Rain poured endlessly on top of her like tears fallen from a sullen god. But this was a godless place.

She sat in the mud and watched as rain fell around her. Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Pitter patter. Endlessly drops of cold, hard rain on top of the tombstones, each one harder than the last. They thundered against her soiled black dress, combed through each one of her dark curls in their pursuit of the ground. The girl didn't seem to mind the rain. In a way, the cold droplets reminded her that she was alive.

She was the only one that was.

Her gloved fingers reached out to comb some of the dirt off the stone, wiping it until it was clear enough to read again. She was the only one who did this, visiting the isolated graveyard every day in the summer until she was once again torn away from the only real family she had to be thrown into a school where she was more alone than the bodies in the ground.

Regulus Arcturus Black (R.A.B.)

1958-1976

Son, brother, friend

It should have read "Father" too. But she wasn't born when he was put in the ground and her grandparents did everything they could to wipe her from existence. Regulus didn't know he had a daughter. Hardly anyone did. It would seem that her grandparents were successful in their endeavors.

"Hello, father," she whispered to the stone. Another drop of rain fell onto her lips. "I will not be able to visit much longer. I am going back to Hogwarts for my seventh year. Can you believe it?" She chuckled bitterly and looked down at the ground where her shoes were getting ruined from the rain. Her grandmother would probably hit her for destroying them. After seventeen years of it, she could hardly bring herself to care. In fact, she didn't care about anything anymore. Not her shoes, her dresses, her school, herself. All she cared about was visiting a stone where a dead man lay, one who had no clue she was even in this world at all. Perhaps it was better this way. Being unknown. It meant that no one was there to hurt her.

"You died in your seventh year," she whispered. "Perhaps the same will happen to me." The girl caressed the cold tombstone with her fingers, taking off her black gloves and allowing her now-wet hands to touch the cold rock. It was the closest she would ever get to touching her father, to touching either of her parents, really. And yet she still felt helplessly far away. "We can only hope. Then we will be a family again."

The girl's grandparents—Regulus's parents—had done everything in their power to ensure that she did not have a family. They locked away all of her father's belongings, removed every single painting that could have communicated with her, and completely cut ties with her mother. They told her that her mother gave her up right after her birth, knowing that they could take care of the baby better with all of their money and connections. Perhaps they were right. After all, her grandparents had made it more than clear that she was unwanted in their home. It seemed only right that her mother wouldn't want her either.

The only one who hadn't proven that he didn't want her? Who was ripped away from all of their lives before he could even hold his daughter in his hands? The only one who truly felt like a family figure despite the fact that he lay in a cold box in the dirt?

Regulus.

The bells from a nearby church chimed. One... two... three... four... five... six... The seventh bell echoed in the air, an omen that sent the nearby crows scattering in the skies. If she lingered much longer, she would be late. Being late meant being disrespectful and that meant another ruler to her hands.

She touched the tombstone one last time. "Goodbye, father," she whispered before apparating out of the graveyard and in front of the Black family's country estate in Northern Scotland. The air was heavier here than in the graveyard. Cold, foggy, dark. It was the most unwelcoming sight she had ever seen.

And it was her house.

It wasn't home. No, the girl didn't have a home. She would probably never have one; that much had been made clear to her. This was just a pretty, dark estate in front of a lake that looked as if it might pull you in and drown you if it had the chance. The girl always strayed from the water's edge. She was never certain it wouldn't kill her. Everything in the Black home would kill her if it had the chance.

Even her grandparents.

She walked in the door only to be greeted by Kreacher's frown as he mopped the floor. In his terms, that was the closest he would ever get to a smile. He scowled at everyone he saw, everyone except her. Her grandparents would be furious if they saw her even looking at the house elf but sometimes, when she was alone, she would speak to Kreacher. The house elf told her how her father, Master Regulus, was the only one who respected him. He told her how she was like her father: dark, sad, but respectful. Kreacher was the only tie she had to the man. He even showed her where her father's grave was many years ago in his effort to bring her closer to the father she had never known. Because of Kreacher, Evelyn didn't feel quite so alone in this world. She wasn't sure how she could ever repay him for such a kindness but she tried to anyway, slipping him extra scraps of food or pausing to listen to him speak when her grandparents weren't around.

"Mistress Evelyn," Kreacher said with a small bow.

"Hello, Kreacher. Are my grandparents home?"

"The Blacks return at seven and a half bells," Kreacher muttered before quickening his pace. She nodded to him and ran up the stairs. Half a bell was cutting it close but it should be enough time to make herself look presentable enough for dinner. In this house, everyone feared the wrath of the Blacks. Even her.

