A vigorous slosh directly from a large wine bottle is usually a sign of destructive means of coping.
This might very well have been the case for the tiny girl hanging off a glass cottage balcony, one eye fluttering closed and the other caught on the round moon over the lake.
In a very revealing tight pink dress which she had borrowed from Daphne Greengrass, fourteen year old Audette Bellarose was taking her first rebellious bender away from her parents quite seriously - understandably too extreme if one knew the repression she had spent her entire life living under.
She was five seconds away from hurling, yet with zero prior experience of alcohol she kept chugging anyways.
Farther down the railing Gregory Goyle was passed out halfway over that same glass facade, drooling into the flower bed below. He was a perfect example of the direction she was barrelling in if she didn't hit the brakes, yet Audette was hardly aware that the drunken boy was even there.
Her other first: a new boyfriend of less than a year, who had abandoned her to preoccupy himself in a series of heated debates with several older boys. The group had elected to smoke cigars brazenly in the luxurious living room of Blaise Zabini's summer house - and girls were not invited to parktake.
Ergo Audette had been left unattended like a toddler in a theme park, blindly stumbling out onto the raised deck for fresh air, and as thus forgotten where she was momentarily.
She had just begun to break out into a serious of moronic giggles, imagining the reaction her mother might have should she see Audette in such a state, when she was interrupted.
"How insultingly indelicate!" Audette spoke aloud to herself theatrically, tripping as she swung the bottle into the air whilst mimicking her mother's piercing British accent, "My lord Audette, your nose is befreckled and your ankles are visible! Call Scotland Yard!"
The wine bottle disappeared mid-air, and Audette turned around squinting in utter confusion like a female version of Jack Sparrow searching for her lost rum.
"I would call them, but I'm afraid they might not have enough firepower to take down the raging beast on the back terrace," Draco Malfoy stood there snorting at her in his huge black sweater, the hood weighing down his soft platinum hair. He placed the wine bottle on a table under the decorative wall-mounted lanterns as far away from her as possible and raised his eyebrows, "You're right, those cankles are an abomination on the eyes."
Audette laughed amicably and raised her sparkly painted bare toes onto the railing, showing off her very slender and appealing ankles, and probably a lot more as her skirt rode up obnoxiously, "Oh these tree stumps? No wonder my mother shant permit their debut."
"Hmm, no wonder," Draco's pale blue eyes were equally reddened from inebriation, running them down her leg as he boldly proceeded to trail his fingers along her foot.
The sensation was so ticklish that Audette hysterically giggled and tripped backwards, Draco just barely catching her by her waist with one extended arm. He left it there, stepping close to her and swirling his fingers along her ribs.
Audette didn't think much of it, in fact she wasn't thinking much at all. She bit her lip and leaned her head back at a ridiculously slanted angle so that her nose blocked out half her vision of his face so close to hers, "Are you having a perfectly splendid birthday, Malfoy?"
Draco leaned his free elbow on the railing, cocking his head to the side with hooded eyes and a crooked smile, "I am now."
She watched with an itchy gaze as he drifted his attention over his shoulder to check that Theodore Nott was still busy in the sunken living room, oblivious to the interaction. Audette meanwhile hummed from the nausea riling up in her upset tummy, twisting in his hold to swing her head over the railing.
Draco blinked at her through puffy eyes, "You competing with Goyle to see who can faceplant into the daisy's first?"
"I'm cold," Audette swiveled back to him without explanation, suddenly aware that her bare arms were dotting with petite goosebumps.
The memory glitched for a second, as Audette spoke the same words in contemporary reality, "Draco, I'm so terribly cold."
Back in the arena leaves were crunching and twigs snapping, water droplets hitting her face and pooling in her shut eyes. Her left arm felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and her body was a block of ice.
"I know Audette, I know. There's nothing I can do, just fucking hang on," Draco's voice was hoarse from carrying her through the dark woods in a blistering panic. "Put us on the screen Magnussen, god damn it," he whispered up to the black sky.
She lolled her head underneath his chin again and fell back into 1995 in her head, where she was blissfully drunk and not in physical torment.
