InsaneJournal

RP: Triggered
Who: Pandora and OPEN

What: visiting the gallery triggers Dora unexpectedly

Where: Towpath Studios, Camden, London

When: Tuesday, late afternoon, November 25

Rating: NSFW (language, PTSD episode, flashbacks, etc. Possibly violence)



Dora was treating herself a little tonight. At least, that was the plan. She’d had to miss the Gala on Friday, since she’d had things she had needed to do and she’d not really felt like company outside of Tristan, who had been very understanding lately. Of course, it was a mutual thing, given their problems, and she never minded if she woke up because he had a problem. She had taken to putting a mild silencing charm on her side of the door, though, one which only the screams of a real night terror would go past, instead of just her normal nightmares.

It all seemed like it was getting more intense with the holidays coming up. This wasn’t unusual, it had happened last year. She’d hoped it would get a bit better this year, with her actually having some family around as well. And in many ways it was. Her waking hours were much calmer, and on the hwole she was much happier.

So this afternoon, after finishing one of the tents in the queue, she stopped for some sweets at sweet shop in Monument, stopped for some delivery on the way to the gallery, leaving Tristan a message so he’d know to look for it, and then went on to the gallery. It had been so long since she’d been to an art museum, she was really looking forward to it.

The artwork didn’t disappoint. Dora walked slowly around the gallery, stopping and just resting her eyes on many of the pieces. Some of the jewelry that broke up the other pieces were lovely, but it was the paintings that tended to draw her eyes the most. Back home—home as in the Montgomery country estate she’d grown up in—she had some artwork she’d started choosing herself from age eleven on up. A pang spiked through her at the memory, and a wistful feeling of longing for the many things she’d never have access to again, from jewelry to paintings to the antiques that were supposed to be hers one day.

She strolled, taking her time and trying to decompress after a weekend that she’d filled mostly with work. That was probably why it took her by surprise, those paintings lurking in the corner on the far side of the gallery. At first the dark, brooding trees drew her in, the moving limbs almost hypnotic as she moved closer to look at it.

The memory caught her offguard. The swaying limbs of the picture transported her to a clearing so much like that one that it took her breath away, the dark limbs against the sky filling her with dread. Because there was someone behind her, she knew there was; the soft cackle of Aunt Bellatrix filled her ear and goosebumps pimpled her entire body as she broke out into a cold sweat.

Breath caught in her throat and she couldn’t get enough air. Dora clutched at her wand, caught up completely in the memory, the urge to flee strong in her, but the fear locking her in place because she knew what Aunt Bellatrix and Uncles Rodolphus and Rabastan would do if she ran. They’d chase, they’d toy with her, they’d take her down and play with her until they got bored, and if they were in a good mood, they might just dump her back at the manor where she probably wouldn’t die.

Probably.

And Greyback… Greyback could be out in the trees. Waiting. He loved to chase. And then he’d leave her just alive enough to make her watch him punish her family. She had to protect them.

She gulped for air, feeling the cool breeze on her clammy face as she tried to be brave. To be as brave as Peri, with his Gryffindor mentality that made it look so damn easy. She’d always been so controlled in the moment, but these things… these things caught her offguard and showed her how terrified she’d been beneath it all at the time. It took away her control and left her helpless. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t fucking breathe.

With immense effort, she wrenched herself to the side, her eyes finally tearing away from the painting but immediately landing on another clearing, one that had blood in it, and she jerked back violently. She didn’t want to watch, didn’t want to see, no not watch don’t make me watch, Aunt Bellatrix, please. Imperio, Imperio, locked in place. Watch, little girl. Enjoy the show, it’ll be brilliant!

She lurched back a little farther, backed into a corner. Her elbow hit something hard, and the sharp pain jolted her into her normal detachment at such pain, but all that did was lodge her more firmly in the cascade of memories.

She turned, trying to leave, hyperventilating in a way she hadn’t done in over a year – in public, at least. She always managed to find a safe place to break down. But it had been so long, and it came as such a surprise. Sound, like an almost silent scream, whistled from her throat as she looked at the running figure through the woods, the running figure through the corridor. She reeled back, trying to breathe because if she could only breathe she could calm down and get out of here and freak out in a much more private place where she could hide in her closet and pretend she didn’t exist.

She ran into someone, and she whirled in an utter panic, scrambling back with a distinct lack of her usual grace. Her arms shoved at whoever it was, defensive rather than offensive when it came down to it. She was used to bearing down on herself so hard, with magic roiling around her and violence under her skin. “Don’t hurt me!” Sharp, breathy, high-pitched. “Don’t touch me! Don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t make me, don’t touch me, don’t don’t don’t!” The words came out thready, and it was obvious that she was in distress, hyperventilating. Heart racing, she felt dizzy and sick and she needed, needed, needed to get out of here, before she died right where she stood. Remembered pain coursed through her, peripherally acknowledged in her detachment from it, and her Mark burned with a pain second only to Aunt Bellatrix’s perfect Crucios.