ᴅɪsᴘᴇʟ ᴍʏ ʙᴏʀᴇᴅᴏᴍ | ᴍᴀʀᴀᴅᴇᴜʀs' ᴇʀᴀ

Chapter 56: Parting Gift

Eliza had a tremendous amount of time to think about Peter, his friends, and her own conscience. Conscience told her to warn Marauders about the Hunt, common sense asked how would she explain her awareness.

She thought about Emily even more often than it was worth it, sometimes even more than about herself. She remembered her extraordinary strong mind, her grip, and perseverance, attention to details and excellent logic. Emily admired and scared Eliza. Such a person among the Marauders will definitely guess something if she notices Eliza in a strange situation. This would be highly undesirable.

Emily knew how to dissect people into components, disassemble them into mechanisms, gnaw their bones and make an accurate portrait. She was an extra person in this company of simple-minded, gullible and careless teenagers. And Eliza, once again shoving her conscience deep down her throat, decided that she would say nothing to the Marauders about Emily.

If Parker dies, so be it. If she survives, then at least for a while she will remain cracked and she will have no time for Eliza. Or maybe she will break for good.

All these thoughts circling round in Eliza's head took the whole night away from her. For several days she got used to the thought of staying away, and she didn't care about Narcissa's strange behavior and the owls flying to her.

A day later, Lucius left the manor, and his fiancée followed him, albeit in a different direction. The sudden departure of their masters discouraged house-elves, but not to say that they were upset. They treated Eliza indifferently, carried out her assignments, but did not feel the fear present before Lucius.

Early in the morning, having eyed the departing Narcissa's carriage, Eliza only sighed with relief. They left her alone in the manor with Erica, and she could no longer worry about unwanted meetings with less pleasant relatives in the gloomy corridors of Malfoy Manor.

The day was so warm that Eliza could not help but smile when the sun rays rushed into her eyes, making her wince. Finally, she could be alone with Erica. They always had something to talk about. Eliza loved the moments when her aunt told stories about her mother.

"Auntie?" Eliza knocked on the doors of Mrs. Malfoy's chambers. "Erica?"

There was no sound from the other side, and vague anxiety stirred inside Eliza.

Erica did not reply to either the third, or the fifth, or the tenth knock, and Eliza, against all the rules, flew into the chambers, breaking the lock with a wand.

Inside, it was light, clean and smelled of fresh hydrangeas. The morning sun poured around the room, silk white curtains trembled at the window, and the sunlight played in pearl jewelry scattered like balls of snow on the dressing table.

A blond woman lay on the sheets under a thin satin duvet. Her huge bed under a heavy canopy made Erica seem to be even smaller, thinner, and weaker. Mrs. Malfoy had a gaunt, but still beautiful, and now relaxed face. A soft smile lay on her tender lips, dark circles almost disappeared from under her eyes, and her body under the light fabric of a patterned shirt looked unexpectedly young.

But something was wrong with her. Something frozen, immobilized. Like a dried flower that no longer blooms, or a dead butterfly pinned to a canvas that no longer flaps its transparent wings.

Eliza approached the bed of her aunt, shielding the light, and started, barely able to stand still.

In the shadows, Erica's face turned grey at once. Her skin, not illuminated by the sun, became pale and inanimate. The smile on her lips stiffened with a pitiful grimace. She seemed to be a colorless rag doll with an unfamiliar face who, by ridiculous chance, found herself in Mrs. Malfoy's luxurious chambers.