A freshly turned fifteen year old Draco took a step back and crossed his arms to remove the oversized black hoodie, and Audette's eyes flared as his undershirt pulled up in tandem long enough for her to catch sight of his abs. He'd refused to swim all day, and she was without a doubt surprised at the fleeting view of his state of physical fitness.
He shook out his straight hair to the side and fixed his athletic black long sleeve, handing her the preheated sweater with a handsomely coy smirk.
She turned it over several times searching for the bottom, as if she was a visiting alien who'd never seen human clothing in her life. When she was certain she had the correct layout she pulled it over her messy lake hair, only to be greeted by total blackness.
Audette burped into the backwards hood, giggling as she tried with the one arm she'd gotten through a sleeve to paw away the suffocating fabric. Her back hit the corner of the railing and she leaned far into it for support during the klutzy struggle.
Draco's snickers were deep and enthusiastic wherever he was a few feet away, "Merlin, Bellarose. Your elegance is unparalleled; putting the Dali Lama to shame."
His fingers tangled in the hood, and suddenly she was back with a goofy grin, her cheeks flush from the silly experience.
"Oh you've rescued me! How long was I away?" she didn't bother of course to fix the orientation of the article, merely shoved her other arm out through the free sleeve as he placed his hands on either side of the right degree railings.
"Where is my merlot?" Audette narrowed her eyes around the small space she was now blocked into, her memory span approximately two minutes long at that point.
"Dunno," Draco pressed his lips into a line and shook his head, his silver eyes caught on her emerald ones not even a foot away, "How is it going with Nott these days? Your uh, frivolous little fairy tale come true?"
He swallowed deeply, his face growing serious and analytical.
Audette groaned sheepishly, running her hands up his chest to anchor herself by his shirt so she wouldn't collapse away onto the ground drunkenly. Her eyes angled up to his playfully, "A lady never kisses and tells, especially not to the likes of you Draco Malfoy. You'll spill all of my secrets like tea on a table cloth."
Draco's hands continued to slide on the railing so that he was now boxing her in up to her arms. He popped his eyebrows, now appearing to Audette to be totally sober in comparison to her wavering self. Her spine had surely turned into a spaghetti noodle.
She debated pulling the hood back up to swallow her reddening face as he pressed on with the unwarranted interrogation, his eyes blue laser beams in the lantern light, "You really identify as a lady, Bellarose? And is that all it's been - kissing?"
She huffed in amusement, blinking rapidly at him, "And why would you need to know that quite private information? Perhaps it's been more - as if you would understand."
"Why wouldn't I understand?" Draco's voice darkened, one of his eyes squinting suspiciously at her.
Audette chewed on her bottom lip, blitzed out of her mind and suddenly swelling with nervous anticipation, "I suppose I find you adorably innocent, have you even had a girlfriend? Do you dabble at all with girls?"
He released several puffs of aggravated air, his eyes dancing along the stars above in a guarded, chagrined manner. Audette's little heart had started to pound, probably from dehydration, but also something else inexplicable.
She pulled her chin back and watched him open and close his mouth several times before responding, "I've been with plenty of girls, if that's what you mean. Is that important to you?"
There was absolutely zero chance of containing the bubbling laugh that burst out of her mouth, which Audette promptly covered with the overhung sleeve of his long hoodie. She spoke through the garment, "You needn't make up fibs to impress me, Malfoy. I know just how precious you are, underneath all of that pompous attitude and arrogance. You're timid, admit it."
She'd clearly said the wrong thing, despite the well-intended evaluation of his inner vulnerability, the sentence only served to make him feel compared. It was in that moment as his nose shriveled defensively and his forehead crinkled that a long-term change in his personality would unravel, "How dare you pretend to know the first thing about my experiences. I assure you, whatever Nott can provide, I can with tenfold the technique."
Audette leaned her elbows on the railing and jutted her chin to the sky, her run of scraggly blond waves creeping down the glass. She was incapable of facing him without laughing rudely at the confusing conversation, in which he was no doubt bold-faced lying, "Well thank you for clarifying that which I was not concerning myself with in the first place. Congratulations on your proclaimed achievements, Malfoy. Touche."
He looked away for a split second of impatience before glancing back down at her, inching every minute closer so that they were pressed up flat together, "Allow me to show you then. It's my birthday after all, and that is my only request."
