𝐃 𝐈 𝐕 𝐈 𝐍 𝐄, 𝐝.𝐦

𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐬 𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐧 𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐮𝐬 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐬

s e c o n d    y e a r

ADELINE stumbled down the alley, gripping onto the harsh brick walls. The world swayed around her, people pushing and pulling her in all directions.

Fear streaked the darkness around her, mutterings of golden blood and attractive rewards thrummed against her ears.

Hands touched her arms, fingers stroked her hair and whispered prayers scratched her skin. With consuming horror, Adeline realises she has no way out. These terrible people with bad intentions have her surrounded, drawn to her like a beacon.

There's something sharp at her back, digging into her flesh as an uncomfortable pain ricochets through her being. It's Adeline's first time being held at knife point, she believes, if she didn't count all of those times when she was a child.

It couldn't really be taken into consideration, not when he didn't mean it.

Adeline doesn't have her wand on her. It's sitting on her nightstand back in her rooms, right where she had left it when she'd fallen asleep. Yet somehow, she had woken up in Diagon Alley.

The name had been muttered in hushed conversations between her parents and their colleagues, always talking about meetings or bad dealings when overheard by Adeline. 

She hadn't ever known what they had meant, she just knew it was somewhere she never wanted to be. 

The blade cut further into her back, puncturing her clothes and drawing blood. Fear seized her and she suddenly didn't know what to do, where to go, how she was going to survive this. 

A woman with a gummed snarl laughed at her. Adeline didn't know if her terror showed but everyone who surrounded her looked sickenly amused with whatever lay on her features. 

The assailant behind her dug their blade further into her skin and blood began running down her back, pooling at the top of her pants. She felt an odd sense of calm, panic and fire in her bones before everything in sight was coated with darkness.