Chapter Text
In tenebris te exspecto
In the darkness, I wait for you
Montrose.
God, I love it here.
The dewy morning's frigid air bites my cheeks as I walk to the stalls, my wellies sinking into the muddy ground. Above the rustic-looking manor, the half-moon is almost sinking behind the roof. I look up to the bedroom window. The absence of light behind the glass is unsettling. I’m often startled by darting shadows, sensing a presence where none exists. I’ve reasoned it must be the prescription medication I’ve been put on. Somewhere, a slip of paper should tell me the side effects. Habit compels me to drop it in the bin.
One thing remains true: Ron is still asleep.
The obsidian-tinted night is fresh and serene, so much so that you would think the land were still gripped by a slow-moving eclipse. I love this. I like to rise early to feed the animals and nourish my spirit. The words are mine, yet they’re not fully sincere. You see, I have to reassure my husband that I’m not losing my mind, that my chronic insomnia doesn’t exist, when in fact I’m as familiar with which bird sings first at dawn (Blackbird) as with the last before Ron rises (Song thrush).
Can I trust you to keep my secret?
Usually, I cannot trust a soul. Not even myself. Confiding feels like putting a knife to my back, stripping me to the marrow.
Please don’t betray me, will you?
Here it is: one thing remains true. I’ve been enthralled by darkness for as long as I can remember.
Spires of pines. Carnivorous connivers. Creeping ivy that devours. I sometimes walk through the forest just to feelsomething.
Have I always craved a quiet life in the Scottish countryside? Not always. And yet I’ve embraced it. My library is a quarter of the way to being as impressive as the one I begrudgingly abandoned at Hogwarts. The mahogany desk at the centre of the room is large and brimming with overstuffed tomes on science and magic, with a modest computer screen raised on a pile of (you guessed it) more books.
I have persuaded Ron to update our lives to keep up with the evolving technical world. We remain connected to the wizarding world through a reliable floo network, and I can travel to Hogsmeade at will. I spend so much time alone (with Ron pulled away to the Ministry because of his obligations as an Auror) that I hardly mind it anymore. It's easy; the days are filled with wildlife, writing and stillness. The Atlantic Ocean fringes our coastlines, with powerful winds that chatter animatedly. The cold, crepuscular days are some of my favourites.
I can be this: lenient, amicable, placid, a wife who loves her husband. Who doesn’t love a friends-turned-lovers story?
I can also be this: on the cusp of lunacy, crippled by intrusive thoughts, and, sometimes, not very often at all, I think about putting a knife to my husband.
That’s when I know the dreams will soon follow.
The dark ones—pulling me into their murky depths, forcing me to leave my bed lest I drown.
You want to know what they’re about, don’t you?
Alas, they have no place in my life. The curated bleakness of it. The fact that I sometimes shrink from Ron’s touch. Not often. Yet frequent enough to be noticed, even when I have lapses in my memory. He kisses me, and I should melt. Butterflies, at least? When you’ve been together for over five years, you’d think we’d have a grasp of each other’s pleasure. Sometimes, I put his cock in my mouth, and I forget what I’m doing.
Half-sinking into the mud, I finally reach the stables, hearing a faint commotion. My feet struggle through the slosh. The rains have been brutal lately. Thankfully, a dry spell is due: though belated, it is still much appreciated.
Opening the wooden door, I hear the rusted hinges shriek to life as a long curl sweeps over my eyes, momentarily obscuring the fuss, which quickly dies with my arrival.
‘Lumos.’
Immediately, the enchanted lanterns come to life. It’s one of the few charms that work for me without a wand. My gaze sweeps the stalls, past tall horses with their heads over the stalls and miniature mares I have to stand on tiptoe to see. Nothing is amiss.
‘What is it?’ I say aloud, not expecting a response. Their big eyes stare at me, confused by my distress. It’s as if I have walked in on a secret, and not a single soul is willing to entertain my prying.
It’s not uncommon to be visited by mischievous sprites, who braid the horse’s tails or hide my equipment.
'You've come to me unarmed?' I shiver at the memory of the terrible laughter that follows.
