Fear of a Name

Chapter Fifty-Six: Letter From the Psychopath

By the day after we'd won the Quidditch Cup, I was back to stressing out and trying to do too much. We'd been getting more homework than ever, and I was no closer to finding out about why the nightmares were happening. On top of this, I was now having up to five different nightmares in a single night, and they were affecting me more and more. I was lucky if I managed to get eight hours of sleep in a week, let alone the recommended eight hours every night.

After another week of this, everything finally got the better of me, and I just curled up in the middle of the courtyard and started crying.
"Ivory, what's wrong?!" Harry said, running over to me, with Ron following behind him.
"Too much to — to do... c-can't... too much, Harry..."
"I told you this would happen," Ron muttered.

"We should get you to the hospital wing," Harry said gently.
"No... in — in purse... Draught of Peace..." I just about managed to say. My head was spinning, my heart was pounding, my chest felt tight, and it was all I could do not to throw up right now.
"I'll get it," Ron said, before running into the castle.
"Ivory, can you sit up?" Harry asked quietly.
I shook my head, which only resulted in it spinning even more. I blinked a few times, trying to clear up my vision, but to no avail.

"Ivory!"
I could just about see a blurred figure coming towards us.
"Professor Lupin," Harry said, sounding equally worried and confused that Lupin had just wandered out of the castle for apparently no reason at all.
"Ron almost ran into me, and he said something about Ivory in the courtyard and a Draught of Peace before running off again, so I came to see if everything was alright," I heard Lupin explain. "What's happened?"

"Ivory's been trying to do about a million different things at the same time on barely any sleep," Harry said. "Classwork, homework, revision, research—"
"Harry... shut — up..." I mumbled, worried he was going to talk about what it was I'd been researching.
"Sorry," he said quietly.

Just then, I heard someone running over to us. Their blurred figure had bright red hair, so I thought it was probably Ron.
"I've got it!" That was definitely Ron's voice.
"Give..."
I felt a vial being pushed into my hands. I quickly unstoppered it, then drank the whole thing in one go. I immediately felt better.

"That was horrible," I murmured, slowly uncurling myself and sitting up.
"Are you ok?" Harry asked.
"I think so," I said, nodding.
Ron sighed.
"I told you that you wouldn't be able to do all that stuff on barely any sleep without having a mental breakdown," he said quietly.
"Yeah, well apparently you were right," I said, standing up and dusting myself off.

"Are you sure you're alright, Ivory?" Lupin asked.
"I'm fine," I said. "Harry, Ron, we should probably — oh for Merlin's sake, what now?!"
I'd said that last part because just as I was about to say we should return to the castle and continue with our revision, I'd seen Thunder, Mother's owl, out of the corner of my eye.
"What?" Ron said, sounding confused.
I just nodded my head towards Thunder, who had almost reached us already.

"Well, it's not a howler, that's a good start," I muttered, taking the letter from his beak and opening it cautiously. Nothing bad happened, so I slid the letter out of the envelope and unfolded it.
"It is, however, written in blood," I said, looking disgustedly at the red words on the parchment.

"Are you sure it's not just red ink?" Lupin asked.
"Pretty sure," I said. "I've seen enough blood in my life to know what's real and what isn't."
"But why would Bellatrix write a letter in blood...?" Ron said, looking and sounding both perplexed and disgusted.
"Because she's an insane psychopath," I said simply.

Feeling a little scared about what the contents of this letter might be, I started to read.
'Hi honey,' the first line said. I barely managed to suppress a shudder.
"She's called me 'honey', this can't be good..." I muttered, more to myself than to Lupin, Ron, and Harry. Even more scared now, I read the rest of the short letter.

Hi honey,
Your father told me to let you know that you won't be returning to Hogwarts after the summer, because you're either going to get the Dark Mark and do what he tells you, or you're going to die.
P.S: There's a present for you in the envelope.

That was all it said.
"What does it say?" Harry asked.
I quickly handed the letter to him, then opened the envelope a little more. What I saw inside absolutely disgusted and horrified me.
"I think I'm going to throw up," I said, my face going a sickly pale green.
"What is it?" Lupin asked anxiously.
"Eyeball," was all I could get out before I turned and threw up into a nearby bush.

"Are you ok?" Harry asked when I was done.
"Yeah..." I said weakly.
Lupin was reading the letter now, his face clearly showing his worry.
"Well, at least I won't have to study for the exams," I said quietly. "My results won't exactly matter if I'm going to be dead in a couple of months."
They all looked at me, and I gave a weak smile.

"Ivory..."
I shook my head, took the letter back from Lupin, then started to walk down to the Whomping Willow. Harry made as if to follow me, but Ron pulled him back.
"She needs some time alone right now," I heard him say as I walked down the hill.

As I immobilised and sat down at the base of the Whomping Willow, I thought of something someone had once said to me, though I couldn't remember who.
"It's not enough just to be good in this world, you have to make good choices too."
That's when I knew for certain: I would rather die than get the Dark Mark. And by the looks of it, that was exactly what was going to happen.