INTERLUDE III
Megan had never known her parents. The only guardian she ever knew was her older sister, Hestia.
While she knew they only shared the same father- made obvious by the differences in their skin colour- Megan had never thought of Hestia as a half-sister before she began attending Pendle's.
While the story of her family wasn't as infamous as Michael Corner's or as tragic as Anthony Goldstein's, it eventually made the rounds at school. Most especially in her year group.
Megan had done her best to ignore their probing questions and deliberately loud whispers, but it reached her ears anyway. Their take on the Jones family was so much worse than the way Hestia had put it.
"I told you already, didn't I?" Hestia let out a quiet sigh as she looked up from the homework she was marking. "Dad fell in love with your mum years after mine passed, but when Dragon Pox took him away from us, she ran away because of her broken heart."
Even at the age of seven, that excuse sounded childish to her ears. "Everyone at school says she's a monster."
Hestia frowned. "Just because she's not a witch anymore, doesn't make her a monster. Besides, she was as human as we are when you were born."
Even with her sister's reassurances, Megan began to feel bitterness towards her mother from that day onwards. As a small child, Hestia had made it seem like her mother would return when she had healed herself, but Megan eventually realised that was a lie to soften the blow of abandonment.
There was no cure for what her mother was.
While Hestia stayed behind, stuck with the task of raising an unwanted half-sister, Megan's mother had fled to parts unknown and didn't give her a second thought.
The older she got the more Megan hated her for it.