Chapter Text
Ichor did not mix with bile and I could no longer see the world like I used to.
This is a reconstruction. All of it is a reconstruction. Now, in my head, as I lie flat on my bed, rehearsing what I should or shouldn’t have said, what I should or shouldn’t have done.
I'm stiff. My body freezing as if caught in the jaws of an unseen predator. My breath hitched, shallow and rapid, as a voice that was not my own resounded in my mind, commanding every corner of my thoughts. You are being shaped, it said, each word rolling through me like thunder crashing against a fragile shore. The phrase echoed endlessly, growing louder, more insistent, each repetition carrying an unbearable weight. It was not a voice born of the human world— its resonance was too immense, too eternal, to belong to anything but godly.
The sound seemed to fill the air around me, pressing in from all sides, vibrating in my very bones. my body threatened to curl under the crushing gravity of the voice, yet I lay rigid, caught between fear and submission. It was deafening, not in volume alone, but in its sheer presence, a sound that stripped me bare, laying my soul open to scrutiny. The words dug deep into my mind, demanding attention, seeding doubt, warning me of something I couldn’t yet comprehend.
The stillness around me felt wrong, oppressive, as though the entire world had paused to bear witness to this moment. My heartbeat roared in my ears, but even that sound was drowned beneath the divine calamity, it's meaning twisting and turning in my mind like a serpent seeking a vulnerable place to strike Pride— my pride— being laid bare, dissected, mocked, and warned against, and I could do nothing but endure the terrible revelation.
I threw my hands up to my ears, desperately covering them as if I could block out the words, the sounds that had already scarred me too many times. The thunderous words rang in my mind like a drum, an unrelenting beat that pounded through my skull with every passing second. I couldn’t bear to hear it again, the mocking tone of the voice, the casual cruelty of the twisted game it played with my life.
No more, I thought. No more of this.
I don't want to hear this again. The same cruel words, the same taunting laughter, the same mockery of my fate and my choices. It was too much. This cycle has been endured long enough. How many times had I been forced to watch this, to feel the sting of the power, to witness the humiliation of my own existence in his eyes? I had fought against it, clawed my way through every challenge, every test, only to have it laugh at me, pull me back into it's petty games. It was suffocating. The weight of it's voice, the relentless pressure of it's divine will, pressing down on me until I felt like I might snap.
I put a hand over my mouth, my fingers pressing against my lips with such force that it almost felt like I might break my own skin. I am desperate to scream— to shout, to throw something, to break the silence that has trapped me in its suffocating grip. But I couldn’t— Not when the figure was watching. Not when the weight of it's power seemed to press in from every angle, suffocating me under it's gaze. An itch beneath my fingers, somewhere under my skin where I can't reach. Something that had been building up for a long time was getting harder to ignore.
My love, my mother once said. Are you alright? Is it happening again? She'd asked. She always seemed to know when something was wrong. Somehow. Maybe it was just because she was my mother. Call it maternal instincts. Merlin knows.
I remembered this day. It was one of the few days that had stuck with me during the recent years. I awoke with frost laced around the windows in my room, ice feathering through my body in the early sun. Shortly after this, Mother brought me to the dining room. The morning began the way all mornings were meant to begin: without sound. The chandeliers burned low, melting light into pools across the black and white marble. The house elves had vanished, as they did when Father wanted quiet. Only the smallest noises remained; crystals shivered when someone breathed, the low tick of the clock counting the distance between us. Mother poured tea but did not drink it. Her movements were delicate, rehearsed, as though the porcelain might bruise. I watched her hands and tried to remember the last time they had rested on something warm. At the head of the table, Father read the paper. He always began with the finance sections and never turned beyond them. The rustle of newsprint mapped out his moods better than any expression. This morning, the paper trembled once— someone had disappointed him, somewhere— and went still again. The smell of toast had burned itself into the air. I could taste it when I swallowed.
"Eat," Father said. A word as flat as the knife beside my plate. I obeyed. The eggs were cold, heavy with some spice the elf thought fashionable. Every bite pressed against my throat like a question I could not answer. The tea steamed faintly, impatient with my hesitation. From the doorway, I felt the gaze before seeing it— as though the air carried weight, leaning forward. Nothing there of course. The room looked as it always did: walls gleaming, curtains half‑drawn against the January light, Mother’s reflection caught obediently in every surface. Still, the weight stayed.
"Did you finish your transfiguration essay?" Father asked without looking up.
