𝑎𝑏𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡

i.

the carrow family had amycus, so it wasn’t a total let down when alecto ilse carrow was born and was born a girl. but if everyone was being honest, there wasn’t any real thrill there for her either. they loved her in a rote way and cared for her in a rote way and their distance and cool removal from her life spoke more than anything they ever did for her.

they would tell strangers, of course we love our daughter. but alecto herself couldn’t recall ever hearing them tell her they loved her, not to her face.

the carrows, historically, were not the most refined when it came to the most sacred. sure, they were one of the best families  ---  but their machinations never seemed to be the sort that won the hearts of a people; their plans, never the ones put to action. they had wealth and connections enough, bloodlines going as far back as any of the other twenty-eight’s; but they were not half so perfect.

alecto didn’t like people not expecting perfection from her. her parents saw so little when they looked at her, and it grated to see the same from the people they were surrounded by. so she made changing that expectation her mission at, in all honesty, too young an age. 

they thought carrows weren’t the ones to beat. fine. wasn’t she one to beat all on her own? wasn’t she enough to change the tides of her family’s reputation?

her parents, they were amused; let her try, for soon she’d realize that she was a girl, and would always, always fall short of expectations. she’d decided this at a precocious eight years old after a particularly disastrous dinner party; at the time, this mission of hers started with presenting a flawless front to anyone looking at her expecting another carrow wildcard. she’d always been precocious; she knew what game they were all playing and just how to play it.

( didn’t they all know how easy it was? to become like them? )

ii.

around the same time she reached this decision, for the path she’d tackle the rest of her life, her aunt dulcinea died and crushed alecto’s heart.

aunt dulcinea and uncle anatole were distant carrow relatives and in alecto’s weaker, punishable, childish moments   —   she’d wished they’d been her parents. she wished it stupidly, in place of wishing for her own parents to love her.

at the reading of her aunt’s will, alecto received dulcinea’s wand (  12 ¼", griffin feather and aspen, quite flexible and carved with a loving hand ). and though she wasn’t of an age yet to use magic, her uncle practiced dueling with her using sticks found in the gardens on the carrow estate. even before she could legally utter a single spell, alecto was a skilled duelist. she tucked this into her back pocket like a secret; would let out shining peals of false, childish laughter if ever anyone asked about those dueling lessons. her, dueling? no, no, no. she was itty, bitty, and ladylike, faint at the very idea of fighting. her uncle anatole had simply been indulging her silly games of make - believe.

iii.

she made friends greedily as a child; ostensibly so she could have the connections, the network, that was so vital to the lives of adults in pureblood society. but the small truth was that alecto just fed on human connection. she loathed how much liked people to like her and resented that she needed people at all. but it was true, and it could be useful.  

she tried, at times, unthinkingly, to imitate the distance her parents had with her. she loved talking and hated talking all at once, but she did pride herself on being able to fill hours of conversation with no substance at all. and it better cemented the idea that she didn’t actually desire the friends or acquaintances she had   ---   if every interaction was hollow, what could prove she thrived on them? how would anyone know much she relished the meandering words?

she could be very cruel to those around her   —   not necessarily on purpose, but also not not on purpose. there was a threshold, where acquaintances shifted into someone alecto would trust with her life. at that threshold she tended to turn mean, to turn people away, and it was a horrible habit and one she wouldn’t break.

but all the feigned distance in the world couldn’t keep her from finding actual friends, and she would kill for those she cared for. reckless all or nothing thinking like that was just the carrow way. true, 

fierce friendship was an earned thing, but a warm-looking smile from dear alecto cost her nothing at all.

iv.

she was sorted into ravenclaw; perhaps it would have disappointed her family, if they’d had expectations high enough to disappoint in the first place. when alecto was eleven, and wrote home with news of the sorting, she knew she’d lost any chance of being the favorite   ---   slim as the chance had ever been. oh, her parents had indulged her goal of making a name for herself. she was their daughter; clever enough, pretty enough, to indulge. but they’d never seen that indulgence yielding anything, and her sorting only confirmed it for them.

