Author's Notes: Written for sangkar's Multichap Competition on the HPFC forum.
Dedicated to Couture Girl, who is the reason that I have such wonderfully extensive head!canon for these characters.
Warnings: Abuse in a variety of forms (including but not limited to child abuse, abusive relationships, sexual, physical and emotional abuse, rape, torture and prisoner-of-war abuse). Incest between parents, children and siblings. Further warnings are likely to be required in future; I will mark those at the beginning of relevant chapters as needed.
)O(
When Cassiopeia Black was a very little girl, she was given a china doll to sit on the shelf in her bedroom. It was a beautiful doll and she adored it. Even years later, she could remember how she got it.
It had been a gift from her aunt Belvina.
At such a young age, Cassiopeia had not known who Aunt Belvina was. She did not comprehend the concept of family. She did not know what an Aunt was, but in her mind, the word aunt became inexorably connected with the qualities that she had been able to understand about Belvina. She learned to associate aunt with a vague sense of discomfort, with a sort of insincerity of personality, and with bright, sharp eyes that dug into Cassiopeia's skin like needles.
But most of all, she associated the concept of an aunt with the giving of dolls.
"Here you are, lovely," Belvina said when she gave Cassiopeia the doll. She pressed into her niece's arms a box that was too big for her little hands. Cassiopeia had to struggle to keep her grip on it and not drop it before she could set it down on the floor. She was aware of a jealous stare from her brother Pollux, who had not received a gift and picked up a book to bury himself in to hide his jealousy. Cassiopeia felt a little thrill of satisfaction that it was she who Belvina had given the present. For once, she felt like she was the most important person in the house – a rare feeling, since her parents were constantly fussing over Dorea and Marius, and, even more often, praising Pollux.
The box that Belvina had given her was made glossy white-painted wood with shiny silver hinges. Cassiopeia had to struggle to get it open. Her fingers were chubby and clumsy and it was difficult for her to slide the clasp out of its place so that the box would spring open, but when she did finally manage it, she let out a gasp of delight as her eyes fell upon her new doll.
She had a pretty, plump face that looked a little like Cassiopeia's own – or like how she hoped her face would look when she grew up – with a soft blush of pink in her lips. Her cheeks were fair and smooth and her eyes were closed as she lay in the lace pillows that lined the box. Cassiopeia sighed with delight. The doll looked like she was asleep.
"Isn't that a lovely gift, Cassiopeia?" her mother said, her voice sweet and indulgent. Cassiopeia looked up and nodded vigorously, barely able to contain her wide grin. Her mother smiled gently down at her, bouncing Marius on her knee. "Thank Aunt Belvina for the beautiful doll."
"Thank you, Aunt Belvina!" Cassiopeia said immediately, but here eyes had fallen upon the doll again. She lifted her up out of the box and the eyelids opened, revealing beautiful, dark blue eyes that seemed to look at Cassiopeia with a knowing and intelligent stare. She ran a hand over the doll's perfect, sleek pin curls and touched the delicate lace of her dress and wanted to hold her forever and never let go.
"What are you going to name her, my dear?" Belvina asked. When Cassiopeia thought about it later – and she did think about it later; she spent a great deal of time thinking about it later – she thought that her aunt had sounded a little bit sinister.
But she had replied promptly, with no idea that there might be anything dark about the question. "Lolita," she had said.
Cassiopeia couldn't recall where she had heard the name, but she thought that it was a very pretty one, and it fit her perfect, delicate new doll just exactly right. And it reminded her of herself – she was sure that, at one time or another, someone had called her Lolita.
Her mother looked shocked. She stilled Marius and stared at Cassiopeia. "Oh, no, Cassy, you don't want to name your doll that–" she began, but Belvina cut across her.
"That's a lovely name, Cassiopeia, dear," she said, a smile twisting her thin lips. "It's just exactly right." She leaned forward and patted her on her cheek.
Cassiopeia smiled broadly and hugged Lolita to her chest. She spent the rest of Aunt Belvina's visit sitting on the sofa, kicking her legs lightly and petting her new doll's hair. It was soft and smooth and satiny, the kind that Cassiopeia's mother had and that Cassiopeia herself craved and spent hours slowly and carefully brushing in order to achieve. Everything was perfect about Lolita, she thought. And for that moment, she was completely, entirely happy.
That was the last time that Cassiopeia had ever been completely happy.
When she had gone to bed that night, she placed Lolita with utmost care on the shelf by her bed and gazed at her while she fell asleep. Lolita looked down at her with those clever blue eyes and Cassiopeia smiled back at her.
She was woken by her father.
It was the first time that Cassiopeia's father had woken her.
)O(
When the sun rose on Cassiopeia's room, there was blood on her bed sheets and a red mark on her cheek where her father had hit her when she had screamed. Her whole face was wet with tears that would not stop, no matter how many hours had passed since her father had left her.
She had never been so scared, or in so much pain, and somehow, Lolita, who sat so quietly and sweetly on the shelf, showing no pain on Cassiopeia's behalf, became the focus of her anger.
She grabbed Lolita off the shelf and her hands shook. She threw her on the ground, kicking her hard against the wall. She could hear her blood rushing in her ears and her vision blurred a little from anger.
It wasn't until she heard the sickening crack of porcelain on plaster that Cassiopeia realized what she had done.
She ran to Lolita and picked her up in shaking hands.
The doll's perfect curls had come undone, and her pale hair fell in a mess around her shoulders. Her white, lacy dress had a streak of dust on it from the floor. And worst of all, her face was marred. It was cracked diagonally from her forehead to her cheek, and the crack ran through one eye, which was grotesquely half-open.
Cassiopeia sobbed and clutched Lolita to her chest, rocking her back and forth.
She hadn't meant to hurt her.
"I'm sorry, Lolita," she whispered, half-expecting her doll to respond, even though she knew that dolls didn't talk. "I didn't mean to… I still love you…"
She soothed her and rocked her, and all the while, she wished that she was the one who was being soothed like this.
She was just as hurt as Lolita.
But no one came to Cassiopeia's bedroom to hold and rock her. No one came to help her. She was left alone, scared, wondering what she had done to make her father hurt her.
It wasn't the last time he would do it.