SLEEP DID NOT COME EASY to Ophelia that night. Now that she was finally in bed after an evening full of shouting matches and angry confessions that affected her heart greatly, she could finally allow herself to ponder on the day's events, despite the heaviness that hung on her eyelids.

She tossed and turned, facing right, then facing left, but found it impossible to get sleep, for her mind was occupied by nothing but the revelations of the day. It was impossible to stop picturing the different scenarios of her yelling at Draco, hitting him, trying to get him back for taking something that meant everything to her childhood self.

For the past five years of her life, she had been living a lie, telling herself that Theo had changed and become just like his father.

She was never so glad to be wrong.

And she closed her eyes and went back every moment Theo had hurt her, and made her cry, only to realize that the inexplicable emotion in his eyes had been pain.

Now is when she realized that when Theo was intentionally hurting her, it pained him just as much as it pained her.

With the intention of confronting Draco first thing in the morning, Ophelia found it easier to sleep.

True to her word, Ophelia woke up early the next morning, and the first thing she did after getting dressed was march straight up, all the way down into the dungeons, into the Slytherin common room, and up the stairs to her brother's dormitory.

She didn't even bother to knock. She flicked her wrist to turn the doorknob, pushed the heavy door open and barged in, exuding an air of arrogance and power as she stood there, in all her glory.

Shouts of protest came in her direction, and Ophelia saw a flash of shirtless boys, before she placed her hands over her eyes.

"Ever heard of knocking?" Draco's voice, etched with fully fledged sarcasm was heard, and Ophelia withheld herself from straight up clobbering him.

"Everyone out. I need to talk to Draco," she ground out, her teeth clenched to the point where her jaw was in pain. 

The silent sound of rustling filled the air as everyone hastened to put on their clothes, and whilst her eyes were still closed, Ophelia felt a presence behind her, and a gentle kiss pressed to her forehead, one that inwardly melted all the aggression and hatred she bore towards her brother for a moment.

"Buongiorno, Principessa," Theo murmured, his sleepy voice raising the hairs on the back of Ophelia's spine. "You can open your eyes, love. Everyone's decent."

Theo forgot to mention that everyone else was decent, except him. When Ophelia opened her eyes, she was face to face with Theo's bare chest, his perfectly sculpted frame and chiseled abs on full display, barely hidden beneath the open, button-down shirt he wore.

Momentarily distracted, Ophelia finally allowed her eyes to wander away from his chest, and to his face, only to find that he was already looking at where her eyes were, and smirking knowingly, causing her to blush.

"Oh, stop it!" she scowled, pushing him away with both her hands, accidentally touching his bare chest in the process, which was hot against her cool fingertips.

Had Ophelia not forced Theo to the hospital wing last night, she had no doubt he would be having cuts and bruises all over his body right now. He looked almost completely healed, save for his fading black eye, and the traces of dried blood on his knuckles and jaw.

Draco, on the other hand, looked like he had been through battle. His jaw carried the evidence of a physical fist fight, and purple bruises had bloomed all over his pale skin. He had a black eye, and a cut on his lip that had swollen to twice its size.

Normally, the sight of him hurt would cause Ophelia's heart to clench, and she would drag him to the hospital wing to be treated immediately, but today, she didn't care.

Not one bit.

All the empathy she held towards her brother had dissipated, like a drop of cold water vaporizing instantly on coming to contact with a hot surface.

"I'll see you later, bellissima," Theo gently placed his hand on her shoulder and softly kissed her cheek, before leaving the room. 

Only Draco and Ophelia occupied the room now.

The silence was death warmed up on a sunny day. It was everything bitter and harrowing stuffed together with the sunlight that streamed through the windows and signaled what was supposed to be a beautiful, spring day.

It was a suicide, an experiment, to see which would murder the other first; the melancholy in the room, or the heat of the sun that was supposed to be pleasant, but instead, was a sarcastic irony.

"So, is it true?" Ophelia broke the silence, her harsh words cutting through the pregnant calm before the storm that had brewed in the room.