'The heedless doe is looking pitifully vulnerable.’ My heart beats faster.
'What did you think would happen, Granger? I am the starving wolf who does not care whether you are sweet and begging on your knees.'
On instinct, I tug at my sleeve, brushing the soft cream cotton against my wrists. It’s been almost five years since the Battle of Hogwarts. Everyone is breathing easily in their lives. My husband sleeps with childlike ease, as if we are breathing different air: his teeming with bliss while I thrash for my life. It’s as if—
A loud bang startles me. I twist around to see the door swinging open from the force of the gust, revealing a sliver of dawn beyond the distant hills. My eyes fall on the farthest horse, a handsome chestnut.
I smile. ‘The wind is howling like a ferocious beast. I suppose you haven't had any sleep either.’
The majestic animal blinks in response, and I smile, reaching a hand towards it. He nuzzles my hair, breathing hot air onto my scalp. We nestle like this for a while, and I imagine the dreadful dreams seeping out of me, losing substance and surrendering to the land and its animals, who have sustained me for so long, now that all the peril is gone.
Now that all the Death Eaters are gone.
Once I have checked and refilled each stall with grain and hay, I return to the open air, basking in the birdsong before finishing the final chores. Glancing up, I see our bedroom light is finally on. My husband is rising for the day. I climb the steps to the house with satisfaction, discarding the muddy wellies by the front door.
After dropping her teenage children off at school, Sofia should be driving along the rural roads leading to our home, starting her shift. We are so far from the local town: the streetlights grow fewer and fewer. It takes me about forty-five minutes to reach the nearest supermarket, and that’s when I feel safe enough to press the pedal if the weather is favourable enough to provide a dry, safe drive.
My gaze lands on Ron’s equally muddied boots.
He’s been away for work a lot lately. It sounds as if the magical world has been recently provoked. Every time he returns from a busy week, something new is bound to come up. Another pixie outburst. The Brownies are invading yet another home. An undocumented species has washed up on a Welsh shore and eaten a poor, drunken sailor. I don’t want to seem insensitive, but some stories are so far-fetched that I’ve had to pinch my lips to keep from laughing.
Ron glares at me when I do.
‘Mione?’ he calls down at me from the top of the stairs just as I liberate the last arm from my thick, woolly coat, hanging it beside the colourful fabrics of my other coats.
Don’t let my dreary, sophisticated underclothes confuse you. I sometimes enjoy wearing bright colours. I feel like a little exotic bird flitting between the trees or riding on horseback, a red cloak that could almost be a long cape.
One long enough to catch on a branch, yanking me off my horse.
I pinch my brows, attempting a new line of thought.
The red cape is so long it trails like wings. One swoop, and I’m air-bound.
Better.
Snaking behind me, it grows as long as a river. A red Styx. Wouldn’t that be nice? Long enough to catch the attention of the gods. Long enough to wrap around my throat—
Crap. I should up my dose.
‘What is it?’ I shout from the bottom of the stairs, my voice bright, unassuming.
‘Are the owls in yet?’ he replies hurriedly. I can smell the shower gel he uses, carried powerfully through the house. I crane my neck from the bottom of the stairs and spot his wet, reddish hair swaying over the balcony, but I can’t see his face.
‘No, not yet. It’s too windy. Perhaps you should try the two-way mirror with Harry to see whether he’s received any word?'
Footsteps sound in response, croaking on the floor as he rushes into the bedroom. ‘Good shout! I’ll be down in a few minutes.’ The door shuts, and I'm left alone in the foyer.
It's silent in the dining room as I carry my plate to the table. Ron doesn’t usually wait for Sofia to arrive. I eat my poached eggs until she arrives. We usually catch up on errands and uneventful gossip. During a lull in the conversation, Ron reappears, pleased to have contacted Harry, who relays the details of a recently assigned task.
In short, he will be away for a few days, staying somewhere in Cornwall, where a Fire Crab outbreak threatens highly populated Muggle beaches.
‘Aren’t you due for a phone call with your parents?’ Sofia asks, holding a cloth and antibacterial spray in one hand, my coffee in the other. She places it on a coaster in front of me.
