THE FURIES ▸ Draco Malfoy

Chapter Fifteen: LETHE

◤ ❝I am nothing if not the daughter of death.❞ ― Andromeda Erebus ◢

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN:      LETHE

December 20, 1996

    "Going to hide in bed all day, are we?"

Andromeda's eyebrow raised a bit at the question, but she didn't look up to acknowledge Tracey. Instead, she kept her attention on the book in her lap, flipping absently through the pages when she realized that she had already marked off over a hundred spells in the last two months. Epps' Reparation book was thick, and most of the time she usually kept her library full of resources in the Room, but there was something dangerously disturbing about the place now―well, that wasn't completely honest. It was not the place that held any new level of disturbance. Draco, however, did. Now, it had come to be Mia's time to avoid Draco's questions.

The conversation in Snape's classroom two days ago ended quickly after she discovered the truth about the Dark Lord's plans. Why she was still alive, and how curious he was to see if she would choose the path of compassion or the path of infinite darkness. Snape hadn't tried to stop her quick escape either. He did not ask any more questions, nor did he search for any more answers. Snape had to have seen her freeze, the barbed wire circled around her soul constricting like a snake. She wondered if he saw the way she died in that room. That was, after all, what happened. If she were to keep living in the world, in an existing body, then she would have to sacrifice the very things that kept her alive in the first place. Since that moment, Mia began feeling a pinching in her chest, tightening the expanse of her heart. Hope. It was hope that she lost that day. Nothing had been the same since.

There were only three people, really, that represented any form of hope for her. Draco was undoubtably one of them, even in the face of their circumstances, because she knew that there was still a future left for him. Draco would always be the upset of her lifespan. He deserved more. So much more, and Mia was desperate to give him that. She had always known that he had a future after the War, but all it took was another person to say it aloud for it to become real. Because of this, she made the decision long ago that she would be the one to complete the third mission. Draco could not cope with the kind of burden if he murdered Dumbledore. Mia...Mia had the sickest of feelings that she would barely flinch―and that meant she would trade her soul in exchange for his. He was always the best of them.

Andrew Vaisey was the next sliver of hope that she had to afford giving up. His charismatic smile brought death to her heart because she could see everything that he was changing in her―he was kind, good, all things that she needed to let go of. The kind of person that touched one's soul and made it brighter without even realizing it. A true Hufflepuff heart, loyal to a fault and desperate to lead others. Andrew was her hope in any possible happiness. Loving someone, being in love with someone, and being loved in return. A month ago, he held the part of her that she knew she would have to destroy. Now, it was time. His hope, the brightest of all.

But if there was one person, only one singular person, that she could not bear the thought of losing...it was Theodore. Mia always knew that her cousin would be her downfall in the War. From the very moment he held her as she cried at her father's funeral, she could see the ways she was tethered to him. Far too stitched together, the two of them. Theo represented everything that she was fighting for, but he was just as much everything that terrified her. The only person who could bring her back from the decision she made. If there was one person that could get her to choose the light, to be the same mistake as her father, then it was her cousin―because Mia would do it. If it came to a situation like Alastiare and Sirius, she could never hurt him. She would gladly die, and gladly kill, in the name of compassion if it meant Theodore was safe.