Disclaimer: I Do Not Own Harry Potter.
Written for Early House of Black speculation Challenge.
Title: Cursed Skin
Character: Cassiopeia Black
Cassiopeia Black was beautiful, but she also cursed or at least that's what people said.
If she touched you with a pale hand, she knew when you would die. If she stared at you with her dark eyes, she could see into your soul and knew all your sins.
She wore a black veil to keep her face hidden because she didn't want you to know she was reading your soul.
These were the types of things people said about her and none of it was true.
She was not cursed with the gift of being able to predict when people died, nor could she see into anyone's soul.
If anyone had bothered to look they would have seen that she wore clothes not only a veil and if anyone asked, she would have told them that she had sensitive skin a burnt even on really cloudy days.
Of course, this slight issue had been taken has a sickness that put off potential suitors.
Not that it mattered to her she liked being alone and didn't want to a mother. She knew that for a Pureblood woman to remain unmarried and childless was basically unheard off unless the woman couldn't have children or had in some way brought shame to the Pureblood way of life.
Still, it's not that she had chosen to remain this way sure she was glad it, but had never been her choice.
Her family would never let it be her choice.
It was the Black family motto to produce as many heirs as possible, even if meant using dark magic to make it happen.
It wasn't just her family, but all the old families did and Cassiopeia could see there being big consequences for future generations but she never voiced this.
It was her job to find a decent husband and produce as many magical, healthy as possible.
It was a job that she so far had failed at much to her family embarrassment, then again, it couldn't be any more embarrassing than having a squib in the family.
She missed Marius and hadn't agreed with blasting him of the family tree. She still wrote to him and he replied often.
He had met and married a Muggle woman who was pregnant with their first child.
She hadn't told him that she was still unmarried because it seemed unimportant to her at least.
Now if she could get her parents to agree, then her life would be great.
It's not like it was her fault every suitable man in her parents' eyes thought she was too sickly to marry.
There had been this half blood wizard who had taken a shine to her and wasn't bothered about her sensitive skin. He was really sweet, but her parents had made it clear it was not an option for her to marry him.
She had considered marrying him anyway, just to annoy her parents, but she knew that her family would use every connection they had to destroy him and everyone he cared about if had married him.
So until someone came up with a cure for skin problem or Pureblood men stopped being arrogant, shallow morons who only saw women as an heir carrier unmarried and childless she would remain.
The odds of that happening were low and the odds of her remaining unmarried were high not that it bothered her.
She enjoyed the freedom she had and not being shackled to a man until either he died or she did.
She liked her own company and the company of books instead of screaming children.