𝐵𝑒𝓆𝓊𝑒𝒶𝓉𝒽𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉 | 𝒟.𝑀.

30 | ﴾ Queen of Hell ﴿

I was standing before a smoky, cracked mirror, wearing a heavy black wedding dress. Thorns snaked across my forehead and around my neck as if to choke me. My eyes looked dead inside; almost as black as the dress itself, all mention of my natural golden colors forgotten. My hair fell in unrecognizably white waves. I was holding a bouquet of rotting, white flowers with black stems.

I opened my mouth to inhale in shock but my reflection in the mirror simply twitched a creaky arm up to push a finger on her lips to imitate the silencing gesture. She had a sadistic grin on her pale face. Then I was turning around and walking down an endless obsidian hallway with no control over my body. Paintings on the walls of the Malfoy Manor were oddly quiet for once, simply watching in awe as I passed like a Queen of Hell, dark smoke rising off of my being, billowing around me like a noxious gas. The long veil of the morbid gown trailed behind me.

The terrifying woman from the woods appeared from out of nowhere to follow me down the hallway with a gleam of triumph in her eyes, looking as unkempt and unstable as always. Instead of feeling frightened of her as I usually did, I just kept walking slowly and gracefully towards the silver ballroom doors feeling a sinking feeling of trepidation. They opened for me when I reached them as though bewitched to do so, winding outwards with loud cracking noises.

The almost pitch black room was packed to the brim with Death Eaters in slate gray masks. I couldn't make out a single face without one this time. My feet dragged me forward as petals fell off of the sad bouquet in my fingers, slowly floating to the floor around me. The piano independently played heartbreaking melodies in the corner as if a ghost had decided to contribute to the atmosphere.

Ahead of me sat a  twisted throne out of what appeared to be human arms and legs, one singular skull at the top of the perch. On it sat a gray and pallid looking man; only he wasn't a man. He was a mutated form of a man, with a face that resembled a snake more than anything. His red eyes scalded my skin as he evaluated me approaching. I struggled against myself to turn and flee but the version of myself which had control kept persisting forward.

Next to the demonic looking man stood a perfectly fit, handsome Death Eater, hands behind his back respectfully. His mask could not deny my ability to identify him. His hair and eyes shone through the dark smoke around his face, which looked blank and heartless. I screamed for him but nothing came out. He hardly blinked as I stepped up.

As I positioned myself across from him, the snake-like demon stood to begin speaking. I kicked against my body, urging it to respond as myself and not as the girl who was standing there willingly. The dying flowers finally shook the slightest of twitches in my fingers. I pushed again, feeling the rage and helplessness boiling now. My hands shook again causing several petals to fall simultaneously like leaves in Autumn, oddly matching the depiction of the ballroom doors.

The snake man stopped cooing whatever vile speech he had been giving. His laser red eyes watched as my hands gradually moved from hardly trembling to fully shaking. From the movement erupted black flames engulfing what was left of the pathetic bouquet. I saw Draco's eyes fixated on the brightness. I screamed, and this time it was actually happening. It was coming out in full volume from the version of myself that I had been trapped in. The windows smashed in as though I had created a vortex towards myself. Candles blew out eclipsing the room into a raven apocalypse.

The flames caught onto the robes of the snake man, the carpet, my own dress in so many areas. Draco's pants lit but he stood motionless, burning as though at a stake for witchcraft. I was becoming a flaming pillar at the front of the room, my hair gliding off of my shoulders to float around me in the calamity. I watched as the demonic man fell to his knees with the most malevolent and vicious expression I had ever seen pointed in my direction. He reached out his abnormally long and twisted fingers and snagged them around my long locks, pulling me down so that my face was against his, staring directly into glowing red evil. He began disintegrating into smoke. The remaining skull of smoke enshrouded me, swallowing me, digesting me...