Her hair is bushier than normal, her chocolate brown eyes are widened and her expression is something indescribable and hits me in the gut like a brick. Her screams fill the entire house, they are the most ear-piercing, gut-wrenching thing I have heard in my entire life and it feels like they will never end.
I get a closer look and I honestly wish I had never looked over there. I watch in pure horror and utter shock with the urge to vomit all over the ridiculously expensive polished wood floors. I see my aunt carving into an arm, a human arm. Just like I have seen the house elves carve into meat but not with the same kitchen knives they use, it was a long decorative knife with a swirled pattern on the blade and what looked like real diamonds encased in the hilt of the knife. Of course, nothing but the real thing, the best for my family.
The look on my aunt’s face made me sick, her tired face menacing, her grey eyes so like mine showed no hint of remorse, regret, sympathy or any kind of neutral or emotionless look, only hard eyes that showed hatred, anger and something weird a tiny bit of fear. Presumably fear of the Dark Lord, there is nothing she wouldn’t do to gain his favour. She is so obsessed with him, you might think it was love. Maybe it is, who knows what goes on in her mind. She painstakingly slowly carves something into the girl's arm a symbol or something, I tilt my head and see it is no symbol it is a letter; M. Then it dawns on me, she is carving a word into her arm. I desperately want to look away, but I can’t look away. A breath of relief escapes me when my aunt's long black hair falls in front of her face, so I can no longer see what she is doing.
That relief is short-lived when the screams commence again, turning into ear-piercing shrieks that make me never want to hear again, then howls of pain that make you want to rip my aunt off her and curse her into oblivion. Then screams shouting her name come from below me, they are equally loud but somehow even more desperate. Then they all go silent, you can hear the blood violently dripping down from the wound onto the floor of the manor, my aunt gets up and I can see what is carved into her skin: mudblood.
The skin surrounding the carving is covered in blood. But that blood is not dirty, muddy, diluted or weird it is just deep red, and as equally disturbing to see as looking at anyone else’s blood. Maybe even more disturbing considering I have been wrong all these years, and it has had to be proved to me in the most disturbing way. My eyes lock with her brown ones, there is no pleading or sadness in them, only pain. It pains me just to look at her. My head says I shouldn’t, but my heart says I should. Now I must make that decision to save myself or save others.
I have made the decision, I don’t know if it is right, but I made that decision that might kill me. I am going to save Hermione Granger.
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