QLFC submission
Season 6: Caerphilly Catapults
Finals, Round 2: Quote: Is it possible to love someone so completely, they simply can't die? (Peter Lake, Winter's Tale)
Prompts: [dialogue] "please leave me alone," [phrase]in my heart, [word] ravage.
Word Count: 1,154
"Go away!" I growl out in frustration, throwing the spare pillow on the bed with me into the darkened corner. The impression of a laugh is felt in the air around me and I curse, sitting up. I glance around frantically, now fully awake, but the feeling of being watched is gone. For now.
This has been going on for too long now, since the battle almost a year ago. I thought I was insane at first. Hearing the laugh, feeling the ghost of fingers across my arms in the lab at the store. My mother just patted my cheek and told me that I was grieving and that she felt she heard him sometimes, too.
But then, around the time my younger sister went back to school, I saw him. It was only a split second, and I was sure at first it was just a reflection. But I did a double take as I registered that there were two ears in the reflection, and a wide, almost manic grin that I was most definitely not wearing anymore. Fred was here and I saw him and for the first time, I felt hope, hope that maybe he was a ghost, that I could still speak to him, see him, plan pranks and adventures like I used to. That the hole in my heart, in my very soul, that I had felt since the moment he died would fill up and I could laugh again. That the worried looks from my parents, from my siblings, from my employees, would stop. I wouldn't get a 'surprise' visit from my mother every Saturday making sure I wasn't wasting away in my apartment alone. I would be whole again because my other half would be around.
But that's not how it worked.
Now I was terrified every time I felt that presence around me because it was my brother, my Freddie, but it wasn't. Something was twisted, different. He was malicious and angry and most days his so-called pranks were hurtful and dangerous, and some were aimed at me. Just last week he had tipped over a scalding hot cauldron on Lee. He was still in St. Mungos, unconscious and unsure if he was going to make it because the potion inside was half finished and simmering, making it unstable. He wasn't a regular ghost. I would have called him a poltergeist if I hadn't met Peeves in school. Instead of mending the hole I felt in my chest, it tore it wider. I was seeing Fred, but I was seeing him doing things we swore we would never do, and it terrified me.
I was caught for a long time, between happy and horrified. Why was he acting like this? Why didn't he just pass on if he didn't like being here? But now, at this point, I just wanted it to stop. Even if that meant I would never see him again.
I sit back up as I hear another creak. My door flies open and a cauldron comes soaring in, allowing me plenty of time to duck out of the way as the contents soak my bed and the cackling laugh is heard.
"Fred STOP!" I growl out, flicking my wand and vanishing most of the mess. There's the sound of stomping feet and then my door is slammed shut again. I rub at my face wearily, stubble catching my fingers. I hadn't shaved, hadn't showered, hadn't slept in nearly a week because of this. It was getting worse, the closer it got to his death day. I didn't want to say he was building up to something, but he was definitely getting more active, angrier.
I decide to call it quits on trying to sleep. He was obviously going to keep me awake, again, so I make my way to the kitchen and settle on making some tea. I spill it twice, and I almost put salt instead of sugar into it, but eventually, I'm sitting in the kitchen with a steaming mug. I take a sip, sighing as it slides down my throat. I had barely eaten, constantly wary of it going up in flames or being suddenly rotten, something that had started happening around the same time my sleep had become nonexistent. Tea was about all I had anymore. It was too sweet because I had dumped three times the normal amount of sugar into it, but I couldn't care at this point.
The snickering was the first sign that something wasn't right. I heard it off to my left. To my surprise, when I glanced over, I could see a vague outline. The second sign was my fingers going numb, and the cup dropping from my grip and shattering on the floor beside my chair. I stare at it wide-eyed for a moment before I realize what's happening. I stand, shakily making my way to the medicine cabinet. My legs felt like they would give out and a small mantra of "no, no, please, no," was leaving my lips as I throw the door open and begin searching frantically.
A searing pain in my stomach has me doubling over. It was harsh, ravaging my nerves and spreading out. It hit my fingers, my toes, everything. I stand back up, refusing to give up looking for the Bezoar. I knock potions to the ground as my clumsy, unresponsive hands scour the shelves.
My brother had poisoned me.
I make a noise of victory as I force my fingers to clamp around the stone. I gag slightly as I fight to swallow the stone, only willpower, and my urgency to live making it go down. I sink to the floor as the after-effects of whatever was in the tea makes me shake. I close my eyes in defeat. I had suspicions before, but this just confirmed it. He was trying to kill me.
"Please, just leave me alone," I whimper when I feel the presence in the room come closer.
"No," was the firm reply, startling me into opening my eyes.
I was staring at my reflection again. But it wasn't right, just like every other time I was looking at him. His eyes were cold, hard. He was furious. No smile on his face, no laugh.
"Why don't you just go? You're dead, leave me alone!" I say with more conviction this time. He sneers at me in response and bellows back.
"You won't let me leave!"
I flinch away as he lunges, but he doesn't touch me and instead disappears, running out of energy. My heart is pounding, my mind racing. That was the most he had talked to me in the year he had haunted me. Maybe he wasn't a ghost. Maybe he was stuck in this half here state because of me. Is it possible to love someone so completely, they simply can't die?