A Different Kind of Magic

Upside Down, Inside Out

Millie

And then I woke up. I knelt in long cool grass. The sun was beginning to make an entrance with a background of purples, pinks, and blues. A beautiful day.

There was weird taste in my mouth and something on my hands and clothes. Trembling from the morning chill, I raised my hands to the light. Drying blood caked them. Blood trails dripped down my arms. That meant that what was in my mouth...

I bent over and vomited up blood and raw meat.

What happened? I thought hard. I has inhaled that stuff, I had turned in an Animagus. After that... something, maybe. Screaming. A human screaming.

Oh, Merlin, I had eaten...

I heaved again, but there was nothing else to come up. Tears coarser down my cheeks.

What had I done? What had I done? What was I going to do?

***
Matt

I hummed softly to myself while Zander paced the floor.

We had searched all night for Millie and hadn't found her so we eventually reported her disappearance to the ministry and came back to Uncle Nate's house.

"You think we would have heard something by now." He ran his hand through his hair.

"Try calling and seeing," I suggested.

He moved towards the door and stopped.

"Wizards don't have phones."

I smirked. "Whitehurst, if anyone can take care of themself, it's Mil."

"I know, but I'm still scared the PM did something to her."

"It'll be okay, Zander, really."

We sat in silence for a few seconds.

"Z, you never finished your story." I wove my fingers together.

He stopped. "What?"

"Your story. You left it at "But when the police came...""

Zander stared at me. "Is now really the time?"

"No better time than the present," I quoted.

"I suppose not." He started to fiddle with his robe sleeve again. "When the police showed up it looked like a tornado had hit the house. They found me lying outside of the closet. The door was busted. And when they found my step-father, he was in worse condition than the door. He was dead. It was quickly cleaned up and no one except me seems to remember anything except that my step-father died after hitting his head, so I'm guessing the wizard police stepped in and cleaned stuff up."

I stared at him.

"You killed your stepfather when you were eight."

"And that's when my Obscurial form also surfaced."

"Which you're still using to kill people."