AN: Was going to publish this yesterday, but then... this isn't exactly a festive chapter. J That said I had a great Christmas. Didn't exactly get an Xbox or anything, but I DID get 5 pairs of pyjamas. YAY! (No sarcasm intended, seriously.) And I MIGHT just have enough reading material to see me through the holidays. J
Merry Boxing Day, everybody.
My fingers fumble as I snatch for my coat, and instinct sends me back a second time to retrieve my knives. These are no longer the knives I have known in better times, if better they could be called. They were simply sharpened penknives. Their purpose was to wound, to subdue, to control and pacify. To force a surrender and speed an arrest, should the detained show signs of resisting. But the weapons I hold in my hands are longer, more streamlined. As I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection on the knife, I see Scrimgeour's message could not be clearer.
I know where she has gone, whom she has tried to reach. Only now do I know, and that will stay with me for the rest of however long my life will be. That I, so caught up in my mission, so determined to save that I have not spared. That I, who can spot a plan or traitor in moments, could not recognise the desperate longing of a mother for her child.
"What if there was a choice, a choice so important to a person that it consumed them so entirely, burning them up as it were, and they knew that their heart would break without a chance but they knew that they risk hurting something special to them?" Oh my- why didn't I see? Why didn't anybody see?
I apparate straight to the neighbourhood in which the Staffords live. There's a sinking feeling in my stomach, a nausea that I know has nothing to do with the journey. But I feel oddly heavier, like there's a weight pressing on me; not crushingly though.
It's bleak, but not dark. The sky is flat and grey. Where's the life? Where's everything we long and fight for, but never quite reach?
The wind rustles some decaying leaves at my feet, which flutter feebly, too soggy to take flight or even rustle in the breeze. And it carries the smell of carnage, the scent of blood with it.
I estimate the wind to be coming from roughly the east but I halt before heading towards it. For the first time in my life, I find that I don't want to know. I don't want to know what happened to my sister. I'm too scared to find out the truth, because I know what it will do to me. But I can't go back to Adelaide, my sister's only child, and tell her that I was too cowardly to even look for her missing mother. I can't do that.
The smell thickens like smoke as I head further, and I know I'm getting closer.
And then see it.
The first drop of blood. The first drop of so much that was spilled. I see the taunting behind this, as each drop is exact and symmetrical and I retch at the similarity between the drops, and stepping stones in the children's playground just across the road.
Slowly the drops along the trail start to congeal together as I follow it, making longer lines and streaks on the pavement.
And then I see it. I see the result of my obsession with the righteous. I see what I have bought with ambition's gold. I see how I have destroyed what I tried to save.
I see a dead girl, her limbs broken in a bloody heap. Her pleas for mercy still cold upon her lips. Eyes that cannot see, though once they twinkled with such light. And that rich, heavy hair has been shorn off, denying her her last dignity. An animal, a thing to them- not a person, not as they see a person. No humanity spared.
The blood, the sweat, the mess, the dirt. And I know my hands will never be clean again.
They have taken from me my sister, my sanity, my saviour and my friend, and given me a bloody carcass in return.
For that was her last torture, to be rid of the world that had made her so happy, by means of the curse that killed her husband.
I press my eyes shut so tightly that they water, but the image is burned on my mind and I can feel the horror seeping through them still.
I tremble and my teeth chatter as though one of the killers had hold of my arms was pummelling me.
"Not real, not real, just dreaming, just dreaming," I almost chant to myself, becoming almost singsong. If only there was a way and change things- maybe if I count to seven seven times seven times, everything will be as it was.
Something inside of me knows it won't work, but I drown it out. I have to do something.
I pace up and down biting my lip and counting as fast I can
"One two three four five six seven one two three four five six seven one two three-"
I'm stopped by the sound of footsteps. I whirl around, hand already on my knife.
