Sacrifice

Character(s): Original Female Character & Original Male Character

Celia Bulstrode nee Gamp was known for her tricky ways. It should have been expected, given her special talent. It was common knowledge that Celia was a metamorphmagus. Since her earliest hours, she'd been surprising people with her skill. First, it had been the midwife who delivered her when she'd turned her hair from a demure brown to a violent orange during her first moments of life. Then her mother only ten minutes later when her hair returned to its original color once placed in her arms.

It had been a day and a half later when her father came to visit her that she gave him his first shock. When he had leaned in close for inspection of his newest daughter, he'd been thoroughly startled by the way her tiny, infant nose turned into a miniature copy of his own bulbous proboscis.

Her parents had of course heard of metamorphmagus, and it was well-known that in her family, her father's great-great-grandfather had been one as well. However, neither had expected any of their children to be born with such a rare talent - especially a daughter. But against all odds, Celia had been born with the gift.

And with that gift, Celia had spent much of her youth getting everything she wanted just by using it. As a young girl, she often took on her brother's countenance and stole his clothes as to get a chance to go flying or play games of chess with her boy cousins and learn about the many fascinating things that only wizards ever seemed to be privy to. During her time at Hogwarts, she used the skill to her advantage many times. At first, it was just to scare her fellow dorm mates when they told scary stories in the dead of night, but as she got older, Celia had used it when she wished to sneak out of her dorm in the night to meet with her Ravenclaw sister. No one ever questioned her presence out in the halls after hours when she took the face of Head Girl Mary Thomas to wander.

Later, she took the face of her husband's brother, Octavius Bulstrode and used the high-esteem Magnus held in him to sway him into picking her for a wife over the far too vain Evangeline Yaxley. And later, when her days as a girl were done and she was a woman running her household, she used the skill to entertain her children.

Out of the three, her son, Gabriel, was the one who most adored her special skill. Often as a little boy, he'd ask her to act out his favorite stories and take on the faces of the characters as she did so. Celia always did. Gabriel, her baby, her only son, was the one she adored most out of her children and she would give him everything he asked for.

However, it was because of this he became a spoilit and selfish boy.

When he was sixteen, his spoiling led him into trouble that there would be no escaping. Scorned when the daughter of Todd Bell refused his proposal, Gabriel had cornered the girl within the halls of Hogwarts and sullied her innocence. In response, the Bell family promised that Gabriel would pay equally.

For all intents and purposes, their daughter's life was over. No one would marry her now. There would never be grandchildren. And so, in return, they wanted him dead.

Celia wouldn't stand for it. She couldn't sit by and let her son, her baby be murdered. Yes, he had done wrong, yes he had ruined another's life. Yes, he deserved to be punished. But as far as she was concerned, no, he did not deserve to be killed.

It was at this moment Celia began to form a plan. She would take on the form of her son and take his place. If she did this, her husband and daughters would be able to help Gabriel run away to safety and then they could have a quick and dirty funeral for her saying she'd died of a broken heart shortly after.

The last thing Celia wanted to do was die. She wanted to watch her oldest daughter, Violetta, marry her fiancé Cygnus Black and she wanted to see her younger daughter, Angelina graduate from Hogwarts. She wanted to meet her grandchildren and be there for her husband as he retired from work and to keep him company in his twilight. But if Celia wanted her son to live, she would have to die.

Taking on the face of her son, Celia looked into the mirror of her bedroom and sobbed.

"You foolish, foolish boy," she whimpered. "I hope you will learn a lesson from this!"

-v-v-v-v-v-

Gabriel was not there to watch the green light strike his mother down and he was not there to witness the glow leave her lively eyes, but as he traveled by boat to the coast of France with a new identity, and papers to prove it in his pocket, he didn't need to be. His mind's eye had always been vivid and painted the picture of his mother's death in the most horrifying way possible. And for the rest of his days, Gabriel would be tortured by night terrors of her death, each dream more terrible than the last.

He would always regret what he'd done that day to the Bell girl – if only for the fact it stole the one woman he'd truly loved from his life.

How did you like reading about this unwanted transformation? I know it was a willful decision on Celia's part, but she didn't want to do it. She had to if she didn't want her son to die, anyway.

Thanks for reading and please review!