Audette tittered in a high pitch, grinning at him slyly. She spoke in a loopy clown voice, assuming that it was all a prank or a drunken joke, "Oh? Alright then Malfoy, what have you got for me? Nothing with whips and chains preferably - my mother would be awash with fury if I returned bruised and battered."
"No promises," he smirked momentarily, before running his hand up into the hair at the back of her neck. Before she knew it his pointy face was buried in her shoulder, kissing along her throat softly. His breath was so jilted and desperate that it sent shocks down her spine despite how bombed she was in the moment.
Oh wow, okay.
Her head hung sideways as he nervously neared her jaw, and Audette moaned from the wonderful feeling and stirring butterflies under her ribcage. It was the second she began tilting her face to his, and felt him hardening against her leg, that she snapped back to reality.
What the fork was she doing, with a casual friend at that? Even worse; with her biggest bully, Draco Malfoy?
Her boyfriend was meters away in the building, and she was acting a total harlot.
She quickly decided they were both too drunk and making a huge mistake, reminded then of the insulting experience that had occurred in the common room at the beginning of their fourth year which had pretty much resulted in them talking exceptionally rarely since that fateful day.
It had bothered her for months - nipping incessantly at her thoughts when she was curled up in her green Slytherin comforter - wondering why a person she had been so connected to would do such an awful thing.
Audette stiffened and leaned away, her eyes beginning to flood with tears against her control, "Why did you publicly humiliate me that day in the common room, when you asked me to the ball as a cruel joke, Malfoy?"
He narrowed his gaze at her, his voice heightening dramatically, "A cruel joke? You acted like a fucking child, Audette, you refused to listen-"
"-Don't call me a child!" Audette exploded, once again refusing to listen and allowing her immature emotions to blast sky high from the wine.
She slithered away from him roughly, and Draco gaped in horror, "I cannot believe I permitted myself to be made a fool by you a second time!"
He scoffed, his eyebrows knitting furiously. He raised his flat palms as he spoke, "And here we go again, Bellarose. What is it about my advances that causes you to resort to that uninformed assumption? Calm down, you fucking nutter."
Audette could not be calmed down, not for a millisecond. She broke down into loud sobs while fighting to remove his sweater like a rat caught in a trap. The music in the house stopped abruptly and feet shuffled towards the ensuing chaos.
Theo's voice boomed protectively in the French double doors leading to the balcony, "What happened, Malfoy?"
The parallel drew once again between the distant memory and the current world, and Audette transitioned from the darkness of the encumbering hoodie to the darkness of her eyelids, back in the Quadrivial Tournament in unfathomable discomfort.
For a moment she was formidably unsure of whether in her delusional state she was time travelling or simply inventing scenarios. If that had truly happened four years prior, it was a segment of the event she'd blacked out.
"What happened, Malfoy?" Theodore Nott's voice was ultra venomous this time, resounding in Audette's pulsing brain. She could just see in her mind's eye how flat his eyebrows were from the capricious clip in his timbre.
Audette groaned through the mentally consuming sting in her shoulder which was causing her vision to swim with tears and silvery stars, coupled by a delightful gurgling of nausea in her stomach as she was jostled about.
She managed to catch a blurry glimpse of platinum hair in her sensationally dilated gaze. Draco was clutching at her anxiously in a shadowy, dungeonous place, continually pressing with all his might into her weeping shoulder. He choked on his words, wiping blood from his cheek, "A stone knight...stabbed her...in a tomb."
As far as Audette could tell from the endless pools of green slippery fabrics around her, they had proceeded to bunch up Theodore's flight robe under her head as a pillow in Draco's lap, and used Draco's soiled robe to swath her in a tight cocoon.
His shaking hand was a welcome source of heat as he ran it over her forehead to brush off her matting hair from the rain, "She's soaking...and freezing. Make yourself fucking useful for once Nott and build a fire while I search her supplies. You too Zabini - quit standing around like a bloody tree stump."
Draco laid Audette on the cool hardscape and yanked away the little satchel from her trembling wrist which she'd created with her dress train, then bent to kiss her forehead. Audette whimpered in place, scared for her life and wishing he would not retract his affectionate touch, but it was as though her mouth was sewn shut.
