I joined The Quidditch League! Chaser 1 for the Falmouth Falcons! :D This is my submission for Round 1 – Family. My prompt was to write about a parent so I chose Kendra Dumbledore because she needs some love.
Additional prompts: below, "Don't tell me what to do!", and Nightmare by Saxon
Kendra wakes up alone, and she's still not used to it. The empty space beside her in bed is so cold and she wonders why she doesn't transfigure it to a size more suitable for a single miserable old woman. That's what she is now, after all- alone with three children to raise and a husband who's no good to her locked up in Azkaban. She clutches the sheets just thinking about it, wishing she could dig her nails into something meatier, something more capable of feeling pain.
The church bells strike the hour, and at first she struggles to identify what it is that woke her up in the middle of the night when she hears it again: a clanging sound from the basement, followed by a faint pop! The sound of magic.
Kendra sighs, turning on her side and fumbling for the string attached to the bell in the basement, tugs it once and waits. This is how she and Ariana get by now. Kendra rings once to ascertain if her daughter is okay. Ariana rings once in reply to say that all is well. If all is not well, she rings incessantly until her mother comes down to help her. If Ariana doesn't ring at all, well… Kendra can assume the worst.
A moment later the bell in the hall rings once and Kendra is satisfied. She settles back into the pillows, spreads herself out over her lonely bed and wonders. She wonders what it would have been like if she'd listened to her mother and never gotten married, or if she'd been there to stop those nasty little boys, or if she'd had a daughter that was normal.
Normal. Just wishing for it makes her sick to her stomach. What kind of mother lives like this? What kind of mother keeps her child in the basement?
Her fist flails almost of its own accord and finally makes contact with the wall and a picture frame rattles. She brings her hand back to her mouth to suck on the bruise already forming on her knuckles. "Damn it," she whispers.
The bell in the hall rings once.
Kendra reaches for the string once more.
They are sitting for dinner. All of them. Albus didn't want to, but Kendra had insisted on it, and she does her best now to ignore the look of disgust on his face. Perhaps family dinner is beneath him, but she has more pressing matters to attend to.
Her daughter is angry again. Kendra sits at the head of the table, gripping her seat, waiting for the rage to bubble over. That's the problem with Ariana. She holds it all in until her blood is boiling and the magic in her veins can no longer be contained inside such a dainty little thing. Such a fragile time bomb, she is.
The girl's face goes red, and her fingers start to scrape at her own arms, angry red lines marring porcelain skin.
"Ariana," Kendra says quietly. "Don't do that."
Aberforth leans closer to his sister but she flinches. Her arms are bleeding now.
"Ariana," Kendra says again but the girl doesn't look up and she continues to dig her nails deeper into her flesh. She bares her teeth, groans in pain or irritation or maybe it's the monster within coming out to play. Kendra doesn't know.
Finally, Ariana's chair flies back and hits the wall, sending the girl tumbling to the floor. She gets up and in no time is out the back door.
"No!"
Aberforth is quick to tackle her to the ground and holds a hand over her mouth to muffle the noise; the neighbors can't know. He winces in pain as she bites down on a finger but he doesn't loosen his hold until they are in the kitchen.
"To the basement," Kendra says firmly.
Aberforth hesitates. "But…"
"You heard me," Kendra says. Her eyes flash dangerously, and he doesn't question her again. He only takes hold of his sister's hand and leads her down the basement steps, the echoes of her cries resounding off the walls.
Kendra sits down and puts her head in her hands, her gaze fixed on the floor until movement in the doorway captures her attention and she becomes seemingly fascinated by Albus' shoes.
"What do you want?" she asks miserably.
"Maybe you ought to take her outside more often," Albus says matter-of-factly. "She could probably use some fresh air."
"Don't tell me what to do!" Kendra snaps and then immediately bites her lip. "I'm… sorry." She gets up and searches a cupboard for something a little stronger than wine.
"Mother?" Albus asks.
Kendra sniffs. "Yes, dear?"
"Am I excused from dinner?"
She sighs and takes hold of the bottle of firewhisky. There's hardly any left. She's not sure if she is sad or relieved by this. "Yes," she says, attempting a smile. "You're excused."
Albus leaves and she goes back to her dinner. She doesn't bother pouring the alcohol into a glass and takes a healthy swig from the bottle, before setting it down with a dull thud. She picks up her fork and surveys the empty table.
"Can't say I didn't try," she whispers.
She hunches over her writing desk, quill in hand, and the tip just touches the parchment when she hears it. The bell in the hall sounds an alarm, urgent and desperate and accompanied by Ariana's shrieks from below.
Kendra trips over her feet as she rushes toward the steps, and she is horrified by what awaits her at the bottom.
Ariana clutches at the string, still ringing the bell despite help having arrived. Her face is pink and twisted in pain and the rest of her is soaking wet. Her hair is singed and her dress is blackened and burned and hanging in tatters off of her shoulders, and it doesn't take long for Kendra to realize what must have happened.
She kneels down and resists the urge to hold her daughter close as she inspects the raw skin peeking out from underneath the remnants of her dress.
"Oh, Ariana," Kendra says, choking back tears. "Come on." She gets up and takes hold of Ariana's good hand. "Let's get you cleaned up."
Kendra heals her as best as she can and gives her a Sleeping Potion to forget the pain for the night. And tonight she is glad that her bed is so large, though sharing it with her daughter seems foreign. It occurs to her that it shouldn't.
The guilt tugs at Kendra's heart but she ignores it, turns off the light, and goes to sleep, but her dreams are filled with a little girl, dressed in white, arms spread wide. She could be an angel, Kendra thinks, with a halo of smoke and flaming wings and a fire inside that sometimes finds its way out. She could be an angel, but something just isn't right, and the next morning when she wakes up to Ariana's sobbing, she tries to keep her own tears in check.
She fails.
It's the first and last time Kendra will ever draw her wand on her daughter. They are in opposite corners of the room, and Ariana is shaking, objects moving around her of their own accord. Kendra is shaking too, her wand trembling as she holds it before her, unsure of what to do.
What is a mother to do? Doesn't mother know best?
It's what they say, but Kendra doesn't believe it. Not anymore.
With one step forward, it all comes crashing down. A burst of silvery light blinds her vision and in the middle of it all she can make out Ariana's horrified face, and the faint realization that everything and nothing hurts.
And just before it all fades to black, she sees that vision, the one from her dreams. It's the vision of an angel with a halo of smoke and but this time there is blood on her hands and she has a death grip on a worn out piece of string that used to be her lifeline.
In the distance, Kendra thinks she hears a bell ringing.
She doesn't ring back.