Heliophilia; d.m

XXI

DRACO

Everything seemed unreal. I didn't have the words to say anything, and I didn't have the thoughts to think about anything.

I stared blankly at the seat that was now empty after she left, and I was still trying to make sense of what had happened. I could see people leaving their seats, and I sat motionless, as if glued to a chair.

"Good job, Draco," Bellatrix's hand rested on my shoulder and her almost singsong voice brought me out of my reverie, "It turned out even better than I expected."

"What?" My voice was muffled, barely audible— I hadn't dared to make a sound for so long that now I just wanted to scream.

"To be honest, I didn't think she would be so quick-tempered and come running here as soon as she received your letter." Bellatrix chuckled as she sat back down, twirling a curl in her fingers.

"How do you know about—"

"A letter?" She finished for me, laughing a deep, vicious laugh, throwing her head back, letting her hair fall over the back of the chair.

"Draco, everything worked out perfectly. We've been looking for her for so many years, and she came to us all by herself, and all thanks to you."

"Explain." I didn't know what she meant, but I already felt that what she was about to say would have startled me even more.

"Well, her worthless father was stupid enough to send her to Hogwarts, and also to Slytherin, where she met you."

"And do you remember when you asked about her two years ago?" My father's voice came from the other side of me, causing my head to turn to his cheerful face, "At first I didn't understand, but then I realized it could have been her. And I wasn't wrong."

He and Bellatrix exchanged a conspiratorial look that made me feel sick. I started it. If I hadn't been climbing into this abyss called "Violet's secrets", then maybe none of this would have ever happened.

"Well, then the matter remained small, we decided to try this idea with a letter and, surprisingly, it worked. She came and as soon as I saw her on the stairs and you said her name, we called the Lord."

They kept talking, but I couldn't listen to it anymore, I couldn't take it anymore, it was all too much for me. And I couldn't even imagine how Violet felt when she found out that her whole life had been a lie.

I wrote the letter, I said her name, I let her get close to me — there was a share of my fault, and I didn't know how to deal with the feeling that was gnawing at me from the inside out.

VIOLET

Everything felt different now. The chair in the living room, where I spent cozy evenings, seemed stiff and uncomfortable, the dim light seemed even darker, and I — I felt different, not myself.

I desperately didn't want to believe it, and for the umpteenth time, I covered my eyes with my hands, pressing them so tightly that bright flashes appeared behind my closed lids, but every time my eyes opened again, it was the same. I was sitting in the same chair, next to my father, who was still unconscious, lying motionless on the couch, and the man who had accompanied me there was standing at the exit of the room, waiting for me to finish all this and return to the manor, to the Dark Lord.

"Violet?" My eyes flew open as I heard my father's faint, quiet voice, sitting up on the couch, looking at me hopefully.

But what was the hope in his sad brown eyes? Maybe he, like me, hoped that all this did not really happen, that it was all a dream, a flight of fantasy.