Chapter 1:Mother is Right
No one had expected for him to drop dead at the Quidditch game. That was probably because when he had grabbed Allison's hand and a handful of floo powder he seemed perfectly content. Content with that fact that Allison's mother had just blown at him for "encouraging such barbaric behavior." The rest of the yelling came from Allison's mother and consisted mostly of accusations on how this one simple Quidditch game would ruin Allison for the rest of her life and how she could never be lady like after it. But in response he had just smiled, gave his wife a kiss on the cheek, grabbed Allison, and left her standing there in disbelief.
Although Allison was merely eight, she still knew the normal behavior and activities of a funeral. And her father's funeral turned out to be the exact opposite of normal. The funeral had consisted of no expressed sympathies, no stories of how great Willem Stapleton was, and most of all no uncontrollable tears.
Strangely all that was all okay with Allison, she was okay with no one crying and mostly okay with being blamed for his death by every other person. However, it was the fact that Aradia Stapleton, who had spent ten years married to Willem, had not cried a single tear since his death. She had, actually, spent the first 5 minutes of her husband's funeral having his parents removed from the event.
Allison was not sure of the typical pureblood behavior, but her mother had practically recited to her, "A pureblood is never surprised and never phased." Allison had taken notice that her mother had spent the period of time from her fathers death to his funeral, the exact opposite, running around like a chicken with its head cut off. And the hypocrisy didn't stop there.
The chicken had been doing everything in her power to forget her husband. For weeks Allison's mother had been repeating the phrase to no one in particular, "Out with the old…" She made it her mission to 'cleanse' herself of everything that reminded her of him.
It didn't take long for Aradia to remove everything of Willem's out of the house. All his clothes, the bed they had shared, every gift he had given her was thrown away. Allison had become so upset with her mother that she spent a whole day digging in the trashcan and putting things back to their original spots.
As punishment for this, Aradia made Allison's room her next 'cleansing project'. Everything her father had given her was put into a pile in the center of the room, and when she was absolutely certain that every object was there she dragged Allison by the arm to the pile and sat her down.
"Stop your crying," Allison was told. And when Allison didn't stop Aradia repeated herself.
"I wont throw any of it away," Allison argued.
"You will do as your told. Like every good young pureblood you will do as your told," Allison's mother said in a robotic tone. "Now, here's how this is going to happen. For every object I will give you a scenario, the object will be burned unless you respond as a pureblood would. With no argument, do you understand me?"
"I'm not going to answer any of your stupid questions" Allison replied crossing her arms.
With her anger growing her mother grabbed a book entitled "How I Know My Daddy Loves Me" and threw it into a fireplace to the right of her. Despite Allison's screaming and pleading, the book was engulfed in flames and burned into ash.
"That was the first book he gave me," Allison cried.
"Now should we continue without the crying and screaming please," Aradia more of stated then asked.
Right in front of her eyes, every object that Allison held dear was destroyed by the fire. She wasn't sure it was resentment towards her mother, or the sorrow of losing everything imperative that was making her cry, but she hadn't stopped for hours. Her voice was hoarse, her eyes blood shot and red, her lips chapped, and her cheeks permanently salty from the tears. There was no hope for Allison getting a questions right, because no matter how thought out and calm her answer was, it was always wrong.
Finally her mother picked up the last object on the floor. A pile of pictures, held together by a rubber band lay in Aradia's hand.
"Maybe you could stop being a disappointment long enough to answer this right and save these pictures of you and you father. An invitation for a Quidditch game has been extended to you from the Malfoy Family. Your correct response would be?"
"I curtsey." Allison said plainly.
"Yes, and what else?"
"In a tone no greater then a whisper, I would graciously decline their invitation. And if they continued to insist on my company I would simply reply that a Quidditch game is no sensible place for a young lady to be and that my mother would not approve of me wasting such time there."
Her mother stared at her with disgust and walked towards the fireplace and brought her arm out over the flames. Aradia looked back at her daughter before she dropped the pictures and asked, "You would talk in such a way to the Malfoys?" Aradia dropped the pictures into the flames and walked towards the door.
