Thank you from the bottom of my heart for 100k, I wouldn't be here without you<3 TWs for blood, injury & character distress.
— Dedicated to TSMwrites
SHE CAME ALIVE beneath the silence of the room. Rising slowly to life; drowning in the shocking coldness of the air. And whilst the clock hinted of morning, her limbs ached as if she hadn't even slept at all.
Then she remembered.
Flashes of the night before tore through her mind like lightning through a stormy night. Going to the infirmary. Finding him. The willow. The corpse. His lips. His touch. His rough hands. The dagger — the pain... Revenge.
At once she flicked on the lamp resting on the bedside table, her eyes darting about the dimly-lit room, searching for a monster in the dark.
He wasn't there. He was never there.
Less than a day ago she'd watched him beaten bloody and cried when she thought he would die.
Seven had never cried for anyone other than herself before. And now, nothing remained the same.
Everything hurt. He'd hurt her, she remembered it now. But then again, she'd hurt him too. Revenge — that's what he'd called it, and maybe that's all it was...
Seven had known revenge, seeking its scarlet hand more often than she'd ever dare to admit, but she'd never known a revenge like that before.
It was only when her gaze came to the full-length mirror hanging off the back of the door that she felt her stomach plummet.
The girl staring back at her was nothing less than horrifying. Covered in blood, tear tracks from red-rimmed eyes staining even redder cheeks. She looked like she had gone through hell and back — and in a way she had, only she'd stopped at heaven during the descent.
Old wounds littered her just as much as new, fading fingertips scarring her throat — a contrast to the fresh at her wrist, and a bruise at her cheek that had faded to the pale greenish-yellow of rotting fruit. Last night was not the first time she'd been on the receiving end of Draco's malignancy.
Her nightdress was torn on one side, partly hanging down over her chest to show off a wicked wound; a laceration that hilted at the base of her throat and trailed off beneath her left breast. Nauseatingly deep at the place where her heart should be.
She doubted she even had one anymore; irreparably stolen, as she'd certainly never given it willingly. Then he'd killed it. Tearing it apart before her eyes with a feral touch and liar's tongue.
A sound escaped her, a sound of grief, hardly even human. The worst part was, she didn't even know the girl for who she mourned — didn't even know her name.
But part of her had died last night, and for that, she cried.
It felt like hours that she laid there for, staring at herself, wondering how she'd become so weak — how she'd let this happen.
When finally, she peeled herself from the linens and came shakily to her feet, she could barely bring herself to lift the nightdress's lace hem for fear of what she might find. There was blood, so much blood — so much that it scared her.
She was right to be afraid.
Seven remembered a time, not all that long ago, yet somehow it felt like a lifetime had passed since then. She remembered the way she had awoken confused and startled to find a strange boy sitting by the end of her bed; flicking through her letters as if they were the morning paper.
She had threatened him, and aimed at his head and demanded to know who he was, what he wanted.
He had asked her if she was afraid. She was. She'd never known fear like it before or since; except for that brief moment, she thought she had lost him.
" — Are you scared, Seven?"
"Should I be?"
She remembered the strange smile that had tugged at the corners of his lips too, and the way his eyes had glinted with something darker than words would allow; promise.
"You should be absolutely terrified. —But not of me, at least, not yet..."
He was right. The time had come, and now, she was afraid. But she was also angry, and impossibly hateful.
Her fingers trembled terribly as she lifted the hem of her nightdress, and there, at her hip was the embodiment of another night's agony.
Seven had once admired his art, curious as to the stories behind them and the untold secrets they held, and so he had given her her own art, one to remember him by.
D.M
The two letters carved into her hip were thick and bloody, and when she tried to touch them she almost fell to the floor in writhing pain. She sat quickly on the bed before she fell down, legs suddenly far too weak, stomach far too sick.
She hated him.
She hated him.
She hated him.
She hated him so much it hurt.
She hated him so much it became blinding.
She hated him so much she swore that she, the girl who had nothing more to her name than a fist-full of letters and an unsated ferocity, would kill him.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But one day. She would gift him a fate far worse than death.
***
QOTD-I'm interested to know how you guys feel about Draco/Seven's characters and their relationships? Who do you feel (if either) is in the 'right' or are they both as morally corrupt as one another? Do traditional morals even exist anymore in this post-war society or are they forced to create their own?