She hurried to get ready, slipping into a more formal black dress and putting her curly hair into an updo. Her grandmother hated seeing her curls; they reminded her of her fallen sons. Regulus, her pride and joy, dead at seventeen, and Sirius, who wasn't dead but might as well have been with the way he defected to be a muggle sympathizer. The girl loved her long black curls; they reminded her of her father. Everything reminded her of her father. Her grey eyes, lean stature, high cheekbones, full lips. Kreacher had shown her one photograph of Regulus long ago. The resemblance had been uncanny. Her father was beautiful, ethereally so. Ever since she saw the picture, the girl had felt beautiful too. She felt like his and, to her, that meant far more than any sort of conventional beauty standard could make her feel.

Luckily, she was that sort of beautiful too.

The girl stared at the picture on her nightstand, the one that Kreacher had given her. Her father was standing in front of the lake without a smile, staring deeply into the camera. She wondered at times if he was staring at her, if he knew that somehow, someday, there would be a girl wishing desperately she knew the man in the frame. The picture gave her comfort. It reminded her that for one small moment, she wasn't alone. She lived in her mother's womb, her father was still on this Earth. She wasn't yet placed into the arms of grandparents who bruised and wounded her. Regulus hadn't yet died. Her mother hadn't yet given her up.

Perhaps someday she wouldn't be alone again. The dark shadows would overtake her like a blanket and she would meet death with a soft embrace. She longed for darkness for in the darkness, she may finally find love.

It was too late for her on this plane. She never let anyone get close enough to love her, not after the hurt that she had endured at the hands of people who were supposed to love her from the beginning. But in the next life? The ghost of a smile came to her face at the thought of seeing Regulus in the beyond. Her father.

She wished, not for the first time, that the man knew what he had left behind on this mortal plane. A daughter, just turned seventeen, about to begin her seventh year at the very school he attended. One who looked just like him, who knew nothing of her mother, who had yet to experience love in any form. A daughter whose name he never would have forgotten.

Evelyn Arcturus Black.

. . .

"Evelyn," her grandmother's cold, harsh voice echoed through the sitting room as the old woman read a thick textbook on transfiguration in the ancient world. Evelyn sat in an uncomfortable chair in front of the fire, holding a book as she read, and waited for the blissful moment she could return to her room. Dinner had been uneventful, it always was. She rarely spoke in her grandparent's presence for fear of what just one little word could bring. She sat and silently ate her soup while her grandparents spoke ill of some mudbloods they encountered in their trip to Diagon Alley. They visited the place often, using the floo to go to the Black family home in London almost every day, leaving Evelyn in this cold, yet beautiful, estate alone.

"Yes, ma'am?" Evelyn asked softly. Her voice could hardly be heard over the lingering rain and the crackling fire. Her grandmother didn't like it when her voice was too loud; the echoes reminded her too much of Evelyn's existence.

"Did you go out today?"

She stilled. "No, ma'am," she lied. Ma'am. Never grandmother. She doesn't want to be my grandmother. After so long living in a tense household with a woman whose wrath was incurred by the slightest of things, lying came easily to Evelyn. Lying could save her from beatings. Lying could get her supper in the evenings. Lying could leave her untouched.

"Good." Her grandmother's voice was cold, unwelcoming. There was no warmth for the girl she had raised since birth. There never had been. "I should die if one of our friends sees you. It's bad enough that you have to go to that wretched school but they, at least, do not know of the scandal your existence has caused."

The scandal. Her mother birthing her out of wedlock and her father dying before they could be married. Of course, that isn't what the world knew. Her grandmother had long ago spun a tale of Regulus marrying the pureblood (because even if she wasn't pureblood before, she was a pureblood now) before he, unfortunately, passed in a tragic drowning, leaving behind a widow who was "too distraught" to take care of the baby and had given her to the hands of her "benevolent" grandparents.

Evelyn turned back to her book and continued to read. The Picture of Dorian Gray, a muggle book Kreacher had found for her one day in the library. Despite her grandparents' hatred of muggles, they—for some reason unbeknownst to her—allowed her to read muggle literature. Kreacher was always fetching books for her, though this was one of her favorites. She loved watching the beautiful, angelic man go crazed with darkness and immortality, seeing how it affected those who loved him most as he struggled to love in return. She clutched the clothbound book in her hands and waited for the moment she could go to her room and enjoy the darkness of sleep.

But that moment wasn't to come yet.

