#corda-comminuta

The cold was trying it's best to invade the thick dark manor walls during it's evening hours, mid-winter certainly being a fucking pain in the ass. Mr Lestrange was stuffing his mouth with food, bragging loudly about his oldest's son acomplishments, fingers greasy and just a tad too chubby as he reached for yet another chicken wing. Perhaps the man had been a good looking man some years ago; but bad maintaining had surely ruined that. No wonder his wife killed herself, people would whisper as he walked past them.

He had invited Cygnus Black for yet another dinner to discuss the wedding plans for their children. Honestly, it was just yet another bad excuse to show off his wealth and brag about himself. He was just precisely the kind of father who would use his children's achievements as a way of bragging about himself. Only tiny detail he wasn't too fond about was why Cygnus had to bring that wife of his. Druella Black was a beautiful woman, and for a chauvinist like Mr Lestrange, that simply angered him. She should stay at home, and carry further some more children, more pricisely a son. Poor Cygnus Black, no son to lead forward the heritage (Heritage for royally crazy, anyways). Mr Lestrange held quite the pride in having not only one son, but two. He preferred not to think too much about the fact that just maybe Rabastan wasn't his.

"You should of seen him, he was M A R V E - " a loud crack from the fireplace interupted him. To Mr Lestrange's absolute horror, it was his younger brother stepping out of the fireplace, a big wide, almost manical, grin on his face. "Oh, I didn't know you had visitors!" Kolgrim beamed all too innocently, as he made his way to the table. "Greetings, Cygnus." though he barely acknowledged him, his attention to Druella. He took her elegant hand in his, bringing it to his cold lips. "Kjære, Druella, what a pleasure to meet you again." he smirked, his eyes quickly glancing towards Cygnus. He wanted to know if he could get a rise from him. Pulling away from Druella, he snatched the chicken wing from his brother's hand. "Tsk, you're too fat already, brother." "half-brother." "Oh, don't mind the trivialities." Kolgrim snickered as he took a seat in the small dinner party.

Briar was fairly convinced she was trapped. But she hadn’t been able to figure where, or who’d done it, or even why. She had no idea how long she’d been in the little cottage in the glenn. It wasn’t hers. And she was alone. Everyday she was alone. She had also figured out that she was in a dream. She’d pinched herself a thousand times and even reached into a rose bush with her bare hand. Not one flicker of pain. She hadn’t felt a need to eat or drink or sleep. Though it didn’t stop her from picking berries and eating them.

That was why she stopped suddenly in the woods, staring at the figure standing a few yards away. There had never been another person in her dream world. Just her. Well, and the little fairies and animals. But they always seemed different. And conversation with them had grown dull. This was a new person.

owl to Draco from Pansy || @corda-comminuta​

"I got you something."

CHRISTMAS THEMED SENTENCE STARTERS! 

“You got me something?” Draco was surprised, pleasantly so. A small smile on his lips. Presents were always nice, a sign that you were thinking of someone or considering them, and he knew that Pansy’s gift would be something well-thought out, a reflection of their relationship.

Draco’s parents had determined he was much to old for presents a while ago, though given recent times, presents just didn’t cut it. Having his family there with him had been more important. He could still remember how awful it had been to be without his father that one year.

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Bella had mixed feelings regarding Christmas. It was a difficult holiday because she was constantly being reminded that she had yet to produce any heirs which irritated her to the point of madness. She had long ago vowed that she would not have a child and she hgad damned good reasons for that, not that she would tell anyone because it wasdnt their business. Rod didn't tend to make much of a show out of Christmas, that was far more of a thing for Cissy to do and do it she did and it was annoyingly successful. Bella had hosted Christmas for the family once and the result had been disastrous.

