dianna d. dobbs (babyd) wrote in valesco,
@ 2011-07-03 23:14:00

Entry tags:

Derek!
Dianna stood in front of her bathroom mirror, pushing the same blonde curl behind her ear for the twentieth time in the last ten minutes. Her hair was just not sitting right. It wasn't curling onto her shoulders like it had once perfectly done during her years at Hogwarts, and she was refusing to accept the fact that it was never going to again. She had not done anything to her hair, so why should it not behave like it once had? The only thing that had changed since her Hogwarts days was...her.

She frowned at this idea and shook it away, pulling her hair into the clip whose springs were nearly worn with how often she'd secured her hair between its claws. Dianna looked down at her sink, wincing at the ring around it and forcing herself out of the bathroom, stepping over the towels that needed to be washed two weeks ago. She darted to her bedroom, ignoring the shoes and books and bags that lined the hallway, and was glad that the summer cloak she wanted to wear today was sitting on top of the pile of clothes nearest the door in her room.

Her flat, a disaster zone, was not a place she wanted to be, or a place that she wanted anyone to be. Dianna was so much more than ashamed by it, but the shame it brought terrified her out of her skin and she couldn't be moved to clean it up. That's why she hadn't had anyone over in---she jumped at the knock on her door and her heart began to race like it was going to run straight up her throat. Panic, panic! Dianna rushed to the front door and made sure she looked presentable, glad she at least had the sense to keep the front of the entrance way clear, in case she had visitors that would be shooed out into the hallway outside her flat. Dianna pushed herself up on her toes and let out a squeak. Derek?

The surprise caused her to throw the door open much wider than she had in months, "Big brother!" she let out happily. Though, Dianna did have the sense to push him forward with a hug, and out of her entrance way.

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bigd
2011-07-11 12:57 am UTC (link)

He shook his head and knocked on her door, not quite expecting the enthusiastic greeting.

"Hallo, baby D." After a split-second of hesitation, still wary of contact with another person, he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed briefly before disentangling. "I visited home today, Mum said she wants to do dinner this Thursday instead of Saturday, which I very nicely offered to relay to you in person and then take you to—er, lunch. If you were not busy and if you were home. Which you are, home, that is, and are not—busy, I'm assuming. Hoping," he corrected himself, feeling winded after such a long sentiment, particularly for himself. Derek scrubbed a hand over his face, aggravated at the awkwardness he felt even with his little sister and damn near his favorite person on the planet at the moment.

He stepped away from her and shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts. "Half a moment, though, my tongue's sticking to the roof of my mouth, it's so dry. You've got glasses in the cupboard on the left, yeah?" Derek brushed past his sister through the open doorway.

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babyd
2011-07-11 05:42 pm UTC (link)

How had he slipped by so quickly?!

Dianna let out squeak and rushed in behind Derek, slamming the door behind before--before Darien came over too and saw the disaster zone that was her flat! Oh, oh no, from the kitchen he would definitely see that her dishes were piled up and that there were---oh, God. Dianna felt herself choke up at the anxiety that was rapidly building, and her face flushed a deep red. What could she do?

She pulled out her wand and tried to quickly, quietly, and expertly shoot some of her mess away, but there was no way for Derek to miss it, and if she caused a scene trying to keep him out of the kitchen he was going to be even more suspicious and she couldn't tell him! He'd die, her brother's heart would just break and then she'd have to accept just exactly what had happened and she would---not.

"Derek, it's a mess!" Dianna let out in what she hoped to be a whiny, but teasing tone. "Just---let me get it!"

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bigd
2011-07-19 09:06 pm UTC (link)

His long legs loped easily across the living space as he called over his shoulder, "No, it's fine, don't be st—" Derek trailed off, "—upid." He looked around the kitchen with an utterly blank expression, blank because he simply could not comprehend. All her life, his sister had been a fastidious little brat, forever nagging her brothers for their own lack of tidiness and organization. He thought it must have been second nature to her, to simply keep her life orderly to her liking. Derek had the sneaking suspicion that even the drama she liked to sigh long-sufferingly over was mostly engineered to keep herself amused. And yet… Dishes piled in the sink, unswept floors, shuttered windows. Countertops littered with who-knew-what. His heart slammed viciously and somewhat inexplicably in his throat.

