"This doesn't feel right, Arthur." Molly Weasly twisted her fingers around a kerchief as she and her husband, Arthur Weasly, made their way through Saint Mungo's Hospital. She bit her lower lip hard, feeling the lipstick she placed on carefully this morning for the momentous event. It had been almost seven years since she came to this part of the hospital; the Psychiatric ward. Her stomach turned in mangled, guilt-ridden knots. Arthur looked down at his distressed wife with pity and the same equal guilt. He carefully took her hand into his own and patted it gently.
"Don't worry, Molly dear. We did the right thing at the time… But you know with the dark Lord free we can't-!"
"I know! I know!" She half sobbed as they approached the door. "But I can't get rid of this wretched feeling …Something…Something…Something terrible will come from this in the end! What if-?"
"We'll just find out when we get inside…" He opened the door for them and swallowed a hard knot in his throat. "We'll find out if Regina will forgive us…"
The hallway to the Psychiatric ward was ice cold, everything sterilized and inhumane. Molly gripped onto her husband's sleeve tightly, incredibly afraid. Her ears played tricks on her, almost as if she could still hear the screams that occurred seven years earlier; when she dragged the small child she had called her own down these very halls and locked her away. Was it…cruel? No, it had to be done. For the family's sake and for Ron's. Oh how he wailed watching Regina being taken. He bit and scratched and clawed with all his God-given might to reach back for Regina. But her eyes seemed so dull and loveless to him every moment seemed to freeze in place. He cried to the doctors instead:
"You don't understand! She's my sister! She didn't do anything wrong! She's my sister! My sister!"
Despite the child's desperate pleas, they took her down behind the white doors and locked her away with white walls. He refused to look at his parents in the eyes since then: Didn't sleep, didn't eat; he even stopped blinking for a period of time. But could Molly really blame her son? No, she was a horrible mother. But what else could she do? She had to protect Ron, she had to protect Regina from the harm she could cause…
But was the price really that worth it?
Arthur slowly marched up to the sign-in window. All the nerve and pride he was holding seemed to slip like sand between his shaking fingers. He swallowed the lump in his throat and told the nurse who was lazily filing her nails on duty. "We're here to pick someone up: Regina Weasly."
The nurse perked up a little when she was called to attention. Her fake pencil eyebrows rose in interest when she heard the name. "Oh…It's the Ice Princess that you want, is it?"
Mr. Weasly didn't quite respond well to the little nickname his eldest daughter seemed to have upheld. "Yes…I mean Regina. We're checking her out, as of now."
The nurse looked almost like she was about to have a heart attack, like the words he just said would never have come out of his mouth. She bolted up and muttered incoherently under her breath and walked out from behind the caged-in desk. "Y-Yes sir…We were hoping this day would come."
A button was pressed and the white-washed doors swung open, an alarmed buzzed. Everything about the hospital wing seemed primitive, mugglish: But it was the best line of protection for mentally ill wizards in Europe. And it drank up a lot of the Weasly's money. The nurse appeared shorter and more chubby from out of her protected box, and as unnatural as everything else in the hospital. But she held her stout head up high with a giant ring of keys around her swelling, large wrist. "Let me take you to her room, Mr. and Mrs. Weasly."
Hesitantly, they followed the fat nurse down the hallway of bolted doors. Mrs. Weasly started to shake terribly, her lip quivered as before. "A-Are you sure we are allowed in this wing? I-Isn't a doctor suppose to… fetch her or something?"
The nurse scoffed at the remark. "She's only your daughter, Mrs. Weasly."
Molly was filled with shame. She bowed her head for the remaining of the trip. How could she possibly think her own child, her own Regina, was something to be feared? She took care of the child most of her life! And out of all the children she could ever ask for, Regina was her sweet…and most mild of all. And yet…despite all that, she locked her baby away in this numb and scary of places. What kind of life-giver had she become.
"Here we are." The nurse announced, coming to the end of the hallway, sorting out her keys and plucking a small, silver one from the bunch. "Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow…You know, being with a bunch of loons all day… I'm going to miss that girl of yours…That Regina."
She stopped herself from becoming too sentimental, shoving the key through the lock and twisting it with a violent force. The door creaked, self-opened and presented the room. It was very plain: a bed with white sheets, walls that seemed to be covered in assorted paints at words that could not be read, and a chair in the middle with a person in it. There was the hum of the alto violin, which seemed to float all on it's own. The Weaslys quelled, the scene becoming all too familiar. Mr. Weasly, again with a brave face that was a lie, marched up to the chair quietly. Taking a stance on the occupants left side, he turned to her. It was with painful recognition he knew who he saw exactly.
Her skin was so white it made a lily envious. It was with deep contrast to her red hair, which looked as bright and red as a rose. The body of the girl was unmistakably that of a seventeen year olds, but she was terribly thin. Her eyes, which seemed to be like the color of blue slate, stayed focused on the violin in front of her: This, was Regina; The Abandoned Weasly kin. Arthur touched her shoulder gently, tilting her concentration and causing the violin to plummet to the floor. He shuddered as the eyes darted to him immediately with a demanding resilience. "H-Hello…Regina."
The eyes calmed, and her posture became poised. She tilted her face so the ragged ruby hair fell over her eyes as she examined him. "Hello…Father. Is it my birthday again?"
Birthday? Of course, they only visited Regina on Christmas and Birthdays. He swallowed again quite hard as she spoke, it made his throat numb. "N-No, precious. We're here to take you somewhere."
Regina tensed. "Somewhere, Father?"
He bent down slowly, just so he could look into his child's eyes. Every inch of the orbs seemed cold and confused. "Yes…Regina, yes. We're going to take you home…"