Sapphire (Lazuli Book #3) - Harry Potter Fan Fiction (Draco Malfoy)

Chapter Twenty-Four

A thousand questions fill my head, but there is no way to answer them, because there is nothing here but me and the white space. 

I look down at myself and see that I am dressed peculiarly. It's strange because it isn't clothes I'm wearing - rather it is like a cloud that has wrapped itself around my body, covering me from my chest to my ankles. My bare shoulders are warm, as if the sun of a summer's day is beating down on them, but there is no sunlight to do such a thing. Strange.

My cuts and bruises have healed, the only mark of my former self remaining being the dark mark on my forearm. I suppose there are some things that even death cannot erase. My hair hangs loose down my back, swaying slightly in an invisible breeze that I can't feel. But none of that is the most peculiar thing. It's that when I look down at the Malfoy locket hanging around my neck, I find that it's open.

The locket doesn't open. The powerful magic within it that links me to Draco keeps it sealed. It can't be open.

But it is, and as I touch it I find that it's cold. Why is it cold when it should be hot? Is it because I'm dead now?

"Hello, Andromeda."

I look up from the locket and see that a girl has appeared. I don't know her face, but I feel as if I've known her my entire life. Her voice is so familiar to me, but I can't place where I've heard it before.

My hand moves automatically to the locket, and then I remember. It was her voice I heard in my head when I was communicating to Draco through the piece of jewellery. It was her that kept the link between us.

She was the locket.

She was beautiful. Her hair was long and blonde, falling well past her hips and decorated with green flowers. Her eyes were a vibrant shade of green - the same colour as the gems on the locket's casing - and her skin was as pale as freshly fallen snow. She was dressed in a white gown which looked similar to the dresses that the medieval ladies in my history books wore. She seemed to glow in an ethereal way, and I found that I had caught my breath as she approached. She was truly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

She held out a slim hand to me, and smiled softly as she helped me to my feet. Her hand was cold to touch - like the locket - but comforting nonetheless. I felt as if I knew her better than anybody else.

"My name is Cassiopeia," she said gently, smiling at me. I stared at her, unsure of what to say. Cassiopeia laughed, the sound like an orchestra of bells, and then squeezed my hand. "Walk with me, and I will explain."

I followed her eagerly, desperate to know the answers to so many questions.

"I think you know the story of how this locket came into being," she started, gesturing to the open Malfoy locket around my neck. "It was me that it was created for. I was born in the 12th century, and I attended Hogwarts, just like you. I was sorted into Slytherin House, and it was there that I met Atticus Malfoy.

"He looked very similar to your Draco; tall with blonde hair and handsome grey eyes. And he loved me from the first moment we met. He vowed to me in our first year at Hogwarts even that should the time ever come, he would gladly die for me. It soon became evident that I felt the same.

"When we finished school, our parents gave permission for us to marry. Atticus gave me that locket as a wedding gift, and told me that he had trapped part of his magic within it, so that should anything ever happen to him, I would always be safe. He was a very powerful wizard - greater even than this Albus Dumbledore and the one who calls himself Lord Voldemort. But history forgot him because he died young; only a year into our marriage."