AN: Welcome! I'm so excited to finally be posting this story! Before we get in to the prologue, I'd like to make a quick trigger warning forany of my readers who are triggered by suicidal thoughts. I don't want you guys getting hurt!

I race down the tall corridor, feet pounding and heart racing. There is no way that she can catch me, which means there is no way that I can hurt her, and more importantly no way that she can hurt me.
"AVA?" I can sense the slight panic in her voice, but right now I don't care. I keep on running until I find the door that will lead me to my freedom.
"AVA! Please!" I hear her scream, but her footsteps have stopped. I just have to keep moving. I turn the corner and move my hand slightly to open the window in a rare burst of wandless magic, like that of an emotional I near the open window,
I don't slow down. Instead, I jump out of the window and begin to fall three stories down. The wind on my face and through my long dark hair feels so good, I almost hate to save myself.
A millisecond later, I have pure golden wings. I am smaller than usual and I can feel my beak forming. The transformation now complete, I allow myself to nearly touch the ground before whipping my wings out and soaring away across the forest of trees.
Here, I can do my best to forget everything, especially my mother.


I fly for a few hundred miles before landing in the top branches of a gargantuan oak. I hop down to one of the thicker branches before transfiguring back to myself.
Breathing heavily from my flight, I lean up against the trunk and sob. I sob for missed opportunities and lost loves. I sob for everyone I have lost. I sob for the constant ache in the back of my brain and I sob for my mother.
How could she do this to me? What in Merlin's name was she thinking? Couldn't she see how happy I was? Couldn't she see how miserable I was before? Why can't my mother just let me be happy for the rest of my numbered days?
But then again, why am I surprised?How can she realize how important Sirius Black is to me? She is incapable of love. She will never leave me alone long enough for me to be happy.
What will happen, I wonder, if I jump off of this tree? If I don't let my mind catch me? Will my world feel better if it just...ends? Surely nothing at all is better than this.
But no... No. I could never do that to Sirius, my dear Sirius. I lean back into the tree and take deep breaths until I am completely calm.
Did I seriously just consider suicide? After all that is good and beautiful in my life, was I really just about to end it all like that?
If there is one thing that Sirius Black has taught me, it is that the good always outweighs the bad. Right now, he is the only lighthouse in my dark harbor. I'll hold on to him. He can outweigh any bad situation.
I suppose that you may want an introduction.
My name is Avaline Pholenx, but everyone calls me Ava. I am sixteen years old and I'm in my sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and
Wizardry. When my world isn't being blown apart by my mother, I'm actually fairly stable...for a seer, that is.
I look down at my torn emerald and black velvet dinner dress. It all happened so fast... The dinner, the announcement, the proposal, the fight... And then my mother, delivering something worse than a death sentence. A promise.
I suppose you cannot hope to understand why I, someone with "so much potential" and "so much ahead of me" would consider ending my own life... But for that you'd have to go back to the beginning of this year.