The Augury had made many mistakes. They piled on the closer she got to her goals, the closer she got to fixing everything. The greatest of her mistakes, however, she reflected upon in the silence of Azkaban. The deathlike silence and bright light blocked out any sympathy, any darkness left in her. She knew her worst mistake now.
It wasn't murdering that child, it wasn't manipulating the old man, it wasn't using the two schoolchildren. Her worst mistake had been being born, according to Euphemia Rowle, the closest thing she'd ever had to a mother. Not that she was much of a mother, relishing in the steady stream of gold pouring in from too many people who wanted to cover her up, wanted to forget that she'd existed.
She wasn't sure that was right. As the endless days went on, the days in which she wished she could forget or die or something she knew it was something else.
Finally, in a dream, it came to her with the Good Harry Potter's Fateful Advice- "You will always be an orphan."
As if she didn't know. As if that wasn't why she did it all.
She remembered being a child in the Rowle house. She was surrounded by toys and had clothes and one bedroom/playroom to live in. She was fed and kept healthy. Some would say that she should be more grateful for it all. Both Thorfinn and Euphemia told her to be more grateful all the time, that she was lucky Thorfinn hadn't strangled her as a baby.
She was like that muggle fairytale, Rapunzel, trapped in her tower with all she could ask for; a gilded cage. Except hers wasn't that well gilded. It was like looking at a true magical artifact and then at its replica. The difference wasn't in how it appeared, but what it truly was beneath the surface.
She stayed there, watching as the sunlight avoided her, how the birds cried whenever she came near, especially that bloody augury.
"It's crying because you're coming to a sticky end!" Euphemia shrieked with malevolent glee. "It's crying because you'll turn out just like your mother and father!"
She would burst into tears and hide under the sheets of her bed, wondering if her father wasn't in Azkaban and if her mother hadn't been killed by Molly Weasley, if neither had been Death Eaters at all-would they have held her close and sang to her, like the parents in her books? Or would they have considered her a mistake, something to cover up and keep locked away in a gilded cage for no one to see?
She could only hope that the answer was the former, not the latter.
It was when she was eleven when her biggest mistake really began to take shape, truly reach its tragic climax. She was woken early without another word, and Euphemia Rowle thrust her into an icy bath, and ran the comb aggressively through Delphi's black curls, and forced her into the last nice dress Delphi'd ever had, a green velvet garment that was slightly too small.
There was a quick breakfast, in which she was scolded for being too slow, and the new there was the Floo Powder and the fire. Delphi stepped through the green flames, leaving behind the dreary manor and entering a cleaned-up Azkaban.
She'd listened as her father, on his death bed, whispered a final secret to her, one she refused to give up to anybody except the Rowles-they already knew.
She was the daughter of the Dark Lord, the one everyone feared too much to ever speak his name, despite being almost eleven years since his death.
It gave her importance, a purpose. Especially when that night, her gift of the Oracle she was named after gave her a mission. To find the spares, to reverse time, to rebirth the dark, to bring back her father. The Rowles gave her eerie smiles of delight, offering to spoil her with books on the darkest of arts, a wand, a splendid potion-making kit, anything she wished-just to achieve her goals.
It was clear to her as she studied and stumbled through her awkward fourteenth year that the Rowles weren't deserving of raising the Dark Lord's heir. They wanted to use her to bring back an order and get the highest honors. That honor belonged to her mother alone. After all, her mother was the only one worthy of carrying his child, wasn't she?
They could have their high position! She wanted more than to be her father's lieutenant. She knew he wanted her-right? He would love her, and cherish her and praise her and-
The Augury shook her head at her foolishness and wrapped her arms around her, a pseudo-hug. What she wanted would and could never be hers. It was clear to her that her biggest mistake was thinking that she could be loved. No one would, right? She was stupid enough to think that the dark lord who had abandoned her when she needed him most could love her.
She'd obsessed for years over the possibilities, over what she could become, over the relentless love she would surely get back for her endless years of trouble. But Potter was right, as much as she hated to say it.
All she would ever be was an orphan, unwanted, unloved, unneeded.