Being back home was strange. It seemed a lifetime ago she had stood in Adrian Pucey's tent, mixing daisyroot draught and Flannigan's firewhiskey. It also felt like a mere moment ago she had felt her heartbeat in her mouth, two different men that hovered over her with madness in them... searing pain in her leg - which, at the very least, she could no longer feel. Magic was wonderful like that. All she knew was phantom sensation, like a bad dream.
The house was quiet, too. Nothing like the World Cup had been - before, during, or after the attack. That wasn't anything special. The house was always quiet, enough so that you could hear something walking about even a floor away. Like now she could hear her father in his office, as she lay in bed above. She had been promised a new house elf, though she didn't think her dad could refuse much of anything at the moment.
Blythe wondered if this is what shock felt like. Delayed, numbing. It was so all fast, but it didn't feel over. Her heart rate was picking up again, and she took deeper breaths to remind herself that she could. That she was alive.
The day was spent mostly testing out her leg again, reminding herself she can use it. That first night back she was tossing and turning; she only fell into a light sleep as the summer sun rose. Something about the light under the long curtains warmed her, helped her finally relax. It didn't feel like she was falling into the abyss any longer. The sounds of the birds and general country life arose as she fell away; Blythe returned, in her mind, to the campsite.
Her attacker was speaking to her. His hand pressing down on her leg, it hurt so much. But she couldn't hear him, not at all. When the green glow came, sound came with it, and she heard his voice. The other.
Mores, moor, door; he screeched. And the added pressure to her leg vanished. She couldn't muster up anything to react after the man that cursed her fled. She did wonder... what was that light coming from? In the sky? That unnatural hue?
Who was that, shrieking?
"Well," she heard him again. "Hello," he was standing over her, she remembers this part. Then there is nothing - blackness- but instead here in her dream he reaches down and pets her hair, kneeling next to her.
That is new.
He slowly wraps her hair around his grasp, fisting it. She sees him so clearly, the sharp pull at her scalp minimally detracting from her leg's throb. "Hello," he whispers again, crooning. "Say hello, you shouldn't be rude..."
She was in a lot of pain, but if she weren't so focused on the fear that ruled her - Blythe would say he was sort of attractive. Young, but too old for her. She wanted to say hello, as he asked. She was trying, he was waiting. And yet, for all her effort, she woke up. The real memory of the Dark Mark man swimming before her eyes, the sun now fully up.
Blythe didn't know what to make of it, except she had suffered something quite awful. The mind does all sorts of strange things then, doesn't it? Besides, it wasn't like the Dark Mark man was who had cursed her... if anything, he had made the other flee. She would thank him, if he weren't a likely a mad Death Eater who still cast the Mark.
Confused by her own mind, Blythe had half an idea to go back to sleep. But she had also the sense that it was nearing midday, according to her stomach.
The clear face of that man haunted her dreams all summer, in every possible way. She couldn't shake it, or him, and couldn't make sense of it. She was okay, she was safe, why wouldn't her mind let that day go?
Little did Blythe know, she wasn't the only one to dream of him that summer - although Harry Potter's dreams were a tad more real than hers.
"You've become a recluse," Henrietta warned her. She'd been more affectionate since Blythe's 'incident' at the World Cup, but she was still Henrietta. Blythe rolled her eyes to her friend's turned back.
"I haven't, I just don't feel like going," she insisted. "We'll be back at school next week anyway, what am I really missing?"
"You never say no," Henrietta said, turning away from her vanity and giving her such a look of practiced disdain. "Besides, Thanes Nott will be bringing friends from the Ministry. Which is much more exciting than just attending Theo Nott's birthday with our classmates."
"Is anyone in our year going?"
"I must've told you a hundred times, most of the Quidditch team is, but I suppose we could invite Terence as well... and Zoe Accrington and her lot are coming, I do think."
"If we'd go, we couldn't not invite Terence."
"So you are coming?"
Blythe heaved a sigh. "Well, no, I didn't say that."
"I think it'll cheer you up, you've been so distant since the attack."
"Not really," she protested. "Well. Maybe a little."
"I understand," Henrietta said, with great emphasis. "I really do. Now, green or blue?"