"Yes." The answer left my mouth the way steam leaves water— faint, anonymous. He nodded once, approving, eyes still hidden behind the paper.
"Professor McGonagall wrote to say your marks rank among the top three in your year."
The statement sounded less like praise and more like surveillance. "She also mentioned that you’ve shown something of a… problem with concentration. Episodes of distraction." He lowered the paper now. I could feel how quiet Mother became, the kind of quiet that tilts a room. She was looking into her cup, seeing nothing.
"It’s nothing," I said quickly. "Sometimes there’s too much noise in class."
"Noise?" His voice sharpened, curiosity thinly veiling irritation.
"In my head, Father. Just— words mixing together." He studied me. The pause that followed was measured precisely to discomfort.
"You will learn control, Draco. The weak let their thoughts speak over them." Mother set down her spoon. The sound was small but absolute.
"He’s thirteen," she said softly. "Being thirteen is it's own kind of noise." Father looked at her as one might regard a polite interruption. The pause stretched until she folded back into silence. I stared at the table as if it could protect me. Lines of grain in the wood began to move, rearranging like ripples on water. My breath quickened; every shadow in the room pulsed. There— for one instant— the reflection in my teaspoon wasn’t mine. It was another face, white and blurred, eyes too open. When I blinked, it was gone. A voice brushed the inside of my thoughts like silk sliding over metal: You are being shaped. The teacup trembled in my hand.
"Draco," Father said— steady, warning.
I straightened. "SorSorrI spilled a drop." His gaze held on me.
Then, very quietly, "Clean it." I wiped the stain obsessively until the cloth came away spotless. He resumed reading. The rustle covered the hammering of my pulse. Mother refilled his cup though it was already full. It was her ritual— the soft defiance of unnecessary grace. In profile, she looked carved from light.
"Discipline," Father murmured again, perhaps to himself. "It’s what separates legacy from ruin." I nodded. Time stretched. When the clock struck, he folded the paper and stood. Every movement deliberate, as if demonstrating control to an unseen audience. "Your tutor will join you in the library at noon," he said. "You’ll keep your mind where it belongs."
"Yes, Father." He pressed gloved fingertips to my shoulder— not affection, not even warning, simply possession— and left. His footsteps dissolved into the corridor’s hush. For a long moment neither Mother nor I moved. The house exhaled, walls easing against their own silence. At last she spoke, her voice distant as snowfall.
"Try not to let him see when your head hurts." I looked at her, at the thinness of her wrists, at the reflection of both of us trembling faintly in the silver teapot.
"What if he already knows?" She didn’t answer. She touched her teacup instead, tracing the rim.
"Then make it seem like something you can control," she said. "He respects control." Outside, frost climbed the windows, forming fragile latticework across the glass. I reached toward it, half‑expecting the patterns to move for me. They did. Only a fraction— enough to know the noise inside my head had learned my name.
My room was colder than the hall, though the fire had already been laid. The flames burned the way Father preferred— low, contained, too polite to warm anything.
I shut the door, and the sound went on echoing after I knew it had stopped. Sometimes this house forgets when things end. My school trunk sat open beside the bed. Parchment waited at the desk, neat, expectant, as if it had been told to watch me. I tried to focus on ordinary objects— ink, quill, books— but they seemed to hum under my gaze, restless. The noise again, that faint pressure behind the ribs. I told myself it was nothing. I told myself I could stop it. I sat down, dipped the quill, and forced my thoughts into lines: Breakfast. Eggs cold. Father spoke. Nothing happened.
The ink trembled slightly at nothing.
A lie.
I exhaled and began again, slower.
There was something in the room. Not seen, not heard. A— presence. It moved when I looked away.
I stared at the words, waiting for them to look back.
The mirror over the mantel caught the firelight; orange bent into silver, silver into white. For a heartbeat, the reflection didn’t match me. It leaned forward. My own eyes blinked a fraction too late.
Cold cut through my chest— as if the air had been peeled open. A phrase surfaced inside me, uninvited: you are being shaped. The same whisper I’d felt downstairs. I wrote it before I could think, hand moving of its own accord. The letters stretched thin, spidery. They seemed older than my handwriting, older than me. The quill dropped. I flexed my hand; ink stained my fingertips like bruises. The fire wavered and steadied.
