The Death of Ciara Avaran
Chapter 5
An End and a Beginning
A month after Mrs. Avaran heard about her husband's death, something woke her up in the middle of the lonely night. It sounded like crying... like a baby. She walked about her house, and realized that it was coming from just outside the front door. She opened it to find a very young child, probably only a few weeks old, who had black hair and grey eyes. She knew it was Ciara's before she found the letter within the folds of the blanket, the blanket which had been Ciara's when she was only a baby. Mrs. Avaran held the child close as she read the letter.
So you are going to die, my Ciara... Perhaps it is best, I wouldn't want you living out the rest of your miserable life in that horrible Azkaban... You are too precious for that... She watched the unhappy baby kick and squirm as he howled for his mother. You are hungry, aren't you? I have milk inside, Love. What is your name again...? She read the letter again until she found it, and would have preferred any other name than that given: Tom Marvolo Riddle.
They grew together for years, Little Tom older and Mrs. Avaran all the more insane. Horrible Muggles... look what they did to you and your mother and my husband... every last one of them should die, was her usual lullaby to him. The story of his mother and father was deeply embedded in his brain by the time he was a year old. The immense hatred which followed was only inevitable. Mrs. Avaran had planted a fatal seed which would grow like a wild fire through the boy's life by the time she died when he was three. Little Tom was taken away to an orphanage, there to stew in his hatred until he could go to a wizarding school and begin learning how to get rid of every last Muggle... and then to take over the wizarding world. He would be immortal, he knew that much. He had to be. The one who saved the wizarding world from the horrible deeds of the Muggles could be nothing less, so this ambitious three-year-old believed.
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The last charm had been placed upon the book. All she had left to do was fling it into the lake. Perhaps decades, maybe centuries after that one of the students would find it, and she could half-way live in the way she wanted. Unknown... pure... innocent.... Her hard life would be lost in the pages which would become a new life at that point, but until it was found, she would rest. Far far away from Muggles or wizards, as deep as the lake could go. The Merpeople would place her away somewhere, she wouldn't be much of a bother. She would be dead after all.
The chain around her waist felt almost light. She was looking forward to this. She wondered if she even needed the chain, the weight of her heart would probably be enough. Yet she went on, first one step then another.... knee-deep... waist-deep... then over the head.... It would be over soon... Not long to wait now... She thought of Tom, and seemed to sink faster, but it was all she cared about... and of course their child.... Yes... Little Tom, her angel. Perhaps one day they would meet, the father and son, and once again find the love which she lacked. The father could not hate his own son, and the son would certainly be gracious enough to forgive his father. It was what she wanted to believe, and with her last muddled thoughts as her lungs burned for air, she preferred to see the life she might have had... Her love and her son, together, with her. There was nothing beyond that.
THE END