( she suspected they wrote to her brother more, while at school. no, of course she never asked him. she was a ravenclaw, smart enough to know that some doors need not be opened. )

imagine: a little carrow in ravenclaw tower, all alone amongst peers of all blood statuses and backgrounds. she thrived there, much though she hid that fact from her parents. they certainly never imagined her thriving. she had her aunt’s wand and her uncle’s scattered owls, friends she made cautiously and recklessly in equal measure, a feeling of total abandonment gifted to her by her parents’ abandonment. it was heady, and dangerous.

she kissed people her parents would have been scandalized to know she knew at all, linked arms with girls from families her father had long disparaged over breakfast. joined the quidditch team and shared sportsman-like handshakes with any opposing player she could hunt down after matches.

her grins were sharp and wicked and her laughter soft and surprised and she knew   ---   she knew!   ---   that the home she felt in the castle could never last once outside of it.

it was a home, and that word just didn’t mean anything for girls like her. 

alecto was just a girl, darling little thing. the carrow daughter with a whip-sharp mind   ---   that she made sure to only show in carefully curated fields, that was a problem all the same. she would bring no heirs, and the thought of the mind on her made it hard for the family to imagine setting up an enviable match for her. she would never find it easy, being a trophy hanging off someone’s arm. they may not have cared for her any more than they had to, but they knew her better than she ever thought they did. she did not bend or bow to anyone, and that would make her life harder than her parents thought it had to be.

the lives of pureblood daughters could be easier than breathing, in the new world they had hopes of cultivating. if only alecto would let things be easy.

v.

her parents might have thought she had an allergy to the simple route. and maybe she did; maybe they were right, and she was wired all wrong. her mind was a tricky place   ---   all those forbidden books in her common room, all six and a half years, they had an impact. perhaps on a stronger carrow they’d have been nothing when compared to the things her family had told her all her life. but she acted like they were no stronger carrows, and pretended like the act didn’t cost a thing.

when her parents and their cohort went and got her home blown up, alecto learned to pretend like lots of things cost her nothing at all. 

see, the pretending was easy: she just had to strap her knives and wand to her thigh with pretty little garters, the better to flash the steel beneath silk skirts and lace robes. the beauty of the muggle weapons caught her eye and held it   ---   she heard someone whisper it was a sign of her cruelty, that she could imagine wielding something so primitive. heard someone else whisper she was pretty as one of her daggers, and twice as sharp.

oh, how she hadn’t missed full immersion in pureblood society. at night, she dreamed of ravenclaw tower. 

in her years away from school, she learned to enjoy the refined burn of shots worth more galleons than some could ever see. she learned to love glittering adornments, and tossing her hair, and beguiling with a single flash of her pearly-white fangs. she was good. except when she was bad. and loathe though she was to admit it, she could still find enough ancient carrow in her to be very, very bad  ...  when she so chose.

badness could very easily be written off as youth, except by those who shared alecto’s youth with her. to them, well, it was her typical carrow tendencies coming out to play. it was her growing tired of the never ending act she’d started years and years ago. it was her doing very reckless things, perhaps unknowingly   ---   or perhaps awaiting the mess she’d leave in her wake. she’d have to fix the mess, of course, and in that fixing would lie the cool reminder that while she looked like any of the rest of them, she would always be a carrow. and carrows are too sharp, too much, and so alecto is, too.

( the secret was she was too much alecto to be anything, really )

vi.

she didn’t even like pureblood society that much; up close, it didn’t glitter like she’d imagined as a child, on the outside looking in.

she resented the idea that she’d have to marry some man eventually, who she likely wouldn’t care about and who likely wouldn’t appreciate her for all that she was. but if she wanted to be more than a wife or mother she knew she’d have to show her hand   ---   reveal that she had a mind for strategy, that she knew a thousand wicked things. sign herself away to the war for a side she doesn’t believe in. it would surprise no one to learn that both action and inaction held steep consequences.

but alecto didn’t want to fight; and in the meantime, no one was asking her to, not really. without her n.e.w.t.s, she was in a limbo. her parents and their ilk suspected how useful she could be, but had no final grades to prove it. it wasn’t worth the embarrassment, bringing a girl to the dark lord with no way of showing she had use. so she took up an easy job at some publishing house in diagon alley, something that required little wandwork. nothing flashy enough to catch the attention of someone who’d ask why she wasn’t putting that wand of hers to use. but something that let her escape her family estate and the stifling meetings conducted there. 

