DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter or any of J.K. Rowling's original characters. I only own Acacia and Tristan and Aspen! The song is Murder City and the artist is Greenday.
XoXo
I looked at Tristan with wide eyes, but he didn't pay any attention to me. He was too busy staring off into space. I snapped my fingers at him and he snapped into action. He smiled at me, but there was something different behind his smile. There was something like pain, maybe anger. I sat on the floor in front of him and stared solemnly at him. "What?" he asked genuinely confused.
"You started saying something, but then you stopped," I laughed, trying to get him to smile. He gave me a half smile, but that wasn't what I wanted. He was just trying to get me off his back. "Are you going to tell me or not?"
"Not. I need to get downstairs," he said as he got up, leaving me on the floor.
I stood up and blocked the doorway, skidding to a stop. He glared at me and then pushed me out of the way, walking down the stairs. I landed on the floor and brushed my long hair out of my face. I glared at him harder and then followed him downstairs. "What do you mean you're not going to tell me now? You stopped right in the middle of our conversation!" I whispered, walking behind him lightly.
"Exactly. Get used to it!" he said scathingly, walking faster.
"What happened to you?!" I asked angrily, running to face him. I put my hands on his chest and forced him to stop. He gripped my wrists with force and took them away from his chest, forcing them back to my sides. "Ow! What the bloody hell?!"
"Look!" he hissed, coming down to my height. "We cannot be loud in this house! Narcissa and Draco will have a freak attack if they hear us carrying on!"
"Fine! I'll be as silent as a mouse! Just you wait, Tristan, I shall be the best house guest you've ever seen!" I stalked away from him with anger etched onto my face and walked down the stairs. He sighed loudly and then I heard him follow me. "Don't bother! You already made your point!"
"Acacia, listen to me," he sighed, catching my shoulders and spinning me around. I looked directly into his green eyes and tensed up. "There are rules that you have to follow in this house. I don't know if it was like that at the orphanage, but Narcissa is an incredibly organized person; if you aren't also then you probably shouldn't be living in this house."
"Oh, yeah," I scoffed, struggling against him. "Because I'm really here by choice. In case you didn't know, she's making me stay here."
"I did know that. But you're just going to have to deal with it! Now, come downstairs and meet the family." He pushed me down the hallway without remorse.
"No! What if they hate me?!"
"They won't. You're family, you can't hate family."
"Sure. We'll go with that!" But I followed him all the same.
XoXo
We walked into the kitchen and saw Aunt Narcissa over the sink. It looked like she was crying, but I couldn't tell. I looked around the kitchen and saw a lot of pictures. There was one that caught my eye. It looked like my mum, Aunt Narcissa and Aunt Andy when they were all younger. My mum looked about my age, Aunt Andy two years younger than that and Aunt Narcissa two years younger than Aunt Andy. They were all smiling and looked genuinely happy to be in each other's presence, this must have been before all of the blood-traitor nonsense. There was one where my mum was kissing Aunt Andy on the cheek and Aunt Narcissa was in the background pouting. I wondered how their family life was if they had all ended up hating each other. I saw my hand reach out and grab the second picture before I could stop it. Aunt Narcissa turned around as though she could hear me grabbing it and then growled.
"What are you doing?!" she spat, ripping the picture from my grasp.
"I-I just wanted t-to see what y-you all looked l-like when you were y-younger," I stammered, suddenly scared of the beautiful woman that stood in front of me.
"Don't tell me!" she screamed, slamming the picture down and making me jump. "You were stealing it weren't you, you little thief?!"
"N-no! I was just l-looking at it!" I stammered again, but this time staring her in the face. She glared back and then sighed, turning towards the doorway to the kitchen. I tried to see what she was looking at, but she pushed me back.
"Just wait until my son comes down here! He'll set you straight!" she hissed, glaring at me again. I glared defiantly at her, but she didn't seem to care. She was going to win this battle and she would make sure of it. I could hear thumping down the stairs and knew that it was Draco. I got a nervous sinking feeling in my stomach that I couldn't explain. Suddenly a blond-haired, pointed face poked out of the doorway and I stepped back, he was angry. Deathly angry and I was scared of him.
