The tall grandfather clock in the salon chimes its mechanical little tune, just like it did to every hour, every day, and every year of my life I have lived in this castle of a mansion. Believe me, I hate comparing myself to a princess stuck in some goddamn tower waiting for Prince Muggle Charming to ride by on his mighty steed and carry me off to his faraway kingdom, but…well I guess I am. Fuck.
The feather I hold way to tightly scratches the paper scroll maliciously, as if it were trying to stab whoever gave me this essay to write. My thoughts wander off to a distant place, where I could stab out Professor Gauntley's eyes and still inherit father's fortune. What a perfect world it would be. Rich and evil and oh so lonely. Thinking about it, that's actually exactly what my life is like right now, so it would do me no good anyway. Picking up my wand, I point it at the feather. I feel it transform between my fingers, twisting and turning, hissing at me. I let the snake slide over the desk and drop on the thickly carpeted floor where it glide away soundlessly.
"Come back," I whisper, but the snake ignores me. Of course it does, I'm not Alacair and it owes me no allegiance. With a frustrated flick of a wand the snake is a feather again, and lazily floats into my hand. "I will teach you obedience, some day," I hiss, and continue writing.
A familiar pair of feet comes thundering down the staircase, skipping the last step and landing as elegantly as a toad tossed into boiling water at the bottom. I can feel her eyes watching me, wondering whether it's even worth the breath. She can see I'm doing school work, even if her little eight-year-old head doesn't quite understand the meaning of that word. Honestly, I'm not sure whether Diana can even read.
She takes a deep panting breath, before spluttering "Doyouwannadosometing?"
"Like what?" I don't look up.
"I don't know. Play wizard chess, look for secret rooms, ride our broomsticks. You've been working on that for forty-three minutes now and I'm bored" The last part escapes in an annoying little whine and she puts on her pouty face that works so well around grown ups. Her whitish blonde hair is all tousled and her forehead and hands are covered in sooth.
"What the hell, Diana. You've been playing around in the fireplace again, haven't you?" With a zip of my wand the sooth is gone and her hair looks somewhat normal again. She frowns at me.
"I hate when you do that"
"Too bad" I don't even know why I'm so snippy around her, but since she's basically the only person in the world who takes honest interest in me I almost feel obliged to talk to her, even if it's just silly little girl stuff. "You look like some Mudblood tramp. Miss Higgins should lock you in the sulking cupboard" That old nanny is loosing her sting, which is exactly what my parents hired her for. I remember her chasing Alacair up and down the stairs with a broom, and locking us in our "sulking cupboard's" when we were having a fight. Now she's an old kind woman who reads stories and shit like that. Pathetic.
"Miss Higgins will never do that to me, she told me that," Diana says.
"Oh did she?"
"Yes, she said you and Cairy were evil little brats and that you got what you deserved! But not me, I'm a good child" She stems her hands on her hips and smiles at me gleefully. I roll my eyes and shift my attention back to the paper.
"You're boring," she says after a while.
"You're getting nothing of father's wealth, so shut up"
"That's not true!" I seriously feel like throwing her out of the window, when she starts screaming and thrashing her little fists in the air. "Not true, not true! Daddy loves me more than he ever loved you or Alacair, that's why he's sending you off next week! Because you're evil and he doesn't want you to get his money. He said so to Mummy, I heard them talking…" Her voice dies as I tower over her. Shiny blue eyes, just like mine, with long sleek hair, just like mine.
She is afraid of me. I realize that now. Just like father and mother and everybody else. They think I'm a heartless monster, me, the pure blood fanatics that murdered my brother, their own son. Normal families don't do that. Normal families have love and warmth. Neither a quality I possess. Did Alacair possess them? Or was it just his unbendable stubbornness, his hatred toward the Thornes that drove him that far?
It doesn't matter, the outcome was the same.
I sit back down and lean over the school work.
There's a lot to make up before I go to Hogwarts.