'Til Death Do Us Part
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When I see you now, the first thought that enters my mind is – is this really the way things will be from now on?
You, making your way to the dungeons, and I, pacing swiftly towards the library?
I thought we had made a promise.
'Til death do us part.
Don't you remember?
He fingered the small dagger lightly in his hand. It was blunt, much too blunt for the precise incision, but it was ancient and enchanted with just the right spells that it would be the only one he could possibly use for the ceremony.
She told herself to calm down, told her nerves to stop wringing themselves as she gazed at his form before her, told herself to stop crumbling as though she were an over-baked cake. But her insides were gooey and raw, her eyes shimmered slightly with a salty dampness that oozed onto her lips and that she sucked inside for want of sustenance.
"Has the time yet come?" she swallowed, eyeing the dagger twisting nimbly in his hands as his eyes closed with a satisfaction that made her stomach twinge.
He looked at her.
"Do not hasten the course of the rite," he whispered lazily, his voice so blank that she looked away as though it were painful to her very ears.
The ring on her finger blazed slightly as though in reproval of her impetuosity. Its usually emerald-coloured stone shone amber, and she wanted desperately to believe that it was merely reflecting the firelight blazing before them both.
"Now," he said slowly to her, though his gaze remained fixed on the dagger in his hands. "We begin."
His dark raven hair was tousled once more and his eyes became darker as he carefully moved the blade of the dagger into the fire blazing in front of him. The flame turned an achingly white colour on contact with the blade, and a faint hissing sound emerged from it.
She trembled slightly.
"A tool of the primeval, offered in the name of eternal fusion," he spoke, his tone of voice no longer indolent but strong and unyielding.
The flames of the fire seemed to multiply in height and turn a faint blue colour. He smirked before her, his eyes still closed and she felt a sudden dip in her heart at the thought that it may not have been such a good idea to come here tonight at all.
His eyes opened slowly, and he regarded her then.
"Come," he ordered, his hands clutching the dagger in the fire that threatened to lick his hands with its unfathomable heat.
She nodded, and moved forward so as to clasp the dagger in the fire, her hands wrapping around his pale ones as she came to sit beside him.
"No," he said.
She swallowed, and remembered his previous words, that had once excited her but now made her feel intensely vulnerable and uneasy.
She sat on the lap of his crossed long legs, and he groaned softly as her weight pressed on him.
"Is this okay, Tom?" she felt herself inquire.
She took the absence of sound from his form to be a sign of his assent.
He withdrew the blade from the fire after some time, and thrust her quite forcefully from his lap as though every moment he spent touching her was a form of torture for him.
She restrained the tears from falling from her eyes.
He came to sit directly opposite her, and smiled, and she faintly remembered a time when that smile would light her up and cause blood to flow again through her veins.
"A tool now a flame, come with a duty to unite reality and illusion."
He lowered the dagger slowly to his wrist, and she gasped, not remembering he telling her anything remotely in this context of matters. Self mortification? When had this ancient ceremony of love and eternal union turned into a ritual of pain and anguish?
"Tom, what is –"
"Hush!" he snarled, his voice ringing loud and emotive in the darkness of the cellar.
She let out a sob, and he groaned with agony as the scorching blade seared through his skin to reveal dark, boiling blood that dripped onto his black robes.
"A flame now a blade, charring the skin of pure Adam; he shall now beckon his Eve."
She felt as though her body had been rendered under a body-bind curse, as he moved carefully towards her with the dagger. His breathing was ragged and his gaze lifted to her widened eyes.
"Did I fail to mention that this ceremony originates from your filthy brethren?" he hissed, glaring at her fiercely as he sat, his knees touching hers, directly in front of her.
She did not understand him, her eyes pleading innocence as he looked at her coldly.
"Do not gaze upon me with virtue in your eyes!" he said piercingly. "You are a filthy Mudblood, and how ironic shall it be when those that I seek to destroy become the source of my final endeavor to seek immortality on earth?"
He drew her face close to his own then with his bloodied arm.
"For you see," he said softly into her ear. "By making you my wife in blood, you will retain some part of me on this earth even when I… perish…"
He wedged the blade into her wrist then, and she screamed, feeling the searing heat of the metal mingle with the hardness of her bone, and he laughed callously as he rubbed his wound on her hers, mixing his blood into her flesh as the world slowly turned black around her…
Even if you remember, it seems you would like to forget.
For those who are happy in love are the first to announce it to the world.
And those who are forced into such arrangements become withdrawn, like you have become.
Though your blood mingles with mine, you neglect to observe that now, mine mingles with yours.
And 'til death do us part…
We shall, the both of us, remain immortal.