unhinged ↠ 𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞

twenty six

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AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN BOP BOP

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Kitioma Hadlee

          A boy is yanking me by my wrist, dragging me down the hallway. I don't know who he is, just a boy with dark brown hair and hazel-brown eyes.

The scene shifts. I'm sitting on a window ledge, the same boy beside me. He is smirking, and he tucks a hair behind my ear. "I'll always be here to chase away your nightmares, Princess." I look down. Our hands are interlaced.

The scene shifts once more, but this time, the boy has his wand pointed at me. He is breathing heavily, and his eyes shine with anger. "I never should have let you live." I raise up my hands in confusion, but a green burst of light shoots at me.

I sit up, panting.

What the...what the actual living hell was that dream?

I click on a lamp next to me, the heated fire glowing red in the dark room. Where am I? What happened? The last thing I remember was fighting with Gabriela in a duel...I don't know why were were fighting or what we were fighting for, but I don't remember anything else.

"Kiki?" I hear Marlene's voice next to me. She is sitting up, her hair in tangles, her eyes baggy and red. "What...what are you doing up?"

"I...I don't know, I had this strange dream...I thought I was at the duel, what happened?"

Marlene sighs and rubs her face. "You lost the duel against Gabriela, who used a forbidden curse on you. You were framed, sent to Azkaban, and then your memories were wiped over the experience after your trial so you wouldn't be traumatized."

The words, when coming out of her mouth, seem rehearsed, almost pained, like they were beaten into her. "Oh," I simply say. "I don't...pieces are still gone from before that...like, I dunno, after me and Sam broke up? What happened to him, I don't remember anything about him."

"He's gone, he left Hogwarts after some family issues."

"What about that night at the party? I remember getting drunk but that's it."

Marlene laughs, but even that sounds forced. "We found you in a hallway. Pretty wasted if I do say so myself."

I scratch my arm absentmindedly and glance down when I see faded red marks. "What are these?"

"Well...you were in Azkaban..." Marlene trails off. "I'm sorry we couldn't help you, me and Ally tried everything we could to get you out."

"Ally?" I furrow my eyebrows. Am I supposed to know her?

"Gabriela's sister, I mean to introduce you to her at breakfast," Marlene mumbles. "She's really sorry about Gabby's actions, she had no idea Gabby would use the curse."

"Yeah...ok..." I mumble back, rubbing my head. It's pounding, and chunks of missing information still float around my head. "Are you sure they didn't wipe my entire memory clean? And who's 'they'?"

"Ministry of Magic," Marlene answers tiredly, rubbing her eyes. "Can we discuss this in the morning? I'm exhausted. You got back yesterday, by the way, and these past few months have been...tiring."

"Yeah, yeah, sorry," I answer slowly, then turn onto my side as Marlene rolls over in her bed, her long breaths telling me she's asleep within minutes.

Azkaban? Really...I was sent to Azkaban for something I didn't do. Well I guess I can scratch that off of my list of things to do before I die, go to the highest security prison and survive it. I wish I could remember it, though. What is it like, Azkaban? Torture? Is that why I self harmed, or whatever these marks on my wrist are? Well, if I self harmed because of it, I'm glad the Ministry wiped my memories. I don't really want to remember anything that traumatic, even if it would have been an...experience to remember, I guess.

Pieces are still missing from my brain. Like, who is Izzy, a Head Girl, and how am I connected with her? I remember seeing her in a room and arguing with someone about her, but I can't remember exactly why I argued about it.

My jacket, a Gryffindor-patterned sweater, feels scratchy against my skin. Careful not to wake Marlene, I reach into my trunk, dig around, then pull out a random shirt.

My eyebrows furrow as I look at the shirt in the dim light. I've never seen the shirt before. It's a plain black shirt, nothing special, but I prefer to stay away from black. It reminds me of my parents funeral, memories I would rather stay away from.

I lift it to my nose, as there is a distinct smell coming off of it.

Pine needles...what a weird scent for a shirt...

I shrug, slip off the sweater, and slip on the shirt. It's cold at first, but after bundling up with the blankets in my bed, it slowly warms up.

The pine needle smell is nice, but it feels familiar. I don't know how a smell can feel familiar, I guess it's the way it wraps around me, like an extra blanket.

Do my teachers know about my stay in Azkaban? I'm sure they do...will I be excused from work?

How did I even end up in Azkaban? That's for hard-core criminals. I'm not a criminal...is it still a crime if you can't remember what you've done?

What did Gabriela even hit me with enough to be expelled?

And Gabriela has a sister?

My head starts to pound. All the memory gaps are making my head hurt. I need a good cup of firewhiskey and a wild party. Or maybe some sleep. Sleep seems to be the better option in the moment, so I roll over, hugging the pine tree scented shirt to my face, the smell comforting in an odd way.

Maybe in Azkaban pine trees were a comfort source for me and now it's muscle memory?

I shake my head. It'll do no use worrying about it. Or, you know, thinking. At all.

I pull the covers over my head so the pine trees can't escape my airways. Poor pine trees, being all trapped in.

Who cares about the pine trees, let them burn.

I sigh and my eyes close on their own.

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