autumn | severus snape

fifty eight

The hospital wing had never felt colder. The torches flickered dimly, their light stretching long shadows across the walls. At the center of the room, Ana lay deathly still, her skin nearly translucent, her breaths shallow and uneven. The Thief's Bond was still clinging to her, draining her magic with every second.

Draco clenched his fists, standing at the edge of the ritual circle that had been carefully etched into the floor. At its center, Madam Pomfrey hovered over the girl, one hand pressed to her forehead, her brow furrowed with worry.

"It's time," Draco said, looking up from the message in the stone.

McGonagall stood beside the ritual expert, an older wizard with silver-streaked hair and deep-set eyes, dressed in robes covered in runic markings. His voice was steady as he began to chant in an ancient language, weaving the first threads of the counter-ritual.

The runes drawn in a perfect circle around the bed began to glow faintly, reacting to the spell.

Draco exhaled sharply. "Is it working?"

The expert didn't pause. His hands moved in slow, deliberate gestures, directing the magic as he continued his incantation. The air in the room thickened, charged with power. The runes pulsed brighter, shifting from a faint silver to a deep, electric blue.

Then, a violent shudder wracked Ana's body.

Madam Pomfrey gasped. "She's fighting it."

"No," Draco murmured. His eyes darted to the magical threads twisting around Ana's arms, dark and pulsing like veins of poisoned light. "It's him."

𖠇

Ophelia's father staggered back, his hands clawing at his face as the potion worked its way through his body. His magic lashed out instinctively, wild and desperate, crackling in the air like a thunderstorm on the verge of breaking.

"You—" he choked, his voice raw with fury. His fingers twitched, and Ophelia felt it, the pull. The invisible chain between him and her sister still lingered, trembling but unbroken.

His eyes snapped to hers, burning with hatred. "You think you can take her from me?"

Ophelia stood firm. She had done what she came here to do. Now, it was up to them.

Miles away, the ritual expert were tearing at the magic that bound her sister, unraveling it thread by thread. But her father felt it. She saw the way his body jerked, the way his fingers twitched as if trying to hold on.

"Stop it," he growled. His wand shot up, but before he could strike,  Ophelia slashed her own through the air.

"Expelliarmus!"

His wand flew from his grip, clattering to the marble floor.

He didn't need it.

With a snarl, he raised his hands, and raw magic, dark and roiling, pulsed out from him in violent waves. The air twisted around them. The walls of the house groaned under the pressure.

Ophelia's stomach twisted. Her sister had been suffering for so long, growing weaker with each day the bond drained her magic. If her father managed to anchor it, even now, she might not survive.

She lunged forward, her hands reaching for him, but the moment she touched him, she felt it.

The bond.

It was thick and sickly, like vines wrapped too tightly around something fragile, choking the life from it. She could feel her father's magic straining against the ritual happening in the hospital wing, fighting to keep taking.