I tore the sheet out, folded it into quarters, and hid it behind the drawer lining. If Father found it, he would ask questions he already knew the answers to. When I looked back at the mirror, my reflection was ordinary again. Pale, tired, alive. The sort of face that could pass for a child’s. I whispered, just to hear something human in the room, “I am in control.” The glass didn’t argue. But the silence after kept its mouth open, listening.
OCCLUMENCY II
By midday the house had reshaped itself, silence rearranged into new corridors.
I waited in the library as instructed. The room smelled of parchment and the kind of dust that never settles. A storm pressed at the windows but refused to break. When the door opened, I thought for a moment it would be Father. It was not.
"Draco," Severus said, voice curt as always. "Your father tells me your concentration has… frayed."
He glided between the shelves, black robes skimming the air like a shadow too practiced to belong to a man. I stood, unsure whether the proper reply was gratitude or apology.
"I’m fine, sir," I said. The lie tasted metallic.
Severus looked me over. His gaze was precise, surgical. "That is a statement, not an answer." He indicated the chair opposite the hearth. "Sit."
The fire hissed as if remembering the last time he’d visited. I lowered myself into the seat, spine stiff. Severus set his wand on the table between us, a deliberate gesture of false trust. "So," he began. "Tell me what you saw."
The question landed like a trapdoor. "Saw?"
He raised a brow. "You’re shaking, your pulse is erratic, and your father has informed me of… disturbances. Describe them."
"I only imagined something. Noise. Shadows."
"You imagine with extraordinary precision, then."
His tone wasn’t mocking; if anything, it carried the weight of curiosity. That made it worse.
"There are moments," I said finally, "when I see things move that shouldn’t. A reflection wrong by a second. Words that arrive."
"Arrive." He turned the word over, unimpressed yet attentive. "And do these words ever instruct you?"
I considered lying. Something in his face told me he’d hear it before it left my mouth. "They whisper," I admitted. "Not often."
He leaned forward slightly, dark eyes steady on mine. "And what do they whisper?"
The air thickened. The clock stopped its ticking. Inside my head, something brushed across my thought's like the sweep of a fingertip: not Severus' voice, not mine— familiar, waiting.
You are being shaped.
I flinched.
Severus noticed. His gaze sharpened, almost pitying. "There it is," he said softly. "The threshold." He closed his eyes. When he spoke again, his tone was formal, measured. "What you hear isn’t madness, though it will feel like it. Blood remembers differently in every family. The Dark Lord values such distinctions." He opened his eyes again. "I will teach you to close the door until you decide who may speak through it."
His phrasing made the air tilt. Not if I decided— but who.
He stood, motion smooth. "We will begin with silence," he said. "Hold your mind open, but still. If you resist, it will hurt. If you welcome it, it will also hurt. Choose, then."
I obeyed. Breath in. Breath out. The world narrowed to heartbeat and the click of his wand against wood. For a moment there was nothing, then everything: the fire brightening too fast, shadows bending inward, the scent of ash in my throat. Pain lanced through my temples. I reached reflexively for the sound that accompanied it— searing, whispering, old.
Severus' voice cut across it "Stop."
I did. The light collapsed back into ordinary flame. My lungs ached as if I had been running. He regarded me with calm disinterest that barely hid effort. Sweat formed at his temple; he wiped it away fastidiously. "You see why this cannot be left unattended."
"Was that Occlumency?" I asked.
"Something related," he said. "Your father need not know the difference."
He turned to leave, pausing at the door. "Discipline, Draco," he murmured, echoing my father’s favourite word but with no contempt. "It keeps us alive when belief cannot."
And then he was gone. The door shut, soft as breath.
For a long time the only sound was the fire’s sigh, steady, but somehow listening.
NIGHT III
Night thinned the house to its skeleton.
I sat at the foot of the bed, curtains drawn against the moon. The fire had gone out hours ago, but heat still lingered in the coals, a dull red breath that refused to die. Severus' words repeated in my ear like a pulse– Hold your mind open, but still.
So I tried.
At first there was only the noise of ordinary things: the tick of the watch beside the lamp, the distant heartbeat of the Manor itself. My thoughts drifted in loops— homework unfinished, the look on Mother’s face, the shimmer of Father’s ring when he pointed. These didn’t hurt to remember. They only blurred.
Then the silence changed colour.
The black behind my eyelids wasn’t emptiness but movement: soundless ripples crossing a surface I could not see. I breathed, careful. The air in the room pressed closer against my skin.
A voice began forming—low, stretched thin, like air forced through glass.
