𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚕𝚎𝚗 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚎. fred weasley

𝚡𝚡𝚒𝚟. 𝚕𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚍𝚊𝚛𝚔

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     Later, they tell her that it was a fatal mistake. They say they had no foresight to the turmoil lying beneath the waters, that the merman who attacked her was but a juvenile child, to say the least, not yet used to the strict ways of his people. They say he was too curious, that, in his eyes, she was a spectacle he had yet seen — she was a spectacle he wanted to make his own.

     They say that it was thanks to the Giant Squid that she was recovered from the icy pits of the obsidian lake. They say that he wrapped his giant tentacle around the merman and unlatched him from her, brought her back to the surface with a certain kind of gentleness that only the squid could obtain.

     Her lips were painted deep blue, almost purple, and she wasn't breathing, they said.

     She doesn't really remember these facts, doesn't remember coming to, either, but they recite it to her like a speech and she listens to the calm, collected voice of Dumbledore wash over her. It's a little muddled from all the blankets she has wrapped around her body in an attempt to get warm, but she makes out most of the words, finds that she doesn't want to hear them anymore.

     There's a ringing in her ears, Dumbledore's voice still carrying a little fuzzy and she doesn't think it has anything to do with the blankets anymore, thinks it probably the aftereffects. She feels like she's adrift, floating in the icy waves, sinking further and further until Dumbledore's voice fades out like a wave ebbing back into the sea. . .

     When she wakes again, it's to eyes bluer than the ocean. They're rimmed with red, bloodshot as they stare at her. She squints, finds that her vision is a little wonky and huddles deeper into her blankets because in her blankets she's warm, she's secure and there's no hands clutching her, no arms wrapped around her in a vice grip that had her begging for the release of death.

     The eyes disappear and there's angry muttering pounding around in her head. She can't hear much, doesn't really understand what's happening but her mother sounds mad, she thinks. She sounds angry and worried and relieved all at once and she can hear the tears in her voice, and it springs saltiness into her own. Her sobs come out muffled, deformed, too wrong like her voice isn't working. She tries to claw at her throat because it hurts, she wants to hear herself, but it's in vain.

     Hands surround her face, searing to her chilled skin and she seeks out the warmth, curls into like a cat beside a fire. Her mum sounds even sadder at that, like she can't quite believe this is happening and it hurts her, makes her heart seize, the tears come faster, mute to her ears but still brutal all the same. Her eyes fall shut and she falls into darkness again.

     The next time she wakes, she sees grey, dark and stormy and she thinks, no. She can see it in his irises, the guilt and shame and the turmoil, and it physically pains her, makes her reach her fragile arm out to smack at him because he's a prick, an idiotic dolt, it's not his fault, it was never his fault, stop, please.