I finish biting the last of my bagel before answering, ‘I’ll give them a call before bed.’
A lie. Always a lie.
‘Are they improving?’ she asks, spraying and wiping the skirting board.
I follow the motions. She follows the same routine each day: sweep the porch, put a wash on, fold away the clothes from the tumble dryer while waiting for the coffee, wipe the skirting boards and shelves, tables, and so on. There are days when I hope to catch her doing something different. I’ve left the odd sock in her path to see what she’ll do.
She never picks it up.
I look up from my breakfast, noticing the sun shining behind her. ‘I’m sure the upcoming holiday will help,’ I say quickly. Another lie. ‘They love Devon.’
Sofia is a middle-aged woman with long, flaxen hair, always braided and never a hair out of place. Her fine lines lend her an elegant air; her crow’s feet point upwards rather than downwards. She was born into a wizarding family but chose to continue a Muggle life after losing her Muggle husband. Her children haven’t inherited any magical abilities. She wears vintage dresses with patterned tights. I glance at her outfit in appraisal. Today, it’s a blue floral dress with yellow tights and green Doc Martens. In a past life, I may have dressed similarly. It’s no secret that I adore her style and vibrancy. When I told her this, she started clearing out her wardrobe to gift me pieces that no longer fit her, trying desperately to break my plain, sophisticated style. Besides the coats, my outfits are comfortable, casual, warm, and simple. I enjoy buying things that aren't me in charity shops, tucking them away in the depths of my wardrobe.
It’s a strange habit. I wish I knew why I did it.
I look down at my blue mom jeans, a grey long-sleeve shirt, and a heavy red woollen cardigan just as Sofia sighs. ‘It’s a slow process, but I have known it to happen with recovering loved ones years after an obliviate spell,' she reassures, spraying a citrus-scented cleaner onto a side table. She wipes the white droplets away.
I chew the last bite of my breakfast slowly, ignoring her statement. In addition to her predictable routine, she often repeats the same lines of dialogue. I have to hum and nod through most of our offhanded conversations.
She stops wiping. The table is spotless. Dust doesn’t have a chance to settle in this house.
‘You've got a frown on you. Care to share why?’ she asks.
Lifting my gaze to her face, I realise I’ve stopped chewing. Swallowing, I reply, ‘I'm a little tired.’ To keep her from pressing me, I wiggle my brows playfully and add, ‘Don't worry. There's no woe behind the frown. My husband has abandoned me to my writing for a few days. I’m mostly alone and undisturbed. What more could I ask for?’
She rolls her eyes. I know she finds it strange that I enjoy Ron’s absences. But it’s true. I've never been co-dependent. The isolation gives me time to think—to breathe—to recollect. If my smile doesn’t reach my eyes, he’ll ask questions. (“I’m fine, Ron,” I’ll say.) Reality, however, is starkly different: another bout of insomnia, another crippling dream, another day spent wandering aimlessly, searching for somewhere to belong. (“Yes, I’ve taken my meds,” I’ll assure.) I’ll swallow the handful, unsure why my throat constricts, threatening to push them back up.
‘That’s what happens when you’ve had one boy your whole life.’ Her tone is teasing as she walks to the other side table. Now, this line of dialogue I always find interesting, though it doesn’t go very far.
I sip my coffee, watching her.
Spray. Wipe. Wipe. Wipe.
She’ll say something right about…
Lifting her head, she adds, ‘My sister was the same. One man. Only one. Sometimes, it’s all you need.’ She continues. I’ve heard it all before. Tuning out, I find myself lulled by the circles and spirals she draws with her hands. The white bubbles are all gone. She walks to a shelf where a framed picture of Ron and me sits. We smile. It’s Christmas at The Burrow. Sofia goes off on one about her sister, though I notice her voice begins to drift, slowly replaced by another, more sinister: ‘Do you like what you taste? Nod for yes, open wider for no.'
My heart stammers. That’s new.
I realise, belatedly, that I’d opened my mouth during an unconscious sip. Coffee trickles down my chin, dripping into my cleavage. 'Shit.'
