BOOK 2: CHAMBER OF SECRETS
where she loses a bit of herself;
The first time that Audrey noticed that something was essentially wrong with her dad she had been eight; until then, she had only been raised around the stench of alcohol and a parent with missing footsteps, swinging in high heels and kissing men and women alike, with a lopsided grin and terrible sad eyes.
At some point, she had learned to see the little things that most people – her dad lovers, more than anyone's else – would gladly ignore. Most people would turn their back, blinded by glory, money and the haze of chemicals, all the dangerous things that her dad would happily provide to his friends.
But not Audrey.
After all, she had spent her whole life safely locked in an expensive golden cage, whose bars had made her innocent and scared, but never blind. She had seen, even when no one else had – she had seen her dad with red eyes and trembling hands, his voice raising hell and asking for a dead sister who would never come back.
But what had scarred her the most was the fact that, despite how many times her dad would talk to her about magic and impossible things, not a once of it was around their house. Not a wand, nor a spell or magic object; books and whatever never around. Audrey, despite being a half-blood, had been raised as a muggle girl for most of her early years.
It took her a couple of years to understand why – the reason to her dad, despite being powerful enough to her to feel his magic, would never utter a spell, cast a jinx, brew a potion.
His first wand was broken and locked in his room – she had found it once, while exploring – an outburst of courage that had never been common of her. Only the splinters of a once well-carved pale wand, the core falling apart – and she had sure that his heart had been shredded and in pieces, locked with said wand.
Because Ezra Blanchard, the heir of the Blanchard fortune, a wizard whose magic walked in a fine line between light and darkness, powerful and alive and ready to consume everything was terribly scared of his own powers.
"You are starting to talk like them", her dad said to her one morning, while nursing one of his hangovers. "Like mum and dad. You are losing your lovely accent, even your tan. You are growing up to be a completely different person, so pretty that hurts to look at".
Audrey hadn't known what to do with that. She had never paid any attention to how she talked before – but ever since her dad had pointed out to her, she had started to notice how little things about her were changing. She was terrible pale – and was spending as much time as she could in the sun, trying to get her golden skin back. Audrey also had grown, matured somehow, and was slowly losing interest in things that she had held dearly in the summer prior Hogwarts.
She had put away all her dolls – she had no interest in playing with them anymore. Her old friends had been very curious about her adventures in a boarding British school, but they had lost interest quickly and got all occupied gossiping about their new school – where they went together, and their jokes, stories and new games didn't include Audrey in the slightest.
Her books slowly went from little, pesky romances to horror thrillers. In the middle of July, Audrey asked her dad to paint her room green, like Slytherin, and she packed her fairy lights to bring them back with her to Britain.
She loved her home dearly, with all the little things that made it home, but Audrey had never felt so lonely.
Her dad shipped her back to London in the last week of August. Audrey happily packed up her things, locked Cat in her cage, and said her goodbyes, but her mouth had a bittersweet taste on it – she felt being torn apart, not even here or there, but being sliced open and stuck with a constant feeling of missing something.
Her dad almost cried all over again by sending her away, hugged her tightly and made her swear to write him more. Audrey felt bad, for the first time, because while hugging her dad she noticed something about him for the first time – Ezra Blanchard also felt terrible lonely in his great mansion full of parties and friends.
"I'll miss you", she said, because she hadn't last year. Her chest burned, and just for a second, Audrey held tighter. "I'll see you next year?"
"Of course, darling!", he said. As always, her dad smelled like a mix of cocoa, expensive cologne, and alcohol. "And we will go shopping and buy you a nice gift. Maybe we can travel a bit, watcha think? You will be thirteen, almost all grow-up! But you need to go, or you will lose your portal key".
She smiled sadly one last time, bide goodbye to her green-and-silver bedroom and grabbed the old tennis ball that her father had enchanted – with the new wand, that looked terrible wrong in his hand – to send her away to London. The last thing she saw was the lanky image of her dad, wearing his flashy clothes in green and red, huge grey eyes looking so old and so sad.
The world turned upside down, dancing in front of her eyes, swirling and swirling and Audrey had sure she was getting sick, and then – it ended. She landed into her back, with her grandmother – Evelyn, the meanest witch she knew – looking at her with stone-cold eyes.
"Welcome back, Audrey"
a/n ok so I know I'm late, but a lot is happening right now and I wanted to rewrite a bit of this chapter. well, this is only a intro for book 2. thank you for everyone who wrote a lovely review for this fanfiction, I love you all!with love,
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