A mess, he could understand. A mess, one might say, would actually have made him glad, because a mess would have meant his sister had learned to live like a normal person. This was not a mess. This was two steps on the way to decay.

Derek couldn't be in that space for a moment longer.

He wheeled around to stare at Dianna, eyes overly wide. "What—" he shook his head, mouth gaping open and unable to form the thoughts he was trying to get across, "what is this?"

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babyd
2011-07-20 12:23 am UTC (link)

The sound she let out--it was as if someone had clasped their hands around her throat, cutting off any sort of word that may have tried to escape her. But none had, Dianna's mouth was wide with shock and---scared, she was scared because she had absolutely no fucking idea what to do now. Her hands were frozen at her side, it was as if someone had struck her with a binding spell and all that was left was for her to topple to the floor.

Was she even looking at Derek? She was looking past him, trying to force herself to breathe as she began to realize, to accept that she'd been caught. Her safe haven had been broken into by her brother, and now it felt like everything in the small flat was being sucked out the front door, mentally smashing into her as her world came crashing down around her. Literally. Slamming the door shut sent a tower of mugs to the floor, and Dianna's eyes locked on the shattered glass, focusing on anything but Derek.

Derek, her stupid brother Derek! He wasn't supposed to be here! No one was supposed to be here! This was her flat, no one was allowed in her flat and now Dianna felt angry at him, that he'd rushed into here without her permission. She felt her face flush with humiliation and fury, and she dropped down to her knees to clean up the pieces.

"You're not supposed to be here!" she snapped, picking up the glass with her fingers to cradle them in her hands, forgetting that her wand could have gotten rid of the mess immediately, showing no concern for the . Dianna worked furiously, shaking her head as she continued to clean. She could get the dishes done quickly too, now that she felt like she had the energy too, "Who said you could just---barge in here!"

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bigd
2011-07-20 12:40 am UTC (link)

The sight of her hands heedlessly scraping over the broken glass spurred him into action. "Stop—ju—stop," he said, trying to be gentle, wanting to be gentle, but the rough, breaking of his voice overcame it. He took the roving hands into one of his, holding her by the slim wrists as he hastily pulled out his wand with the other and did away with the shards.

Derek felt unclean, but he didn't understand why. Yes, his sister was living in absolute squalor, but it wasn't a cleanliness that meant hygiene; it was almost a feeling of violation. A desire to scrub and scourge his skin until he well enough drew blood. There was bile in his throat and his eyes burned a little and he did not understand why. There was that feeling that something was horribly wrong, but he just didn't know what.

"Why is it like this?" he asked, harsher than he'd intended, but being entirely unable to help himself because there was something wrong with his sister and he didn't know what. He gave her wrists a shake as if to punctuate his demand, but in reality it was because his own hands were beginning to shake uncontrollably. "Dianna, answer me!"

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babyd
2011-07-20 01:32 am UTC (link)

Why? Why? Dianna couldn't tell Derek why because she could barely understand it herself. It had just---she'd lost any desire or will to clean up the mess after he'd ruined it, she didn't want to touch the furniture that he'd knocked over and broken the drawers. He'd---He'd ruined her perfect flat, her flat had been perfect, and that's how Dianna liked to remember it, that's how she liked to think of it. It didn't matter that everything was a disaster because only she'd known it was that way. She could live her life with the mess as long as no one else knew about it, because then things wouldn't change.

Things were going to change now, and her paralyzed expression cracked as she stared at Derek, realizing that the imaginary world she'd been living in since October was shattered. Her brother knew that something was wrong now, and how could she possibly hide it anymore? Dianna felt short of breath, her Ravenclaw, logical mind spinning out control as it searched for a way to get her out of this hell she'd let herself fall into. It took all of her strength to not shed a tear, her face twitching and her shuddering breaths keeping her from completely losing her mind.

Though-----with how blank her mind was now, with no ideas at all, Dianna may have lost it back in October when that Death Eater burst through her doorway.

