‘This was a wonderful afternoon,’ Bob said, leaning in to kiss me. I stepped back, however, and turned my head off to the side.

‘No.’ It was one thing to spend an afternoon with him, against my family’s beliefs, but getting kissed? I was not ready for that, not yet. Or at least not with him.

For some moments, there was absolute silence. I knew that I had hurt Bob with turning him down so bluntly. But I had told him that I needed time and that I wanted this relationship to progress slowly. After all, my family did not need to find out about us.

When no one of us spoke for quite some time, I looked back at him; his expression was one of surprise and – as I had known it would – hurt. He tried to hide it, but failed. I had sixteen years of experience in reading other people’s mimics; Bob had never learned to hide behind a mask.

‘What is it?’ he asked quietly.

I simply shook my head. ‘It is nothing –’

‘Isla, please, do not lie,’ Bob interrupted; his tone was irritated. I had always wondered when he would get annoyed at me; I guessed that time had come. ‘I cannot stand being lied to. You should know that –’

‘I do –’ I retorted, slightly annoyed myself, but he pressed on.

‘Then why do you lie? Do you not like me? Do you hate that we are dating?’

‘No –’

‘Isla –’

‘Look, Hitchens, I am sorry. Please. Can you leave me alone?’ I did not care that I went from using his first name to calling him by his last name. And I did not care that we did take a huge step backwards in our relationship. But he needed to understand that it was not easy for me to act against what I had believed in for sixteen years. My family had provided for me, had given me everything I had asked for and more. I was safe; the name Black meant a security Bob could not yet provide. Was I ready to give it all up, only to be with Bob? Only because of the truth?

I had tried explaining him my reasons, but I could not even understand it myself for the most part. So how was I supposed to expect him to fully understand it? Even my thoughts were often confusing, too confusing for me, and I had to stop thinking or I would get a major headache.

I simply turned around and entered my family’s house, without saying goodbye.

The sound of the closing door did not stop me from hearing Hitchens call my name one last time though. His pleading call echoed in my ears in the silence of the entrance floor.

Sighing, I sank to the floor, my back leaning against the cold wood of the door behind me. I hugged my knees close and felt the hotness of tears spring to my eyes. I sniffed like I had a very bad cold, and laid my head on top of my knees.

I did not know how long I sat there. The ticking of the ancient grandfather clock from the first floor was still audible in the entrance floor, but neither did I care to listen nor did I want to count the seconds passing by. Silence surrounded me completely, and I felt embraced by a soft dark veil, only that it was not a warm embrace but a cold one. The coldness helped me get my senses back though, and I was able to hear someone carefully padding closer, towards me.

I looked up and met the eyes of our female house-elf, my nurse, which were widened in true worry. She carefully asked if I was all right.

A sad smile crept into my face, but it was drowned by fresh tears. ‘Yes. No.’ I sobbed and sniffed. ‘I do not know.’

The bat-like ears moved into a hanging position – always a sign that she was sad herself. She urged me to no longer be sad and moved to grab my hands. She tried to pull me to my feet, saying that I needed to smile.

Her worry and true caring let me finally smile, a happy smile this time, a warm one. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered and hugged her.

Her voice in my ear quietly questioned if I felt better now.

I nodded and let go of her again. ‘Yes, thank you.’ I stood up and dusted off my skirt. My energetic reaction let her jump up as well and she quickly told me, in her typical enthusiastic, strong-willed businesslike voice, that my brother was waiting in the drawing room. Apparently, he wanted to speak with me.

The happiness I felt disappeared in an instant. I gulped, feeling a little uneasy; I had the distinct feeling I knew what about he wanted to talk with me. ‘Thank you,’ I replied in a quiet voice, sounding composed and unfathomed. I only briefly wondered where that rather cool attitude suddenly came from. But I did not feel like thinking about this in detail at the moment. ‘I will go up to him then.’

The way up to the first floor felt like me being on my last march to the guillotine. If I was right about the topic my brother wanted to speak to me about, then I might as well walk to my own execution. There was no way I would be let off if my family found out that I had met and spent time with Bob. Surprisingly, though, I was back to call him by his first name. And I already regretted not having said goodbye to him earlier that night. After all, who knew if I would ever see him again?

My shadow fell onto the first landing, and I took a deep breath. I also just realised that the house looked gloomy and was ghastly silent except the old grandfather clock’s regular ticking; this discovery did not help me in the slightest to relax. Contrariwise, it increased my inner turmoil. My courage had vanished completely, but I knew I had to face my family one day, no matter what my final decision would be. So I thought it was better to do it now than later. Although I very much doubted that my parents would approve of their youngest child not marrying a pure-blood.

Hesitating for a moment longer, I finally knocked on the door and entered.

I was met by darkness and even more silence. The room was icy cold which was unusual since both house-elves were reliable when it came to making fires and looking after the rooms’ warmth. But there was not even the slightest glow of the sparkle of a fire which left me wondering.

I walked further into the room and stepped onto something that crunched horribly beneath my feet. I halted immediately and bent down to inspect the origin of the crunching. Surprised, I felt shards of broken glass when carefully running along the carpet with my fingertips. ‘Strange…’ I said, more to myself than anyone else – and seeing that the room seemed to be empty, there really was no chance anyone else than me would hear my words.

Standing up, I opened my mouth, fully intending to call the elves and asking them to make a fire. But no word left my throat. I had suddenly noticed why it was so cold in the room: the window stood open wide. The curtains moved softly in the mid December evening breeze, and the feeble moonlight illuminated the windowsill and a small part of the deep red carpet.

I huffed angrily; what did the elves think about leaving the window open in the middle of winter? Gathering my skirt, crumpling the cloth in my fists rather badly, I trudged to the window, not caring that I fell back into an unladylike behaviour. Father would not be proud of me stomping around…

The next I noticed, however, was me stumbling forwards. I quickly let go of my skirt and flailed my arms wildly to keep my balance.

I failed.

With a surprised scream, I fell forwards. Luckily, though, I did not hit any furniture or walls thus staying uninjured. The only thing hurting was my pride. And coming to think of it, my left foot throbbed rather painfully, too. I had walked into something lying on the floor – probably left there without thinking that anyone could stumble over it and maybe even break a foot or leg when walking around in the darkness which let me realise that there was no light on as well.

I sat up and felt around for the hard object. When I then felt it beneath my fingertips though, I tore my hand back immediately. My heart sank, and a bitter taste laid itself into my mouth. I felt bereft and completely empty. I tried banning the horrifying image my mind projected before my inner eye, but I was not succeeding. Shaking heavily, cold shivers running down my spine over and over again, I put forth my hand once more, and slowly touched the contours of a body. A male one.

My left hand wandered to the pocket in the cloak I still wore and unearthed my wand. I threw all the threats my professors had ever given about doing magic outside of school in the holidays as far away as possible, and cast the Lumos Charm. The tip of my slender wooden wand started glowing brightly, showing me in every fine detail who I had stumbled over.

The carpet swallowed the sound of the wand hitting the ground after falling out of my rigidly shaking fingers. But it could not drone out the sound of me screaming in a high-pitched voice. My ears throbbed painfully at the sound I made, and blood rushed through them. The rushing sound grew louder and my vision obscured. Then everything grew dark around me.

I fainted, joining my dead brother lying on the soft, dark red drawing room carpet.