24th March, 1895 — Malfoy Residence

She thought she might actually be dying. She had been afraid of this all along – although maybe it was because she had delayed so long that it wasn’t working right, and that was why she was dying? Or the pain from the potion was expected, and necessary, and perhaps only exacerbated by the fact she had been tight-lacing her corsets twice as much as usual to try and hide the growing swell of her stomach, even if it gave her cramps and bruised her ribs. Or because potions weren’t foolproof, and there was a risk of dying anyway, even if this worked.

But she had finally done it, either gathered the courage or succumbed to the reality that she simply could not keep on going like that, and needed to be free of it hanging over her head.

She had pled feeling faint to her family – just the usual sort of stomach ache provoked by her monthlies – and stayed in bed all day yesterday and today without anyone’s protest. (She thought they were all almost glad to be rid of her for an afternoon or two.)

This evening she had thought it was done, that the pain was over. Hours later, she knew she had been wrong. It was the middle of the night – she hadn’t let the maid in to close the curtains, so the moonlight was streaming in – when Estelle lurched up out of bed, doubling over in pain.

She tried to cross the bedroom for a pitcher of water on the side table, but her vision was off or her grasp was too weak, and the jug dropped, smashing to pieces around her bare feet. The sound hardly startled her – the stabbing pain was distracting enough – but someone else had heard it, because footsteps were coming down the hall. Not Mama, she prayed, but their parents’ rooms were not so near as her sisters’ were. Let it be Angeline, then, she might’ve hoped – but as the doorknob turned, Estelle was too busy swaying on her feet to see who had intruded.

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“It doesn’t matter,” Estelle answered, about the pitcher in pieces; she had meant to whisper it, but the words came out louder, frantic. She didn’t want to wake anyone – anyone else, if Torie had already intruded upon her – but at the same time she wanted to wail in pain, like a bawling baby.

Mostly she wanted her sister to care less for the glass on the floor and more for her. (Merlin, she wished someone, anyone, would actually care about her.) A little deliriously, Estelle reached out to clamp her hand around her sister’s wrist, tight as a vice – even that was scarcely enough to steady her from the temptation to collapse to the floor, but she clung on, trying to stay upright. “Torie. Help me,” she moaned. “I think I might be dying, Torie.”

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Torie was leading her back towards the bed – there was a dark stain of blood where she had been lying for the last few hours, and some that had bled through her nightgown. The potioneer had warned her about the bleeding – that was supposed to happen – but it seemed to be getting worse. Much more than her monthlies. And exactly how much bleeding was too much?

So a little cut or scrape from the broken jug was low on Estelle’s list of things to care about; perhaps the loss of blood was making her woozy, because even walking across the room felt like a feat right now. Torie was about the only thing getting her there – but when her sister suggested calling someone, Estelle shook her head vehemently and dug her fingernails deeper into Torie’s arm, as if to prevent her. “No,” she said, eyes wide, with all the force she had. “No. If you do that I’ll be worse than dead. No one can know what I’ve done. You can’t leave me – and you can’t tell. Swear you won’t tell.”

The empty potion bottle was still tucked away in her bedside drawer, along with the potioneer’s instructions. There was no undoing it now – but it would be better to die of it than have her parents or a healer examine the scene and realise what had happened. With Torie’s help, Estelle slumped onto the edge of her bed, heedless of the bloodstains in the middle of her sheets, and clutched at her abdomen again as it cramped.

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Torie’s tone might have registered as unfamiliar to her, if Estelle had been able to conceive of much beyond the nausea and the cramping. Even through the pain, she could recognise the strangeness of her sister’s arm around her, though – and she knew she had lost too much blood and lost all sense if this contact was comforting to her, but Estelle buried her face against Torie and clung tightly to her hand.

“There’s a letter in my drawer,” Estelle whispered, nodding her head very slightly towards the beside table. “I need to send for a blood replenishing potion.” Torie would see, if she read the potioneer’s instructions; Estelle didn’t think it had been as long as he said yet, but she would rather take it sooner than later. She didn’t know if Torie would be clever enough to work out what she had taken (which was not much of an insult, given Estelle hadn’t known potions could do such things as this to begin with), but she felt she ought to preface it with some acknowledgement. “I – I did something very stupid, Torie. I gave up my virtue to him.” Why had she done it? Why had this happened to her?

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She heard Torie’s promise, if it was a promise and she could be trusted to help rather than turn her in. Estelle wasn’t convinced, but nor did she have any strength left to do anything but stay curled up and contorted on her bed, waiting to see if her sister would return.

She had tried counting the seconds or the minutes, but the time had gone hazy the harder she tried to keep track of it – she might have been lying here for hours, moaning quietly, until a face swam back into view. “Thank you,” she mumbled without thinking, foreign as the words were to her, and reached out for Torie, wanting someone to stay with her. “To the potioneer?” she queried, confused, as panic rose in her throat like bile. “You wrote to the potioneer, didn’t you, and not to Leo?” Merlin, she hoped so – she didn’t want him to think she had suffered this badly for his sake.

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