Chapter 17 - Past to Present of Clara's Life
I was about six when I found out that I was a witch. I'd read so much about them and to be one was so unbelievable, I told my mother for days she was lying. I just couldn't get that thought of witch's being real, well real. Until I walked down Diagon Alley. I'd never seen so many people dressed in robes with hats. It was like a fairy tale come true, to me anyways. Then when I walked into Ollivanders' and held my wand for the first time, a Phoenix Feather, Redwood 71/2 inches. It was like the world had changed suddenly. But in that moment of me getting my wand so many things did change.
Within a week my mother packed us up and we moved to a new town. I made friends easily and found that me keeping my magic skills a secret had to be a secret. I caused more trouble than I ever have. A girl I used to know as Terry Pearson knows nothing of me anymore. I caused her years of memories vanished or damaged by one little secret let out. With that I moved again with my mother to a new town and this went on for about 8 years. Moving from town to town, or city to city. We never had a permanent home.
That of course stopped once I turned fourteen. By now my mother had taught me all the magic she knew and I was as powerful as I should be at my age. We settled down into a little home and everything was going great. I even meet this boy, his name was Max Thomas. He had short brown hair and blue eyes. He was to die for, or rather he did die. I had never felt so in love in my whole life and it was a ripped from me. We spent all of our time together doing everything together. I never could get enough of him and he could never get enough of me. I was happy now; I had a great boyfriend and many friends.
I thought this was the end of our running, running from something I never knew about. It was when I came home one evening that my mother told me everything, everything that changed my life. At first I didn't understand what was happening I mean why would I. My mother asked me to sit down and she had tears in her eyes. I just thought a family member died, if we had any, none of which I knew.
But it was a family member, it was Max. He had been found lying lifeless on the floor of his bedroom. Police and doctors couldn't find a cause to his death. My mother told me that some Aurors had been there; that it was the killing curse that had killed him. He didn't have a chance my mother said, he went through a painless death. I sat there for hours thinking about how he could have died. I though my mother and I were the only ones here, here in this town. My mother would never kill him, I loved him, and I'd never harm him. I never even noticed the dark mark that was above his house that night when I sat in my room and stared at his house. His funeral was long and sad. His mother sat there crying the whole time and all I could to was to sit silently, like it was a dream and I would wake up and Max would still be alive.
But the moment I was my time to go up and see him, I was never so shocked. For some reason his eyes were still opened and in them was the most painful emotion running through them. Fear, anger, confusion, misery. I just stared at him as I finally felt the tears start to fall down my face. His skin was so white and so cold when I reached into the coffin to hold his hand. I never thought I would see what I did thought when I touched his hand.
"Who are you?" Max asked a man in a cloak.
"I have no time for answers," the man said. " Tell me were Clara Rose lives."
"Unless you tell me who you are and why you need to speak to her," Max said.
"Tell me now," the man said. " I do not have patients for this."
And yet Max still refused to tell him and that was it. A blinding green light went throughout the room. And his body fell to the floor motionless. I gasped and let go of his hand. Tears now running uncontrollable down my face. I covered my mouth as I let out a scream of pain, of anger, and of confusion. My mother grabbed me and pulled me away from the coffin and asked me what was wrong. How could I tell her I just saw him die, it didn't make sense. So I kept it to myself. I watched them lower Max's body into the ground and I throw a dozen black roses into the coffin before I walked away with my mother.
Everything seemed to be okay after that. My grades went down, but I pulled them back up. My mother was no longer worried about something and I thought everything was going to be okay. That the man that killed Max was gone forever and I'd never see him again.
Well that was all lost when I received a picture in the mail as well as a black diamond necklace. The picture was of my mother and another man, a man I didn't now of. So without thinking I showed my mother and she freaked out. She took the picture and ripped it up, but for days after I kept getting these pictures, of my mother, this man, even me. Finally my mother decided it was time to tell me a dark secret she kept from the world. Yet I never did tell her about my necklace.
She sat me down and began talking about my father. She said he was so kind and harmless when she meant him she never knew what lay underneath all of that. She told me that over the years of her being with him he began to grow dark. He started making up spells that worked and started using the dark curses. She didn't understand what was happening. Then when I was born, he went even darker. It was one night, she remembers that changed her happy world so upside down.
It was the night the Potter's died. The night my father, took the name he wanted to be so badly and killed two innocent people for one boy. She had never been so afraid, she immediately packed and she ran from him. For years and years. She never looked back; she raised me by herself and just kept running from him. Every time we got to a great town. She'd move us for he would be close by.
I was in danger, he wanted me to either be one of his death eaters, or be killed by him. For I had his power in me, all strength he carried around and if I were to be killed that strength would only be in him and him alone. She told me that it was him who killed Max, he was so close to finding us and all Max had to do was tell him where I lived. She didn't understand how he never found out thought and so I told her what happened the day Max was buried. She finally understood why Max had been killed and she said now it was time for them to move.
