Amoria's eyes fluttered open, and she found herself sprawled on a splintered wooden floor. The air was heavy with the faint tang of mildew, and the walls around her were bare, the wallpaper peeling in uneven strips. Something about the hallway tugged at her memory—a vague, distant familiarity she couldn't quite place.
Her gaze swept the room with sharp focus. As her eyes lingered on the worn wooden door at the end of the hall, it creaked open, its hinges groaning like a reluctant invitation. She froze. Nothing emerged. No sounds followed. The silence pressed on her chest as if urging her forward.
As though her body acted of its own accord, she rose to her feet, her eyes fixed on the doorway. Each cautious step sent the floorboards beneath her feet groaning in protest. Her heart raced, its rhythm echoing in her ears.
She turned the corner, and her breath caught. Against the far wall, a thin, dark-haired woman lay motionless on a large bed. Her skeletal face was pale, almost translucent, with faint red veins tracing across her skin like jagged lightning bolts.
Amoria inched closer, unable to tear her eyes away. The woman's cracked lips moved, whispering something too faint to hear. A silver and onyx necklace rested loosely against her collarbone, gleaming faintly in the dim light.
Amoria gasped as the woman's eyes fluttered open, revealing an icy blue that mirrored her own. A wave of recognition crashed over her, washing away the fog in her mind. The hallway, the bedroom—it all came rushing back.
This was her childhood home.
And this was her mother.
Amoria could hardly recognize her. The woman lying before her was a fragile shadow of the mother she had only glimpsed in stories and photographs. Her father had rarely spoken about the circumstances of her death, leaving her with only fragments of truth to piece together. She had known her mother had been ill, but seeing her now, frail and ravaged, was far beyond anything she had ever imagined. The red veins that branched across her translucent skin, the sharp angles of her skeletal frame—it all felt disturbingly unnatural. There was no way this had been the work of illness alone.
Tears blurred Amoria's vision, her body trembling as she stood beside the bedside. Her mother had fallen ill just before the end of the first war, slowly withering away until she could no longer walk. As a child, she would sneak in, curling up beside her mother, playing with her necklace until she drifted off to sleep. But as her mother's illness worsened, she was forbidden from seeing her altogether. The years passed, healers came and went, but her mother never left that room. It became their new normal. Over time, her memories of her mother began to fade, until only the faintest moans from the room remained, a haunting reminder of their reality. As her mother's condition worsened, her father sent her to Malfoy Manor more frequently. She would stay there for weeks, sometimes months at a time. Then, when she was six years old, her mother passed away. Her father returned to the Manor, informing her of the death so matter-of-factly that before she could reach out to him, he was gone again. She wasn't allowed to see her mother, and no funeral was planned. They mourned in silence, moving on without further discussion. Afterward, she and her father remained at the Manor. People would occasionally mention her mother, asking how she felt, but Amoria never truly knew. Her mother's absence had been a fact of life for so long that it had become little more like a story. People often remarked on how much she resembled her mother—how they were nearly identical—but that resemblance felt hollow, like a story about someone she had never truly known.
After her death, her father rid the house of all her belongings, all her memories. All he allowed her to kept was a single photograph from her parents' wedding day. In it, her mother smiled softly, her hair falling in loose waves over her face. Amoria could see faint echoes of herself in that image—the same delicate features, the same shy dimples when she smiled. Once, her own smile had held that same charm, but as the years passed, those smiles became rarer, worn down by grief and the weight of their survival.
Her father's coldness and emotional distance deepened the void left by her mother's absence. He had tried to shield her, shuttling her away and keeping her in the dark about his work for the Dark Lord, but that protection came at a cost. The more he hid, the more Amoria wrestled with a quiet resentment toward her mother—for leaving her, for abandoning them to a life ruled by instability and fear.
And now, here she was, standing in the shadow of that absence, staring into icy blue eyes identical to her own. Amoria's heart ached, torn between yearning and anger.
How did this happen?
The questions she had carried for so long burned at the edges of her mind. But as her mother's cracked lips parted again, whispering faint, unintelligible words, Amoria's breath hitched.