This year she had been invited to enjoy the holiday celebrations with the Dark Lord and Nagini. Rod had not been invited and so he had gone quite happily with Rabastan. The two of them were most likely going to get horrendously drunk and Narcissa would be content with her cosy family celebration. Bella felt honoured and touched that she had been invited, knowing Nagini’s secret in itself was an honour but to be able to spend time with the both of them. She had once thought that Nagini was her rival, at the beginning of it all, but she had quickly dismissed those thoughts. They were both working together towards one singular goal and that was to serve the Dark Lord and to uphold the values that he championed and contribute to the glory of the world he was going to create. They both knew their positions, knew that they were both valued by the Dark Lord and that they were as close to irreplaceable as any servant of his could be.

Bella had been fairly restrained in her consumption of alcohol that evening and had spent most of the time listening to the Dark Lord speak with rapt attention and falling into the tales that Nagini weaved, some involving the both of them and others involving her before she had met the Dark Lord. It was only several hours into the celebration that the mistletoe had appeared and Bella had glanced up at it then looked to the Dark Lord for confirmation. With a slight inclination of the head, permission was granted and Bella gestured to the mistletoe with a sharp upward tilt of her head before planting a kiss right on Nagini’s surprisingly soft lips. 

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      This was all getting out of hand, it had become too much. It seemed like all in the blink of an eye, The Dark Lord had risen once more from what seemed to be nothing but shadows of the past and suddenly had taken over every aspect of her life. Her sister had been broken out of prison and returned to her, later causing the death of their cousin Sirius. Within the same night, events had played out that led to the arrest of her beloved Lucius, a day that haunted her mind almost every moment of his imprisonment. When he had come back to her it was as if he were nothing more than a shell of his former self, a husk of a man she had once loved. It broke her heart to know that her family was being torn down one member at a time because of Voldemort, that they had once been such a proud clan but now stood like rocks reduced to rubble at the bottom of the heap. They had become a disgrace. 

     But what had thrown things over the edge, had truly begun to cause her world to crumble, was when that darkness came for her son. Her baby, her sweet Draco, had been marked as a Death Eater. She had never felt such sorrow, such guilt. She thought perhaps she was a good mother, that she had been a better parent than her own. Her father was a monster, something she feared more than even The Dark Lord himself. While other little girls feared monsters under their beds and in their closets, she feared the one that slept down the hall with the bitter scent of fire whiskey on his breath. She had faced her monster, in the end, to defend her little dragon-but no one knew it, not even Bella. She would face him a thousand times over to save Draco again, knowing what he would have done if she hadn’t stopped him. But even now, she couldn’t truly save her son.

     She didn’t know how to save him this time, there wasn’t a way she saw how. She would have given anything to save him from this fate, would have given up everything she owned and even her own life, to save him from this. But she had failed, she had failed as a mother. And as she sat in bed and stared at a moving picture of herself and her son, one of him so small and fragile in her arms the day she and Lucius had brought him home, she began to think of her own mother. 

     Druella Black was nothing, if not what a model pure blooded witch of society should have been, that much she remembered. She was beautiful, absolutely stunning, where she got her looks from the most as far as she could tell. She had been polite and poised, graceful and classy, she did her duty and was praised for it. Narcissa had spent so long trying to emulate her mother, to be as much a goddess as she was, but she never seemed to do her justice. She could never be beautiful enough, could never be smart enough, could never have as many children. She didn’t know why she had done so much to try and be like her mother, since the two of them had never exactly had a loving relationship. If you asked her if her mother loved her, she would have told you no. And if you asked her if she had loved her mother, she wouldn’t have said anything at all.

     Thinking so heavily of her mother made her put the framed photo of herself and Draco on the bedside table, glancing over her shoulder at Lucius who was sleeping deeply beside her. She moved onto her side and tucked her hair back a bit so it wouldn’t tickle his face and wake him, leaning down to softly kiss his cheek before moving out of the bed, picking up her wand from her beside table and making her way out into the hall, closing the door quietly. Her bare feet padded softly down the hall so as not to wake up her son or her sister, assuming both were sleeping soundly in the middle of the night, unlike herself. 

