Black Magic ▹ The Vampire Diaries [1]

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER TWELVE
THE FALLS

"People are not rain or snow or autumn leaves. They do not look beautiful when they fall."

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

     "If you don't sit down and eat right now, I'm going to burn all of your books."

Henrik didn't process the very real threat from Matt Donovan until a minute or so after he said the words, too absorbed with searching through the thick grimoire in his lap. Henrik blinked his straining eyes and glanced up from the brittle page, frowning when he saw Matt standing in the doorway of the bedroom Henrik had claimed as his own. It had been Matt's mother's, at one point, before she left town and never came back. It was the only spare room Matt had aside from his dead sister's, and it went without saying that her room was off limits.

"They're not books, they're grimoires," Henrik told him, looking back down at the one in his lap. He was sitting with his legs crisscrossed in the center of the bed, and all of his grimoires were spread out around him. A notebook was sitting beside him, open to a page with more things scratched out than there were actual notes, and a pen was in his right hand. His fingers were covered in black ink. It had been almost a week since his magic had been taken away, since Elijah had left and his family had splintered off into pieces, and Henrik had been studying all of his grimoires ever since. There was nothing in them that helped him in getting his magic back.

He had, very briefly, thought about dying and seeing if his magic returned when he was resurrected, but he didn't want to risk it. He had never figured out if it was his own magic resurrecting him or something else, not to mention the fact that he was still linked to his siblings. He didn't want to be the one to accidentally kill them just because of a theory, and it was hard to forget about the link. He could feel it. Kol was punched in the face a few days ago, and a bruise had sprouted on Henrik's cheekbone; it was still there, fading from a dark purple and into an ugly green. Esther had pressed vervain into Finn's chest and the burns on Henrik's own were just starting to heal. Rebekah pricked her finger on a needle while sowing and Henrik had gotten drops of blood on a white t-shirt. Klaus had clutched a glass too tight in his hand and had shattered it to pieces; Henrik had gotten blood all over Matt's kitchen floor. His left hand was still wrapped in bandages Matt had found in Vicki's room, and the decorative cloth draped over his kitchen table had to be thrown away.

Henrik didn't know how he knew how his siblings had gotten hurt. He just knew, like a sixth sense had woken up to replace what had been stolen from him. He saw flashes as the injuries sprouted up on his own body, like a premonition but far stronger. He'd had premonitions before, but never this strongly. Never this often. All he had to do was brush against Matt now and he was seeing Matt holding a crossbow by Mystic Grill, Matt dancing with Rebekah while she wore a bright yellow dress, Matt wearing a police uniform. Henrik avoided touching him after that, afraid of what else he would see.

He hadn't told anyone about his enhanced premonition, figuring it was safer to keep it quiet. Divination was a natural skill most witches had, but Henrik's had never been very strong. He had never been able to predict the future, only having premonitions, so everything he saw now he automatically assumed was bad. Besides, his family had never believed much in divination, and Henrik hadn't really been in contact with any of his siblings since they had all separated. He had met up with Klaus and Rebekah only once, and that was when they had told him that there had been another white oak tree, and they were trying to locate the wood and destroy it. Henrik hadn't been invited along to help look. Rebekah had told him that they would take care of it, and that he should focus on staying safe and getting his magic back. Klaus hadn't said anything at all.