15 parts Ongoing "You seek vengeance."
"I seek answers."
"That's what you tell yourself. But the truth is very much clear, Ms. Hale.... You want to destroy her. You want to annihilate... all of them."
"....And I will."
Ivy Hale was never whole. Just the aftermath of broken promises. She moved as though she weren't made of shards, spoke as if she didn't bleed between every word. Sometimes she wondered if she's still human or if exhaustion carved so much of her away that what's left is merely habit. The motion of breathing, of blinking, pretending she's not a graveyard with a name.
She had been broken by those who swore they'd never touch her cruelly. So if she loved, understand, it wasn't softness they'd earned, but every jagged piece of her choosing not to bleed on them. Love had always been dangerous to her. Not because she feared pain, but because she feared what she became when she cared: a flame that forgot how to burn without consuming itself.
"You've always been the pulse of my every thought, the blood in my veins. You're flawless... painfully, breathtakingly flawless, and I can't keep doing this any longer or I might break."
"You speak as if I'm the one who has held you captive. You've trapped yourself in the fear of what you'd have to face, and now you expect me to save you?"
"No. I'm not asking to be saved. I'm asking you to see me. To see the truth I've buried beneath every lie I've told, every wall I've built. Because living in this lie, pretending you aren't the air I breathe, is a thousand deaths I can no longer endure."
{Hermione Granger x Female OC}
[Goblet of Fire ➺ Deathly Hallows]