‘Oh God. Here.’ Sofia comes to my side and holds out the towel. ‘
That’s another thing. She never touches me.
‘Dear, oh dear,’ I say, using the slight disaster as an excuse to leave the table. ‘I’ve worn the thing for a grand total of twenty minutes.’ With a smile, I dart out of the room, my empty plate in one hand, the half-finished coffee in the other. ‘See you in a bit.’
I won’t.
Once I shut myself in my office, I’ll blink a handful of times, and it’ll be night again. Sofia’s tyres crunch over the gravel as she drives away.
It’s rained all day, despite the weather anchors’ promise. On days like these, the days blur into one another, forming one long week. I’ve taken myself to bed early, hoping to read myself to sleep. Yet, Moby Dick has other plans. I sigh, rub my eyes, and tell them I need to sleep. They don’t listen. I’m as alert as if I were jogging laps around the garden. Tomorrow will be different. The calendar says Arthur, the stable hand, will be stopping by for the day. It’s a small change of schedule. But I like talking to Arthur, far more than I do to Sofia. I linger when he tells me about his grandchildren. Small, mundane things.
I love Montrose.
But the days can be slow.
Ron texted me about his day when I asked. I stared at his icon, wondering if I should call him. But I don’t want to talk about this day. In retrospect, I don’t know what I actually want from him. Clearly, I’m missing him. Why else would I be staring at this icon?
The house is eerily quiet. That must be why I feel unsettled.
Suddenly, I wake with a start, reaching for my wand, and almost obliviate myself. The bed feels callous and unwelcoming as I recover, realising I was having a nightmare. Latin voices subside as I reach for my phone, breaking the fog of sleep with a wave of blue light. I check the time: it’s only midnight. A gust of wind hits the windows, rattling the front of the house. I clutch my neck, sensing the imprint of a hand pressing into my throat.
The voices. The hand.
Opening my bedside drawer, I bring the dropper from my nightly tincture to my tongue. It never helps. Still, I release several drops under my tongue before dragging myself back to my office, in case I try to kill myself again. It feels almost unproductive to stay in the darkness of my desolate bed, anyway. Bedevilled by nightmares and recollections of a foggy past. My skin is clammy, sweat-slicked to the bone.
I'm only glad Ron isn't here, startling awake with me, and that I don’t have to mask my distress so quickly. Or be accompanied by him, fretting over me. He may try to cuddle me to sleep, and the sensation often makes me feel claustrophobic on a difficult night. Some weeks are worse than others. I leapt from the bed once, clawing at my body. Beads of blood speckled my pale skin in the moonlight, glittering like gems. My first thought was that I was wearing a pretty, bedazzled dress and that it had grown itchy. A silly dream, Ron agreed. While he drifted back to sleep, I dwelt on the reality: I dreamt that fingers were grazing me all over. The pressure went from soft to violent until I believed something was clawing at me, only to wake up and realise I was doing it to myself.
This time, I dreamed of the colour red in various forms: roses, blood, and my red dress from Fleur and Bill’s wedding, unfastened by phantom hands. I was in Ron’s old bedroom at The Burrow. His bedsheets were stained red, as if a massacre had taken place. I looked down at my bare legs. Red slicked.
A dark voice spoke into the shell of my ear, and I woke.
Its uncanny resonance follows me at every turn. I pass the front door, wondering whether I left the key in the lock. The thick, gold key hangs on a hook. I don’t give it another thought as I cross the living and dining rooms. Tonight's restless episode has left me with evident paranoia, a sensation that is exceptionally distressing given my fragile mental state. I've walked through this house in complete darkness, with the windows open and the doors unlocked, and still I've never felt anxious about its shadows as I do now. I must be having another bad week.
The windows grow darker the further I drift, concealing a cloudless evening the moon has yet to illuminate.
The lights come on as soon as my foot crosses the threshold of my office. It's uncannily quiet; even the local barn owl has decided against its familiar nightly tune.