A calculable reaction burst from Theo as he watched Draco petting Audette, across in what she could only assume was a cave given the crescendo of echoing and dripping.
He had crouched with two obsidian rocks of flint smashing off of one another to procure a spark, causing his livid eyes to light up in terrifying flashes, "Do not instruct me on what to do, Malfoy. I've made myself favorably pragmatic by locating you two when the hour was most dire."
"By using the sky screen - shocking," Blaise remarked in dry sarcasm, kicking wooden debris into a mangled circle at Theo's knees without bothering to bend over.
Draco muttered an inaudible insult under his breath, failing to realize that Audette was gasping to say anything her tight throat would permit. Then he absentmindedly placed Blaise's silver tie down over her wound, weighed it in place with a heavy rock to slow the bleeding, and joined the other two as they congregated to discuss what to do next.
Audette tried to shake her head to protest, but her body was famished of blood and just about comatose.
Excellent - she was in the motherly care of three testerone-infused eighteen year old boys, simultaneously paralyzed and speechless on the floor.
Blaise's unimpressed tone reverberated around the rocky chamber, the sound of the thunderstorm beyond as dramatic as crashing oceanic waves, "So she's been stabbed by a Gaelic Knight, who's blade would produce an Impossible Wound. You realize just how much dittany it will take to heal her, Malfoy? This isn't remotely enough-."
Stolen novel; please report.
Theodore's voice barked over Zabini immediately, "-What were you thinking, wandering into a Gaelic mausoleum? Have you learned nothing in Droopy's course? Those Knights are known to be hostile when guarding shrines - that is precisely why they are utilized in wizard's chess."
Audette turned her face to the side to see that a small fire had been built next to her, yet she was still as cold as a body in a morgue.
It was dark beyond the mouth of the cave, and she was relieved that they had at least made it to shelter before the dangers of the night set in place, but if she didn't know any better the dangers of a pandemonium unfolding in the cramped cave were equally as high.
Tension flowed like gas in the air, impossible not to inhale.
All three tall Slytherin boys were crowding together a few feet away, pawing through the sack of ingredients Audette had been collecting from the first day.
Draco's sweater was nearly unrecognizable, nightmarishly stained a scarlet red from her blood loss, and Blaise's form-fitting silver suit was practically brown from the two days he'd been out in the wilderness.
Draco reacted with defensive arrogance, "I've been too busy snogging my fiancé in the back row, Nott. Don't deny you took Magizoology for the exact same reason, although I'm sure Crack-head Cosmos is keeping you company at the front."
Fiancé? To Audette's incapacitated unease Malfoy was really rubbing in their extremely distant plans.
Theodore stepped so close to Draco that their noses were touching, his mouth curved downwards in a nasty frown, "She's not your fiancé yet. I don't see a ring on her finger. I'm well aware of Bellarose and his demands - she was arranged to be my fiance earlier this year, and look at how fickle that agreement was. If I were you, I would avoid burdening myself with such false confidence."
Ugh, no. Nooooo.
Audette wriggled on the floor feebly, but the mere weight of lifting her skull alone was damn near destitute. She found herself crossing her eyes, clenching her teeth and raising her eyebrows well into her hairline, grunting to sit up, but the movement only produced drunken dizziness.
Instead, she was forced to watch sideways as the toxic bickering took off like a hot-air balloon into the clouds, without any flight controls or destination.
The only thing worse than being stabbed was the burning embarrassment of Theodore finding out that her relationship with Draco was furiously serious, to the brink that they had discussed marriage already. If she wasn't wrapped up like a teething baby in a blanket then her first instinct would be to hide her wincing expression behind her clothing.
Blaise happened to be the one facing Audette's struggle head-on in the circle, inspecting her mortification with enthusiastic entertainment and dancing his eyes back and forth between the cave's love triangle.
Draco sent Theo a creepy, unfriendly smile, "Oh there will be a ring on her finger, all in good time. I won't make the same mistakes as you. Instead of treating her like she has no choice I've already discussed it with her."
Theodore shoved Draco backwards several feet before charging after him and tangling his hands in the boy's bloody Quidditch sweater, "Montgomery will always control that choice for Audette. Do not credit you or I for having any tangible ability to provide her the luxury of freedom. At least I had the sense not to terrify her months in advance."