Through tears and gasps Allison managed to reply to her mother, "I would speak to the Malfoys in such a way because, like you said when you burned my locket from father, 'We come from The Noble and Most Ancient House Of Black and no one is better then us.'"
"Ah, yes. Well maybe I did say that." She said exiting and closing the door behind her.
Allison ran to the fireplace as if some hope remained. When she got there, the only picture left was disappearing by the second and not even the tears that rushed down her cheeks rapidly could save the memory. In the picture, Willem was seen with a 3-year-old Allison on his lap attacking her with kisses. After a few seconds, he looked to the camera and mouthed the words 'I Love Her'. While her father expressed his love with such excitement, Allison giggled hysterically and wrapped her arms around his neck to hug him tightly turning her back towards the camera.
"No ones better then the Black's…" Allison cried.
"No ones better then the Black's…"
"Somebody wake her up."
"Why? She looks like she needs her rest anyways. Those bags under her eyes aren't doing anything for her." A young man with brown hair chuckled not looking up from a book with 'plays' chicken scratched on the front cover.
"She's having that nightmare again. And I don't want to want to sit with the girl who had practically flooded the compartment drooling over you Oliver, but if worst comes to worst…" another boy with red hair replied.
"Samantha something of another. I think that's her name. I don't quite remember, she wasn't that great of a snog. I don't want to drown in her spit again." The third boy, with red hair similar to that of the boy across from him, laughed.
"Fred, as much as I enjoy hearing stories of my brother's broom closet adventures, will you just wake the girl up please?" George Weasley pleaded with his identical twin.
"You know I think I might have met her in the broom closet more then once now that you bring it up. You said her name was Samantha?" Oliver Wood said closing his book and entering the conversation.
"Yeah, that's her name. Samantha something, her last name has seemed to slip my mind. Say George, You remember?"
"…Always respectful to those who are greater…" Allison blurted out from the window seat of the compartment.
"I swear to Merlin! No, I don't remember the girl's name! And if you don't wake Allison up right now you not going to remember your own!"
Fred stared at his brother, furrowed his eyebrows and the turned towards Allison. "Oy!" he exclaimed nudging Allison.
Allison woke up in a bolt looking around her as if confused by the scene. When she had 'gathered' herself, and figured out that she had been dreaming she greeted the others. "Hello boys, enjoy your vacation?" she inquired as she dropped her head onto the back of the seat.
"I enjoyed it as much as I enjoy hearing you mumble in your sleep Stapleton," Oliver said reopening his book.
"What's up his butt?" Allison asked the two other boys.
"He spent his summer following after some girl, and now the problem is he hasn't got any play to run for Quidditch practice."
"And the only plays he has for games are the ones we used last year…"
"Merlin knows the Slytherin team knows those like the back of their slimy, scaly hands by now," Fred said concluding the twin's statement.
"Oy! Big mouths! What are you telling nosey over here for? Its not like she knows anything about Quidditch anyways. Or relationships for that matter," Oliver said smacking Fred and George on their arms with his book.
As the twins rubbed their arms, Allison was busy glaring at Oliver and growing angrier.
"What are you going to do Stapleton? You know both statements are true. You don't know one thing about Quidditch, and you couldn't enlighten me with one fact about dating. Face it Love, your mum's rules just make you seem more ridiculous." Oliver said placing his hand on her knee as if to sympathize with her.
"At least my mother taught me not to deal with Gryffindor wankers like you," Allison said throwing Oliver's hand off her knee, snatching up her advanced potion making book from the open area besides her, and beginning to read. Because she had herself sitting in the corner the rest of the group wasn't able to see that hidden in her potions book was another entitled "Beating the Bludgers: A Study of Defensive Strategies in Quidditch". Allison herself quiet often laughed at the irony. She was labeled as this unable, and book worm-ish girl who cared for nothing more then Newt's and Owl's, yet in reality, she was rarely reading books for her courses and frequently reading Quidditch books.
"Yes your mother is always right isn't she Stapleton," Oliver said rolling his eyes. "Always do what your told, typical pureblood behavior. It's disgusting, you and your whole family disgust me."
"Take it back Oliver," Allison demanded.
"No."
"Take it back or I will turn into a 'typical' pureblood." She threatened.