"Is what true?" Draco asked lazily, wincing in pain as he fastened the buttons of his shirt, one, by one, at snail's pace.

"What Theo told me last night? About what happened between you two six years ago," Ophelia ignored the way he intentionally played oblivious.

Once again, Draco was silent, and he didn't say anything. He didn't deny it.

Ophelia felt a raging inferno of anger surround her body and burn every bit of her skin until she was nothing but a phoenix, rising from the ashes.

The tips of her ears were red, and so were her cheeks and nose, and her gray eyes, had never represented Lucius Malfoy's eyes more.

They were narrowed and blackening with anger, her steely gaze menacing and directed straight at her brother.

Had Ophelia not inherited Lucius' character traits, she would have used up her entire force to beat her own brother up, uncaring about his injuries from the previous night.

But she was calm, and perhaps that was what was the most terrifying thing about her in that moment. She moved close to him, so close that her nose nearly touched him. 

Her petrifying eyes, unblinking, glared at Draco as she pressed her forefinger to his chest, poking him with every word she spoke.

"You are a coward, Draco Malfoy," she hissed, sounding so much like Lucius that Draco was ten years old once more, gulping as he looked into those terrifying, emotionless eyes that belonged to his father. "And I hate you for what you did. You will pay for this... Mark. My. Words. You. Will. Pay."

Draco did not breathe, until she pulled away and slammed the door of the dormitory behind her.

Ophelia meant it this time. Just because Draco was her brother, it did not mean he was excused from her wrath. Because if she let it slide, he would continue walking all over her.

She used to be known as the Ice Princess, ruling the Hogwarts kingdom with a reign of terror and fright.

It was time to come back to that era once more, to show everyone that she was not to be messed with.

She was consumed by revenge, something so ugly on its own. But combined with the anger that had dominated every inch of her, it was hideous, and rotten.

She would make Draco's life more miserable than it already was.

And so, after her lessons, the blonde changed from her school uniform into a formal, black dress. 

It was long sleeved, with a scoop neckline and a bodice that fitted her just right, the skirt being long enough to possess a hem that kissed her knees.

It was simple enough, rather decent.

But the way she wore it, was not.

Ophelia made sure to leave her long, shiny, platinum blonde hair down, letting her perfect waves fall all the way down her back and stop right at her lower back. 

She kept her manticore leather shoes on, though she made sure to wear black stockings underneath, covering any bit of bare skin.

The finishing touch was the lipstick.

Vibrant, bold and red.

And during supper, she made sure to enter the Great Hall ten minutes late, when everyone was settled down and just beginning to eat, save for the latecomers, so everyone would notice her arrival.

She walked straight to the Gryffindor table, past her usual spot beside Adrienne and Mariana, and directly into the lion's den itself.

Standing right in front of Harry Potter, her cold, gray eyes were utterly expressionless as she glared at him eat, slight disgust flitting over her features for a millisecond.

"What do you want?" Harry spat rudely, venom coating every word of his.

"You're right," she said simply, crossing her arms and leaning back on her heel, standing with her legs crossed. 

"Right? About what?" Hermione interjected, without letting Harry think using his peanut brain, or get another word in, very interested in what Ophelia had to say.

Meanwhile, Ron was staring at her, his mouth agape.

Ophelia ignored the red head with a hand-me-down-robe and scoffed, rolling her eyes, a dry wisp of a chuckle leaving her. "What else? About my brother."

Even saying the word brother filled her mouth with distaste.

Instantly, realization flickered onto Harry's face, and Ophelia found it amusing how someone could be that slow at thinking.

"Check the map," he told Hermione, pointing at her bag.

"What?" Hermione tilted her head, staring at Harry as if he were mad. (Ophelia strongly suspected Potter really was mad.)

"The map, Hermione. Give me the map!" Harry outstretched his hand in her direction.

Ophelia did not leave. Nor did Harry care about her presence any more. She had just fed him the most valuable piece of information that he'd been gathering on her brother all year.

She watched him scrutinize a map with moving footsteps of each individual, and her breath hitched when she saw where Harry's wand was pointing.

