He found himself trembling in his seat. He was in the Potions Dungeons, but he didn't remember how he got there or why he was there to begin with. There was nobody sitting in the same row as him, and there was no professor behind the front desk. With a quivering hand he reached up to find that his face was soaked in a mixture of sweat and tears. He couldn't possibly imagine just what the fuck was going on because he was in such a mindreeling daze. He turned around and jolted out of his seat, the clatter of his falling chair echoing awkwardly in the dungeon. The thing that had startled him so severely was a girl, a girl who looked like nothing special, but most certainly did not look normal in any way.
She had her wand pointed at him, gripped in a shaking hand. Reactively, he whipped out his wand and shouted.
"Stupefy!"
She flew back several feet, her body slamming against the wall as the wand fell from her limp fingers. Draco felt himself still trembling as he walked to her, his knees feeling reminiscent of jelly as he knelt down beside her to get a better look at the girl. He didn't recognize her.
Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, her tears still fresh and glistening upon her cheeks. He didn't recognize this girl, but her robes told him she was in Gryffindor and he smirked, dropping any previous sense of guilt he had had about stupefying a girl whom he had never met before. He looked around, somewhat intrigued by the fact that she had no books or bag with her. She had short black hair, seemingly cut by an amateur with a dull pair of scissors, the edges of her hair were jagged and uneven, her skin was pale and her long eyelashes began to flutter as she started to regain some consciousness.
Before she could fully regain it, Draco tapped his wand against her, little vines sprouting from the tip of his wand and wrapping her wrists together in a tight bond. Draco was concerned with one thing, himself.
How did I get here? he thought.
Why am I here? he thought next.
And why did I turn to find a girl with her wand point at my back? he thought last.
There were more questions though as he wiped his face on his sleeve. What predicament had he been in to suddenly be aware and find himself alone in a dungeon, sweating and crying? And just why, could he not remember for the life of him, how he had gotten there?
"Nnngrh..." the girl groaned, beginning to stir as she opened her eyes to focus on him. When she saw Draco, she immediately started to move, but found herself so inconveniently trapped by his vine-bonds. Draco took a twisted sense of joy in seeing her panicked face. At least between the two of him, he wasn't the only one confused about the current situation. He hated not knowing what the fuck was going on. In fact, he hated realizing that he had no idea what the fuck was going on with somebody he didn't know pointing a wand at his fucking back.
"It's pointless to struggle. You should start explaining. Who are you?" He asked her, the smug little smirk never leaving his face. He couldn't really understand why though, when he spoke that her mouth fell open in a shock, her lips parted slightly and her eyes stared at him under a blank, glazed cover. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and brought her closer to his face. There was nothing gentle about his grasp nor his pull, her slight yelp was proof of that. Draco had no patience at the moment. His absolute ignorance of what was going had terminated his patience.
"I asked you a question you little shit, answer me!" He shouted into her face and again, she didn't show fear. This time her brows furrowed as if sad and he could see tears welling up in the girl's eyes. Draco growled, too frustrated to want to deal with a crying girl. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to be calm, trying not to lose it and hit the idiot girl in the face like he wanted.
Why, why does she stare at me so dumbfounded? She was the one pointing the wand! If anyone should have that expression on his face, it's me!
"Look you idiot-"
"Mister Malfoy...Miss Lee...what, may I ask is the reason for the two of you gracing Professor Slughorn's classroom at this time?" The foreboding voice of Professor Snape loomed over them and Draco looked up slowly, unsure of how to answer or continue with the situation at hand.
"Professor I-"
"And you have tied up a fellow student Mister Malfoy. Though I commend you on your clever usage of the spell, I shall remind you that magic between classes is prohibited."
"Professor-"
"Not another word Mister Malfoy or I'll be taking points. Miss Lee, I believe you have my class next, so I recommend you run along." and with that, much to Draco's dismay, Professor Snape flicked his wand and the vines disappeared. Without a moment's hesitation the girl stood up, scrambling to her feet and grabbing her wand that had dropped several feet away from her. Draco stood up quickly, reaching out to grab her but the professor stepped in his way, leering down at him.
"Mister Malfoy, to your seat."
"Professor-"
"To. Your. Seat."
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Her breaths came out jagged an uneven, desperate and gasping for the air that just wasn't enough. In the silence of the empty dormitories, her breathing resembled yelps and her sobs sounded more like screams. Even muffled by a pillow, her crying resounded too loudly in the unnaturally quiet room.
The other students were all at class, being good, obedient students. But she couldn't bring herself to step a foot outside of her bed. She barely bring herself to open her eyes. The tear-soaked pillow felt as if it were drowning her, the salty dampness barricading her breaths to herself. And in some way, the lack of fresh air and the simulated feeling of drowning gave comfort in her suffering. She was indeed drowning, her thoughts flashing and twisting within her mind without any sort of coherency. Most of her insides were twisting actually, twisting, turning, fragmenting and breaking away into nothing only to pull itself together and repeat the entire process all over again.
