Your heavy breaths were the only sounds that filled the otherwise silent room. Each gush of pained air echoed with a certainty of what you had known for years, ever since you were a child. The fate that had always been yours, with no escape.
There was no cure. You knew that. Your parents reluctantly accepted it. The doctors knew with a clinical certainty that came from seeing children like you too many times. You hesitated to consider yourself a child but that was exactly what you were, despite being sixteen. You had never managed to grow up, the overprotectiveness of your parents had ensured that you knew very little of the world beyond your home. You had no responsibility but to live for as long as possible, and even that was out of your control.
The real world was something more like a place out of a book, a figment of your imagination. Something that you were always told could kill you if you weren't careful, but never quite understood how or why anything would want to.
A short walk down the stairs had led to this, nothing more than twenty stairs each way. You had counted it on one boring, rainy day. You also knew exactly twenty steps were needed to leave your room from your bed, and there were six hundred and forty two midnight blue tiles on your ceiling. You had counted that at least four times, with more failed attempts that you could remember.
You sank into the chair near the computer that your parents had generously gifted you to keep the boredom away. It was soft, and you often fell asleep on it when you were too tired to relocate to your bed.
The walk to the chair was worth it. The walk back never was.
Arabella?
The message was waiting for you as your eyes scanned your screen, and a small, unconscious, smile reached your face.
Within the walls of the home you had always considered a prison, there was one escape from everything that held you back in the real world. In the beginning it had only been something to occupy your time, fairly interesting but not too important. That was what started you off on the journey of a witch in Diagon Alley.
That was where you met him.
Arabella! Help! Please!
Your smile turned into a smirk, your eyes searching the map for the tell-tale golden star of your only party member. You loved this feeling of being in control, and your weak body not mattering as you fought creatures and foes in a world that, in some ways, was more real than the one you interacted with every day.
You would like to think that you had made a difference, left some kind of mark after you had died, something you could be remembered by.
What have you managed to enrage this time? You type in reply, a hint of amusement running through you.
You find his star within the dungeon that had almost killed both of you only days ago, and sigh in exasperation. He was going to get the both of you killed for no good reason. You're almost tempted to just let him respawn somewhere and blame it on an internet problem.
The boss from two days ago?
You're going to get the both of us killed!
Probably, but come on! It'll be fun!
You laugh. It was fun, but you weren't about to admit that to him. You knew that his ego was likely to grow exponentially, so much so that you would probably be able to see it if you looked out the window.
Your laughter stops suddenly as your breath comes in gasps and your body heaves in a struggle to collect the air around you. There didn't seem to be enough of it, despite the heavy weight you felt pushed down on you every day.
"Arabella? Are you okay?"
It takes you a moment to reply, "I'm okay, Mum. Just got caught by surprise!"
Your parents had stopped running into your room every single time your coughs ran through the house, only at your request. The barrage of coughs happened fairly often, and you found it annoying, and fairly startling, to have your door burst open suddenly. It only ever made the coughing worse, and it annoyed you to know that there were people watching you, even if they you're your parents.
The coughing stopped, leaving you with heaving breaths.
ARABELLA! HELP! I'M GOING TO DIE!
The irony of the situation was not lost to you as you apparated to the place closest to him beginning your kiting only a moment later. You didn't have timing to fight all the respawned creatures along the way, especially with all the frantic messages Argus was sending you. You took a moment to wonder how he had enough time to send you a continuous stream of messages, before disregarding the thought as unimportant.
Your eyes flickered between your health and mana bars and Argus's. His looked a little worse for wear, but he had obviously exaggerating everything as usual. He was dodging everything that came at him, mostly fire and bits of earth, but you knew from experience that being hit by either cost a lot of health.
It had last time, and neither of you had gotten much stronger since then. The past week had been nothing but minor questing, which was too easy for either of you alone, but had allowed you to remember the times when you were just beginners at the game. You got nostalgic often, but Argus never commented on it, just tagging along when you both knew he didn't really have to.
The sound of a flurry of quickly moving fingers on the noisy keyboard filled the room within moments, each movement practiced and perfectly executed from the numerous times you had already used them.
ARA! THANK MERLIN!
I couldn't exactly let you die, now could I?
It was more that you wouldn't let him die, even if it were only a game. The thought of him dying, even though you knew he would only laugh and shrug it off, brought a great deal of dread with it.
His message caused his combination of dodges and manoeuvres to falter, and he was hit by a stray boulder, causing him to slam into the far wall painfully.
Your first attack on the dragon was thoughtless, and fairly stupid, but it managed to get the dragon's aggro off Argus for a while. The problem was that the dragon was all focussed on you now, and your skills weren't made for solo playing. At least, you hadn't developed them to do so.
It was with a small sigh of relief that you noticed that Argus was standing up again, you had thought that such a blow would have stunned him at the very least.
You weren't alone now.
Together, you could defeat the dragon, just like you had last time.
Together, you could defeat anything.
Written for Quidditch League: Wigtown Wanderers – Captain
Round 3: Write about a member of your OTP keeping a secret from the other [Arabella Figg/Argus Filch]
Written for Treasure Hunt: 22 by Taylor Swift