thirty seven : A SINKING MIND

chapter xxxvii : a sinking mind

"the water called to her, a serene, inviting presence that promised an end to the pain."

THE FORBIDDEN FOREST WAS A LIVING ENTITY OF DREAD. Eleven-year-old Valerie Potter's skin crawled with every rustle and snap. The air hung thick and damp, smelling of moss, decaying leaves, and the cold, metallic scent of fear. Fang, Hagrid's dog, padded ahead, a low, trembling whine rattling in his throat that echoed the frantic pulse in her ears.

Valerie clutched her black cloak tighter, her wand held ready. Harry walked to her left, his shoulders stiff with a bravado she didn't feel.

Draco Malfoy trailed on her other side, muttering contemptuous curses. "Wait till my father hears about this!" He snapped, his voice high with indignation. "This is servant's work—I don't belong here!" He loathed the fear in his own chest, and he hated the Potters for forcing him into a situation where he couldn't hide it.

Harry shot him a scathing glare. "If I didn't know better, Malfoy, I'd say you're scared."

Draco whipped his head around, his pale hair a quick flash against the oppressive gloom. "—Scared, Potter?" He spat the word, though his voice trembled with an undeniable tremor. "Don't be ridiculous."

But then, a long, mournful howl ripped through the silence of the trees.

It was a sound of pure, terrible hunger.

Draco froze, every trace of colour draining from his face. The well-rehearsed sneers and pride vanished, leaving only a boy terrified. "Did you—did you both hear that?" His voice cracked with raw panic. His silver eyes darted toward the impenetrable treeline, wide and frantic.

                  "—Come on, Fang," Harry and Valerie urged, their voices strained but firm.

The dog only whimpered, digging his paws into the soft earth, his hackles raised as he crept forward.

Valerie's breath hitched as they trudged deeper, the shadows thickening until they became tangible objects.

Then Fang growled—a low, guttural, and absolutely certain sound of danger.

They all stopped.

                "—What is it, Fang?" Valerie whispered, her voice barely audible, the words stolen by the wind.

Draco never answered.

His wide, horrified gaze was locked onto the clearing ahead.

Valerie followed his line of sight—and the air seemed to evaporate from her lungs.

A unicorn lay collapsed on the ground, its silver blood glimmering like liquid moonlight on the dark forest floor. Hunching over its body was a cloaked figure, its mouth pressed to the wound, drinking the life force.

               "AAAAAAAAHHHHH!" Draco's scream was a high, desperate sound that shattered the stillness of the night.

In that single, agonising fraction of a second, the years of learned hatred and pure-blood beliefs dissolved.

There was only the blinding terror, and an instinct that transcended all logic.

Valerie Potter was the target of his cruelest jokes, the object of his inherited contempt, yet his entire being was suddenly focused on one command: protect her.

Before Valerie Potter could even move, his hand shot out, not toward his wand, but toward hers, gripping it like a lifeline.

She gasped as he yanked her forward with startling force, dragging her away at a dead sprint.

                    "Malfoy?—HEY!" She shouted, stumbling through the undergrowth as he pulled her through the trees, the world blurring into a desperate streak of black and silver.

His grip was a vice, a fierce, unthinking act of pure protection—the first, undeniable proof that the boy who hated her was, in reality, driven by a love he didn't dare acknowledge.

The weeks after their return from Malfoy Manor felt painfully slow, like walking through treacle.

The mist that had once provided a gentle, romantic veil over the lake now felt like a shroud, a constant, clammy reminder of the cold evil that now owned them.

Draco Malfoy tried to maintain a fragile semblance of normalcy. He cooked meals she barely touched, kept the fireplace roaring even on the warmest days, and filled the silence with the comfortable crackle of logs and the familiar rustle of a turning page.

He didn't speak of that moment in the forest years ago, or how his hand had instinctively found hers—but he lived by its lesson.

He knew now, without a doubt, that Valerie, was not just the girl he had loved in spite of his world, but the absolute centre of his existence.

