The Darkest Star

Chapter 31: Lyra-Bella Cassiopeia Malfoy

Condemnant Quo Non Intellegunt // They Condem Which They Do Not Understand

           It's the middle of the night and Jet has finally returned with a letter. I was worried it wouldn't get back to me in time but it has. And now I know what I have to do. Unfortunately, I can't imagine Draco will be happy about it. Maybe I can convince him that this is the right thing. I've decided I'm not going to tell Andy, she just won't understand. 

          Quickly I dispose of the letter in the fireplace and head out to get some treats for Jet, who is still very tired. As I pass Andy's room I notice light seeping from the crack under the door. I stop and knock lightly on the dark wooden door. 

          "What?" comes an angry reply. I roll my eyes and step into the room. Andy looks at me with a bored expression as she tucks her knife back underneath her pillow. As I walk towards her I notice a journal sitting on her bedside table, a very familiar one. My eyes widen and I surge forward to grab the Gemini notebook. My notebook, which I had burned. How the fuck did she get the notebook I had burned?

          "Where did you get this?" I demanded. Andy glared at me with a murderous expression. 

         "I checked your room after you said you were dating someone," her voice was eerily calm. The kind of calm that meant she would blow up at one wrong step. Usually, I would head the warnings and watch my words, but now I didn't care. "Guess I was right too. You've been fucking lying to me!" she shouts. I could feel the anger burning under my skin. Down deeper I could feel the anxiety itching inside me trying to fight its way through to the surface. I was mortified that Andromeda would do something like this to me. She shouldn't have gone through my stuff, that was mine. I wrote everything in there. I was humiliated. All my weaknesses, all my pain, my love, my thoughts, everything about me was written in that journal with the intention of nobody ever seeing it. 

          "You had no right to go through my belongings!" I screech. I don't care if anyone can hear me, I don't care if I'm waking up the house. "This was fucking private you fucking asshole, piece of shit!" I can't think of anything else to say. I'm ashamed of what she read, and I'm not even particularly sure how to express what I was feeling towards her. Andy's eyes are blazing with the intensity of a wildfire: Prepared to obliterate anything standing in its way of expanding. 

          "Bitch!" she yells, "Don't even go there! You should have told me you were dating a fucking half-blood Hufflepuff." 

          "Leave Jaiden out of this," I say calmly, "and I didn't tell you because I don't fucking trust you!"

          "You don't trust me? I've known you my entire fucking life! We're practically siblings!" she stands up now, striding towards me as if she might punch me. I'm pissed at her for going through my stuff, but I'm also scared. She's going to tell the dark lord, she's going to get me killed. 

          "And your friends with Potter?" she spits, "Also you didn't tell me Draco fucking fancies Potter! You two are sick!" 

          "I'm sick? You torture people for fun! What's wrong with having friends, at least they care about me. You never have!"

          "Bullshit!"

          "NO!" I yell, "You don't. If you cared this wouldn't be such a huge deal. All you care about is what the Dark Lord thinks of you and it's disgusting." 

          "I'm disgusting? You're a fucking poof! You're a filthy liar and I wish I could slit your throat!" There's a moment of silence where the tension is so incredibly thick. I can feel a panic attack coming. I only hope I can hold it off for a little longer. 

          "And you're a hypocrite Andromeda," I say calmly. A loud 'slap' sounds through the room and I feel a stinging in my right cheek. It takes a moment to fully process what's happened and I can feel the panic rising higher, threatening to choke me and pull me down into the dark abyss. I turn back to look into Andromeda's cold, emotionless eyes. 

          "What you said earlier, we are not family. We never were, we never will be. Draco is my family, not you." I turn on shaky legs and try to remain calm as I rush out the door. I can't hear what she says as I leave, my vision tunnels and I'm stumbling down the hallway without a real thought as to where I'm going. The level of anxiety is starting to become unbearable and my heart feels as though it's trying to burst through my chest. I pound on Draco's door, barely containing my sobs. It feels like the walls are closing in on me, surrounding me and taking away my air so I choke. No matter how hard I try there's a lump in my throat, preventing me from breathing. It's like someone is standing behind me with their hands clamped over my mouth, suffocating me in their grip. I slide down the wall next to Draco's door, fisting my hair in my hands just as it opens. The hot, salty tears are flowing freely from my silver eyes now. Someone touches my shoulder and the contact sends my stomach into a frenzy. Through the ringing in my ears, I hear a soft, calming voice. 

          "Ly, you're not dying. This is a perfectly normal reaction and nothing here is trying to hurt you." I move my eyes to meet Draco's. The silver orbs are looking at me with concern and love. "I'm going to bring you in my room, is that okay?" I nod and Draco picks me up gently. I wrap my arms around his neck and continue crying into his shirt. He sets me gently onto his bed and continues to talk me through my anxiety attack. 

          "Thank you," I croak. After ten minutes I've stopped crying and the only evidence of my attack is my shaky body, ruined makeup, and a pounding headache. Draco smiles at me and hands me a glass of water from his bedside table, which I take gratefully. 

          "Want to talk about it?" Draco asks gently. I shake my head quickly, hissing as it pounds some more. I lay down on the emerald sheets. My limbs feel like weights on my body, pulling me farther into the bed. The mattress shifts as Draco lays down beside me. "Jake and I have agreed to stop seeing each other,"

          "Oh," I respond. I'm not really sure what to say. I knew Draco still fancied Harry and I supposed ending their tryst was probably for the best.

         "He um... uh... said he loved me. That he either... uh... wanted a proper relationship or nothing," Draco says, "I told him I couldn't give him the relationship he wanted and... uh... that was that."

          "I suppose that is for the best," I answered. My thoughts began to drift away and having my brother beside me lulled me into a sense of comfort. I didn't care that I was still in my clothes from that day, I was comfy here. Draco shifted to lay down beside me and I turned over to curl up against his chest. I sighed as I felt my body finally relaxing and Draco pulled the blankets up over the both of us before wrapping his arms around me like we were children again. With the comfort of a warm bed and my brother by my side, I felt myself drifting away from the world into the calming caress of sleep.

Soooooo.... we decided to write a sequel (YAY!) because this book was getting too long. We will have one final round of chapters going up (chaps 33 and 34) and then we will be switching over to the second book. 

          ~ River 🌊

(don't mind me just hanging out here... just for you other emos finish the lyrics... "And you know that you feel it too 'Cause it's nine in the afternoon" ... ~An obsessed Avani)