Paper Confines

vii. You Would Become the Wretchedest of Women

PAPER CONFINES.
07. / You Would Become the
Wretchedest of Women

✶

If the fight had been particularly bad, Nadya could feel it long after she'd healed. Phantom bruises. Loose teeth. Banks' binding spell on her nose. After her affray with Antonin Dolohov two weeks ago, Nadya still thought her entrails were tied in a knot. Under the viridian lull of her dormitory at dawn, she almost forgot why.

But, like every other morning since the party, the night came back to her in drowsy clusters. The Room of Requirement decked out in silver pumpkins and party streamers, raucous cheering and a poorly played pianoforte, all kept in hush by the silencing charms connecting each wall; the Grünfeld defence and boys with cosseted kings they'd inevitably lose; Olive Hornby's ugly laugh. And then there was Dolohov and all the vain, suburban words he liked to say. Mudblood. Whore. Queer. Sometimes worse. Raw fists. Not his—no, Antonin Dolohov didn't fight with fists—but Nadya's. Bloody, hot, and aimless with the firewhisky fizzling in her system. Yes, the snap of Banks' spell still stung the cartilage of her nose, but it was her misplaced punches that she couldn't stop thinking about.

If she had been sober, she would have broken something much more devastating than Dolohov's nose.

The first rule at the Required Reading Initiative was that no one but the organizers carried wands. The second and third and fourth, Nadya paid little attention to at her investiture, but the first had little effect nonetheless. Her preferred methods of violence were more intimate; limbs against limbs, bruises and spilled blood. She liked to feel victory on her knuckles. But Dolohov had his own vices, and, as per rule number one, access to his wand in the Room of Requirement.

He'd especially liked his unforgivable curses that night.

Nadya looked out the window at the Black Lake. Her dormitory was empty and there was a fish rearing its cordiform head against the glass. Its eyes reflected the light of the gasolier back to her like twin flashbulbs, the colour of eelgrass. The day might yet impress her. But she stretched from bed and, yes, her organs still felt like they were ravelled in a floral arrangement and tied with ribbon. The initial feeling of the Cruciatus curse, she'd articulated previously, felt how she imagined hot metal would. Digging into her nerves, forging the facets of her spine like a sword's hilt. If that were the case, Antonin Dolohov had been a particularly ruthless blacksmith.

Nadya tapped the glass, and the fish went floundering away.

She changed into her uniform and sighed at the mirror. It had been long enough that she'd dwelled on the events of October first. She could think of worse days. She could think of far worse years. Still, did she wish Banks had stayed a while longer? That someone else might have stumbled upon Ruby Belahue's imbrued corpse and lived with that grief? Yes. Yes, of course, she thought, pulling her socks over her knees. Yes, and she also wished Colette hadn't woken her up as she left before dawn, stalking away in that head-hung way that always made Nadya feel guilty for not asking her to stay, and—

No more reminiscing.

She didn't need Colette to ogle her like some poor babe she'd martyr herself to save. Nadya didn't need saving at all.

She worked her hair into a quick knot. It was harder to grab that way. Adorned her fingers with manifold rings like brass knuckles. They left more scars when skin was crumpling under her fists. Tucked something sharp up her sleeve. Better for lasting promises: look in the mirror and see that blood and remember what I can do before you wash it clean. Today it was the long end of a pheasant wishbone from last night's supper, won from Parkinson's plate, pointed like the end of a scythe. It pricked her wrist under her jumper and she toyed with the sleeve to adjust it.