Every breath he took, every silent calculation, was dedicated to keeping her safe, proving to himself and to the universe that he would never fail the instinct that had first bound them together under the silver blood of a dying unicorn.

But Valerie Potter was no longer really there.

She moved through the small house like a ghost, a beautiful but haunting echo of herself.

Her brown eyes, once warm and lively, were now distant and filled with a sorrow so profound it stole the air from the room.

She would sit for hours by the window, a mug of hot chocolate growing cold in her hands, her gaze fixed on the endless, swirling grey of the lake.

It was a fascination that chilled Draco Malfoy to the bone.

He would catch her just staring, a faint, almost imperceptible hum on her lips.

The first crack in her quiet facade happened a few days later.

Draco was in the kitchen, washing a plate, when he heard a soft, choked sob.

He turned to find Valerie, her body shaking, tears streaming silently down her face.

She was holding a small, silver teaspoon.

"—What is it, my love?" He asked, his heart seizing in his chest.

She didn't answer.

She just sobbed, her grip on the spoon so tight her knuckles were white.

The tiny, concave surface of the spoon held a miniature, distorted reflection of the room, and within that tiny reflection, there was Lilith.

From that day on, the fragile peace of the house shattered.

The crying fits would come without warning, a sudden storm of grief over a dropped napkin or a book left open.

But more terrifying than the tears were the sleepwalking episodes.

They began a week later, silent and chilling.

Draco woke in the dead of night to the sudden absence of her warmth beside him.

His heart hammered in his chest, and he shot out of bed.

He found her in the hallway, her face a serene, unreadable mask, her feet padding silently on the floor. He caught her just as her hand reached for the latch on the door.

"Val?" He whispered, his voice a low, desperate plea.

She didn't react.

            He stepped in front of her, gently but firmly taking her shoulders. "Valerie, wake up. You're dreaming. You're home."

Her body was a dead weight in his hands. It was the same feeling in the water that night—a profound, suffocating terror. He shook her gently, his voice thick with rising panic. "Valerie, please. Look at me. We're home."

Her eyes finally blinked, the vacant silver fading into a warm, disoriented brown. A deep, silent tremor ran through her. "Draco?" She whispered, her voice a small, terrified thing.

           "I've got you," He pulled her into a desperate, bone-crushing hug. He could feel the cold radiating from her skin, a deep chill that no blanket could cure.

He led her back to the bedroom, the silent walk back heavy with the unspoken truth: She wanted to go back in the water.

The next night, he did what he had to do.

He held a rope and sat on the edge of the bed as Valerie slept, his hands shaking.

Draco looked at her sleeping face, so beautiful and peaceful in the moonlight, and felt the bitter, agonising weight of his helplessness.

He gently, so gently, slipped the cord around her wrist, just enough for it to be secure, and tied the other end to the sturdy wooden frame of the bed.

He felt like a monster.

Tears welled in his silver eyes, hot and sharp, but he didn't let them fall.

He would do this, and anything else, to keep her safe.

Valerie Potter woke up in the morning to the feeling of her hand being held tight.

She looked down and saw the rope, and then her eyes found his.

She didn't look confused or angry.

She looked back at him with a quiet, heartbreaking understanding.

She was just as terrified as he was.

He didn't say anything.

He just pulled her closer, his head resting against her chest, his hand gently finding its way to the soft curve of her silk light pink pajamas.

His fingers traced slow, deliberate circles on her stomach, and in the silence, a small, reassuring thud-thud-thud rippled beneath his hand.

He felt the soft flutter of a life inside her, a powerful, undeniable force.

The baby had kicked.

A small, hopeful, little life.

His hand tightened over her stomach, a desperate, silent promise.

The days bled into weeks, each one a relentless, quiet battle against the creeping madness. Lilith's haunting, once confined to the lake, seeped into every liquid surface, a phantom that mocked their fragile sanctuary.

She was in the sudden puddle that formed on the driveway, after a brief shower, her ghostly reflection shimmering for a heart-stopping moment before it vanished. She was a flash of bone-white hair in the mirror after a shower, the steam clearing just enough to show her face before the vapour obscured her again.

