𝑨 𝑻𝑶𝑼𝑪𝑯 𝑶𝑭 𝑫𝑨𝑹𝑲𝑵𝑬𝑺𝑺

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑𝟑: 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐨 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐚𝐥

LILITH SAT CRADLING Mrs Bordeaux as she sobbed into her. She sat on the cold floor of the hospital wing in Hogwarts, Mrs Bordeaux's head still rested on her lap in an unmoving state. Lilith took shaky breaths through her sobs, she needed to calm down it she wanted to help her friend.

Stop being selfish, Lilith. Stop crying and start helping her.

She carefully carried the woman over to the nearest bed, and gently placed her in it. She lifted her hand to the woman's heart.

It was beating. Barely.

The unconscious state of Beatrice made Lilith's stomach twist in knots and her lips tremble, she wanted nothing more than to keep on crying but she couldn't. Her eyes could no longer produce any tears and her puffed up, red stained cheeks and face had become sore from the amount of time she had been crying for.

The wing was empty and Lilith didn't have the heart to call for assistance, she didn't want to leave Mrs Bordeaux's side again. So instead she walked over to the medicinal cabinet and searched through the different remedies. There was nothing to counteract any damage caused by the cruciatus curse and although Mrs Bordeaux hadn't been exposed to the intensity of the curse for a drastic amount of time, the level of her injuries would not be known whilst she lay in this unconscious state. The only thing Lilith could do was tend to the cuts and bruises that Beatrice had littered over her body. She walked back over to her with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and cotton and began gently rubbing away the blood that stained her body.

Her eyes welled up again at the sight of Mrs Bordeaux so frail and so broken. She lifted her head up to stop herself from crying. It was no use, her body wracked with an onslaught of sobs and tears, the tightening of her throat and short intake of breath became too much for her to handle. She screamed out her frustration and threw the glass jar off the small desk it had been placed on. The glass that shattered into as many pieces as her broken heart had caught the attention of someone outside as footsteps began to inch closer to the hospital wing.

"No students are supposed to be-" Madame Pomfrey had entered the room, the firmness in her voice relaxed upon seeing Lilith. "Miss Arcane?" She looked at Lilith who was now picking up the shattered glass, her hands bleeding from her carelessness. Pomfrey then turned her gaze to the unknown woman who rested in one of the beds, her nurturing instincts kicking in at the sight.

"Oh my goodness-" Pomfrey whispered in disbelief.

Lilith lifted her head to Madame Pomfrey. She couldn't hold the heartbreak no longer as she slumped in her spot in a disheveled heap as her grief poured into a flood of mumbling mess.

"Please help her."

Lilith had reluctantly left Mrs Bordeaux under the care of Madame Pomfrey after she insisted that Lilith needed just as much care as the old woman.

She stood under her shower, even the hottest temperature not scolding her skin in the way she had hoped it would. She felt nothing. She felt void. She felt numb. The only thing she could feel was the soreness of her eyes and the burning of her nose. It hurt to have her eyes closed just as much as it did to keep them open. But she needed to close them. She needed to just see nothing because her mind wouldn't stop showing her everything.

Lilith had jeopardised Mrs Bordeaux's safety, the only woman who had given her love when the world wanted her to feel hate. She had been the cause of her suffering when Beatrice had been the one to take all of Lilith's suffering away.

And she had been betrayed. She had been so easily discarded by Severus and she had been so easily drawn and led into his web of lies. But what hurt more was that she stood fumbling the locket he had given her, hoping that this was an extensive hoax and that somewhere along the line she had fallen asleep and that this wasn't real. The locket had a different feel to it now; it felt tainted and untrue. It burned her skin and yet she couldn't take it off. She had asked to be burned by Severus' flame and here it was. The ultimate betrayal. It seemed as though she had skipped the part where she was merely burned by his flame and was instead encompassed by an initial scintillation of truth that had then oxidised with painful falsity to create a scorching inferno of betrayal. And her bucket of watered hope would do nothing to put out this blazing betrayal.