( she attended one here and there, when roped into it; the carrow girl on the sidelines, showing how much loyalty her father inspired in those around him. a less skilled actor than alecto might’ve gagged on the falsehoods and prejudice clouding the air. )

her family continued ignoring her, most of the time; neglecting to see any real usefulness. and there was safety in that   ---   she might yet make it to a disappointing marriage without any blood on her hands.

in a perfect world she could lay down in neutral ground and not move a muscle for either side. not have to enter some loveless future, either. but what would that make of her family loyalty? the last thing she wants is more disappointment from her parents. more proof that she’s never been what they wanted. for all that she despises them, she can’t help but want her parents to love her; and deserting their side of the war will not inspire love. 

this was, of course, no perfect world. alecto was not the sort of girl who lived in happy endings. so while she didn’t want to join the war, had no desire to loan her mind to the death eaters   ---   she knew she would. she would have to. she was a carrow, and so of course she’d join the fight. the plain and simple fact of the matter was that there was no possible path for her that didn’t beat her heart into bloody submission. so that life, that planned future, was better than nothing at all. right? 

vii.

alecto couldn’t be paid to give two shits about blood status. she knew her family fought tooth and nail along with all their peers for the glory and triumph of blood purity   ---   and regrettable as it was to dwell on, it was background noise she would ignore because she could afford to ignore it. just because she could care for, or befriend, a muggleborn with no internal struggle didn’t mean she'd ever actively do anything to help them; not with things as they were now. things had been different in school, and this damned war had ripped that from her too soon. 

she didn’t have much exposure to people of other blood statuses as a child and that’s when she set her heart on winning at life in pureblood circles. sometimes goals like that were hard to let go of. so while her stomach curls at the lack of intelligence she sees as inherit in blood purist ideologies she doesn’t actually  ...  fight the fact that pureblood circles are run on purist ideologies. for as much as she hates being tied to her parents, she’s loyal to the carrow name. if they’re not jumping ship, then she can’t either. she won’t be the only carrow stupid enough to leave.

she’d rather break her heart and throw herself into a cause liable to kill her than become her own person separate from the life she’s wasted years building.

viii.

no one needed to know she hated this; softness was worse than wildness, in alecto’s eyes. her wildness couldn’t be helped, but she’d die before anyone saw her weak. let them see a ruthless game-player with a heart carved from crystalline ice. let them see a wicked woman with a cold interest in the ways people could hurt. let them see a girl, damnably neutral while she still could be, cards always held close to the chest.

hogwarts opened back up and alecto was desperate for the chance to return  ---  and desperately happy that she’d retained her neutrality while outside its walls. damnable it might’ve been, but alecto hardly cared. her family and their pureblood peers could all assume she was on their side; assume that though ( tiny slip of a girl that she was ) she’d never taken up arms, she agreed with them. who the fuck cared? 

she was going back to her one true home, if only for one more year.

she could put off proving those assumptions true for a little while longer. 

she can pretend she won’t prove them true; it’s a kind thing to pretend. but a kind mask is still a mask. and alecto knew masks, could pluck one from her shelves and put it on in her sleep. it was easier, after all, to not think; some part of alecto has always known this, long learned how to turn off her racing thoughts, her conscience, her heart, in order to do what needed to be done. she hated it. but she did it. at least for one more year, she’d be turning off her racing thoughts, and her conscience, and her heart, for kind and selfish reasons. she so seldom did things selfishly, and there were worst last hurrahs. 

sooner or later alecto would give in  ---  in a way that could never be undone. or, perhaps, she’d come to hate feeling her family’s belated pride resting on her head like poisoned laurels. prove even herself wrong and desert them and their pitied crowns.