The Malfoy Project

𝟔𝟎 - 𝐀𝐯𝐚𝐝𝐚 𝐊𝐞𝐝𝐚𝐯𝐫𝐚

     The castle is moving.

     The statues twist, staircases distort. The corridors stretch on longer and longer the further I go.

     Everywhere looks the same: bricks and torches and torches and bricks and not a single soul in sight.

     For a moment I think I am lost, and briefly wonder where I am. I don't know where I'm going but on I stumble, propelled forward by muscle memory. Finally my hands feel an opening in the wall. A way out.

     Cold air. Still winter. Still dark.

     Glass houses, queued up in a row like beach sheds.

     Seven. It's here.

     I forget that I have a wand, and my fingers fumble with the lock. It's already open.

     Four startled faces stare at me. Strangers. I don't know who they are. Sweet smoke billows from inside, clouding my eyes and clogging my lungs.

     "Ains?"

     Wait. I know that voice. "Ernie?"

     "Ains? You alright?"

     "Ernie. Ernie..." It is the only word I know. Over and over, searching. Begging.

     A loud handclap, the sharp lightning sound of two palms coming together. "Right. Out. All of you, out."

     "You can't be serious?"

     "We haven't even finished—"

     "Out."

     Three bodies brush past me.

     "Ernie." I'm falling onto the mattresses. The corners of his limbs jab into me, but it's alright. It's warm.

     "What's the matter?" he is asking. "What's wrong?"

     "It wasn't me," I mumble, barely hearing him. "It wasn't me. It wasn't me."

     Everything is white, blinding. All of my senses but touch are shot.

     "What?"

     His knitted jumper is against my cheek. Arms closing around me.

     "Cedric. Cedric— it wasn't me."

     "Ainsley, what are you talking about? Look at me. Hey— hey!"

     Two warm hands pressing each side of my cheeks. I am looking at a face. Fawn eyes. Bumpy nose. Thin lips. 

     The barricade in my mind falls.

     "Oh, Ernie," my lips quiver violently as I try to speak through my gathering tears. "Ernie, it wasn't me. I didn't kill Cedric. It wasn't me."

     Whether I say it out of relief or accusation, I cannot tell. It is all I can manage before I explode into a fit of terrible wails.

     He draws me in tightly, holding my face against his chest. I latch onto his jumper, clinging on desperately as if I'm drowning. 

     It must sound like I'm shouting at the top of my lungs. Maybe I am. I don't know. Noises are nothing but a distant echo. 

     Now, I could only hear one thing. See one thing. Know one thing.

     It wasn't me.

     And I wish that it was.

     Because that would be easier to live with. I could have been the one who had convinced him to put his name in that dreaded Goblet, sent him hurtling straight towards Death. Because I would have done it out of love.