Her presence was in the kitchen, too, a silent terror that materialised in the still, polished surface of a tea kettle. Valerie's mind, which had been blissfully quiet for so long, was now filled with a constant, maddening buzz.

It wasn't a hum anymore.

It was a song, a soft, melodic, wordless lullaby that tugged at her, a song meant to draw her back to the water.

A song meant for the dead.

A tune only the Silent Seers could hear.

On August 1st, Draco tried to give her back a piece of the life she had lost.

Seventeen years, Valerie Potter had shared birthday celebrations with her brother, a bond so close it felt like sharing a single soul. 

        This was the first time, the first year, they wouldn't celebrate together. 

A hollow ache settled in her chest, along with the other aches and pains that came with being pregnant.

She wondered about her twin brother.

Was he thinking of her too? 

Draco surprised her with a small, heart-shaped chocolate cake and a bouquet of pink tulips.

He laid out her favourite chocolate bar and an assortment of her favourite snacks on the table, but the anxiety in his chest was a suffocating, physical thing.

Today, she was seventeen.

The age of death.

He couldn't shake the fear, a cold, persistent dread that today might be the day the curse would finally claim her.

Valerie Potter smiled, a faint, ghostly thing, and blew out the candles. She held his hand, her fingers gently intertwining with his, as if to say, I'm still here. I'm okay. But she wasn't.

A week later, the letter came.

Lord Voldemort wanted to see her again. He wanted a vision. Another prophecy.

The visions were not meant to be spoken aloud.

They were a secret language, a sacred, silent, and personal prophecy meant only for the Silent Seer to understand.

Sharing it with Voldemort had a cost, a terrible physical one that Valerie had yet to pay.

Now, he wanted more.

The physical decline started just a few days after.

It was subtle at first, a cold that seeped into her bones no matter how warm the fire was.

A persistent, dry cough that she would try to muffle in the collar of her sweater, her hand quickly wiping her mouth so Draco wouldn't see.

But it quickly worsened, a poison working its way through her body.

Her throat was raw, her lungs burned, and the hum in her mind became a deafening shriek.

Draco was in the bedroom, folding a blanket, when he heard a violent, wrenching sound from the bathroom.

He froze, his heart seizing in his chest.

He heard her cough again, a guttural, terrifying sound.

The door was ajar.

He pushed it open, and the sight nearly brought him to his knees.

Valerie was hunched over the toilet, her body trembling with the force of her coughing.

Blood, a dark, terrible red, was splattered against the white porcelain of the toilet bowl.

She was trying to stifle the sound, her body shaking with the effort, but it was no use.

                 "—VAL!" He was across the room in an instant, his hands on her back, his magic useless. He couldn't heal this. His wealth couldn't buy her a cure. His power, his name, his blood—none of it meant anything now. He was terrified and utterly helpless, watching the woman he loved, the mother of his child, die slowly in front of him.

She coughed again, a spray of blood landing on the floor.

She looked up at him, her eyes watering, a terrible, desperate fear in their depths.

Her lips parted, and a soft, whispered phrase escaped them.

            "Melody told me to hold on... I-I need to keep trying... To stay strong..."

He could feel the tremors in her body, the exhaustion radiating from her.

She was on the brink of insanity, the madness of Lilith's song fighting against the hope that Melody had given her.

She was a battlefield, her mind and her body a war zone. He wrapped her in his arms, his body a shield against the creeping poison, his love her only hope in a world that was determined to take her from him.

She had turned seventeen.

And the clock had begun to tick.

⋆˙⟡

A FRAGILE ROUTINE FORMED AROUND HER SICKNESS. Her coughing fits became a new normal, a terrifying constant in the house, but she was still fighting. Draco Malfoy, in a moment of utter desperation, had found her school bag, a burgundy red thing that she hadn't touched in months. He had set it on the table, a silent offering of a life she no longer had. A glint of silver caught her eye, the small silver butterfly pin that Eric Lewis had given to her and their friends. The memory was a sharp, bittersweet ache in her chest.

