Diem Mortis | Dramione

Two.

Headaches were not unusual but they were not entirely common throughout Hermione's life.

She only really started to experience headaches after the final battle, here and there. Maybe once a week she'd have a dull thumping in the back of her skull, like a strange constant reminder of the moment she smacked her head against the stone in the courtyard.

But when she woke on her nineteenth birthday, Hermione almost cried out in pain the moment she opened her eyes.

She had never had a headache to this extreme. It was piercing, throbbing throughout every inch of her skull. It almost felt as if her brain was splitting in two, digging and carving at the deepest parts of her conscience.

For a moment, she was washed in an overwhelming sense of dread, the feeling was so similar to the pain that sat in her head for weeks after her torture at the Malfoy Manor. For just a split second, she thought she was back on the cold floor, a curse ripping through her body.

She pulled the curtains open from around her bed to confirm that she was in fact not on the floor in the Malfoy Manor, but still laying in her small bed in the Gryffindor dormitory.

With a hiss, she sat upright, pressing two fingers against each side of her temple and rubbing it to try and soothe the pain. But it was no use, the headache didn't slither away even an inch.

Pursing her lips, she sat for a moment, trying to think of a way to budge the pain in her skull without having to take a trip down to the infirmary. She knew from the way there was no sliver of silver sunlight etching through the gap in her bed-curtains that it was still rather early, and she didn't want to be a bother to the healers at this time of morning.

Deciding that a shower would be the best option until the sun came up, she slid out of her bed and headed to the bathroom, not once looking up from her feet. She was surprised she even made it to the bathroom without stumbling because the migraine was beginning to cause her vision to fog.

Strangely, there was a weird red glow when she walked in-a faint colour of crimson reflecting against the white tiles on the walls.

She showered. She let her tears mix with the water from the faucet. Hermione cried and cried, pressing a hand to her sternum in order to remind herself to breathe. The headache wasn't the only reason she was crying.

When she turned off the water, Hermione realised she had showered in ice cold water and hadn't even noticed. She hadn't even flinched. She must be really sick, she decided, stepping out from the shower and wrapping herself in a towel.

But no. It wasn't a sickness. It wasn't a bug or something that she had eaten. It was something worse, something evil, something cruel. She could feel it, curling around the edges of her senses, flowing into the deepest parts of her brain.

When she looked into the steamy mirror, she saw it.

For a moment she thought she was imagining it. That it wasn't there, that it wasn't hanging over her head in a tidal wave of cardinal. But she blinked, and it remained. She blinked again, squeezing her eyes shut so tightly she saw stars.

When she realised it was still there, and it was not a fragment of her imagination, she gasped and slipped to the floor, covering her mouth with her hands to surpass the scream that was threatening to escape her throat.

Above her head was a large red glare, with luminous writing sitting inside of it.

She tried blinking it away again, hoping it was just a fragment of her imagination messing with her, taunting her. Maybe even punishing her for being so lousy with her studies.