But now, standing here and looking at her mother's face—sickly, frail, and unfamiliar—something deep within Amoria cracked. The life she'd lived without her mother had hardened her, leaving her as cold and emotionless as her father. Yet, as she gazed at the fragile woman before her, a warmth she hadn't felt in years flickered to life, piercing through the layers of grief and resentment she'd buried so deeply. The dam she had built around her emotions shattered, allowing long-suppressed sorrow to rise to the surface, raw and overwhelming.
Her mother's eyes locked with hers, their icy blue depths filled with a mix of sadness and love. The corners of her mother's mouth twitched into a faint, trembling smile as she reached for her daughter's face. "Amoria, my love—you've grown so big."
Amoria's knees gave way, and she sank to the floor beside the bed, her trembling hands reaching to grasp her mother's. A soft, loving kiss was placed on her forehead, and the touch of her mother's fingers stroking her cheek felt impossibly tender. Tears flowed freely down both their faces as they held each other in quiet, fragile intimacy, the weight of years apart pressing heavy on the moment.
"You're special, Ami," her mother whispered, her voice barely above a breath but steady. "The magic inside you… it's powerful." She paused, tucking a piece of hair behind Amorias ear. "Umbra Vitaits 's an ancient magic, hidden away by the wizarding world—dark and dangerous if wielded by the wrong hands. Few know of it, and even fewer understand it." She broke off, coughing violently, her frail chest trembling with the effort. Yet her eyes remained locked on Amoria's, filled with urgency. "Youmustprotect yourself."
With a trembling hand, her mother grasped Amoria's, her grip fleeting but desperate. "You can't hide it anymore. People know—they've seen what you are." Her voice grew sharper, more urgent. Then, with unexpected strength, she grasped Amoria's face, her fingers firm despite their frailty. "They'll want to control you. He will make you do terrible things, Ami—heinous things. And he won't take no for an answer."
Her mother's voice faltered, her gaze shifting over Amoria's shoulder. Her eyes widened in sudden terror, and her grip on Amoria's hand tightened. "You have to go, Ami," she whispered, her tone trembling with fear. "Promise me you'll stay safe, no matter the cost. Trust no one—not even your father."
Amoria's heart thudded painfully in her chest, her voice barely audible as she choked out, "I-I promise, Mum. I'll be safe."
Her mother's face crumpled with relief, but the tears kept streaming down her cheeks. She began pleading, her words incoherent, directed toward some unseen figure behind Amoria. Alarmed, Amoria pushed herself to her feet, her wide eyes darting around the room. There was nothing—nothing to explain her mother's sudden terror.
"Mum, what is it? What do you see?" she asked, her voice trembling.
Her mother cowered deeper into the bed, her pleas growing louder, more frantic. The room seemed to hum with the intensity of her fear, vibrating with an unseen energy that made the hairs on the back of Amoria's neck stand on end.
Then, without warning, an eerie silence fell.
Amoria spun around, her breath caught in her throat. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed darker now, stretching toward her as if alive. Her mother's strangled whimper broke through the silence, but Amoria could feel it—something was there. Something she couldn't see.
Her chest tightened as she stood frozen, every nerve in her body screaming to run.
Her mother slowly sat up, her unblinking eyes locked on an empty spot in the room. A shudder rippled through her frail body, her chest rising and falling in quick, labored breaths. Her face was eerily blank, devoid of any emotion, except for the silent tears tracing glistening paths down her hollow cheeks.
Amoria's eyes remained fixed on her mother, a growing dread tightening her chest. What was happening? Who—or what—was causing her to act this way? It was only the two of them in the room. They were safe, weren't they? They were together, finally.
Then, without warning, a scream erupted from her throat—piercing, unnatural, and bone-chilling. The sound seemed to vibrate through the very walls, shattering the stillness like fragile glass.
Amoria cried out in return, her voice breaking as she begged her mother to stop. But when she looked up, her heart stopped cold. Her mother's icy blue eyes had vanished, replaced by black voids that seemed to swallow the light. The veins that had once been faintly red now pulsed with an unsettling, pitch black, spreading like cracks across her translucent skin.
Paralyzed by the crushing pressure building in her head, Amoria couldn't move. The air around her felt thick and suffocating, as if the room itself was folding in on her. Desperation clawed at her chest, and all she could do was scream, hoping it would somehow release the unbearable tension threatening to tear her apart.