But it's not a Death Eater- well, not really a Death Eater: it's Draco. I see his mouth agape in horror and I'm about to say something, explaining everything. But then I realise: he isn't looking at Joan.
He's looking at me.
The humiliation at him seeing me like this; so vulnerable, so unstable, sickens me. My head swims with it all, lights pop in front of my eyes. I can feel my knees give way but I don't even try to stop myself falling. Besides, if I crack my head open on the pavement everything goes away.
But then, from nowhere, an arm catches me, pinioning them to my sides. Gently, Draco lowers me to the floor and I almost decide not to put my knife away. I hate the way he's handling me, like a china doll being fixed into position. But I'm in no fit state to complain.
Doll. Childhood. Pain.
Now that the disbelief has been shunted away, grief kicks in. I let out a howl I don't know how old, and Draco almost drops me in shock. I don't care how many people hear me. Gradually I feel as if I am breaking up, as if my heart is actually breaking. Draco's arms are the only thing stopping from me dissipating into sorrow on the ground.
The tears flow unchecked and stream into my mouth, tasting the salty tang of grief. I clutch at Draco like a lifebelt gripping his robes so tightly I can see my nail marks when I let go. He's probably drenched by now.
I'm still dizzy and sick from lack of breath and I take long shuddering gasps over Draco's shoulder, rigidly turning my back from Joan. I don't want to look at her again. I'll be looking at her every night from now on.
"Who- who did this?" He repeats it when I don't respond. "Who did this, Marion?"
Shakily, I point at the message, spelt out in plain English on the wall behind, in large block capitals, eerily like a child learning to write.
In Joan's blood, are written the words that send me on a spiral of fear and despair.
I AM COMING FOR YOU
He turns, and does exactly what I did. He quickly turns and hides his eyes, as if to blot out what he has seen.
"What does it mean?" He begs me. "What does any of it mean."
"It means that a father has broken the last law of nature. It means that that father has murdered his daughter, and nature or nurture could do nothing to stop him. It means insanity is the new weapon of war.
This is what happens, Draco, when a child thinks that they can march to the beat of their own drum, when they believe they can choose their own path, or belong to themselves, and not chained by blood to a life they did not ask for. The Rowle children are vessels of Voldemort, Draco. Units in a plan. Numbers in a statistic. Parts in a machine issued with commands. Matter in a churchyard."
"And what about you?"
"And what about me, you possessive stalker?"
"You are alive."
"You want to know how I'm still alive? Or why? Every day I've had I've fought for! Because every day is live is another small victory for me, it's another day he hasn't got me. I'm an emaciated bitter sociopath, but don't count me out!"
He looks at me passively. "You need me." He says. "Don't deny it. You need me just as much as I need you. When all is said and done, we're all we've got."
I feel my temper flare up. I do nothing to suppress my anger, if anything it's a distraction blocking the terror lurking behind me.
"How the hell did you follow me? You're not supposed to use magic outside Hogwarts. Fat lot of use you are to me if you get expelled."
"Followed you in Hogwarts, under a Disillusionment Charm. Caught hold of your robes when you Apparated, then came as soon as I knew you had found trouble. Don't think you are the only one who can play this game."
"And you think you are such an enigma? Come off it. I've seen you around for years. I know you. You've been spoiled all your life, you are brainwashed into thinking this life is cool and edgy and taboo. Then you get to Hogwarts and you see others around you who are equally as talented, equally as confident, equally as good-looking- admit it! You are still insecure inside as to who you really are that you feel threatened by them instead of empowered or inspired. You pick on the weaker ones to make you feel stronger, because they represent on the outside who you really are on the inside! And now you get to this stage in your life when the fun and games stop and reality sets in. Your delusions are shattered and you realise that the trap has closed, without you even realising it. You see only a three-way route; fail and be killed by Voldemort. Succeed and live the rest of your life guilty and unhappy. Or surrender to the Order, and live the rest of your life miserable in Azkaban with your father. And then reality forces you to team up with the girl you have openly despised since you came to Hogwarts. And don't pretend I'm nothing in all of this. I am not Pansy Parkinson, who will unconditionally adore you and pet you. I take no prisoners: not any more. I am not your hanger-on, I am your equal. I am, and I'm not afraid to say it! Blabber what you will! No matter how much money or strength comes between us, we are equals!"