By this point Audette was desperate to intervene, but her voice was nothing but a frail puff of air in her throat. To make her rigor mortis even worse was the uninvited attendance of a beefy cockchafer beetle crawling along her chest, it's fuzzy face daring and impolite.
Audette tried to blow the disgusting insect away but the action only encouraged the gross red beetle to click up her neck and scuttle around on her forehead, disappearing into her hair to her great horror.
Torn now between the clacking burrowing of the invasive beetle in her silky locks, her severe injury, and the distress of two boys arguing intimately about her, Audette felt exactly like Alice in Wonderland falling down that rabbit tunnel; where everything was too chaotic to focus on a single aspect of her present spiraling circumstances.
Missiles of metaphorical furniture defying gravity, and all that joyful nonsense.
"Yes because finding out last second you'll be getting married at dawn isn't terrifying at all," Draco's energy quickly darkened to match Nott's, his face flattening with the promise to say the worst possible thing on his mind. He snorted air out of his pointy nose, "You know something Nott? She begs me to claim her at night, begs...it's actually getting quite pathetic. Let's hope she's being honest about her protection status - she might even be pregnant after what I've done with her."
There was a devilish and sinister glint in Draco's frosty orbs despite the honesty behind his boorish statement, clearly satisfied with the degree of intimacy he'd reached with Audette in their private time.
Theodore lost his head at the imagery. "Don't fucking lie! We possess an unbreakable agreement - I would know if you'd defiled her. Who do you think you are all of sudden Malfoy? A discount Prince Charming? Because you prove with your commentary alone that you remain nothing special above an everyday Picadilly rake!" he roared, shoving Draco backwards a second time. The acid in his eyes was absolutely savage, making him appear like some evil twin of himself.
Blaise started to antagonistically snicker at the predictable feud with his arms casually crossed, the light from the ditzy fire dancing in his rich brown eyes, "Are you planning to start a slap fight Nott? You recognize that she requires Malfoy to get out of here."
This time it was Draco who shoved Theodore dangerously close to the uncontained blob of flames in the center of the cave, but he elected to use powerful wandless psychokinetics instead which just about left Theo teetering to avoid the fire.
The hot air balloon was rising above the stratosphere like a rocket ship piloted by chimpanzees, and everyone on board was at risk of quickly suffocating.
Clearly too many buttons had been pushed. Draco's voice dropped several octaves as he pointed a bony finger in the middle of Theodore's navy blue glare, "Who do you think you are! You stabbed me in the back first. I informed you for years how I felt about her. I even dupably told you the day I was planning to ask her to the ball, so you then purposefully asked her a day in advance!"
Draco's nose had pulled back so tightly that he looked completely insane. Audette had never seen that much manic animosity in his pretty features - absolutely all of his joking personality had disappeared to be replaced with a barborously violent temper.
Hello, I'm still dying over here, Audette wished she could point out her own endangerment with even a simple hand wave, laying there heaving through pain with wide green eyes glued to the unnecessary battle.
In fact, she was now gasping uncontrollably on the floor - not only because of her deteriorating condition or the proliferating altercation which was making her skin crawl, but also due to the contentious beetle which kept popping out from her scalp to scratch it's way rudely across her nose then back again.
Theodore snarled as the two growled back and forth, standing inches apart like dogs held hardly back by chains, "So because you were too cowardly to make a move for years, no one else was allowed to fancy her? You gatekept her, Malfoy, admit it."
It was a damn good thing that no one had wands, because Audette was quite certain someone would already be in a thousand tiny pieces if that were the case.
Blaise on the contrary had long ago taken note that she was awake and watching mutely, and even seemed to be gaining additional pleasure in the fact that a beetle was harassing her relentlessly.
"Hypocrite! You talk accusingly about cowardice...Go on then, explain why you side blinded me, precisely at the moment I was ready," Draco spat in a low tone, genuine pain in his fiery blue glare, his eyes saccading rapidly back and forth with ferocious concentration.
The tarp of the hot air balloon had popped, and the wicker basket was free falling to the planet.
It was uncomfortably quiet for a duration of time that felt endless as they panted in each other's faces, then Draco smacked his hands together impatiently, "Well? Cat got your tongue all of a sudden, Nott?"
