Rose Thorn ❖ (Draco Malfoy - Harry Potter Series)

6.09

Camille and Regulus stood before the crypt that loomed before them. Kreacher appeared beside them with a snap of his fingers and bowed slightly to Regulus.

     "Kreacher, dear friend." Regulus laughed, rubbing his hand over the house elf's head. "What brings you here?"

     "I came to be of service to you." Kreacher offered.

     "Actually, Kreach. I think Cami, here, has a task for you."

     Regulus looked to Camille, nodding. She crouched beside Kreacher, "There's a Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts. Do you think you can fix it for us?"

     "Of course, milady." Kreacher bowed slightly to her and snapped his fingers to disappear to the Wizarding School far in Scotland.

     Regulus charmed the gates open, the lock falling with a thud. He grabbed the flame torch that hung on the side and held it before him. Regulus turned to Camille. "Ready to rattle some bones?"

     Camille scrunched her nose before she laughed. "Ready."

     The path that lead down was made of limestone, the steps well worn by age and those who had once followed this same path as they did. The torch flickered in the darkness, contorting its shadows into beastly images.

     The pair continued down until their torch lit the basement of the crypt in a dull ember of light. The walls were fixed with concrete, skulls mixed in amongst it. They continued on for what felt like a whole hour until they reached what they believed to be the centre. Thousands of stone sarcophagi stood around them like an audience to their leader. Somehow, the catacomb's ceiling reached monumentally high – surely, they hadn't travelled that far below ground.

     Regulus snorted. "Perhaps you'll raise a stone army."

     Camille flicked her eyes. "Shut up. Where are the coffins? The slots amidst the crypt? Where are all the people buried?"

     "You're looking at them." Another voice echoed from within the catacomb.

     Regulus held out his wand, enchanting the place to illuminate completely. Camille pressed her back against his, her own wand in hand. Oh, for goodness sake. What trouble were they to face? All she wanted was one thing to go right and then to go eat dinner with Narcissa and Draco – who is very much alive.

     "Who's there!" Camille shouted into the abys of the catacomb. Every stone skeleton stared back at her, their vacant eyes piercing her mind.

     The voice was deep as it threw back its answer. "To your left."

     Regulus whipped around fast as did Camille, trying to spot the third person amidst the catacomb. There was nothing but the stone statues and a single throne raised upon a slab of marble and etched in that podium was the words; Hail the Queen of Death.

     "Are you a speaking chair?" Regulus asked and a laugh echoed back.

     From the chair came a phantom of green light, near transparent until it materialised as a being before them. It stood before the chair, a black cloak and hood covering their face and body. It held a staff, the apex that of a child's skull and around them...ghostly Inferi who snarled at them as they clung to their master.

     Camille cocked her head. "Are you the Queen of Death?"

     The cloaked being took off their hood and there stood a woman, her eyes were entirely black with irises of sickly crimson. Her hair was silver like the moonlight and her skin was deathly pale like a corpse, lips too cracked. Camille would name this person Death itself but as she looked closer and closer at the features worn on the face of the woman before them, she realised who it was.

     "You are...me?" Camille gasped.

     Regulus looked twice, now piecing together the information. "Is this her future if she continues to do Grindelwald's bidding?"

     The phantom nodded. "I am but a discarded variant of you in the strain of time. He manipulated time, misused the time turner in order to change the events in his favour. I was left behind, down here, never to leave."

     Camille shook her head. "I don't understand."

     "I am you from a future path where you continue to fight in the darkness of the world. I am you where you become the most powerful witch in the world, even more so than Voldemort and Grindelwald." The Dark Witch opened her arms and said, "I'm imprisoned here for the rest of eternity. My people were turned to stone and I must live every day with the consequences of what I did. The eternal loneliness."

     Camille looked to Regulus; he too had said those words. She pursed her lips. "What am I supposed to do?"

     The Dark Witch shrugged. "You know what you are supposed to do. Deep in your heart. Every version of us has their own decision embedded in their heart which produces a different course of time. You must follow your heart, Camille."

     Camille held up her chin and nodded. "I'll see you again. When the flaming leaf falls from sky to dirt and turns itself into ash, I'll come back for you."

⍟

Camille Diggory embraced who she was born to be. 

     She knocked on Malfoy Manor's black glossy doors. Regulus had gone back to the asylum – he'd claimed that Kreacher was waiting for him there and that he'd completed the task she'd set him. The Vanishing Cabinet was fixed, the crossover was pure and now the doorway of three stood strong. 

     The Three-Faced Path; it was a symbol of divinity. She'd heard a myth about it once, just as Ron believed the Deathly Hallows was just a bedtime story.

     Draco opened the door, his grey-blue eyes wide as she beheld her...searched her eyes to make sure it was she. He pulled her into him, crushing her in his embrace. His voice whispered with melancholy into her neck. "Milly."

     Camille smiled into black cotton jumper of her lover. "I've long ached for this moment to be in your arms again." –she kissed his pulsating vein— "Your heart is beating...oh, Draco. There was a time where all I heard was the long silence." –she kissed his jaw— "your skin is so warm...I've seen it cold like ice."

     Draco kissed her temple. "My mother filled me in. She said you saved my life."

     Tears were falling down her cheeks and the boy kissed them away. "To lose you was to lose myself."

     Draco gave her a sad smile. "Never again. Never again will I let you go. Our love is but the story of life and death."

     Camille almost burst into tears. Oh, love for them was pain and glory. Love was all the feelings of the world...love was indescribable. She was the darkness and Draco was the light. Love could go either way, it could corrupt them both or persevere through all the wickedness of the world.

     Narcissa called from deep within the room. "Is my daughter-in-law at the door? Tell her dinner is ready."

     Draco blushed a laughed a little. Camille laughed a lot harder than she'd expected, perhaps even the first real laugh in a long while.

     He smiled and grabbed her hand, guiding her inside.