best she could: the darkness, the scenes flashing before her eyes and the sound of screams and pain. Tired and angry at herself, feeling stupid, she had clenched her jaw and attempted to utter the words a last time before she let the feelings conjured by the fake dementor consume her. She let herself be ambushed by the painful memories tearing away in her chest, squeezing her eyes together yet still seeing everything moving around her.

Then, just like that, as the memories had ran out, and when the pain had ravaged away at every inch of her, she was met with a sudden, odd feeling of quiet. Almost relief, but not quite – an emptiness making itself known inside of her. A bottomless pit pulling her under, controlling her every thought, her every emotion, her every sense. The lack of control, and the lack of feeling, caught her up in something resembling bliss, and for the first time in months the storm inside her calmed. The feeling of nothingness gave her exactly what she had longed for.

Outside of the storage space everything went on as planned. Boxes were moved upstairs and the items were placed in the shelves deeper into the store.

George jogged up the stairs, entering the upstairs flat and popping his head into the space. "Is she up here?"

Fred, standing by a pile of labelled boxes, turned to look at his brother. "Conway? No, pretty sure she's downstairs." He watched as George nodded at his response. "Did you open a window or something? It's a bit cold, isn't it?"

George shrugged, but realised he too thought it was a bit chilly. "Maybe she popped outside for some air or something," he said, and Fred shrugged right back. "Anyway, I think the storage space downstairs should be empty so I'll start shoving some stuff in there. Hopefully we'll have the floor empty soon enough."

His brother nodded in agreement, and George turned on his heel to make his way down the stairs again. He whistled a little tune as he counted the boxes left on the floor before moving towards the door to the storage space. He felt a chill and let his eyes wander around the room. No windows open as far as he could tell, and he couldn't recollect the bell on the door ringing in case Leigh had decided to go outside. Strange.

His questions were answered the moment he opened the door to the storage space. If he had arrived a second later he wouldn't have seen it, but the moment his eyes met the sight in front of him, the darkened creature hovering over Leigh dissolved onto thin air, leaving nothing but her form on the floor.

-

Leigh slowly came to consciousness a minute or so later, slower this time than the last time, and groaned slightly to herself. Her head was aching, and her body felt heavy. The moment she became aware of her surroundings she immediately missed the numbing feeling she had experienced seconds before.

"Hey."

Leigh furrowed her brows and opened her eyes slightly, still lightly disoriented. Her head seemed to be lying on something soft.

"George?"

She saw movement above her – George was nodding. "Yeah, that's me. Fred is over there." He pointed towards the other side of the room. Leigh looked over briefly, registering the familiar silhouette. Fred was pacing, glancing over at her.