Elysia

Chapter Twelve ~ Prison

Three Weeks Earlier

Fingers slipped under my arms and dragged me from the hall. My head rolled uselessly around my shoulders, my eyes connecting with McGongall's for a heartbeat. The woman was weeping, her face a mask broken by the river of tears intruding her serene facade.

My fingers rose slowly, running along my teeth to see there were at least three missing. Reaching m hand out I felt the pearly knobs fly through the air and into them, pocketing them as quickly as I could; which wasn't very fast. The two Death Eaters carrying me were young, fresh recruits.

"Merlins beard, is she still awake?" one whispered, her eyes scouring my face.

Her hand come down and slapped my face, hard, to check. Feigning unconsciousness I let my head loll to the side uselessly. Satisfied, she kept walk at the same pace, my legs dragging behind them and stretching my stomach out.

"Something tells me she's not going to do much fighting. Did you see her? She could have killed them if what they say is true." whispered the husky voice of an older man.

"I doubt she can see the future, seers are frauds nine times out ten. And as for wandless magic, there isn't a seventeen year old in existence who can perform it." scowled the girl, tightening her grip on me.

My eyelids began to flutter as I regurgitated another mouthful of blood. Soon my skin began to feel as though it was contracting in search of blood, tightening over my very flesh. Slowly, slowly my head tilted forward before I felt my mind slip out of consciousness.

I awoke to a long hallway with the heaviest iron door I had ever seen at the end. The lock it held was crude, a muggle lock. The Death Eater's had a sense of humour, I suppose, but it wasn't so funny when I saw the size of the room. A circular room with a barred window, only just long enough for me to lie flat in.

A ragged blanket all too familiar sat in the middle, the one from my vision. I quivered with fear as I understood what I would turn into, that white haired bag of bones laughing maniacally in the corner. Tears streamed afresh down my face as I muttered something along the lines of 'Please'.

"I'm... I'm sorry..." whispered the deeper of the two voices, a whisper so quiet I wasn't sure whether or not it had been my imagination,

The girl, however, swung me easily across the room, the loud crack reminding me of another broken bone. As my breath grew short I realised it was a rib, puncturing my lung. Waiting desperately for them to close the door so as to keep my wandless magic a secret, I grew even more desperate for air.

"Wait- Wait, listen she's not-" the man called out, before being silenced by his opponent.

And so, the door was closed, the click of the lock the only welcoming sound in the school. Laying my finger over the perpetrator, I muttered 'Lung, lung, lung, lung..." unable to think of a more creative name for a spell. A gurgling noise alerted me to the blood being drained from the blood as it inflated with air once more.

I supposed that the Latin words for spells were once the equivalent of English. I mean, it was the spoken language when the basic spells were created, it only made it funnier that the following spell-makers followed suit by using the dead language.

Laying myself out flat as I would any other patient, I began to slowly repair the damage. Foot, Hand, Arm, Elbow, Rib, Rib, Rib... Kidney, Throat, Spine, Jaw, Jaw... Skull, teeth, teeth, fingers. The dull ache began to shrink smaller and smaller, the pain more immense than I thought as I lay in its absence.

The blood staining my chin, neck and clothes wasn't so much of a bother. I was more tired than I had ever been before, but I was determined to stay awake. I blinked a second too long, however, and soon found myself dreaming.