With a sharp gasp, she shot upright, her chest heaving as she fought to breathe. Her vision blurred, her head pounding with a pain so intense it made her dizzy.
"Ami, breathe," came her father's urgent voice. She blinked, her heart still racing, as he rushed from a nearby chair to her side. His hand rested on her back, steadying her as she struggled to inhale deeply. "You're okay—everything's okay," he said softly, though his tone carried an edge of concern.
Slowly, Amoria's surroundings came into focus. She was back in her room, tucked into bed, still wearing the dress she had worn to the party. The dissonance between the warmth of the familiar space and the nightmare's lingering terror sent a shiver down her spine.
Her mind spun, struggling to piece together fragments of memory. The last thing she remembered was arguing with Draco—bitter and drunk. How she had ended up here was a mystery, but the relentless pressure pounding in her head made it hard to focus, let alone care. She flinched when her father reached out to her, instinctively pulling back before forcing herself to relax under his touch.
He gently guided her back onto the bed, his movements deliberate and calm. From a nearby table, he handed her an array of potions. Without thinking, she drank them one by one, the liquid cool and bitter on her tongue. The throbbing pain in her head began to ease, replaced by a strange clarity that sharpened her thoughts.
Her mother's warning hit her with renewed no one—not even your father.
A wave of nausea churned in her stomach, and for a moment, she thought the potions might come back up. She stared at her father, doubt creeping in like a shadow. She'd trusted him all her life. He'd always been distant and cold, but he'd provided for her, protected her. Trusting him was all she's ever done. But she couldn't help but hesitate, it felt too real ignore.
It was just a nightmare,she told herself, clinging to the rational more than fear and , its vividness lingered, curling around her like smoke. The unease it left behind was impossible to shake.
Her father stood beside her, watching her closely, his face unreadable. For the first time, she wondered if he was truly someone she could trust—or if her mother's words had been a warning she could no longer afford to ignore.
"What happened?" she croaked, her voice hoarse and strained.
Her father hesitated, tension flickering across his face. "A burden I hoped you would never have to face," he admitted quietly. "I thought as you grew older, the chance of it manifesting would lessen. Your mother believed there would have been signs when you were younger—I thought you were safe."
He reached out to touch her face, his movements tentative. She flinched slightly but didn't pull away as he gently smoothed her hair. Closing her eyes, Amoria concentrated hard, her thoughts fracturing into shards of memory that cut through the haze.
Draco—drunk, his words venomous as he taunted her about her father, his cowardness. The heat surging through her veins. The sharp, black glow overtaking her vision, blurring the edges but sharpening her focus. The power—the intoxicating, euphoric pull of the dark flames that had radiated from her like a living thing. And then, the black light shooting from her wand, sending Draco flying backward, slamming into the ground with a sickening thud.
Her eyes flew open, locking onto her father's. "Is he dead?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "D-Did I kill him?"
Her father shook his head quickly, brushing her hair again in a soothing motion as he spoke. "No. Draco's fine—a little worse for wear, that's all." His tone was steady, but his eyes betrayed him, the fear lurking just beneath the surface.
Amoria's tears began to subside, but the strange, unrelenting pull in her chest lingered, leaving her uneasy. She studied her father carefully, her brow furrowing. Something wasn't right. Her father never showed his fear, no matter the situation. Yet now, his unease was impossible to miss.
"What is it?" she asked, her voice sharper, more insistent. "What aren't you telling me?"
He exhaled shakily, rising from the edge of the bed and clasping his hands tightly in front of him. The paternal softness in his expression hardened, replaced by the rigid, steely demeanor of a man carrying a heavy duty. His mouth opened, but no words came at first. His fists clenched, his knuckles blanching as he chose his words with painstaking care.
Finally, he spoke, his voice low. "The Dark Lord wants to speak with you. Privately."
Amoria's breath caught, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. Her father's words hung in the air, the sound of her blood rushing in her ears drowning out everything else. She couldn't process what he had just said—her thoughts scattered, leaving her frozen, struggling to breathe.
He continued, his tone grave. "I was instructed to notify him as soon as you woke. He'll be expecting you in the drawing room."