Invisible String | TVD x WIZARDING WORLD

THE FIRST TASTE ALWAYS STAYS

"No."

She laughs. "You're lying. And worse—you're starving."

I try to stand. My legs buckle like old wood. My fangs are pressing against my gums like a threat. My throat is a desert.

"I won't feed again," I rasp.

"Aww. You still think this is about morality." Katherine tilts her head. "It's about survival, sweetheart. And whether you like it or not..."

She reaches out, brushes a lock of hair from my face with unnerving gentleness.

"You and I? We're not so different."

~~~~~~~~

I didn't know where I was going.

I just... had to leave. The walls were breathing. The air was Katherine's perfume. Every corner of the castle felt like it had fangs, and they were all pointed at me.

So I walked. Fast. Then faster. Like if I moved quickly enough, the thoughts wouldn't catch up. The hunger. The memory of Theo's pulse beneath my mouth. The sound of her voice in my head, curling like smoke from a cigarette I didn't light.

I don't remember climbing the steps, just that I blinked and I was there.

The Astronomy Tower.

The wind greeted me first, sharp and cold, slipping beneath my collar like it was looking for bones to snap. I stepped out into the open, wrapped my arms around myself like that could stop the shaking.

The stars were too bright. Too many of them. Like a thousand eyes and not one of them looking away.

I leaned forward onto the ledge. Stone beneath my fingers, rough and steady. Unlike me.

I had been careful. So careful.

The blood bags were gone by October—Regulus helped me sneak them in, bless him. But they ran out, and I kept telling myself I could last. That I was stronger than the thirst. That I wasn't like her.

But the only time I fed on a real human was three months ago.
Theodore Nott.

I didn't mean to. I swear I didn't. He was just there, and I was dizzy, and he touched my wrist and said my name, and his neck was right there and—I lost control. Just for a second.

But one second is all it takes.

Katherine's voice curls into my thoughts again, soft and mocking. "It's always the pretty ones who bleed best."

I dig my fingers into the stone. Hard. Until it hurts. Until I remember this body is mine.

"You're not real," I whisper to the wind, to the ghosts, to the girl I see in every mirror with my face and her smile.

But the silence says otherwise.

I blink, and for a moment, she's there. Across the tower, arms crossed, smirking like she never bled. Like she never died. Like I didn't kill her.

I squeeze my eyes shut.

I won't be like her. I won't.

But the wind is cold, and the sky is too big, and I am so—
so
hungry.

"Salvatore?" a voice came, cautious, careful.

And I knew.
Exactly who it was.
Even before I turned. Even before the scent of him—warm skin and adrenaline and something cinnamon-sweet—hit me like a curse.

"Leave."
My voice cracked like ice over a lake.
But did he listen?
Of course not. He never did. Not when it really mattered.

I could hear his heartbeat before I saw him. Loud. Fast. Too close.