Where the road takes us (A fantastic beasts fanfic)

The Death Room

(Written by _Mak_tt_

This chapter happens directly after Open Hearts

*a year after graduating Hogwarts, it should be noted that Treekey was left at home on the agreeable note that this was the right thing to do*

Katherina dreaded living that day more than she had ever dreaded being alive. Perhaps that's why she had come to die. The room smelled of oils and diluted perfume, which she found odd for a room that was meant to return someone to their happiest moments.

Once seated inside she began to fear for everything she had become. She had not turned out too terrible, so she thought. Why did she deserve to be stripped of the things that made her who she was? Of life? She thought she would've been glad to burn away the tissues of past trauma, but sitting in that chair she regretted the decision just the same as the sane regret murder. That too, she had committed.

It was on this day that a life would be given for a life that had been taken. By her hand. Memories began to tumble throughout her head and spiral before her eyes, long before the process of her death was commenced.

Her eyes sought out her fondest memories of Treekey/Lindie, the girl turned Bowtruckle. Her lips rasped a small goodbye to the only friend she had been able to hold onto. She recalled 3rd year when she'd first noticed him, the boy who sat in front of her in potions, then 4th when she felt something spark beneath her skin. Maybe it was the fact that unlike Adrian he was kind, and gifted, and cared for other living things. The look in his eyes was never dead or filled with poisonous rivers for her to drown in. She remembered fifth year when things became too much. The ice in her heart when Adrian's skin touched her own. She tried to push forward the thoughts of her hours studying with Newt, and the awkward encounters in the halls. Force out the evil that still tormented her head. The mornings she woke and pretended that she had no idea that Lindie had done her homework. She pictured the letters written to and from Newt during the Holidays of 6th year, and how excited she'd gotten when they arrived. Then the biting urge to see him transformed into a movie screen, and she lived through losing him once more.

-"I've been expelled. I'm to leave by the next hour."

She stood in disbelief, clutching her arm as if it were his and she could somehow force him to stay. "But-I know why but-why would he expel you?"

He have her a look and she knew that she had no say in it. His hand gently caressed hers and he gave a nervous laugh.

"It isn't forever, you know. I'll see you again. And I'll write."

She tackled him in a hug. "Promise?"

"Promise." -

Yet he never did.

The image shifted to two years before, during 5th, and she felt herself scowl at the scene. It was a boy, dressed in Slytherin robes and slouched in the corner, and a girl with her hair chopped short, in defiance of said boy. He always did like her hair long.

"You know you're just going to end up like the rest of them if you don't listen to me. You can't do anything without me."

She plucked her wand from its resting position within her robes.

"You're so stupid, Katherina. Why don't you just accept the fact that without me you're nothing, useless and forgotten. You're a spell everyone uses, but has forgotten the name of."

Her fingers itched and she knew the only way to scratch them would be to rid herself of him, but she just couldn't. She wasn't the same as the foul beast in front of her. Yet his taunts crept up her spine.

"He's probably afraid of you, afraid he'll catch the virus that is pathetic Katherina Lestique. I've seen how you look at him, you never look at me that way."

"Neither do you, you insolent pig." Her breath hitched in her throat. She was pathetic, but not the way he made her out to be.

"You're just like your mother."

With that comment she hissed, suddenly steadying her breathing and her heartbeat, knowing exactly what to do with him.

"You don't deserve to be alive, Adrian."

He smirked. His hand grazed her skin in one last attempt at marring her already scarred flesh. And out of fear, she cast the curse.

"Stop!" Her wails subsided with the images, tears splattering against any surface near her. She hadn't noticed that she'd begun to cry, or that she was in pain. The white room had vanished into paintings of the past and diluted her sense of reality for a moment. Realization hit her skin and she struggled against the chair she had been placed upon.

"I don't want to do this, I don't deserve this!" She clutched at the memories. "Don't take them away. They keep me alive."

"Oh goodness no. We don't take the bad memories, only the good." The lady smiled warmly at her and motioned for her to calm down. "You'll drown within wonderful memories."

She almost blurted out, if you can find any, but stopped herself. "Please?"

The lady continued to smile sweetly but didn't speak further.
She knew that she would only be able to leave if she could prove herself innocent, which felt impossible considering how guilty she felt. As the woman began to walk closer she felt that something wasn't right. She knew what she had done, and turned herself in for it, but it didn't feel completely legitimate.

Her skin pricked up slightly at the sensation of a wand at her temple, followed by a calming sensation.

"That's odd." Katherina perked up.

"Odd how?"

"They've been tampered with, your memories." Her eyes became glassy and she wondered which of the happy moments had been a lie, before thinking the more important questions.

"You never-" the woman cleared her throat, but didn't finish her sentence. Slowly the chair lowered itself to the ground, and Katherina stepped a shaky foot onto the white platform.

"Can I...go?"

The lady was staring at her in confusion then waved her hand slowly in the direction of the door. "Wrongly accused. You may leave."

Her head swam as she stuttered to the exit, insides petrified from the experience. Her hand was level with the doorknob when she felt a thin finger tap her shoulder. When she turned her face was inches from the older woman's nose.

"You've never killed a single soul, my dear. Though he has."

A jolt went through her skin and suddenly she saw Adrian again, this time her wand was pointed at the ground as she shouted at him in frustration. When he reached for her arm she felt the urge to cast the killing curse, but never got the chance. It wasn't her voice that echoed the halls. It wasn't her that had violently destroyed the man who bruised her and bit through her future. It was someone she had never seen, who clasped her pockets in his hands and whispered things she couldn't hear.

"I need you. Alive."