"Evelyn." She hummed in response, hoping that this was her excusal. "Have you given much thought to what you will do after Hogwarts?"

"No, ma'am. I thought I would do whatever you and grandfather desire." She winced. She shouldn't have called him grandfather. It was careless. It was stupid. It was what would get her hurt.

Her grandmother's eyes widened and her nostrils flared. The sharp lines of her face looked even darker cast against the shadows of the now-dying fire. She stood up but still held onto her textbook. Her grandmother was tall with grey hair streaked with black. Her grey eyes were cold and callous, so unlike her father's. With an upturned nose and a stern jawline, she had always been terrifying, especially when she was looking at Evelyn as if she were her worst enemy and her greatest disappointment.

"Do you take pride in being the most insolent, insufferable girl I have ever known?"

Evelyn cowered against the chair and held tightly onto the book as if it couldn't save her. It couldn't.

"No, ma'am." Despite how quiet and fearful her voice was, it didn't shake. She held strong even as she stood before the most terrifying woman she had ever known. Mrs. Black could rival even Voldemort himself. Actually, Evelyn had never been terrified of Voldemort, not even when he was still alive. Voldemort wouldn't sneak into her room and throw her against the wall. Voldemort wouldn't hit her with kitchen pans for going outside without permission. Voldemort wouldn't starve her for three days for lying.

But her grandmother would.

Her grandfather was almost as bad, though he typically left "discipline" to his wife unless she wasn't home. Still, he was just as scary.

"You are the most disrespectful, impudent, horrendous girl I have ever known. Your father would be disappointed that you share the very name he upheld. And yet you have the pure, unmitigated gall to have the same eyes he once had. You disgust me, Evelyn," she sneered. Her words hurt—her words always hurt—but Evelyn forced herself to hold herself together. If her lip trembled, if her gaze wobbled, her grandmother would take it as weakness. And weakness in a pureblood household—the most ancient and noble House of Black—was a sin punishable with the beater's club her grandmother kept in a drawer in the drawing room, the one Sirius used to play with. "I suggest you figure out what you will do after graduation, girl, because you will not be returning here."

Her face fell. Not returning to this home? This beautiful, familial home? This was where her father grew up and his father before him and his father before him and so on. This home had been in the family for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Yes, it was cold and downright terrifying but that was only because of its two masters. Once they were gone, once the house became Evelyn's, she wanted to add warmth and life back into the place that used to hold her only family. How could she do that if she wasn't allowed back?

"B-but grandmother—" Evelyn was cut off. Or rather, the stinging of her cheek as a hard, bony hand hit it cut her off. She disrespected her grandmother, she stuttered and showed weakness, and, to top it all off, she attempted to argue with her grandmother's decision. From the fire in the old woman's eyes, Evelyn knew that this would not go unpunished.

"But nothing!" she hissed. "I would sooner this manor go to Kreacher than to the most disgraceful heathen to ever walk its very halls!"

Evelyn felt her heart sank, though she didn't show it. A heathen. Disgraceful. Disrespectful. Horrendous. Impudent. They were all words she had heard a thousand times. She thought she would be used to it by now, she thought she would be able to wall off her heart in the same way she had done for so many years, but every once in a while, those walls opened, waiting to see if she would finally feel the love from her only remaining family after years of being denied it.

She was always disappointed.

So, as the old woman left to go to the drawing-room, Evelyn decided that those walls would stay up once and for all. She was tired of this world, of the hurt and pain it had brought her so many times. She was tired of feeling this heaviness in her heart. But most of all, she was tired of feeling alone and unloved. Feeling nothing felt better than feeling the bitter emptiness she had felt for seventeen years. And so, Evelyn closed herself off to everything. To her family, to the world, to the pain of the beater's club in her ribcage, to the darkness a transfiguration book brought to the side of her head when it knocked her out cold.

To the idea that she could ever love and be loved in return.

When Evelyn finally fell unconscious, she didn't dream of the warm grey eyes of her father like she normally did. No, this time, as Evelyn succumbed to the numbness of pain, she saw something else.

Deep, black eyes that looked like a bottomless pit. And yet, despite how cold and hard they looked, Evelyn dove in wholeheartedly and welcomed the darkness.

What a beginning, am I right? I've been so excited to write this one ever since I first thought of it. I will warn you, for fans of my other books: this one will be very different. But sometimes different is nice, plus this darker type of romance/story is what I typically write outside Wattpad (perhaps one day I will reveal who I am and you all can read my other work but that day is not today).

Please vote, comment, and follow. Let me know what you think! Excited to share this story with the world xx.