Contrary to popular belief, she was not a common slut and she didn't only like men for their healthy bank accounts.
Sophìa was a supermodel; beautiful, tall, superior. She deserved the best. Why were strangers so quick to link her choice of husbands with their pile of gold?
Yes, she had killed them. If she hadn't, she could only be adored from afar and would live a life stuck with dull, ugly, old men. Didn't she deserve happiness?
In the beginning, she was besotted, enthralled and entranced by the string of beaus she had wed. In the end, she did not believe in true requited love.
She had been infatuated with each individual man the same way one would love their favourite song. One can't get enough, and desire to hear it on repeat. Sophìa had picked and chosen her husbands because they offered her what her heart most desired: security.
Sophìa had always been a stunning girl that had left men and women speechless. Uncle Leonardo was inclined to agree. When she was starting out as a model at the age of 16, she lived at the home of Aunt Giulia and Uncle Leonardo. He violated her at a place she believed she would be safe.
As she was lying tied up in the spare room, alone and wandless, she found strength in her desolation. She vowed that she would find protection. She would move far, far away from anything and anyone that terrified her and would marry a kind, loving man that would never dream of mistreating her. Sophìa loved to be worshipped and admired, but only from afar, and only by people that she didn't trust. Lust was a dangerous thing, and she would not fall for its peril.
She had only truly been in love once. Her first husband, Giorgio Bianchi, had been a sculptor. He had lived near her as a little girl, and had never been intimidated by her. He challenged and delighted her. With him she had felt safe. He had dark, curly hair and the smile of an angel.
The one man she had thought would never let her come to any harm had broken her heart. After she found him in flagrante with another man, she was distraught, and told him he was disgusting and belonged where he was going, straight to hell. In fury, she had thrown her yellow diamond wedding ring in his stunned face.
She waited for hours. He did not come back to their home. She had well-rehearsed a speech to overlook that incident and plan to move on, apologising profusely for what she'd said and begging to be taken back into his warm, comforting arms. He hurt her, but they could get through this together. As a team, they were invincible and pure.
He never returned. She awoke the next morning after sobbing herself quietly to sleep to a cold, empty bed. Sophìa had made her way over to the barn her perfect Giorgio had converted into a workshop some two miles away, to beg for his forgiveness.
Her routine was to visit him at every noon, his lunch in hand, ready to admire what iconic work he was releasing from stone that morning. Her heart beat in her mouth as she heaved open the door.
Today was different. All was dark; there were no sounds. She waved her wand in an arc to open the blinds.
Sophìa emitted an ear-splitting shriek at the sight of her husband swinging from the rafters. His tanned skin on his serene face had drained to an ugly colour, an angel that now looked like a demon of death, surrounded by his calm, clay renaissance-style works of art.
Her beating heart too was swaying back and forth on that rope, and there it had stayed for the rest of her life.
Soon after, her talent as a clothes horse had been scouted as she sat in the audience of a catwalk show at Milan Witching Fashion Week.
A man in sharp tailored robes had spotted her and given her his business Floo address and asked her for a drink. A few months later, they were married. She was 19. He gave her a job, contacts, laughter, income security. Not long later, she had overplayed his song and she couldn't bear the sight of him. The song had to end. It had reached number one for too long, and had to come down.
Her fifth marriage was an unusual one. In many respects it was the same; he wasn't exactly model material and he was stinking rich, but in this marriage she bore him a child.
She felt so awful the day it was born. She reviled herself and felt a strong desire for change.
She felt a sense of awe as she cradled this little thing that looked like a plucked chicken. She was fat, had precisely zero parties in the calendar, and was lacking in beauty sleep. She now knew her little bouncing baby Blaise needed to be safe too.
She poisoned his no-good father. It wasn't as if Blaise could look up to him. He didn't even look like him!
Instead of moving in straight away with a new boyfriend, she bought herself a normal, cramped, four-bed penthouse flat in rainy London. She bought books about raising children. She allowed him to use her lipsticks to colour in pictures of The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle. She rarely worked, but was thankfully still recognised on the streets, so she could live with that.
She planned on sending Blaise to the infamous Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in Scotland. It was good for him to be close to home, so he could write to his old maid of a mother and bring home girlfriends in the school holidays.
One of her previous husbands, Steven Hunter, had taught at that school, and it sounded quite reputable. Having no true friends, and only her precious boy to dote on, she had nobody to ask.
Sophìa wasn't at all alone. She had her beautiful, handsome boy and a lovely, secure home in London. And she was currently engaged to Alimert Rano, an oil sheikh from Turkey. Not that she was rushing into it, or anything. She'd leave it a couple of months.
The number of her admirers had lessened considerably since she fell pregnant, but she loved her baggage dearly. He was worth more than money could buy.