CURSED [D.M]

-(39) anyone but him

ZILLIAH is on an overload of emotions. Everything is so messed up and tangled in the ruins of her mind, so much so it would take her a million years to set each strand apart.

Loss. It's all she has known her whole life.

The world seems to take and take and take everything from her. As if she doesn't deserve to be like the others. As if she doesn't deserve to be happy. At peace.

She was born from bloodshed. Innocent lives lost. And then the world took her grandmother. And then it forced her to take some more. Atlast, it took her godfather too. And it has coiled it's deathly hands around her throat once again, claiming her mother now.

Her mother.

She hasn't been the best there is, but she is still her mother. And to know that she is no longer in this world-

"Control it, Zilliah." The familiarity of the voice tears through her anguish, the intense energy rippling off of her, ever growing.

"Mom?", she lifts her head from where she is hunched over on her knees. Her head spins, her heart pounds, her eyes lock on the grey of those eyes. Those eyes like the paining sky during a thunderstorm. Everything collapses around her. "Mom?"

"Just breathe. Don't let your magic get the better of you", she speaks, soft and slow, standing there in a black dress that reaches her knee. She looks angelic, her black hair reaching down the same. Her face is white and pale, like the life was draining out of her as she stands at the heart of the power erupting out of Zilliah.

"Mom, is that you?"

Why is she seeing this? What is happening? Is this reality? Or is it all just in her head? Was she still deep asleep in Draco's bed? Is this some sort of new nightmare stemming from the roots of her haunted mind?

She wishes.

She so wishes it to be one.

But everything happening right now has the grave tint of a devastating reality to it.

A hand on her shoulder. "Zilliah, breathe."

She can feel it. She can feel the hand. She can feel her mother's hand on her shoulders. But isn't she supposed to be.. dead?

"Focus on words", she hears Severus' voice and straining her mind, her whole body, every nerve in her, she focuses upon him.

He meets her glance with utter fear in his eyes. But for once, it was not because of the magic in her.

He flicks his eyes elsewhere and following his line of vision, her eyes land on Draco, hunched over on his knees, the same as her. He is in pain. Tremendous pain. Shaking too bad and breathing too fast.

And it's her own magic that does it. Her magic guided to him by Dumbledore who stands in front of him, wand raised high, a pained look on his face too.

The silvery white thread of magic that is directed at Draco passes through him and emerges as a fog above his head, carrying along the memories seated deep within his mind.

Like a movie screen, their moments play out in the fog. The fifth year party. The ball at the manor. The night they got together. The morning after. The day he held her back from attempting to rescue Sirius.

Everything.

It's then that it hits her.

It's her.

It's her magic being manipulated to invade his mind.

Her eyes snap back to Severus, and he knows she knows. She can see it in his eyes.