Chapter Nineteen Extra: Soap Opera Hysteria
This is a continuation of the scene where Victoria and Alex are bathing the Sykersqualshes and are distracted by an imp. I wrote it late on a sunday night so it took me a while to realise that fatigue had gone to my head. Since the last half of the scene resembled an exaggeratedsoap opera I grudgingly cut it off.
"Tori? What's going on? What's that?" Alex asked as he walked over.
"Mine mine mine mine mine gimme gimme gimme gimme gimme!" The imp screeched, clawing at her hands as it tried to reach the bread.
"I found it running off with some bread it stole from Hogwarts." She told him. "What should we do with him?"
"I say we feed him to the Sykersqualshes." He declared, a sadistic glint in his eye.
"No no no no no no no no lemme go lemme go lemme go!" It shrieked and, with the lightening-fast strike of a cobra, bit her hand.
Startled, she let go and the imp fell to the ground before running as fast as its little legs could carry it.
It got about three human paces before Alex dropped his foot on it with a crunch.
"That takes care of that." He said smugly and wiped his shoe on the grass.
"I can't believe you just did that." Victoria said numbly. "You just killed that creature in cold blood. How could you?"
"It was a thief. It got what it deserved." Alex shrugged carelessly and returned to the Sykersqualshes.
"You… you barbarian! You chauvinist! You, you Slytherin!" she cursed him, shaking with rage and nausea.
"Yeah, well, hate to break it to you babe, but you're one too. And who are you to criticize me? You disembowelled a Sykersqualsh!" he called back at her as he scrubbed.
"That was an ACCIDENT! You deliberately killed another creature for trying to survive! How dare you try to associate your actions with mine! And I will have you know I never will be a Slytherin! I am a Slythendor, no matter how much I dislike it! You are a vile, repugnant, barbaric little bastard with all the charm and grace of a p-"
In mid sentence, her rage suddenly swelled to a point where she felt like it was about to consume her, and as she watched Alex was hoisted into the air by an unseen force and dropped into the water with the Sykersqualshes.
As she stood there, she felt her anger recede slightly, but was still present, a pulsating force of pure fury.
So consumed by her own emotions, she failed to notice that Alex hadn't surfaced yet.
'Goddamn piece of shit, motherfucking fucker should fucking die for killing that imp…where is he? I'm gunna pound the sense out of the fucker and then pound it back in! I'm gunna… gunna…' her rant was short-lived and the anger seeped out of her in a few seconds though.
Alex burst to the surface, coughing and spluttering in his personal bloodbath.
Climbing out quickly, he began to shiver in the slight breeze as he hobbled over the dilapidated imp.
Drawing his wand, he prodded it several times and muttered in short gasps an incantation. Victoria recognised it, but hadn't the slightest idea where she had heard it before.
As she watched, the imp began to reinflate, and with a sudden spark from the wand jerked up.
It leapt to its feet, screeched in an ear-piercingly high register and bolted towards the forest.
Victoria stood there a few moments, speechless.
Alex huddled up into the foetal position, shivering and sobbing.
Moving towards him, she could make out the words, "…I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't hurt me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't want to drown, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.." he whimpered as she came closer.
"I didn't mean to do that, it was an accident…" she whispered, scared by what she'd done.
"It was an ACCIDENT! AN ACCIDENT! AN ACCIDENT!" he suddenly screeched, mimicking her like a parrot.
Startled, she fell back and clapped her hands to her ears, but his screams continued in her head.
Lights flicked on nearby and Hagrid crashed out of his hut and began lumbering over to them. "Wha's goin' on! Wha's all the racke' fo'!" he yelled over Alex.
Victoria leapt to her feet and ran towards the forest, his screams following her, "I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, DON'T HURT ME, AN ACCIDENT, AN ACCIDENT, DON'T DROWN ME, I'M SORRY I'M SO-"
She crashed through the undergrowth, so terrified of what lay behind her that she didn't have the sense to be afraid of what was ahead.
Her legs took on a life of her own, dodging trees and sprinting through the mud and grass without the rest of her issuing orders.
When she was sure she could no longer hear the haunting screams, she collapsed face first on a boulder.
Breathing hard, she tried to take account of the situation, but the only thing that ran through her mind was "Come to Hogwarts, meet interesting creatures, kill them…join the army, meet interesting people, kill them…follow Voldemort, meet innocent people, kill them…" continuously, until she fell asleep from exhaustion.
It was an accident.
She didn't mean to kill him.
But the facts still remained, he was dead.
His eyes were glazed, his glasses broken and hanging. His normally tousled hair was dripping blood from the wound in his head. His body hung limply over a chair.
It was an accident.
He was just meant to be knocked lightly on the head.
His skull wasn't supposed to shatter.
The blood dripped down the side of his face. She raised a hand to close his eyes, feeling the cold flesh and she pulled down his lids.
It was an accident.
It wasn't supposed to end this way.
But it did.
It was her fault.
She killed her brother.
She killed Harry Potter.
It was an accident…
It was an accident…
"It was an accident… it was an accident… it was an accident…" Victoria mumbled in her sleep.
"It's alright dear, we know it was. It's ok, now just calm down dear. Drink this." A familiar voice said and pushed something into her hands.
Opening her eyes slightly, she saw Madame Pomfrey smiling at her. "Drink, dear. You'll feel better afterwards."
She swallowed the vile liquid in two gulps and lay back.
She was about to ask a question when the sleeping potion took effect.
Rolling over, she succumbed to the call of a dreamless sleep.
As you can see, there is far too much swearing, harming of fellow students, and sopa opera/depressing fic speech madness and repetitive sentences. The dream sequence just capped it off for me, and I realised what I had created. So I cut it.