Little heir.
The words arrived where thought ends, not in the ears. The syllables traced along the veins, deliberate, affectionate, wrong. I froze. For a moment I believed it was simply Severus, testing me again. But Severus' confidence held steel; this voice was silk. It touched instead of asked.
Do you hear me, child of silver and ash?
"Who—" The word cracked my throat open. "Who is this?"
A hush answered, then sound unfolding without sound.
The first thing shaped is the mouth that denies its maker.
Something inside me shuddered. Images followed— unbidden, vivid. A man’s outline rising from smoke; walls dripping light; a serpent coiling around his own wrist and vanishing beneath skin.
My heart beat wrong for a while. Too fast. Too aware. I willed my mind to shut, pressed my palms against my eyes the way Severus had shown me. The vision blurred. The voice thickened, almost amused.
I tilted my head down and the warmth of my eyes washed over me, like a flood reaching just above my chin, deliberate and with tension. My gaze in the stillness behind my eyes fell down. It's surface is calm, looking back at me. Beads of dull blue illuminate underneath my palms and eyes, like the skeleton opened up beneath my sockets. The bodies of blue faded into a soundless haze. It was a dwindling apparition dragging itself into a liminal destination. My back struggled to remain upright with the weight of my eyes, and I barely falter backwards. Ripples chewed through my eyelids, and the peculiarities of my perception readjusted but never closed. My naked irises are vulnerable. Like shards of glass. I can hear a voice behind the clouds. The tranquillity of their voice flatten the condensation. The sky fell motionless, and in front of me was the figure. I can't hear what it says, but it's tone is enraged.
I winced.
The fabric of the cloak is tough, warm, and comfortable. The figure wraps it around my shoulders. No warmth greets me. Not when the figure is here. It doesn't provide warmth. Not like that. I turns his head to see the figure standing in front of me. I need to look up to meet his gaze;
It's noticeable now just how close the it is and I reign in a shudder. My heart is speeding up against my will, and goosebumps coat my skin. I keeps my face blank, stood still, because anything else is a weakness, and I do not desire to be punished. But the figure is close for a reason, though, because soon it's wand is pressed into my chest. My head is heavier, not just from the fog that continues to plague it, but the past, the present, and the future. I am it's prodigal son.
The static is leaving, and the haze goes with it, and I slammed my hands over my ears, trying to
block out the thoughts that return at full force, crashing around my skull like a cymbal falling out of
a musician's hands. "No, no, no," I could only repeat. I felt iron in my mouth and warm liquid falling down my nose and ears staining my pale skin. I'm going to pass out. I'm going to—
You have been seen, Draco.
My name felt heavy, dragged through water. Then everything receded. The temperature in the room returned; hearth ash cooled into gray. I gasped, air cutting in like glass. My hands stank faintly of iron.
The watch ticked again— frantic, ordinary.
I reached for the quill before the words could vanish from memory. First contact. Voice outside thought. Knows my name.
I underlined knows twice.
Ink pooled at the edge of the page, a small black lake. In it, a reflection— red eyes, or maybe embers, before I blinked.
When I looked again, the blot was only ink. But the quill still trembled as if someone else were holding it.
ROUTINES IV
Morning arrived too early, rinsed pale by frost.
The house had been aired during the night; the corridors smelled faintly of extinguished candles and soap. My pulse still carried the echo of that whisper, but I told myself it would fade once the day began.
Downstairs, the dining room waited in its usual ceremonial calm. Father stood by the window reading correspondence; Mother arranged lilies that had no scent. The table had already been laid.
"Sleep well?" Father asked without turning.
"Yes," I said, too fast. The lie tripped across the floorboards.
He set the parchment aside and studied me. "You look pale."
"I was revising late."
Something unreadable flickered in his eyes. "Severus spoke well of your lesson— he believes structure will correct the… irregularities." He approached, adjusting my collar as if the gesture were affectionate. His gloves were cool against my skin.
"Remember, Draco: control is not restraint. It is elegance. We are craftsmen of composure."
"Yes, Father."
Mother’s cup clicked softly against the saucer. "Perhaps he needs rest before more lessons," she said. Her voice wrapped around the room like gauze. "One can polish metal until it cracks."
Father didn’t look at her. "Polish strengthens. Crack is weakness." Back to me. "Isn’t that so?"
I nodded. "Of course."
