Mother and Father could never get along. Technically, they were still married, but only in the slightest most legal sense of the world. They weren't a couple, spending years apart. When I was smaller I often wondered why they even bothered, until I learned it was for my sake. I lived an odd life. Six months with mother, six with father, they tought me what I knew. With Father, it was shadier subjects, "as befits a Malfoy", with Mother, simpler and more practical objects, "such is good for a Weasley like you." I grew up a decent witch, but I still had no clue who I was...
I knew my name, and there everything stopped. I was Catilline Malfoy-Weasley, and... and I... and I what? Even my name showed indecision. Which clan claimed me as their own...?
Mother and Father did try to lessen the hurt. They did try for my sake, but it was the same. A fight best described as a minor explosion, a bitter time apart, then Father would miserably slink back, begging my mother's forgiveness, and as they cooed like turtledoves to one another things were happy for a short time until it all happened again. Like a circle, a bitter cycle. Yet, I didn't feel I was really affected.
In that was my weakness and my strength. Nothing seemed real to me... life was just a game... a play... a stage... I was a narrator... just a narrator... everything was third person. I stifled my feelings so much that I didn't know any anymore. Everything was unreal in my reality...
Paradise is there
You'll have all that you can eat
Of milk and honey over there.
Father ensured I had only the best, and Mother complied. The grit of the real world was carefully combed from my daily life until I began to think selfish thoughts, and I began to think everyone lived in the lap of luxury such as me. When not busy with my studies, I played in my greenhouses, horticulture my passion. My signature was flowers that produced small versions of the animals they were named for. I remember how Father was pleased when he saw a Dragonbud in bloom with a tiny dragonet resting in its center. It was his flicker of good will that I spent days laboring for. I savored the moment like honey.
Then, of course, things changed, as they are apt to do.
Strawberry hair
Lips so sweet
Skin so fair
Father died.
Afterwards it wasn't real to me. I wept and donned black in ceremony only. He was gone, and gone forever. Just another thing I wouldn't have to constantly do, the task of winning his favor gone. Why should I mourn? It was a weight off my shoulders. In the spring I planted Dragonbuds all around his grave, and in the summer I would sit and watch the dragonets strech out and bask on his gravestone.
Because of his death, I recieved another luxury I didn't need - sympathy, and with it, freedom. I was twelve, and as indifferent to the matter as a rock. I knew my place, and in it I was left craving something that I didn't know the name of...
Beyond compare
It's rags to riches
Over there
Maybe that subtle change in myself prompted me to go to California. Mother didn't notice, my multitude of uncles tending to her with tender compassion after her loss. They assumed me to be in the greenhouse, working, ever working. But I wasn't. I snuck out and headed to the nearest train into London, and then to Gatwick Airport. I must have been something of a sight, with my luggage, money in my hands, and a potted flower carefully carried in the crook of an arm (for I had been working on Tiger Lilies, and I wished to bring one with me).
I collected my ticket for the long flight and sat to wait it out. Noticing that I was quite obviously a witch, they escorted me to a special lounge set up for the magical peoples. I was alone in the room, save for a few others who stood chatting and took no notice of me. I set the pot down in front of me, and set to working. With my wand, I manipulated the flower into thinking it was time to bloom. Slowly it began to open, faster than a muggle flower, but still slow.
moved it's fingers
through the ground
Earth divided
Plates collided
Such an awful sound
As the lily's petals folded outward, I was faced with my near sucess.
There was a minute tiger lying curled up in the center of the flower, matching the colour of the flora. It could have easily fit into my palm. Every detail was perfect, from the stripes to the barely visible whiskers on its face to its pink pawpads and claws barely big enough to cut through anything. But it wasn't moving, wasn't breathing. I gently stroked the tiger with a finger, its fur delicately soft and delightful to the touch. It did not stir.
O wicked ground
Build a dream
Tear it down
Then was when it hit me, when the flower began to fade and wilt and I realized that the tiny tiger was dead. It was a small loss in retrospect, a fluke, I had many other healthy plants back home that gave me a pack of minute cats to play with, but there was the tiny tiger who never even had a chance to recieve the blessings I took daily for granted. That was when I became myself again, when all of my feelings gushed back at me like a river with a dam let loose. I held the tiny creature close and sobbed - for myself, for Father, for Mother, for everyone in the world, for the tiger, for my poor sweet tiger who was going to be perfect but wasn't.
My flight was long since departed and it was just dawn as someone found me, a legendary figure Mother had told me about when I was a child - Harry Potter, drab in a black trenchcoat and muggle clothing hued in gray. He stood over me, gingerly took my luggage, and said kindly to me in a deeply rumbling voice: "Time to go, Catilline."
Too absorbed in my sobs, I struggled up with the tiger cupped in my hands and followed him, ashamed, out of Gatwick and back home. Back to Life, and to the misery from which even California and tiger-lillies could not save me...
I was Catilline Malfoy-Weasley. I was a girl who just got a rude slap in the face from the world, and I was following The Boy Who Lived with a four-inch-long tiger in my palms. But at least then I knew who I was.
What a wicked ground
Build a dream