At least when I'm sitting on the velvet chair at my desk, binding my hair back with a claw clip, I feel distracted. There is a mess of files and papers to navigate, and as I do, a sense of ease overcomes me. This is my place. If there is one safe sanctuary in the world, I am already here, and there is no more room for foreboding. I look at the window at some point, out of habit, and absentmindedly turn back to my work when the impenetrable dark offers little for contemplation. Often during my writing sprints, I abandon the work mid-task to stroll to the window for shameless pondering and daydreaming, taking in the vast landscape beyond.
Something is always there to greet me, like a humble blackbird perched on the fence. At night, I will it and—
A shiver racks my spine. Rubbing the back of my neck, I notice my hair is standing on end, and my skin is pebbled. It happened so quickly that I wonder if I had always been cold and simply disregarded it. Though I could’ve sworn I felt an icy breeze tickling the baby hairs like glacial tendrils, jeering and haunting, pulling my attention back to the window.
I swivel in my chair, finding the darkness outside indistinguishable. The glass is a mirror, and the top of my curly bun just about juts out over the reflection of the study, with the tomes stacked on the windowsill. If something is outside, I wouldn't be able to see it. I reason away the paranoia that has taken hold, and wrench my attention back to my desk, where my journal, teeming with articles and scraps, waits for me to give it its daily dose of open air. I've likened it to unfastening your jeans after a filling meal. It’s so dense that I often feel bad adding extra folded-up notes. I pry it open, and my nostrils flare.
I can smell smoke.
My thoughts reel with panic. I deliberately turn back to the window, expecting flames to lick the side of the house. Yet it takes me five pitiful seconds to register what’s changed. The house is not aflame. Instead, the glass directly in front of me is slightly ajar, breaking the mirror of my study and letting me see the shapeless black outside through a widening gap, with a faint trail of smoke wafting in. How did the latch become undone? It's as if something is pulling it open, yet I didn't even catch the unfastened clasp, which makes a distinct sound when pulled apart.
Why didn't it make a noise?
I find myself just staring at it; my breath is caught somewhere in my lungs until, suddenly, it stops moving, and I'm confronted with the endless void of my open window; even the trees are hidden from the light of my study. My brows draw together in bewilderment as I try to rationalise the ordeal.
Has a fire started somewhere on the property?
Are the animals alright?
I don’t hear anything but my hammering pulse. My feet are slipping back into the slippers. I'm about to turn away from the office to find the source of the intrusion when suddenly a bright red cherry glows to life, revealing a hooded figure leaning against a tree only a few metres from the window. He’s wearing a black mask that ends just above his fleshy lips, grinning widely as he sucks on the cigarette. I hear the sound of the cigarette being drawn on. Lungs filling. When the heat from the flame subsides, I notice his skin is ashen, ghostly, and terrible.
The light from the end vanishes, and he exhales into the night; a cloud of smoke is the only sign that he remains rooted to the spot. The smoke puffs into my office, filling it completely.
And that’s when, finally, I scream, scrambling in the chair whose wheels croak against the wooden floor, sounding like nails on a chalkboard. My arm slaps the desk, frantically swiping everything in its path as I scour the desk for my wand. Somehow, I seize the reassuring Vinewood, and the chair slams into the metal cabinet as I get to my feet.
Darting towards the office door, desperate to put distance between us, I point the wand at the window, dumbfounded to realise the cigarette and its holder are gone.
I blink rapidly, scanning the scene. Reason tells me I’m hallucinating, but I’ve never experienced a vivid episode like this.
No. That was real.
As real as the muted sound of the treetops oscillating beyond.
And yet… The window is shut in his place, and even the latch is drawn.
The breath that leaves me is audible, and my adrenaline is still pumping wildly. I can still smell the smoke. It envelops me like the memory of a curse, as the imprint of the Dark Arts is retained. I stand there for so long, probing the window, daring it to reveal its secrets, waiting for any movement that will prompt me to action. A blood-curdling feeling begins to mount as I consider a petrifying notion: did I shut all the other doors and windows?
My feet move of their own accord. I shut the door behind me, then wait for the sound of it latching before running to each corner of the downstairs, sensing eyes on me at every turn, even when everything appears untouched.