He smiled— the kind of smile that never reached the eyes, all reflection and precision. Satisfied, he sat. Breakfast returned to its ritual of silver and porcelain. Butter melted without a sound. I tried to eat, but each bite carried the taste of coal. Behind my eyes the light still flickered— red distant pulse, the memory of a voice saying You have been seen.
Mother’s hand trembled when she lifted the sugar spoon. Only once, but I caught it. Her gaze met mine across the table: not surprise, but understanding thick with warning. You heard something you shouldn’t have, it said.
When Father turned a page of the Prophet, she reached for my wrist beneath the tablecloth—quick, a ghost of touch.
"Breathe," she whispered, barely air.
I did. Once. The voice receded a fraction, leaving emptiness in its place.
The rest of the meal unfolded in perfect, crushing symmetry. Plates cleared themselves. Cups refilled. No one spoke again. Yet by the time I rose, I knew Father was watching not to see if something would happen, but when.
In the mirror of the hallway, as I left, my reflection lingered a heartbeat too long before following me.
HUNGER V
"Better her than me," Pansy sighed as she opened the bedroom door with Theo behind her. Her face was the way women’s faces were when they’ve been talking about you behind your back, and they think you’ve heard: embarrassed, but also a little defiant, as if it
were their right. That day, Theo was more pleasant to me than usual, Pansy more surly. Today, despite Theo's closed face and pressed lips, I wished to stay here, in the bedroom. Away from it all. Safe with my friends. They would talk, about aches and pains, how the holidays were, our class timetables, teachers, parents, politics, all the different kinds of mischief and gossip that, like unruly children, can get discover. We would exchange remedies and try to outdo each other in the recital riches; we would complain, our voices soft and minor-key and mournful. How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it. At least it was talk. A normality. An exchange, of sorts. We would gossip. The parents know things, they talk among themselves, passing letters and invitations from manor to manor. But I knew things, too.
The conversations continued to be mundane until the static noise started erupting. I could hear it, it's voice, louder now, taunting me, pulling me deeper into the pit. The creature's laughter was like a thousand nails scraping against my brain.
My muscles subtly coiled with the fear of a wild animal, the raw instinct to rip, to tear, to break anything I could reach. My chest heaved with the effort to remain still, but every second was a struggle to restrain the maelstrom inside me.
I wanted to lash out, to sink my fists into something soft—someone soft— and tear them open, feel the squirt of blood on my hands. I could almost taste it— thick and metallic, as though my throat had been coated in it for days. It was the only thing that could still make me feel real. The very thought of it made my skin tighten, my blood boil, and my teeth grind harder. My hands balled into fists so tight my knuckles cracked, a deep, satisfying sound, like the snap of a wand under pressure.
I imagined wrapping my fingers around someone's neck, feeling the pulse flutter beneath my palm, the skin yielding under pressure, the choking gasps of air that would follow. I felt it in my bones, the need for violence, the hunger for destruction that was no longer just an echo of the past but an all-consuming force.
My breath came faster now, ragged, as my mind spiralled deeper into. My vision blurred, the edges of the world closing in on me. The Dark Lord had made me this way, shaped me into a thing of chaos and fury. He had taken the last remnants of my humanity and replaced them with something far darker.
I could hear the clash of magic, the screams of those I loved: Mother, my friends, it didn’t matter– They all bled the same, all broke beneath my hands the same way. My mind whispered to me now: Kill. Rip. Tear. Destroy. There is nothing left but blood.
I wanted to kill, wanted to feel my hands break through skin, to watch the life fade from someone’s eyes as I squeezed the last breath out of them. I imagine the sweet relief of it, the final silence that would follow. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted to—
What?
Silence followed. The static was gone. The thoughts of rage, violence, and malevolence were suddenly shut.
I oopened my eyes— I had closed them? and Pansy and Theo were getting up and leaving. The sun was setting.
I remained like that for a half a second until a noise came outside the window. I turned to face it, but all I could see was frost coating it. It was Dark, the setting sun barely filtering through. The window was shut completely.
The noise suddenly stopped, and I released a breath I didn't know I was holding. A wave of cold air dropped over me like an awaiting hug, freeing me from the dense, pooling air connecting me and the wall. I turned away and returned to exit with my friends.
V
They spoke in the study, curtains drawn though the morning were clear.
Lucius poured wine rather than tea; the gesture was a verdict in itself. Snape waited beside the hearth, posture exact, expression unreadable.
"Well?" Lucius asked.
