THE FURIES ▸ Draco Malfoy

Chapter Ten: NYX

◤ ❝You are far too similar to him, Miss Erebus. Charismatic, and intelligent, and hiding beneath it all a disturbing amount of darkness that this world should never see. I had hope that you could be what he never was, but I can tell that I was once again tragically mistaken. ❞ ― Horace Slughorn ◢

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CHAPTER TEN:        NYX

October 19, 1996

      Andromeda ended up going along with Potter and the others, who had grabbed Hagrid to rush Katie Bell back to Hogwarts. Both she and Vaisey kept sharing similar looks of caution, staying a bit behind everyone. They knew they weren't wanted there, but it felt wrong even for them to just abandon Katie. Even if she was halfway to the castle, Leanne was still in tears. All that they knew right now was that Katie had grabbed a package from the bathroom in the Three Broomsticks to deliver to Hogwarts. Given the state that she was in, Leanne threw out the notion that she may have been under the Imperius Curse, and after touching the contents inside, Katie was then cursed by the object. An opal necklace was wrapped beneath sodden paper, and Harry had recognized it just as quickly as Mia had. It belonged in Borgin and Burkes behind a thick layer of glass so that no one could ever be tempted by its darkness.

By the way that Potter continued to glance at her from the corner of his eye, she had a feeling that the two of them were thinking similarly on who was responsible for it. The only difference being that Potter was hellbent on proving it to the rest of the school, and Mia would do everything in her power to make sure that never happened. Draco. She did not know why he would do it, nor how he did it, but there was not a glimmer of doubt in her mind that he was the one behind it. He always was a careless thinker. 

It explained everything, of course. Why he had been acting so weird the past week, why he was so relieved that he wasn't going, why he didn't want her to go. Draco had known all along what was going to happen at Hogsmeade, and he hadn't warned her. He didn't give her the chance to tell him how stupid it was, just like he didn't tell her why he was even trying to curse someone in the first place―that was what scared her most of all. There was no reason she could think of for why Draco would do intentional harm to a random student. Not unless it was his individual mission from the Dark Lord, and it made no sense for their lord to care about the life of any Gryffindor that wasn't named Potter.

That only meant that the necklace was meant for someone else, and Mia was determined to figure out who. After they arrived at the castle, Potter and his friends quickly scurried off to go fetch Dumbledore, the cursed necklace wrapped multiple times in a thick scarf. Vaisey and her went to go in the direction of Madam Pompfrey to see what Hagrid had done with Katie, but Mia's feet were dragging in the attempt to take her elsewhere. The thumping in her chest rose as her frustrations became heavier, and the urge to throw something at a wall increased tenfold.

"Andrew," she muttered, grabbing his hand to stop him before they got to the hospital wing. He glanced down at her with concern. "I need to go see someone. I'll talk to you at dinner...tell me how she is, please."

Vaisey quirked a brow in confusion but nodded anyway. "Of course. I'm going to stay until I hear from Madam Pompfrey about her condition." 

"You have the heart of a Hufflepuff, Vaisey," she breathed out in thanks, squeezing his hand. 

"I resent that. Don't go spreading it around, Erebus." 

Mia left him soon after that, her feet taking her up the same path of staircases that had become so familiar to her in the past few weeks. With every step, she could feel her anger boiling even more. Katie Bell's face would never escape her mind―she had seen people cursed before, she had experienced the Cruciatus curse, and yet, there was an inescapable horror that came with witnessing a classmate she grew up with in a state like that. In that moment, she remembered what it felt like to fear things because she feared for Katie. A girl she had never talked to a day in her life, and she wanted nothing more than to reach out to her and help. It was as unfamiliar a feeling to her as the fear was.