A bathroom.

And Draco was inside.

Harry stood up haphazardly, uncaring about the way he drew attention to himself, and Ophelia's heeled boots clicked loudly on the floor with every quick step she took, trying to catch Harry.

She grabbed his arm, demanding him to stop, ordering him not to confront her brother, but he ignored her, the stupid boy he was.

She hadn't expected him to react that drastically, and for sure, she was regretting her decision now. What was she thinking, stooping down to that level?

And with the protests that died on her lips as she ran after Harry with every step closer and closer to her brother, Ophelia knew she had made a very bad choice indeed.

She couldn't enter the bathroom, she could only pace the corridor as nervousness bloomed through every fiber of her being, the desire for revenge turning into the heat of regret and guilt.

Draco was already miserable, he had sold his soul to the Dark Lord.

What had she been thinking?

The rules of entering the male bathroom went down the drain when Ophelia heard a scream. Deep down, in her gut, she knew it was Draco.

The sight that met her eyes was horrific. She clapped a hand over her mouth, nausea intimidating her every cell.

Draco was thrown back on the floor, lying on his back with several large gashes all over his chest, bleeding profusely. Moaning Myrtle, the ghost, was cackling dramatically about there being a murder in the bathroom, and Harry was apologizing furiously, claiming he didn't know what the spell did, but Ophelia drowned out the sound of everything around her, staring at the scene with terror in her eyes.

Her brother was dead.

And it was all her fault.

Too staggered by the revelation to even cry, Ophelia's heels slammed against the marble floors, her feet carrying her in search for assistance.

Most of the time, Moaning Myrtle was a nuisance, but today, she was a godsend. Ophelia could have kissed her translucent frame.

She had left the bathroom, chanting her murder in the bathroom song, and Professor Snape arrived at the scene almost instantly after Ophelia had yelled for help.

"Professor," Ophelia gasped, speaking without breathing. "Draco— He's dead—"

Snape pushed her aside, his wand in hand and approached the lifeless body, whilst Harry looked extremely guilty, glancing apologetically at Ophelia, who in turn, sent him her death stare.

The Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor muttered a few things under his breath, and a continuous ribbon of silvery threads slithered in the air before seeping into Draco's skin, directly where the cuts in his torso were.

"He's not dead, Miss Malfoy. Though he needs the hospital wing immediately," Snape waved his wand, and Draco's body was levitating, hovering in the air without any trace of life.

"Potter, wait right here until I come back."

With that being said, Ophelia followed Professor Snape to the hospital wing, and once Draco was settled in a bed, and the teacher had left, Ophelia reached for Draco's hand and looked at his pale, pale figure.

"I'm so sorry," she kept muttering, over and over again.

She stayed there for an hour, until Madam Pomfrey sent for Theo, to take her outside so Draco could be healed.

Theo gently led his girlfriend out to the Quidditch stands, under the calming presence of the moon, cradling her in his arms as she sat limply beside him in the Hufflepuff stands, her head on his shoulder.

"He'll be okay," Theo told her softly, brushing his lips against her forehead. "And so will you be."

But Ophelia didn't think she would ever be okay. Indeed, today she had dressed for revenge.

The only problem was, she wasn't sure revenge was sweet anymore. Nor was it a dish best served cold.

Because even though she didn't start it, but she knew how it ended.

Badly.

{ hi guys !! it's been a week since my last update, and i just wanted to thank you all for 900k reads. this book is almost at a million, and it's all thanks to you guys!! also, if you think this is the end of the drama, you are wrong. the next chapter has more.
i hope you enjoyed this chapter, please, please comment. i mean it, spam me with comments bc that's my motivation to write.
so please follow me on wattpad, on other platforms, (socials in the bio— i finally got tiktok) vote, comment and share this story.
also comment what you'd like to see in blood like gasoline, or if you have any interesting predictions as to what will happen next, now, or in the future. we are almost at deathly hallows, and omg, i cannot wait!!
not proofread. let me know if you see any errors.
lots of love,
jasmine.
xoxo }

{ OCT 14. 2024 }