MARA WILLIAMS

Fingers suddenly deft in their eagerness shook and shivered as they caressed the serpentine silk and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't quite seem to quell the growing feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

A frigid breath struggled from my parted lips as I stared at myself in the mirror.
The girl before me was eerily familiar and yet all together foreign, her mess dark hair was a work of art in itself, and the way her dress clung tightly to her hips was enough to make the devil himself kneel before her, shaking in the thrill.
-But yet her eyes were wide and afeared of what was yet to come, she was a perfect portrait of dread.

A high slit and low neckline revealed a sinful amount of skin, and the necklace that hung solemnly at her clavicle looked as though it were divinely inspired to a hellish extent by the dress.

She couldn't look away from the necklace, not even despite the knot in her chest.

• • •

The soft sound of music coiled through the air all around us, dampened only by the doors, the only thing that remained to separate us from the frivolities of the Yule Ball.

As the great doors swung open as if by magic at our arrival my feet refused to move and I was rooted to the spot by a sudden crippling wave of angst. The acrid feeling curled around me like smoke, whispering in my ear all the possibilities that lay beyond the threshold. The waves washed over me and I feared I may drown, unable to ever surface again, swallowed by the sadness.

Behind those doors lay almost every soul that stalked my nightmares. -The two girls who'd pinned me down and tore flesh from jealousy, a boy who'd beaten me bloody more times than I had dared to dream of, another who I had once thought was pure only to find he was just as wicked as the rest, and of course the boy who had singlehandedly damned me never to love again.

"It's okay." Whispered Hermione, slipping her hand into my left just as Parvati took my right with a firm squeeze and added, "-We're in this together."

And with that we strode through the doors hand in hand, staring down at the thick mess of bodies at the base of the stairs below us.

I felt weightless as we began the descent, head held high as almost every pair of eyes in the room honed in on us and us alone. We were hallowed, sanctified, -ethereal.

The ceiling had been enchanted just like the great hall, and the sky was a ghost of the beyond, snow floating down upon us never to quite meet the floor.

My skin seared with the jealous glares, the piously fleeting peers, the whispers that curled around us like wind through the leaves of the willow.

Most of all I felt his eyes, a creeping cold crawling down my spine and causing the fine hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. I couldn't help but think of the time we had spent together in the snow, a far happier moment that I would sell my soul in a heartbeat to go back to. There was bliss in the ignorance.

We were met at the bottom of the stairs by three of the Weasley boys, Fred held out his hand to Hermione with a dashing grin, "You clean up quite nicely, Granger."

She smiled bashfully as she took his hand, and Parvati took George's so that only Ron and I remained. He shuffled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Looks like it's just us..."

"Do you want to dance?" I laughed at his unease, threading my arm through his own and dragging him into the thick of it all. "-Come on!"

Amongst the crowd I spied Neville and Luna dancing to a their own, slower beat off away from everybody else.
Harry Potter twirled Cho so that her violently scarlet dress fanned out like a spinning top, speckled with snow, but the adoration in his eyes was not mutual for her gaze was firmly fixed upon the tall, handsome boy who's focus I instantly centred as Ron and I weaved our way through the crowd.

Ronald Weasley was many things, but a good danger was not one of them. I creased with laughter after he tripped over the hem of my dress and fell backwards into Flitwick and McGonagall who scolded him, McGonagall calling him a 'bungling bumbling bat-headed boy.'

All semblance of thought and fear seemed to fall away as we lost ourselves in the fun of it. Hermione shrieked as Fred lifted her up in the air like something straight out of one of those muggle romance movies.

The music began to fade as another symphony began to strike up, "May I have this dance?"

Ron backed off as I turned to see Cedric, hand outstretched, wearing a crisp suit, a lilac bow tie fastened at his throat. "Come on Mara, live a little."

I pressed my lips into a thin line as I took his had with caution and he led me to the centre of the hall.
This song was far slower, swapping a major for a minor key, a beautiful tragedy lingering in the air.

He held me firmly by the waist as I rested my arms around his neck as we steadily began to sway. "What do you want Cedric?" I asked coldly.

"Have you already forgotten?" He pouted feigning hurt. "You said you'd go with me, just as friends. Remember? -Right before we f-,"

"-That was a mistake." I snapped. "It meant nothing."

"Ouch." He smirked, "Was it really that bad?"

"Why did you lie to him?" The world around is faded as I stared at him, feeling something hot being to boil within me. "Why did you provoke him like that?"

"You need to see it." He shrugged. "Malfoy's not who you think he is, -He's not good for you, he's not good for anyone."

Cedric twirled me slowly, before pulling me back to him in a far closer embrace. To an outsider the hold may have looked tender, loving even, but only we knew the malice that echoed unspoken in the hollows between us.

I wanted to hit him, to drag my nails down his pretty face and watch as he cried scarlet.

"He's incapable of love." Cedric whispered into my ear right as my eyes met those of those of Draco Malfoy through the crowd. He looked like a beautiful nightmare, dressed in black and drawn devilish by the light of the candles. -A painting of anarchy.
"He doesn't love you Mara."

My fingers clenched in shoulders of Cedric's suit. "He never did."
Just like a wake of destruction I couldn't tear my eyes from him. In a single moment I was transfixed, completely and utterly under his spell.

He was cataclysmic. Like heaven and hell and everything heretical in between, a kind of inconsecrate beauty, godless enough to drag hell from the ashes and fell the kingdom of the clouds.

He was the only sanctity in this land of spite and sin, standing steady like the last remaining shreds of humanity in a world that otherwise threatened to tear me apart.

I couldn't bear it. The fire in his eyes or the certainty of Cedric's hands on my hips. This was all a game to him, Cedric been using me all along for his own vengeance.

The last straw came when I noticed the Draco's emerald tie, the exact same shade as my dress and I shoved away from Cedric.

I shook my head in disbelief, my face saying more than words ever could. "How could you?"

I fled the ball. My heart pounded in my chest as I ran to the only solace I knew. Souls aged and shattered with time, only the stars would last forever. They knew life before us and they would continue to live long after man had torn this world apart with their own self destructive selfishness.

***
QOTD-are you guys ready for the last chapter? How do you think this will end!
-TFOA