Vacivitas

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

She's burning.

Hermione's head rolls to the side, and her brain slams against her skull. The pain is so severe that she feels nauseous. Her blurry gaze sweeps about the area, taking in nothing. She furrows her brow in confusion. Her ears are stuffed with cotton.

Everything hurts.

Where is she?

"Fuck, Granger. What did you do? Oh, what the Hell did you do?"

Why do they sound so distraught? How can a person sound so angry and so distressed at the same time?

What is going on?

"No...You're not doing this to me. You aren't fucking leaving me here."

Someone's moving her head. Her body.

She feels disoriented, like her mind is made of fog and her body of moss as it sinks down to the bottom of a quiet pond. The right side of her body is swollen, tender like she's been picking at a wound so many times that it can't heal properly.

Gods, why is she burning? It's too hot. Her skull is on fire.

"Where...?" she manages to say, but it's barely louder than a breath. Her jaw screams in protest at a second attempt to speak.

Such pain in her head.

Has someone used Legilimency on her?

No, it doesn't feel like that. It feels like...She's fallen apart, scattered into several pieces in some dark realm, shards of who she is floating as far away from each other as they can.

She opens her mouth to speak. Instead of words, she whimpers.

"Don't try to talk, Granger." The voice is such a nice tenor. Smooth as obsidian. Scratchy in all the right ways. Soft like a breeze against her skin in the Spring. "Come here. I've got you. Come on."

She feels...

A gentle hand slipping beneath her back. An arm hooking behind her knees. She thinks she smells amberwood. No...It's sandalwood. Blood. Spearmint? She wants to say how nice and comforting it smells, but when she tries to talk, tries to move her jaw, it's like someone's dug their claws into her scalp until they sink into bone, and ripped the bone away. Her brain's been squeezed against one side of her head.

Another stabbing pain. Several of them. Her arms. Her legs. Her waist.

She can't see anything.

Why can't she see anything?

Nothing's making sense. All she feels is pain and fire, eating away at the right side of her body.

The floor falls away as she's lifted up, cradled in such a way that her head is supported by the front of someone's shoulder. The blue in her vision shifts just enough for her to think she sees pale blond hair, and then it returns to blinding her.

A sliver of light. Of understanding in the fog.

"Malfoy?" Her voice is so thick, so weary. Like there's molasses coating the inside of her mouth.

"Shh, Granger. Don't try to talk, please. "

"But I hurt." She sounds like a small child.

"I know."

Something pulls and snaps behind her belly button, and then they're somewhere else. She feels herself moving again, and then being lowered onto something soft. But as soft as it is, it does nothing to soothe the pain. She continues to burn, trying to scream but finding it hurts too much to do so.