Something in Draco snaps. "And you think you are better? Or exempt from scrutiny? You are equally guilty! And don't think I don't understand everything.
You live in perpetual fear half your life, with only brief snatches of anything resembling structure. You are unwashed, hungry and paranoid with fear of the colossus in your life- your father. He frightens you in every way, and he fascinates you with the power he wields. You are stifled and suffocated, and since you associate everything to do with your father with evil, everything he believes in you make yourself the antithesis to. "Moral instincts" have nothing to do with it. You just can't stand the idea that this man whom you must call father can in any way be similar to you.
Then he murders your mother and you are left on the pity of those who have none. You are sent to live with Dumbledore and you attach every happiness onto him. Your sister is far away, your father imprisoned, your mother dead. Finally, you think, there are no reminders of the old days. You think, naively, that you can just "forget" and get along fine. But you can't, you never could. You are stalked by thoughts and nightmares and you remember the frustration and the fear and the oppression and you hate it. It wells up in you, this- this tide of hysteria. You present a mask of all bubbles and smiles to your friends, but inside you are bitterness and resentment. And you are still determined to forget, to bury everything in the sands of time. So you channel that hysteria the only way you know how- your education. That's how you can tolerate a ridiculously heavy workload. It's nothing more than educational fanaticism. And then, when school is over and more horrors are in store, you bury yourself in every hobby under the sun, keeping up old interests as well as beginning fresh ones, all to sustain focus on something else, something that won't stalk and kill you, something to cling to and hold on to. To feel special. You become obsessed with political power, with everything it represents: the greed and corruption of our world. You want to be the one with all the power, so that you will never be oppressed again, so that you will change things, feel worthy and wanted. You also want revenge but you don't know how.
And every time you watch fathers and their children in the playground, and you wonder- are you defective? What's wrong with you? Why are you so different? The black sheep, the one didn't work out. Why is everybody else happy and you are not? And you see that playfulness and that carefree innocence which you know you will never, ever have-"
"Stop it!" I yell at him. "It's not funny! Whatever you're doing, stop it! Because I can't stand the idea that he could just figure me out, that I am the secrets are out and I am completely understood. I feel weak, I feel bare, and I feel like a simpleton.
And then suddenly I'm laughing hysterically even though there's nothing to laugh about. Because there's nothing to laugh about.
"It's bloody ironic, isn't it?" I scream. "I'm going to get killed by the very people who should have supported me. Or I kill them, and become as equally despicable myself. And think what you want about me Draco, but I don't enjoy killing. Death Eaters are bad enough, people who I do not know, maybe never even seen before. But a close relative, or worse a parent, that is the one thing I cannot do. What if I had children? How could I look them in the eye and tell them that I murdered their grandfather? Because it is murder, all of it is! No. I am not Bellatrix Lestrange. I am not Barty Crouch. I am Marion Popyngcart, and I wouldn't do that. I cannot."
I turn back to the crude message painted onto the wall.
I AM COMING FOR YOU.
"I've found someone, and I think they like me back."
Who knows what could have happened, had things been different. Poor Adam.
How brief is happiness in this life, now it is gone.
Just like the bluebird.
And the bluebird sang
From above the tree
It sang for you
And it sang for me
It sang for the happy
It sang for the free
It sang for the hope
It so wanted to be
AN: Funnily enough, I discovered yesterday in a piece of Christmas cracker trivia, that the bluebird is an international symbol of happiness. Freaky coincidence.
I've just noticed I have a tendency to kill OC siblings. That's probably a habit I should break, might get a bit repetitive after a while.