Snape let the firelight turn his face half‑shadow. "The boy’s mind is… responsive. He opens easily. Perhaps too easily."
Lucius’s mouth thinned. "He is a Malfoy. He will learn control."
"It isn’t a matter of will." Snape touched his temple lightly, the motion slight but surgical. "Something older moves through him. You’ve told the Dark Lord?"
"Of course," Lucius said, the words both pride and fear. "He considers it promising. The bloodline has always carried peculiar sensitivities. My son happens to manifest them sooner."
“That is one interpretation.” Snape crossed to the window. Outside, frost seamed the lawns like fine cracks in glass. "Earlier manifestations are less stable. They break more minds than they enlighten."
Lucius’s voice sharpened. "You imply the boy is unfit?"
"I imply he’s in danger of becoming a conduit," Snape said evenly. "And the thing flowing through conduits rarely leave them intact."
The fire popped. Sparks leapt and died. Lucius resumed his seat, gaze fixed on the flames. "The Dark Lord believes he can direct what comes. He spoke to me of inheritance— sealed insight chained to loyalty."
Snape’s tone didn’t change, but the edge deepened. "And when chains rust?"
Lucius looked up. "You presume much."
"I observe," Snape said. "Observation keeps me useful."
A long silence. Then Lucius asked, quieter "Can you train him without erasing what the Dark Lord wants preserved?"
Snape studied him a moment before answering. "No training guarantees obedience, only containment. I can teach him to close doors he doesn’t know he’s opened. Whether he keeps them closed—" He let the rest burn in the air.
Lucius nodded once. "Do it." He refilled the glasses but did not offer one to Snape. "The Dark Lord values progress. I won’t have my family lag behind it."
Snape inclined his head, half‑bow, half‑weary rhythm. "Then we understand each other." He turned for the door.
Lucius stopped him. "If he asks who he is speaking to, what are we to tell him?"
Snape’s face was unreadable. "Tell him nothing. The ignorant obey better."
When he was gone, Lucius remained by the fire. He lifted his glass, staring into its dark surface as though expecting it to speak back. The wine caught the reflection of his eyes— two small, bright mirrors.
Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked. He listened until the silence settled again, then smiled, humourless.
"Promising," he said aloud, as if to the air. "Very promising."
FORCE VI
The night after their meeting, the lights in the corridor refused to die.
I lay awake, watching the ceiling shift between shadow and glass. Every time the wind moved across the windows, the walls seemed to breathe. I told myself I was imagining the sound— that it wasn’t voices— but the house has a way of remembering things that were said inside it.
I closed my eyes, trying to fall into the stillness Severus had demanded in his lesson. Hold your mind open, but still.
For a few minutes, nothing. Then— threads of noise, soft at first, like rain through several rooms. Words detached from sense. A chair, a clink of glass, the slow drag of a match. Heat gathered behind my ribs.
Two voices emerged through the murmur. Not rightly heard, but known. One smooth, careful, proud. My father. The other coiled, sibilant even when calm. Severus. They sounded closer than they should have been. As if they were standing by my bed.
—responsive… opens easily…
The phrases came in pieces, the way ink spreads through water.
—danger of becoming a conduit…
The word stung; it didn’t belong to Father’s vocabulary. I turned onto my side, as if movement might break the current.
—The Dark Lord believes he can direct what comes.
A pause, like the breath before lightning.
I saw a flash of crimson through closed eyes— nothing formed, just colour, immediate and violent.
Then Snape again, weary, precise: No training guarantees obedience, only containment.
I jerked up. The room was empty, all shadows and hearth glow, yet the sentence lingered in the air, vibrating like a struck string.
Containment. That was the word they used for curses, not sons.
The pressure in my chest eased a moment later, conversation dissolving into ordinary silence. The wind returned to its usual shape.
I sat there listening until the world stopped echoing. Then I wrote what I could remember, quick before it thinned to dream.
They spoke tonight. My name among theirs.
I am being taught a language I am not allowed to use.
I think Father wants me to become something he can’t control.
Severus wants me alive long enough to regret it.
The quill scratched to a halt. Ink gathered at the tip and fell— one black drop darkening the table. When it dried, it looked like an eye, half‑open, watching.
I turned the page over.
On the blank side, without meaning to, I wrote five words that weren’t mine:
He does not own you.
The letters glowed faintly until the hearth sighed and cooled. Then they faded, leaving no trace. In the silence after, I thought I heard someone laughing from inside the walls.