InsaneJournal

Jairissa: Your Every Movement (Dumbledores, R)
Title: Your Every Movement
Author: jairissa
Rating: R
Prompt Set: 50.1
Prompt: Blank
Word Count: 701
Summary: The consequences of misbehaviour
Warnings: DH Spoilers! Potentially triggering implications.



Ariana made her way into the house, breath coming in short gasps. Her eyes looked around desperately, alert to any signs of movement. The house looked as it always did, an almost mausoleum, it's silence oppressing. Ariana usually hated it, her tendency to bounce and yell stifled by the overbearing presence of her silent parents. Taking a hesitant step inside, Ariana bit back a desperate whimper as she looked for signs of life. No one was here, the house as dead she the streets outside. Was she dead too? Was this empty house just an expression of the creeping coldness she felt inside?

Taking another step in the familiar hallway, Ariana's bare foot twisted as she stepped on a forgotten toy. It pierced her skin, causing Ariana to look down in confusion. Pain only hurt the living and surely the emptiness inside her meant that Ariana was anything but. She was a ghost, haunting a house that had meant something to her once, a place she returned to haunt because she still felt connected to it. The pain was also a memory, Ariana decided, a cruel reminder that she had once been a human being who had walked these halls. It was meant to torment her for all the things she had done wrong, like being mean to Albus and kicking the stray cat that had lived in their garden once.

For being a foul, dirty creature who hadn't deserved to live anyway.

Ariana was dirty, was horrible. Her hands reached to rub her naked, filthy arms, smearing the mud further into her skin. She deserved everything, everything that had happened to her. That was how life worked, the good earned rewards and the evil, dirty, worthless people, like she had been, were left to rot in a Muggle playground, waiting for someone to come along and find her worthless body as it slowly turned into fertilizer for worms and other disgusting bugs. Disgusting like she was, like she had to be to deserve death. Death as she had been given in that foul Muggle playground.

Treading cautiously up the stairs to avoid further punishment by the angry gods, Ariana made her way to the landing. Trailing her fingers along the detailed panelling, she giggled at the blood stains she left in her wake. It trailed behind her in a sticky line, something that amused her endlessly; that she could see the red glowing behind her while her family, when they found the remains of her, would not. Red of rage, red of passion, red of the eternally beating heart...Ariana's heart, or the memory of it, beat in her ears, almost convincing her that she were alive.

Giggling again, fascinated at the sound of her voice amongst the silence of the house, the silence of the grave. Ariana paused for a moment, the blood from her fingers pooling in an indentation on the wall. Her grave was by the see-saw, buried among the leaves. Why would her blood be marking this place? Her dirty, filthy, Squib blood that could never have done magic because magic would have saved her from this fate. From the fate of dirt and grass and the smell of foul, Muggle breath.

Bare feet stepping carefully up the spiral staircase, Ariana wrinkled her nose against the strange smell of dirt. Her mother was an impeccable housekeeper, Ariana couldn't imagine why Kendra would allow this stench to permeate her home. Dirt flaking from her skin as she moved, Ariana wailed as she tried to brush it off. It was everywhere, the dirt covering her, and it would stay there forever, haunting her as surely as she haunted this house.

Bathroom, the bathroom, the bathroom had water. Could ghosts wash? Ariana couldn't help but wonder, arms pushing at the dirt on her naked stomach, clothes left behind at her grave. Ariana wanted to wash, wanted to remove the filth from her skin. She heard the taps start as she approached, water gushing into the tub.

"Ariana!" She heard her mother shriek, panic in her voice.

"It's okay, Mummy," Ariana said, smile spreading over her face, not reaching her eyes. "I'm blank. Blank and empty, just like a ghost."