"I didn't want to upset you," she let out, feeling like each breath was becoming harder and harder to take. Dianna felt ready to pass out, the stress her heart was having in her chest becoming overwhelming. How could she say...."He---he--he wouldn't stop!"

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bigd
2011-07-20 01:55 am UTC (link)

Her words were not making sense. Her place was an it, a sort of object, inherently gender-less. They didn't have actions, not really, not even in this world. "He," meaning male, "would not," past tense, indicating a condition in which the outcome had been negative, "stop," meaning cessation. No, the words made sense. What he didn't understand was why his sister was speaking them. What he did not understand was why those words had any relevance to her. What he did not understand was why he did not understand. The hair on the back of his neck rose.

Though his blood was tingling, fiery, the kind of tingle where you wanted to peel it off, Derek's heart did not speed up. It merely seemed to beat louder, thunder in his ears every time it pulsed with that diseased blood, accompanied by buzzing, the loudest white noise. His grip on her hands tightened, though the shaking desisted. He was a curious mixture of calm and derailment, slogging through molasses though about to explode.

"Who wouldn't stop?" he was swallowing back the threatening bile, struggling to speak actual words. Panic and desperation started to edge into his tone as he tugged her hands closer toward him, wanting to shift her closer, a wild look starting in his eyes. "Stop what? Tell me, Di. I have to know, tell me."

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babyd
2011-07-20 02:43 am UTC (link)

She couldn't tell him, she couldn't tell him, she couldn't tell him! Derek was going to get so mad, he was going to be so mad about all of this, at her for not speaking up sooner because then they could've caught the guy--How could they have caught him? Dianna hadn't seen his face, just his mask, every time she closed her eyes at night she could see his mask, and feel the leather of his gloves and the rough texture of his cloak against----Why was Derek doing this to her? Why did he want her to relive these memories? What did it matter, now? The war was over, they weren't searching for death eaters, she hadn't died----

Dianna shut her eyes tightly, trying to force away the vivid images and she didn't feel herself lean forward and pressing her head into her brother's shoulder. The pounding of her brain was becoming too much, and all she wanted him to do was stop asking her questions. But it was Derek, and he was never going to stop, not until he saved the day and fixed everything. That was the reason she hadn't run to Derek, because she knew if she'd told him what had happened, what the death eater had done, her brother would have gone out and gotten himself killed trying to seek revenge. Revenge. Dianna wasn't stupid, she was far from stupid, she might be crazy, but she wasn't stupid----Derek was messed up, and he'd never gotten better, and she---she was not going to make him any worse.

But he wasn't going to stop, was he? He wasn't going to let her go, and Dianna knew it was pointless to try anymore. She pulled herself back up, shoulder slumped in a defeated manner. It was no use.

"The death eater," she said, somehow managing an emotionless reply after all the manic thoughts she'd just had. Dianna was beginning to fear that she had gone mad, but was a person able to admit that to themselves if they actually were? Her voice continued to be hollow, "He broke in on Halloween, and attacked me, and didn't---stop."

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bigd
2011-07-20 03:22 am UTC (link)

Crack.

The hand he'd forgotten about, the one not touching his sister in anyway, holding his wand, seized. Snapped the useless instrument in two.

Bits of the wood jutted into his palm, scraping it, piercing it. It didn't matter. He threw the pieces away from him. It didn't matter, because that wand hadn't done anything to stop this. A wand, in fact, was what allowed his sister to be so—

He could not think it. Did not dare think it.

Nausea rolled over him in waves. He could feel that same hand tensing, as if unable to stop itself from ripping away at that flesh with its incessant crawling and creeping and dragging and itching and burning because this was his doing, and it was his fault—

He slid closer, more for himself than her, to know she was still alive, and still here, and still walking and talking and thinking and his baby sister. He extended his arms now, gentle, so gentle, like she was moth wings and the slightest touch might crumble her, and slid them around her utterly still frame.

They would not touch her again. They would never touch anyone he cared for once more, ever.

"I will make it all right," he told her tonelessly, numbly. "I will make everything all right again."

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