Then she saw it.

Tucked inside, almost forgotten, was Eric's sparkling purple diary.

He had left it for her, a final, silent gift.

She had seen it countless times but had never found the courage to open it, terrified of the grief that lay inside.

But now, as her body ached and her mind threatened to shatter, she was desperate for anything that felt real, anything that wasn't tainted by blood or fear.

Her fingers were shaking as she pulled it out, her hands tracing the purple glittering spine.

She opened it to the very first page.

August 1st 1988

Hi, I'm Eric Scorpius Lewis.

I'll be turning 8 years old in December.

I am the youngest to four older sisters.

I love the colour purple and I am a proud fiery Sagittarius!

Mum said I should start a diary.

She says it would be nice to have a record of my life.

We know I won't live for very long, so I'm going to write about every little or big thing.

I want my life to be a big, happy, loud party. So, here goes!

She turned the page.

I managed to blow the perfect bubble out of my strawberry flavoured gum! It was as big as my head!!

The words were so simple, so pure, a memory of a time before death and darkness had taken over their lives. It was Eric, a little boy trying to blow a bubble. It was everything she needed. She closed her eyes, the smile still on her face.

It was now almost September, and the physical toll from the shared visions was a living, breathing thing inside her. Every time Voldemort demanded a new vision, Melody would take over, whispering a half-truth to satisfy him just enough. But even these offerings took something from Valerie Potter.

The cough, which had begun as a hack, was now a violent, chest-wrenching spasm that left her gasping for breath.

She would wrap her arms around her stomach, trying to hold herself together as her body was wracked with the force of it.

Her physical appearance was a horrifying reflection of her inner decay.

Her face, once so full of life and colour, was now gaunt and hollow, her cheekbones a sharp, skeletal line.

Her skin had taken on a translucent, almost ghostly pallor, and her eyes, though still a warm brown, seemed to sink deeper into her skull.

A persistent, deep cold had settled into her bones, and no amount of blankets or roaring fires could chase it away. She was constantly shivering, her body struggling to produce heat.

It was during one of these coughing fits that Draco finally saw the full, horrifying extent of her decline. He had tried to get her to eat, holding a spoonful of soup to her lips.

             "J-Just a little bit, Val," He pleaded, his voice thick with fear. "You have to eat something... for the baby."

She tried to answer, to tell him she couldn't.

Her lips parted, but all that came out was a soft, guttural wheeze.

The effort of trying to speak triggered a new, more violent fit.

She doubled over, dropping the spoon, and her body seized with a fit of coughing so brutal that she fell to her knees.

Draco dropped the bowl, the ceramic shattering on the floor, and rushed to her.

He pulled her into his arms, holding her trembling body against his chest, trying to muffle the sounds.

She clung to him, her knuckles white against his sweater, her lungs burning, her throat raw. When the fit subsided, she was left gasping for air, her brown eyes wide and terrified.

          "I...I'm sorry," She tried to whisper, her voice a reedy, choked sound.

           "Shh," He reassured, his own voice breaking. "Don't. Don't try to speak. I understand." He kissed her forehead, which was clammy and cold despite the heat of the fire. "I understand, my angel. You don't have to say a word."

From that day on, Draco became her voice. He anticipated her needs, reading the questions in her eyes and answering for her.

He did everything he could for his one true love.

The illness was a slow poison, but a more insidious threat was the growing frequency and intensity of Lilith's haunting. She was no longer just a flicker in the puddles: she was a looming, skeletal figure in the corner of every mirror. Her song, once a distant hum, was now a constant, shrill keening that Valerie couldn't escape, even in the depths of sleep.

That night, the silence was broken by a different sound.

Not the violent hacking, but the soft, heart-wrenching sound of a woman weeping.

Draco lay awake beside her, his body tense, his hand hovering near her waist, a silent anchor.

He had been so careful to give her space, to not crowd her, but now her silent sobs grew into a full-blown crying fit.