Theodore blinked multiple times in a rare mannerism that implied he truly was guilty, "Because I'd bared enough of you crying wolf, claiming you would act and never following through."
Draco shook his head and turned away with a monstrous scowl of dissatisfied ruination.
Theodore sucked in heavy air, watching Draco's face contort bitterly. Audette couldn't stand to look any longer, instead closing her weighty eyelids to focus on the ulterior white noise of the cracking fire and pouring rain.
Theo finally caved to admission. "Very well. You would have prevented me from requesting her company. If you were made aware of how I felt you would've been incentivised to mobilize your own efforts, and I was at a breaking point suppressing my own sentiments," he replied in a clipped tone.
Audette was of the overwhelming impression that this was the first time the two boys had spoken about the controversial topic. For years they had remained friends on the outside, but that parody of their former association was likely due to avoidance of the difficult conversation.
Draco popped his eyebrows, rotating his skull back to deplorably sneer at Theo, "Oh please, what sentiments, you impassive harridan? You could be summarized as a clone of her autocratic father."
Theodore tilted his face to the side dangerously, and what he stated next made Audette shut her eyes rapidly again. The apocalyptic moment had come, "If I'm such a clone of her father, then why did she come to kiss me in the infirmary?"
The only sound that echoed in the aftershock of the statement was Blaise's breathy, unhelpful snickering, as if he were at the theater with a bag of popcorn viewing that year's latest comedy picture.
Audette peered out a slit eye to see Draco's arms drop, his mouth parting in disbelief.
Theodore nodded his face, sporting a positively psychotic grin as his long mop of brown hair flopped, "That's correct, Malfoy. She never felt inclined to cheat on me. She may love you now, but her affections for me remain potently unaltered."
Well, nothing coming from Audette would remain at all if they didn't act soon. Her head was pounding and her eyes felt foggy and dim as she blinked in their direction helplessly.
Blaise thankfully being the one most educated in medical care reached the same conclusion, stepping ahead to place himself between them, his arms extending in either direction to stop the inevitable murder that was about to occur.
He nodded his head at Draco who had grown mysteriously quiet at the unfortunate news, "You can argue about the girl all night but she won't make it that long. It's an Impossible Wound, meaning it's nearly impossible to heal, even with adequate medical care. I'll try to stop the bleeding, but I need assistance. Don't hold a grudge if she dies."
Draco shook his head dramatically, "No. Montgomery will have her pulled before it reaches that point."
Theo hatefully raged around Blaise, leaning his head at a wild angle, "This is that point. You know the rules this year, Malfoy. Even Bellarose doesn't have that authority."
A need for haste seemed to go off then behind his gaze at the statement, and he began rummaging around his belt at sets of colourful potions he'd brewed in advance, "I have some elixirs here as well Zabini, in higher concentration. I'll hold her up while you administer treatment."
"In your fucking dreams," Draco rasped, stomping over to Audette before anyone else could move an inch. He knelt down on one knee to unravel the insanely tight robe, and his silver gaze shot to her watery green eyes cantankerously.
He pressed his lips into a hard line of disappointment, the crease on his forehead deepening in confrontational antipathy, "Don't you fucking lie to me. Have you been dishonestly involved with Nott, Audette?"
Maybe she'd be better off dying after all.
Audette weighed her options then nodded slowly, her chin trembling at the look of ornery betrayal lining his features.
Draco grew rigid, his fingers suspended over her as he chewed on the inside his lip. His eyes faded into a dismissive haze, faraway and digestive, and she witnessed his sharp jawline jut drastically as he imagined the treachery.
Audette's heart rate took off like a bullet train from the pensive revision to his already caustic demeanour.
Regret. Regret. Regret.
His reception to infidelity could not be more opposite than Audette's wild freakout, and the mystic stoicism was positively terrifying. She pawed for his hand but he abruptly lifted it away, stiff like a statue with his jaw grinding.
Her brain began to throb with a tremendous headache as blood pooled out of her cut at twice the rate as before, and Audette rolled her head on the hard bedrock, her world spinning from nauseating vertigo.
Draco snapped out of his comatose state when Blaise knelt on her other side, his fingers filled with pink healing potions, "The bleeding is increasing. We have to tear her dress, Malfoy."