"What is going on down here?!" he yelled, looking at his mother. She pointed to me and opened her mouth to respond.
"It was her. I caught her trying to steal this picture of my sisters and I!" she screeched, pointing a long finger at me.
"No I did not!" I screamed back at her, anger getting the best of me. Draco took three long steps toward me and then reached his hand back. He brought it down on my face; a loud smacking sound came out of it. I reeled backward, landing hard on the ground. I instinctively reached toward my face and felt the sting and then the tears springing into my eyes. I looked around for Tristan, but he was nowhere to be found. He couldn't protect me now. No one could.
"You don't talk to your guardian that way!" he hissed in my face, making me flinch.
"She's not my guardian! No one is except for Aunt Andy!" I hissed back boldly, not my smartest idea. He smacked me again, on the other side. Blood was filling my mouth now and I had to spit it out. But I couldn't here, for the sake of getting hit again. Draco was ruthless, he wouldn't let up no matter how much I denied anything.
I turned away from them and ran up the stairs, tears choking through my system. Blood was filling my mouth at an alarming rate and I could already feel my face swelling. I could hear footsteps behind me and I somehow knew that it was Tristan, finally coming to save me. I pushed open my bedroom door and collapsed on the floor, not finding the strength to keep going. I coughed and blood splattered the floor. There was so much. Blood seemed to be everywhere, staining the wood floor and making odd marks on the grain.
"Hey, hey. It's okay," Tristan said calmly, enveloping me in his arms and rocking me back and forth. "It's all right. Let it all out."
I turned in his arms to face his chest. I sobbed hard and loud into his shirt and it didn't seem like I would stop. My face was beginning to get stiff and it stung every time something touched it. The blood had stopped though, the only good sign of that night. Tristan kept shifting me in his lap, trying to get me situated so that both of us could be comfortable. I knew that I should get up and try to act like a normal person, but I couldn't. I just wanted to be warm and feel like I could be loved by at least one person. My tears were staining his shirt, but it just felt right, leaning against him and knowing that my brother would always be there for me.
XoXo
A few hours later, I was sitting at the piano and just playing random chords. And then an idea popped into my head! It was a song, of course, but it was something that I needed to play. Tristan was sitting on my bed, reading a book and looking over every once in a while just to make sure that I was doing all right.
I started out a little softly, but then sang louder.
"Desperate, but not hopeless. I feel so useless in the murder city. Desperate, but not hopeless. The clock strikes midnight in the murder city. I'm wide awake after the riot. This demonstration of our anguish. This empty laughter has no reason, like a bottle of your favorite poison. We are the last call, and we're so pathetic."
Tristan had moved to my side and added his own voice in to add a harmony. I smiled as our voices meshed like the odd family that we had made in the past few hours. "Desperate, but not hopeless. I feel so useless in the murder city. Desperate, but not helpless. The clock strikes midnight in the murder city. Christian's crying in the bathroom and I just want to bum a cigarette. We've come so far, we've been so wasted, it's written all over our faces. We are the last call and we're so pathetic."
He stepped back and let me sing the last part on my own, but staying close. He was scared to let me out of his sight now, I guess. "Desperate, but not hopeless. I feel so useless in the murder city. Desperate, but not helpless. The clock strikes midnight in the murder city. Desperate, but not helpless. The clock strikes midnight in the murder city."
I looked back at Tristan and he had his arms wrapped around my shoulders, trying to be as protective as he could. "What?" I asked, trying to smile through my swollen cheeks.
"This is my entire fault," he whispered as he ran a finger lightly over my cheeks. "If I had been there none of this would have happened."
"Yes it would have. You couldn't have stopped anything. You would have gotten it harder." He smiled slightly, sadly actually and then turned away. I could see a few tears sparkling in his green eyes, though. "Hey, thanks for everything though. It's nice to know that someone cares here."
"Yeah," he scoffed, turning angry again. "They're not gonna touch you again."
"Promise?" I asked childishly.
"Promise with all my heart!"
