Malediction: the love and life of Astoria Malfoy

Chapter Thirty Eight

I open my eyes. It is hardly possible to even be sure they're truly open, for only darkness fills them. Slowly, they adjust, and the closeness becomes apparent. Something is over me, almost touching the tip of my nose.

With a moment more of focus, I see the distinction; one line in the center. The line is a bit lighter than the slats on either side of it. The grains become more and more clear, as I realize, it's a length of wood.

Remembering the concept of motion, I tilt my head to either side, getting a scope of my surroundings. The darkness is close and closing in. However, light shimmers and sparkles just lower, lower.

The light flecks swish and sway with a rhythmic wave, just below my ears, on the underside of my body. My hands swim in this ink illuminated by the bits of glow.

Moving my fingers around, swaying them in the liquid, I lift my hand, only a few centimeters above the waking waters, confined by the board atop me.

Though the darkness is disorientating and all encompassing, my hand has a distinct color now stained to it, unnaturally visible and vibrant in this cave of shadows.

Red.

Blood.

The realization is stark and sudden. Trapped. Trapped in the confines of this swirling, curling blood.

The liquid rises, more and more and more is pushing up, filling the space. The sloshing sounds distort as it envelops my ear drums. I struggle, pressing my hands to the sides, kicking my legs. I scratch and writh and pummel the wood, but to no avail. The space is too small. But the wood is on all sides. There is no escape. A coffin.

It fills with more and more until it seizes my lungs, smothering my mouth. Drowning. Engulfed in the ruby red poison.

I scream, I try, but the sound is absorbed into the sploshing waves, extinguished.

My body is left behind, still thrashing and floundering, slowing, reaching out, until it is covered by the sight of the wooden slab, the coffin.

Outside of the suffocating prison I still struggle in, stand four figures. Two in black, two in white.

Scorpius and Draco. Their faces frozen, broken. I call out, try to reach them, but they don't move. They don't hear me. Hopeless.

But the two figures in white, standing opposite them, stir.

They can hear me.

Two women. The younger of the two, the girl, smiles.

Not how I remember. Not the cool, calm, real smile I knew.

This is unnatural. The teeth are pointed, the lips are curled, ear to ear, horrific. Gruesome.

Daphne. But not my Daphne. A cruel, sick reimagining of her.

The other woman bristles, standing straighter. Naricssa.

Reaching out their hands in sudden, robotic unison, as though a frame is missing that may explain how the movement was achieved.

Fingers stiff and nails curled in deadly daggers, together, they echo, "Come."

I woke with a jolt, my heart hammering against my rib cage in fierce thunderings. My breath was hitching and uneven, cold sweat dampening my face.

I scrambled upwards, sitting, and ran my hands through my hair. Beside me, Draco was fast asleep. He was there. I was there.

It was a brief moment of grounding relief, of elation, knowing that beside me was Draco and just down the hall was Scorpius. I was with them. I was okay.

But the euphoria was quickly gone, when the lurching, the familiar pushing and pulling in my stomach, returned.

Springing from the bed and crossing the threshold to the washroom to my right, I crumpled to the floor, the horrid, sickening taste of iron on my tongue, filling my nostrils, infiltrating and drowning my mind.

The horrendous red waves, just like those from the nightmare, ripped from my throat. I tried to be quiet, but that was near impossible.

It should've stopped by now.

But no, it kept coming. Coming. More and more. My heart pounded and blundered in my chest with each gasp, my throat tore with each retch. It should've stopped. It hadn't stopped.

The rush of footsteps and flicker of the lights. Draco was there beside me, a hand on my back, knees to the ground.

I wished he hadn't woken up. Hadn't seen this. I didn't want to see this, so I could only imagine. . . .

Finally, finally, there was a moment of relief, and gore had stopped, closing with a few dry coughs. By far, that was the worst it had ever been.

My breath fluttered and hitched as I tried to find it, my eyes glazing over slightly. All my limbs felt like jelly. My mind was a spinning top, a kaleidoscope of fear, still swirling and spinning the images from the nightmare.

I collapsed backwards into his arms, my head cradled against his chest. My hands were shaking violently of their own accord.

He was pulling me in tightly. His arms wrapped around me as I regained a sense of myself.

A moment passed in which he held me there. Tears welled up in my eyes, and before I could process or distinguish what was real and what was a figment of the dream, I was sobbing, the sound distorted and eerie, filtering through my sore and ripped throat.

He held me closer, as I sobbed, "I'm going to miss is all! I'm going to miss you all!" More sobs cut into the words, my head curling farther into his chest.

I wrapped my arms around him, my face buried in his shirt, now spattered with blood and tears. "I don't want to go!" I cried. "I'm -- I'm not ready, I don't want to leave!" The haunting combination of sobs and wails and the screeching of my voice was chilling.

He held me tighter, and I hadn't realized he'd started crying too.

"WHAT HAPP--" Scorpius was frozen in the doorway, taking in the sight. All the blood. So much blood.

"Scorpius," Draco sniffled, his voice breaking and uneven, "don't-don't --"

I looked up at him, my stomach curling in on itself, my eyes glinting with fear and bloodshot, my mouth quivering.

He was shaking, his eyes wide and welling with tears, frozen.

In a fluid movement, he was on his knees, nestled around me, tucked between Draco and I.

I cradled his head under my neck, still wrapping myself tightly behind Draco.

The heartbreak was tangible, palpable. I couldn't go. I couldn't leave. But I was powerless against it. I was dying.

I curled myself deeper into the embrace, sobbing harder yet.