"Blue," Blythe answered, distractedly. "Oh, do you think it'll really be worth it? To go?"
"Yes," she exclaimed. "Thanks to the young and handsome friends of Thanes."
"Didn't know you two were on first name basis," Blythe said, sitting down on her bed.
Henrietta flushed.
"Oh no," Blythe's eyes widened. "You're joking!"
"It's just nothing," her friend hurried to say, shakily finishing her eyeshadow. "We'd had a bit of chat, that's all, at Adrian's tent... and then again when I went with my father to the Wizengamot, he took me to the Goose for lunch." Henrietta looked terribly pleased with herself for 'just nothing'.
Blythe laughed. "Than why on earth are you concerned with his 'young and handsome friends', anyhow." Henrietta turned with a sly smile.
"You never know. After all, Thanes is much older than us, working, he's got - I'm sure - choices. I can't be unrealistic."
"That's clever," she admitted. "Never trust a man to be true."
"You sound like Professor Vector," Henrietta snorted.
"Well, I'm quoting her." Both laughed a bit, not at anything in particular.
"So you'll come, won't you?"
She would.
The Nott family house was - unlike the home of Minister Fudge - very imposing. Nothing at all middling about it, or its occupants. The Notts lived in the Midlands, somewhere above a medium wizarding village and close to the homes of the Accringtons and Derricks, both of whom had children that Blythe knew. The Floo opened up into a foyer with a large glass overhead, indicating a broomstick entry as well. This was a rather new-old fad, resurgent after an edition in Greenhouse&Home that showcased sky-entry popularity in the Middle East.
Looking up at it, in the dark night, Blythe just felt exposed.
"Look who's made it!" Henrietta's falsetto echoed in the air. "And aren't we better for it?"
They hugged and Blythe even smiled. "So, where's the birthday boy?"
"Everyone's in the cellars," Henrietta said, as if this wasn't even a little eerie.
"The cellars?"
"It's very nice, you'll like it, not at all spooky and loaded with elvish wines."
"I hate wines," but still she let herself be brought along by arm through a spacious and familiar hall, and then down into a rather normal sitting room. Henrietta wiggled her fingers and laughed at her, but then went over to a small cabinet - like one you would hold liquor in - and opened the glass doors and walked in.
"Well come on!" Blythe heard her voice echo from in there, like it was a much larger space than it seemed. And it was - there was a long, winding staircase with a thick Persian carpet.
"Tally," Blythe said to herself.
"I love a good secret entrance, don't you - and we were too young to be invited to anything of Thanes - and now look at us... creeping inside of the Nott home..."
"We were invited, not creeping," she says back, as they carefully step into the flickering light of the stairwell.
"It feels spooky, doesn't it though?" Noise was increasing as they ventured further down. Someone was coming up the stairwell.
"Sorry - passing through to the Floo - Jana just got here - " And the boy went up the way they came.
"Jana Dollis?" Blythe asked. "Our year? Isn't she a half-blood?"
Henrietta wrinkled her nose. "I don't know. I think so? But then, why would she have been invited?"
"Tracey Davis is here, and she's definitely mixed," that was Hestia Carrow at the bottom of the stairs. She was smiling, and definitely drinking. "Little Nott insisted."
"You're barely a year and some older, give it a rest," said birthday boy told her. "Hello, Blythe Fawley, right? Welcome to the house, have a drink, and so on and so forth. No, really - feel free to help yourself."
She smiled. "Thanks, happy birthday and good returns."
"Great returns," he slurred. "Henry, going to go back to snogging my brother?"
Henrietta flushed. "Don't call me that."
"Shiver me timbers," Theo said. "Have fun!" And he wandered back over to the unmistakable head of Draco Malfoy and the rest of the fourth year cohort.
Blythe turned on her friend. "Snogging, are we?"
"It was a kiss hello - they do it on the Continent."
"We aren't on the Continent," Blythe said slyly.
"Oh, shut up," Henrietta hissed, but she looked terribly pleased with herself. Blythe was also thinking this new paramour would mean that frostiness between the two girls would lessen. It had, a tad, with the attack and all.
