Hello guys! I'm so so so sorry for the massive wait on this chapter life stuff has been bogging down all my creativity but I am making the come back! Thank you so much for sticking with me on this dreary tale, but I promise our light at the end of the tunnel is not too far off for these young lovers.
Chapter Ten / Something Rotten Something Divine
To say there was a void would be to vastly underestimate the severity of the situation. It was almost a festering sore that collapsed into blank darkened space. Her fingers would thumb the wound absently until pain throbbed through the unoccupied space. As the days passed it only swelled in size and the infection started to trickle into her blood. It was a vacant sickness that left her emotionally crippled and feigning ignorance of the voice clamoring in the back of her mind. They spoke in low tones at first, building up for a proper appearance. Madness had finally come for her and she couldn't say in the least that she was surprised. It had been a long time coming by now when all she had to talk to were the trees that towered above her weakened body and the stray forest creatures that skittered away from her as soon as she spoke. She'd read once that sustained absence from human contact would have adverse negative affects starting with emotional to physical ailments but she never imagined just how damning it would be.
She wasn't even entirely sure by now if her count of time was accurate as the days started to blur together in the solitude. On the very rare occasion she'd happen upon a muggle village and sneak like a thief in the night to gather supplies from closed down stores and various shops but it had been weeks since then. Supplies were running dangerously low and her pills had long since run out. Desperation was taking its heavy toll but not as badly as withdrawal. It began with simple shakes on the first evening without. Her hands and legs began trembling and shaking like infant tree sprouts but it was still the dead of winter so she dismissed it as so. The next couple days began the abdominal pains and aches coursing through every inch of her body as she curled into her blankets on the cot. After so long of course it had let up but in its place all the pain left a void. For so long it had taken up this space inside of her and filled her with this bliss of soothing and tender soft edges but now it was gone and she didn't know what to feel. Could she even feel anything anymore?
She was sure she felt something. Every night that she lay awake in a bundle fiddling with that damned ring she was sure there was a memory and a pattern there. A feeling that lay underneath all that empty space she was hiding behind. Fear held her back though from prodding too deep. All the festering and oozing pain that crusted around the wound had to be hiding something rotten. Some dead part of her body that was haunting her like a phantom limb taking up all of her vitality and draining her of the life left in her. How could she have ever come this far? The golden girl of Gryffindor who once seemingly had it all. She was more than once called the glue that held the golden trio together but where were they now? She had no clue if they were even alive. Her radio listed off names night after night but theirs were never echoed through the tent. It was truly the one good thing holding her to this forsaken place.
That was besides him of course. She couldn't recall the last time she saw his face in person. Dates meant nothing in this place. The rough feeling of his unshaven beard beneath her finger tips was still clear as a bell. The thought of the deep tenor of his voice whispering brashly in her ear and even the pull of his hand on her waist tranced in her pounding mind. Even a familiar chaste touch of his chapped lips on her forehead? When had that happened….she couldn't put a memory to the sensation but the feeling was so real as she brushed her hand across her forehead remembering it. He was but a ghost in her life no more real than the phantom sore that drive her wild every waking moment of her days. Had he ever been truly real or was he just a fever dream of her last adolescent days? Surely he had to have been real or she wouldn't have this strange ring to plague her mind every night. The line between real and hallucination was getting thinner and thinner and it was starting to truly scare her. Is understanding loneliness the true folly of man or is it our shallow attempts at self preservation in the face of madness? In the dead of night the angels would sing to her the sweet praises of lifting from the body holding her captive and leaving behind the mortal coil. Their voices are so soft and heavenly always foretelling stories of a place where she'd no longer have a void inside of her. Only love and pure blinding light would fill her presence and there'd be no more fear. Oh rejoice! Sing the praises of hallelujah! They sang promises of an existence full of only love and grace to heal her of all the wounds. It was a beautiful vision she never thought herself worthy of in any regard and yet here they were offering it to her on a silver and gold inlaid platter. Their glassy sparkling eyes looking down upon her like the false reflection of a window pane.
It was just a lie. A filthy illusion crafted by the insanity that was riddling her. Madness trying to rob her of the last thing she had that was precious to her; her own life. Her wild rabid eyes began scouring the bushes around her for the berries that she'd been eating for days now to stave off the hunger ravaging her body. They were small but plentiful in juicy splendor that stained her tongue and lips with a poisonous opaque cerise. It was a fatal mistake that had she been in her right mind from the start she surely wouldn't have made but the fates don't always roll our dice fair. Though isolation and withdrawal had driven her to some ends of her wits it was ultimately the pestilential berries rolling in her belly causing her to fall head on into insanity. There was time left to curb the progress of the infection but it was dwindling rapidly. Hair a giant matted mess and clothes tattered she grabbed fistfuls of the berries jamming them into her mouth smearing the juices all across her ashen face. Sweat was breaking out in a thin sheen across her forehead but it was unnoticeable to her as she had only the hunger on her mind.
He was sure he was watching a rabid animal and not the woman he had come to be so fond of. Anger irked him as he thought of how long he'd been parted from her due to work queries and just how long she'd been in this state roaming around vulnerable. He'd need to intervene and cut all losses in concealing himself from her if she was to be saved from this situation. It was a calculated risk but he knew his heart would never let him make amends with himself if he didn't do. It was with that assessment he made his swift descent from the tree branch he was sitting in and prowled towards her. She was none the wiser and he knocked her out with a hasty stunning jinx so he could run diagnostics with no out lashes. He'd seen a few of his men over the years make the same ignorant mistake with the berries and knew that she was very close to the hysterical stage. Initial fixes were easy and he took them within moments but he needed a very important elixir to heal her internal damage and flush the toxin from her body. She was in no state to be moved but he feared leaving her alone once more as it had obviously done her no good before. And yet of course he could hardly show up in a magic shop with one of the most wanted witches in the world. The gravity of the situation bore upon him heavily as he weighed more risks. There were a million little pieces scattered to connect and he had no clue where to start. Carrying her sleeping body into the tent for the second time he settled her into the cot wrapping her with the thick winter blankets.
Even in a state of a wild captive animal she was more holy looking than he could have ever imagined. The once gentle curls now matted and caked with dirt framed her pallid face and ruddy cheeks like a fallen angel cast down from heaven. He felt but the original sinner come to encounter the only one who could ever mirror the once sanctified but now hollow hole in his chest. Running his calloused and near bleeding fingers over her hair he felt that tug in his heart and wanted to cry out to the night. What kind of cruel world was this that they would exist in such parallel lives that only crossed for such tragedy? Leaving her pained him immeasurably but he promised her still form he would return before she awoke and he planned to keep that promise no matter what it would take. With a crack he was gone and the air left behind was clear but electrified as a faint hope for redemption lingered in the space.