Maledictus

Ch. 3 - Letters

ALICE SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the bed.

This was a normal occurance for the young girl, although what lay around her was the simple difference.

The many letters that Henry had written to his sister were placed evenly around the bed, separated into certain piles.

She stared at two in particular, dissecting them with her eyes, her hands almost shaking with concentration.

Something isn't right. Something isn't right.

"Alice" Bill knocked softly on the door. "Alice, James wants to see you downstairs for a moment, something about the wedding"

Alice didn't look at him, and she didn't move.

She stared at her rough-skinned hands, or more logically, the two worn, ink faded letters she held, her eyes slightly widened and her breathing quickened.

"Alice?" Bill took a step into the small bedroom, worried. "Alice what's wrong?"

"T-The letters..."

The red head took another slow step towards the girl. "Alice, what's going on? You need to tell me"

Alice suddenly snapped out of the light trace she had fallen into and stared at her friend, her red cheeks losing all its colour.

"The letters" Alice repeated, slightly louder. "These letters, they aren't the same, look at the writing, it's different. It's all different"

Her voice cracked and quivered with the fear bubbling inside her rib cage.
She tried to focus on her breathing, but her face became numb and she started crying.

Why am I crying? What's wrong with me?

Bill was quick to wrap a gentle arm around her, pulling Alice close.

He took the crumpled letters out of Alice's stiff hands and placed them on the floor, supposedly out of view of Alice's tired eyes.

But she could still see them.

"It's alright" he hushed.

Alice pulled away suddenly, wiping tears roughly from her pale, thin face, leaving small red marks. "I'll be down in a minute, you go on ahead"

"Alice-"

"I said I'd be down in a minute" she hadn't expected her voice to raise as loudly as it did.. "Could you send James up?"

"Alice i don't think that's a good-"

"Bill" she said. "Send. James. Up"

Bill nodded but didn't say anything.

He turned and left the room silently.

Alice's breathing slowed but her eyes never left the letters that were placed on the floor, her mind wouldn't stop until she found the true person that wrote that letter.

The letter with the distinctively different handwritting.

And then she saw it.

Draco...It's his handwriting....

The dreaded truth had sunken in.

He forged the letter, the letter that brought me to the Manor, to Hogwarts, to Voldemort....

He was the one that ruined her life and it was all his idea.

Alice let out a deafening sob, the sound echoing through the warm home. Her cries were filled with pain, and the tears wouldn't stop pouring.