She turned away from him, her back shaking, her body curled into a tight, desperate ball.

The sobs were a raw, physical thing, and they seemed to hold all the grief of a lifetime, for herself, for Eric, Harry, Sirius, and for the life that was being stolen from her.

He knew what she was thinking.

He could feel it in the way her body was straining against itself, the way her nails were digging into her palms.

Her mind was slipping into that familiar, terrifying fantasy.

The fantasy of surrender.

The water called to her, a serene, inviting presence that promised an end to the pain.

It whispered of a peace so profound it would silence the hum, the screams, the coughs.

It promised to erase the memories of death and blood, to hold her in an eternal, gentle embrace.

Draco's own eyes burned with unshed tears, hot and sharp, but he refused to let them fall.

He couldn't.

If he broke, she would break with him.

He had to be the one who held on for both of them.

He slid closer and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his chest.

Her body was stiff at first, resistant, but then she sagged against him, her sobs turning into choked, guttural gasps.

He pressed his face into her hair, inhaling the faint, sweet scent of vanilla.

He ran a hand over her trembling back, over her stomach, a slow, gentle, hypnotic motion meant to calm her.

             "You're safe. We're safe. I'm here for you always." He whispered, his voice a low, steady rumble.

He held her until the tremors began to subside, until her sobs quieted into soft, lingering whimpers.

Draco felt her exhausted body grow lax against his own, the tension slowly draining from her limbs.

When her breathing became a soft, shallow rhythm, he gently rested his face against her swollen belly.

It was warm and firm beneath his cheek, a powerful contrast to the coldness that clung to her limbs.

He felt the familiar, gentle thrum of the baby's life inside.

He began to speak, not to Valerie, but to the life within her.

                    "Hello," He murmured, his voice thick with emotion. "It's your dad. Just wanted to tell you that your mum is the bravest person I have ever known. She is so strong, little one. So unbelievably strong. Do you feel her? Do you feel how hard she's fighting for you? For us?"

He paused, a soft, wistful smile on his lips. "I wonder what you'll be. A little witch with her mum's beautiful eyes? Or a little boy with a temper like mine? Whatever you are, whatever you become, you will have so much to live for. We'll show you the world. We'll teach you everything. I wonder if you'll look like me, or like her. I hope you look like her. She's so beautiful. She's fighting this darkness just to meet you. Just to see you. Just to hold you in her arms. She is all the hope in the world."

Valerie, who had been listening with closed eyes, felt the last of the icy numbness in her heart begin to melt.

Her body was still weak, still broken, but his words, so pure and sincere, were a salve to her soul.

She reached her hand down and placed it over his, her fingers gently intertwining with his as they rested on her stomach.

A soft, genuine smile touched her lips, a smile born not of memory, but of a fierce, unyielding love for the future.

And she knew she would fight for it.

⋆˙⟡

THE LAST SCENE MELTED MY HEART.

did it melt yours too? 🥹

this chapter was so hard to write. it feels like we've been sitting in the dark with valerie and draco, watching her beautiful mind and spirit slowly sink.

but that final scene... that was the hope.

it was draco being utterly vulnerable, finding his strength in his love for the life they created.

and valerie. she's fighting a battle on every front, but his words, spoken to their little one, were a lifeline.

it was a reminder of why she has to keep going, of the future that's waiting for them.

it's a testament to the power of their love, to the little life that has already changed everything.

i can't wait to hear what you all thought. what was the most impactful moment for you?

do you think baby malfoy is a girl or a boy? 🩵 🩷

PLEASE LET ME KNOW UR GUESSES!! i find it entertaining :D

please dont forget to vote as i work really hard writing each chapter <3 thank you!! XOXO

wow time flies fast!! i started rewriting this fanfiction in june & now its october !! its almost christmas, which i am sooo excited for :D

( authors personal notes )published — saturday 10:52pmoctober 4th 2025current amount of reads — 71.5kcurrent amount of votes — 1.79kword count — 4,052