Thanes Nott, as if sensing he was the topic of conversation, looked up and watched them crossing the floor. He gave Henrietta a wink. "Love an older man," she said airily, and the Blythe and her elbowed each other, giggling as they poured themselves drinks.
"Oh, look - see Cassius brought Terence. They've been together since that Wales trip," Henrietta said.
"How was it?" Blythe asked as they went over.
"Oh, fantastic," Cassius immediately said, throwing an arm over Terence's shoulders. "Did some good hunting, didn't we?"
"Spotting, not hunting, but yeah," Terence snorted. "The Welsh greens are a hard catch, but got some fantastic bits on camera. Also got a couple shed claws."
"It's brill your cousin's a dragon specialist," Blythe told Cassius.
It wasn't but half an hour later, the music flowing and the people too, that Terence pulled her aside - reminiscent of when he'd cornered her last year. Blythe had no idea how right that parallel was.
They sat in one of the offsides, in the dark, a room with no door and no one inside. Their chat winded down from casual party gab to something a little more serious - serious enough to get Blythe to perk up through her haze of drinking (didn't she say she wasn't ever going to drink again after the World Cup?).
"You hurt my feelings, back then, and I just wished you were sorry for it," he touched her. Her leg. Terence's hand was... she blinked at it, trying to focus on his words. "I know you aren't a bad friend, Blythe. I just want you to say it, we'll move past it. We're more than that. It was a stupid thing to do, bad timing from me and it didn't come across right. I'm sorry I didn't say it right. I really care about you." He looked at her leadingly, waiting patiently for... an apology? Blythe blinked again. For her denial all those months ago? Why now?
"No, I..." Was she meant to be sorry? His hand still held her leg, and she felt the phantom press of her attacker's arm, putting pressure on her leg that he'd mangled so thoroughly. Just to see her hurt. Her recognition of its cause.
The fingers grasp and flex, but the hand doesn't move higher. She blinks and sees a different face over Terence's - manic, teeth bared, glittering in the shine of the Dark Mark - then blinks again, harder. She can't swallow right for a moment.
"Don't," she asks him, voice not quite firm enough. "I'm not... I haven't done anything wrong. We're friends, Terence. I don't have to be sorry for anything. We're just... we're friends. I meant what I said then." She doesn't think so, does she?
His jaw jutted out, his fingers flexed again, and before she could move his lips were on hers. Wet, warm, and demanding.
That uncomfortable feeling, which every girl knows, coursed through her from the contact. That feeling that made her hesitate, feel powerless, and altogether subsumed for just a moment. Still, she managed to pull her head back and tried to push against his chest. Terence didn't move away, but he didn't move forward again - that pressure of his chest against her hand was horrific and she took her hand away even though all she wanted was for him to move off.
"That's not a good idea," she told him. "Don't - don't do that." She hates her own voice, it's not strong enough and his eyes are vacant in a way she can't explain. All women know it.
"Do you..." He seemed to struggle. "Cassius?" He finished, in a questioning tone. He seemed to only watch her mouth. She felt a bit sick.
"It doesn't matter," Blythe said. "I said no, alright?"
"He's taller," Terence snorted. "And still on the team, right -"
"I don't care about the fucking Quidditch team!" Blythe exclaimed. "I'm serious, Terence, I don't think we'll be friends anymore if you keep this up."
He finally, finally moved back.
"I'm trying," he mumbled.
She wished she'd never come to this party, and the alcohol in her now felt as if it had gone bad. She sort of wanted to cry, but shouldn't she be complimented? Wasn't she blowing it out of proportion?
So, on the Hogwarts Express five days later, Blythe steadily walked past the compartment of her friends - Terence, Cassius, Henrietta - and decided and sit with Zoe Accrington and her lot instead. She would at least save some of this awkwardness for sitting with her friends at the welcoming feast. Did Terence say anything to them? He hadn't written heranymore, after the party.
She thought something a bit nasty too - she wondered if Henrietta was pleased that Blythe didn't come to the compartment, so she could have all the boys' attention to herself. This was maybe a little unfair of her, and she never told Henrietta what happened, but she didn't care. Maybe the reason she didn't tell her is because she was afraid it would only serve to make her friend more jealous.