I still didn't know much about my father, he was gone now. Well not really he had been resurrected, and Harry Potter had witnessed it all. Why did my father want Potter so badly I never understood. My mother told me it was about some prophecy, a prophecy she remembers he would mutter about in his sleep. I still didn't understand but by then we had moved again. This time I wanted to move.
Moving would be like a new beginning. I could move on from Max and meet new people, maybe learn more about my father. Well I did learn more about him. Like his favourite color being black, like mine. Why I love black roses so much. Why I loved using dark spells more than fun spells. My mother feared for me. That if he came that I'd go with him and she'd be left alone or worse killed. I told her I'd never betray her that she was the only thing in this world I cared about. That why would I have a reason to kill the person who cared, loved and raised me over all of these years. My mother smiled at me and then we never discussed it again.
We finally moved into a little house in a little town, just outside of England. It was great, I made a couple friends and everything went by so well. I learned I was a Parselmouth that my father had been one to. That my father had tried to kill Potter again, and that some escape criminal by the name of Sirius Black had died. In battle of course, my mother told me how she used to know him. Not by being his friend, but they talked once in a while and that he wasn't a criminal, that it was only and only my father who killed the Potters'.
That was when everything started to go all out of order. My mother began to worry about my safely, and she began to pack for a move one night. I packed to, and I didn't asked questions either. So now we had our things packed and I just had to wait for her to say they were going to move but it never came. She didn't fear something anymore. She didn't care that my father was near than ever before. It was like she knew she couldn't run this time and that night as I watched my mother unpack her things, he attacked.
I never had seen a spell blow down a door so fast in my life. Within a heartbeat my mother had me behind her and her wand held in front of her. I watched as a man came through the door, with an about six other guys. It was so frightening. I didn't understand how I had my wand in my hand, how my mother could stand so fearless in front of him. His eyes were so dark and red; it was like seeing hell for the first time. His voice sent so many chills down my spin it was unbelievable. He didn't seem all to bad at first but then he yelled a curse known as Crucious onto my mother. Her screams were so clear and so painful I can remember them so clearly. But even after the spell was off her she still stood in front of me. He asked her to move, she refused. Over and over. Spells flew throughout the air and all I did was stand there, unable to do anything. I was so scared of him, I didn't know if I should run or help my own mother.
I couldn't do anything. My mother told me to run but I refused and finally I began to shoot spells back. Only to be knocked into the wall. When I looked up it was as though time began to go slow. My father was laughing, laughing at my mother and she was begging and crying for him to leave me be. I never seen her so scared for me in my life. Then she whispered one sentence to me; to this day I can't believe I followed.
"Run Clara, run and never look back, don't dwell over the pain of my death, but run for a new beginning, run for Albus, I will never leave you, I'll always be in your heart."
Then there was a bright green light that blinding me for a couple second and then I saw my mother's body fall to the ground. This time she did not get up. I felt so many tears running down my face, I could barely see which way I ran as I ran out of the house. I ran just like my mother told me to do. I run away from her, away from my father, away from everything I had known. I never stopped running. I ran for miles on end, never looking back. I didn't know if I was being followed I didn't care, all I could do was run, run for Dumbledore. I knew he was at Hogwarts and that it would be days before I got there, but I still kept running. I ran from everything and when I did reach those doors of Hogwarts the world began to fade and I woke up in a white room. I found an old man standing over me, saying "everything would be fine, that I was safe and no one could harm me anymore."
Nothing was fine though. My mother was died, the one person I cared about the most in the world was died and I felt it happen. I stood there and let him kill her, after I told her I'd never betray her. I betrayed her, whether she though of it as betraying or not, I did. I cried and a woman named Pomfrey held me so tight. She told me over and over that she was sorry and that I'd be fine and that I had to move one and not dwell on the past.
So I did and when I watched my own mother's body being buried into the earth, I never let a tear fall. For if a tear fell then I'd morn over her and I wouldn't be able to forgive myself. I smiled when they dumped so many black roses over her coffin before the buried her. In a way I knew she would be with me all the time and that it was my new beginning. I walked away with a man named Remus Lupin. I carried a single black rose with me and put it into a glass vase. I sealed it with a spell and I watched the rose dry over the next couple of weeks but it never died. It was my little reminder that my mother was there with me, that I had moved on and that everything was really going to be okay.
In the rose laid
A boy I loved and still love that will go on forever in my heart
Screams I'll never be able to forget
A pair of red eyes of the man I hate most
The man known as Tom Riddle before darkness took him and made him Lord Voldemort
A single sentence that will hunt my life, a sentence I never should have followed
So many regrets over the years of my life
The darkness I once craved now so full of love
A man that saved my life, a man of great wisdom
A boy, one of which I will be great friends with
The last black rose I'll ever let go of
New beginnings of being a great Auror and destroying Voldemort
A love that will forever change my life
A past I never want to repeat
A future I want to see
My Past to Present
All contained in this single black rose
A rose that will never die, like my heart
A rose that will forever be at my side
To remind me of my past and to give me hopes for the future