Chapter Text
Claire takes some minutes to think about what decisions led to this. Was it lending the key to Ashe? Or maybe entering the mansion?
Entering the mansion was a mistake; but it was not a mistake meeting Ashe, Noel, Wilardo, Sirius-
Sirius…
Ah, yes, everything started with her disobeying Sirius, the owner of this mansion and the person that killed her-
The person that-
Oh.
She’s dead.
Sirius is looking at her. He cries. He screams the name Dorothy and claims that he needed to kill her, he needed to-
And Claire can’t breathe. She feels so light but there’s something heavy in her chest. She tries to approach Sirius, but he shivers and walks back, letting the axe hit the floor and putting his hands on his face. He starts to tremble once again.
Claire is angry. She wants to scream, kick him, she wants to ask him why. Why did he kill Ashe? Why did he kill her? Why? Why? Why?
Claire falls to the floor, grabs her hair and starts tearing up. She’s terrified, she didn’t want to die- She’s what, twenty-three? She was still young. She wanted to marry someone she loved, maybe have a lovely home and-
A memory hits her, but it’s so blurry that she can’t recall what exactly that memory is about. She just feels like she thought about this before, but when?- She doesn’t remember, she-
She-
She looks at how Sirius is trembling. He looks so little, so defenseless. And she forgives him.
He didn’t mean to. She thinks, while standing up, something in her screams that she should be mad, because he killed her, that can’t be reversed and is not like she can go and come back to live. But she can’t help but feel bad. She crouches and extends her hands to Sirius shoulders, trying to get him to look at her, or to feel her, at least.
He whispers. “Lady Dorothy…?” And her heart breaks a little more.
Is he talking about that evil witch? Did he know her…? The thought makes her feel even worse.
She hugs him while taking a deep breath. She can’t be angry. Not at him, the thought confused her a little, but she doesn’t pry for answers.
Sirius calms down a little bit, and while he’s trying to breathe, Claire tries to take her own body away, the sight of the blood and her head split in two will make him get worse, and the hedor is making her sick already. It’s no easy task, as she has to focus (which is one of the things she’s horrible at) and careful (she’s not), she tries to not make noise- to not alert Sirius.
Claire hopes Wilardo doesn’t come. It will be a mess. A mess she doesn’t want Sirius, in such a fragile state, and Wilardo, someone who she doesn’t know how will act seeing all the blood and Sirius trembling and muttering how it wasn’t his fault and-
The world starts to vanish, and it restarts again. And again. And again-
“Please don’t die now, Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-”