𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓| 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐨 𝐌𝐚𝐥𝐟𝐨𝐲✔️

𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄|𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐒

MARA WILLIAMS

Fingers suddenly deft in their eagerness shook and shivered as they caressed the serpentine silk and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't quite seem to quell the growing feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

A frigid breath struggled from my parted lips as I stared at myself in the mirror.
The girl before me was eerily familiar and yet all together foreign, her mess dark hair was a work of art in itself, and the way her dress clung tightly to her hips was enough to make the devil himself kneel before her, shaking in the thrill.
-But yet her eyes were wide and afeared of what was yet to come, she was a perfect portrait of dread.

A high slit and low neckline revealed a sinful amount of skin, and the necklace that hung solemnly at her clavicle looked as though it were divinely inspired to a hellish extent by the dress.

She couldn't look away from the necklace, not even despite the knot in her chest.

• • •

The soft sound of music coiled through the air all around us, dampened only by the doors, the only thing that remained to separate us from the frivolities of the Yule Ball.

As the great doors swung open as if by magic at our arrival my feet refused to move and I was rooted to the spot by a sudden crippling wave of angst. The acrid feeling curled around me like smoke, whispering in my ear all the possibilities that lay beyond the threshold. The waves washed over me and I feared I may drown, unable to ever surface again, swallowed by the sadness.

Behind those doors lay almost every soul that stalked my nightmares. -The two girls who'd pinned me down and tore flesh from jealousy, a boy who'd beaten me bloody more times than I had dared to dream of, another who I had once thought was pure only to find he was just as wicked as the rest, and of course the boy who had singlehandedly damned me never to love again.

"It's okay." Whispered Hermione, slipping her hand into my left just as Parvati took my right with a firm squeeze and added, "-We're in this together."

And with that we strode through the doors hand in hand, staring down at the thick mess of bodies at the base of the stairs below us.

I felt weightless as we began the descent, head held high as almost every pair of eyes in the room honed in on us and us alone. We were hallowed, sanctified, -ethereal.

The ceiling had been enchanted just like the great hall, and the sky was a ghost of the beyond, snow floating down upon us never to quite meet the floor.

My skin seared with the jealous glares, the piously fleeting peers, the whispers that curled around us like wind through the leaves of the willow.

Most of all I felt his eyes, a creeping cold crawling down my spine and causing the fine hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. I couldn't help but think of the time we had spent together in the snow, a far happier moment that I would sell my soul in a heartbeat to go back to. There was bliss in the ignorance.

We were met at the bottom of the stairs by three of the Weasley boys, Fred held out his hand to Hermione with a dashing grin, "You clean up quite nicely, Granger."

She smiled bashfully as she took his hand, and Parvati took George's so that only Ron and I remained. He shuffled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Looks like it's just us..."