As Audette's breathing grew short and faint, Draco tangled his fingers in the collar of her decorative dress and ripped the fabric open down to her lacy white bra to expose the stab wound. Audette found herself pointlessly crossing her proverbial fingers that footage of the incident was not playing in the Great Hall for the entire school to catch a glimpse of her delicate Edwardian lingerie.
Blaise began dumping Theo's scaldingly concentrated potions onto the injury and Audette found her voice to gasp and cry, grateful when Draco put aside his pride and took her hand in his, only for her to practically crush his fingers. At her toes Theodore was watching with his hand clamped over his mouth, pacing around without permission to assist up close.
Zabini sighed loudly after several worrisome minutes, "We need reinforcements, it's still not enough."
"Make it be enough!" Draco hissed roughly.
Blaise shook his head in objection, and for over thirty minutes they were above her shouting back and forth about what to do and in what order, making the most of every drop of their limited resources and soaking through multiple articles of clothing in the process.
When Audette wasn't sure she could take much more of the dire agony, a bright jump in Zabini's tone brought her droopy eyes back open, "Well, she's either out of blood or the laceration is finally clotting. Nott - heat up a dagger. We need to cauterize it."
"No, no, please," Audette writhed on the rock floor in severe trepidation, her face burning from an endless stream of tears. She panted as if she were giving birth when Theodore returned, his Hogwarts issued dagger glowing hot red and his face regretful, "Please, Theo, don't brand me with that."
"Move out of the way Malfoy," Theo glumly demanded, and to her surprise Draco stood with an equally sickened expression, turning his back to the gruesome scene. His shoulders bounced as he started quietly crying into his fingers, which were now stained bright pink from her blood and the potions mixing together.
"Come back, Draco stop this at once," Audette breathed weakly, millimeters away from hurling from the experience.
Blaise was forced to pin Audette down while Theodore dropped to his knees with the dagger flattened horizontally. He looked straight into her pleading eyes, his thick eyebrows pinching together guiltily, "Do you recall the first day I took you sailing in Spain?"
"Yes," Audette chirped in a broken pixy voice.
"Tell me that story, focus on your words. Close your eyes," Theodore gradually lowered the dagger closer and closer, and Audette wriggled and arched her back as if she were capable of merging backwards through the granite slab to avoid what was coming next.
She shut her eyes harshly and started to recite the memory without a single pause in sentence structure, sensing the heat of the blade just above her skin, "It was my fifteenth birthday and I had never been sailing-you promised me that once we were over the ocean my fear would change to joy and you-"
The tactic had worked. Audette had absolutely no forewarning when he pressed the dagger against the sword slash, and her screams were so emphatic from the sizzling scorch that her own eardrums throbbed painfully.
"Okay, that's enough," Blaise calmly ended the emergency procedure a minute later, but by the time the dagger was removed Audette was effectively dead inside, laying there with glassy eyes and whimpering in a freezing sweat.
They tore sections of cloth from her ruined gown to wrap repeatedly around the site of injury, then tied her dress crookedly in place so that her bra was once again decently concealed, and all the while she let the three boys handle her like a lifeless doll.
After it was all finished Draco pulled Audette into his lap against the wall, snapping his fingers in front of her empty eyes.
Blaise shrugged as he wandered away in what remained of his white dress shirt and silver trousers, "She's going into hypovolemic shock, Malfoy. Let her rest - we'll see if she makes it through the night."
Draco planted soft kisses on her cheeks, pulling both of the flight capes around her which did little to provide heat to her failing body. He puffed hot tears into her hair, "Her skin tone is white, and she's mentally devoid. We've condemned her by mauling her to death."
"No, we didn't. It was necessary," Theodore bluntly argued, refilling the fire with dry debris from within the cave. Gradually the chamber fell into a contemplative silence as the boys huddled up in different corners with bent knees and perturbed stares, listening to the steadfast thunderstorm outside.
No one seemed capable of rest with the dying girl amongst them, who's breathing had begun to obnoxiously rattle and wheeze.
Somewhere several kilometers off, a Banshee released a hellish wail in the storm, far enough away that it was not damaging to their ears but upsetting all the same.