It burned. The bedsheets burned, the pillow burned, even the very warmth of her own breath burned. Her fingers could not scratch hard enough and no matter how much she clenched, the frustration with which she clenched her fists wasn't nearly enough to content her. She wanted to clench her fists harder, she wanted to dig her nails in deeper till the palms of her hands bled. But she didn't have the strength to do so, and so she was left unsatisfied in her sobbing.
And her aching heart.
Oh how it ached. How it shook inside her chest with such loneliness; with such sadness.
She never knew how much it would affect her. She honestly hadn't expected the aching she felt then. The pain had caught her off guard like a blow to her face and it stayed with her like a cancer, only getting worse with every passing second and bringing with it the feeling of an inevitable death.
This ache, she would never forget.
She would hold this pain as the standard to all other pain. Anything that followed after this could not possibly be on par with what she felt at that moment.
So if she could survive this, then she sincerely believed that she could survive anything.
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Luna Lovegood was a girl of oddities and marvels. She herself wasn't aware of it, nor was she ever really aware of it. It's not that she was a dumb girl, or that she was just that ignorant, it was simply because she did not care to be aware of it. She was generally happy with herself and today was no exception. She hummed to herself as she walked on the grass, holding her lunch in one hand and an empty jar in the other. She knew today was a good day to come across the ever-so-elusive Marblebees. Her father had just published an article in Quibbler last Saturday and she was eager to find them. She looked up around the outside grounds to see a particular somebody sitting underneath the shade of an evergreen. Luna felt her happy day become even happier.
"Hello Ana." Luna said in her usual airy voice, but despite this she began to feel concerned at the heaviness of the air. A glance at her face confirmed it. She looked like the undead, the bags under her eyes prominent and her gaze unfocused and unclear. Luna suspected foul play by the Blarnjer Gnomes, but she couldn't be too sure. When Ana waved her hand in response, Luna took a seat next to her, pretending not to take notice of the mutilated buttercup petals that concentrated where Ana sat. Instead, she took out her sandwich and held up the other half to Ana.
"Sandwich? You seem as if you had been cursed by the Blarnjer Gnomes." She said thoughtfully, but Ana shook her head, holding up her hand to reject the sandwich. She retracted the sandwich and began chewing it, looking over the Hogwarts Lake which shimmered underneath the generous sunlight.
"No thanks Luna. I think I read about Blarnjer Gnomes once." She said softly and Luna lit up, excited to hear that Ana recalled the article.
"Oh yes! Father published it in the Quibbler last year, back in December." She stated, taking another mouthful of sandwich and looking at Ana. Unnerving her slightly, Ana seemed to be staring off into space still, her fingers methodically plucking off the petals from buttercups one by one.
"I recall now. They are tiny gnomes that get into your brain through your ears..and they grow in your brain, making your mind heavy with...um.."
"Unpleasant thoughts!" Luna chimed in for her, nodding and dusting the crumbs off of her hands to open the empty jar. She lifted it up and let the narrow beams of sunlight which made it through the shelter of tree leaves shine through it, enjoying the way it glinted off of the smooth glass. Indeed this was a fine jar for catching Marblebees, the glass was just the right thickness and size. "They grow and weigh your mind down with unpleasant thoughts. Awfully bothersome those Blarnjer Gnomes."
"How do you get rid of Blarnjer Gnomes Luna?" She asked her and Luna smiled her sweet little smile, putting the jar down and picking up some of the torn buttercup petals to put into the jar. Marblebees would probably like it best were there some nature to make it feel like home. She put her hands into the jar to compact the petals and grass down to the bottom more.
"Do you feel something weighing down on your mind Ana?" The question seemed innocent enough, but Luna trusted her friend to know better. And without fail, Ana picked up on the depth of the question, pausing momentarily in her buttercup destruction and a small smile beginning to curve her lips. The reaction made Luna feel a little lighter, happy that her best friend wasn't completely out of it.
"It sure feels like it. It feels like there are at least a hundred of them inside. Please Luna, tell me how to get rid of the Blarnjer Gnomes?" Ana asked her in such a saddened voice that Luna momentarily forgot about her mission to catch the Marblebees. She turned to Ana, almost being able to feel her pain from sitting next to her at such close proximity. She smiled her trademark hazy smile at her and started waving her wand in the air, swishing and flicking as if she were casting spells, but nothing was happening.
"I suppose the best way would be to drown them out." She replied and Ana arched an eyebrow, finally turning to meet Luna's gaze. Luna smiled still and continued with her swishing and flicking movements.
"Drown them out? How so?"
"Why, with music of course." She answered. Luna couldn't imagine what else you could possibly drown out things from your mind with. Water would just be illogical after all. And so she started to hum and the look in Ana's eyes told her that she finally understood Luna's movements. Luna was pretending to compose a song, a fantastic and brilliant song. She imagined the song to go along the lines of the thing she was humming. Ana smiled at her, scooted a little closer and closed her eyes to Luna's humming.
Luna continued humming, lowering her swish and flick movements to a standstill at her side. The warmth that now sat against her now felt like the warmth of her friend and no longer like the heat of a thousand frantic thoughts. Perhaps the Marblebees would have to wait another day to be caught.
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