The mood in the cave couldn't have dropped to such a depressing low at a more rapid pace once they all realized just how doomed Audette truly was.
Even Blaise had a remorseful frown on his usually dry expression, forcing his eyes to the floor, "You two should say what you need to say to her now."
Draco began to cry frequently and irritatingly as Audette trembled spastically in his arms, her condition deteriorating rapidly with each passing hour. "I love you Audette," he hushed in her ear repeatedly, his voice wiry and filled with heartbreak.
As all living creatures on the planet intrinsically know when the time has come, Audette was aware she was dying from the way her eyes kept rolling back in her skull, and the faint blip that had become her straggling heart beat.
Her head lay on Draco's lap with a deadpan gaze stuck to the cave's ceiling, sensations in her limbs retreating with her final quarts of blood pooling at the centre of her body for one last shot at survival.
Theodore also started to sniffle and rub his eye sockets with his palms, "Malfoy, I'd like to hold her for a while. Please don't be heartless."
Draco clutched her even tighter in his arms, "No. You can forget it-"
His wrathful response was cut off by an orbed ringing sound.
The cave lit up with a luminous lavender glow by the entrance, where an image of Casper Magnussen had just popped up like a futuristic holograph. His mauve eyes scanned the space and it's inhabitants before landing on Draco and Audette, his hands gradually spreading at his sides to command attention.
They all leaned forward with a spark of captivated hope. The Simulation Architect spoke one simple sentence in a buttery tone, reiterating a forgotten rule he had mentioned during the second trial's opening ceremony, "Exceptional showcasing of team work, shall be so rewarded."
Then with a magical pop the holograph exploded into a million little glowing grains, which reassembled into a wrapped gift box with a huge purple bow on the top.
Theodore wasted no time scrambling to his feet, shredding the box like a dog to a treat. He threw the lid and the ribbon into the fire, and held up a massive glass vial of the most beautiful pulsating potion Audette had ever seen.
It was like a star had been bottled, undulating with luminescent pastel tones ranging from pink to purple to dusty baby blues.
Blaise commented immediately, "That's Deville's Dram, the rarest healing potion in the world. It takes over a thousand days to brew; few have ever completed the recipe. Once consumed, any injury will fully heal for approximately twenty hours, however you should bare in mind Audette will be exactly where she is now once it wears off."
"Brilliant," Theodore exclaimed, rushing over to Audette to force the liquid down her throat, while Blaise started removing more glass vials of clean water and packages of candies from the present; Fizzing Whizbees, Cauldron Cakes, Sugar Quills and Chocolate. Even a small bottle of Firewhiskey to pour in the cauldrons.
Suddenly the cave was starting to feel like a five star hotel.
The potion, although sporting the colour palette of cotton candy, tasted like sour milk when it hit her tongue and Draco had to hold her jaw in place so she would stop turning her head away and spilling it.
Once Theodore had drained the last drop down her throat Audette grimaced belligerently at both of them before turning her face and snuggling into Draco's sweater, wrapping her arms around his thin waist.
Waves and waves of regenerative energy washed over her body. The scald in her shoulder was suddenly gone, along with the punishing headache, rickety wheezing breath, the ringing in her ears, and the unstable heart rate. Audette felt as healthy and happy as a ten year old that had just drank her father's coffee for the first time at the kitchen table.
She felt warm and cozy; now the fire was reaching her rejuvenated health in droves of welcomed heat, and she sighed in release of the cursed Impossible Wound which had most certainly not healed despite the boys collective best efforts.
"Fuck I need a cigarette," Draco dropped his skull back against the wall in equal relaxation, scratching his finger nails through her damp hair soothingly.
Laughter and conversation picked up as they dug through the goodies they'd so rightfully earned, albeit Blaise being stuck in the middle given Draco and Theodore refused to speak anymore that evening following their monstrously sensitive tousel.
One thing was for certain: Audette Bellarose had unknowingly been the source of their friendship corroding over a four year period.
Much had been revealed, and she mentally attempted to compartmentalize the contents of the argument for later interpretation as she drifted away with Draco's sweet breath on her cheek.
She now had twenty hours to cross the finish line with Draco, and in all that time thanks to Deville's Dram, she would be virtually immortal.