     Within the blink of an eye she found herself in front of the room at the very end of the hall in the East wing, a room she refused to enter for years now, on account of the painting that hung on the wall inside. She wondered if Bella even knew this painting was in here, and if she might lose her mind if she knew. She looked down at her wand in her hand, stomach turning as she tested the theory of just going back into her room and sleeping her worries away. “Lumos,” she said, firmly but quietly, watching the tip of her wand glow. She tightly gripped the studded handle, feeling the tiny slightly-sharpened pieces on the handle dig into her flesh. She could do this.

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Severus had spent many sleepless nights since the incident by the lake. He had mentally cursed Black, Potter, Pettigrew and Lupin many times over for the altercation but ultimately, he knew that the fault lay with him. He had said the word, knowing damn well exactly how Lily had felt about it and all because his pride had been stung. His father’s laughter had rang in his ears as his temper had climbed ‘what kind of a man are you when a girl is fighting your own battles you gutless prick?’ Severus couldn’t abide it and so he had lashed out. It was not the first time he had lashed out at Lily but it was the worst time. She had been so offended and as soon as the word had been spoken, Severus had regretted it, knowing that the anger in her eyes was masking the pain that she felt. Severus thought he had lost her then and he had desperately tried to apologise to her, even camping outside the Gryffindor Common Room, a pathetic example of everything that Salazar Slytherin despised. Still, Lily had refused to speak to him. 

Severus had eventually stopped sleeping outside the hallway and had slunk back to his dorm like the wretched husk he was. The other boys hadn’t understood and had sneered at Severus as though he was a disgrace and he supposed in a way that he was, just not the way that the likes of Mulciber and Avery had claimed. 

The days had passed by, sliding into weeks, and the weeks slid into over a month and a half. Severus had thought that perhaps giving Lily time and space would be the right thing to do, to allow her feelings to settle. He knew in his heart that she would give him another chance. She had to. Severus didn’t know what he would do without her in his life, he couldn’t even imagine how wretched his existence would become if she didn’t forgive him. She was the only good thing in his life. 

On that particular morning of November 8th, Severus thought that this would be the best time to recommence with operation grovel at Lily Evan’s feet. He had scratched out a small note and sent it to her in time for breakfast using one of the school owl’s that had taken pity on him and his bedraggled appearance. He had made a conscious effort to style his hair that morning so it looked less lanky but had ultimately failed and now looked like he’d come out of some horror movie. The note had read simply;

Please, let me speak, listen to what I want to say and if you don’t want to look at me ever again then I will accept it. I will be at the East beach of the Black Lake at 1pm. 

Please. 

Sev. 

Severus had kept his head down during breakfast, only occasionally glancing up to see if his owl had been received. He positioned his hair carefully so as to hide his face and that way if Lily looked over at him, glared at him, she wouldn’t see the devastation on his face. He wasn’t ready for that, not in such a public space. It was a cold Saturday and not many people wanted to be out and about, preferring to bundle up indoors. Severus had taken his scarf, wrapping it around his neck and had scurried out of the castle, down the steps and the hill leading to the lake. He was cold, he didn’t have a coat, only a scratchy wool jumper that his mother had knitted for him 2 years prior. The jumper hadn’t fit him very well back then, practically hanging off him, but he had started to fill it out a bit more as he had grown. The cuffs were halfway between his wrist and his elbow as his growth spurt was something that had not been taken into account by his mother. She had tried though which was more than could be said for Tobias. 

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It had taken far longer than Lyra had hoped it would but, after 5 years in Hogwarts she finally had it cracked. She picked up the time turner with shaking hands, hoping against hope that this was finally going to be her time, that all of her dreams were finally going to come true. She had wanted this for as long as she could remember and she had kept the secret to herself. She hadn’t even told her mother for fear of the lecture that she knew would spout from her mother’s lips. Lyra knew some of the risks of time travel but it would be worth it. She was willing to sacrifice everything in order to find her father. 

She glanced down at the locket that she had worn religiously since her mother had given it to her on September 1st 1991 before she had gone onto the Hogwarts Express. Lyra resisted the urge to open the locket, to look at the photograph one more time of her father’s smiling, happy face. She took the locket off, slipping it into her pocket. She couldn’t wear it when she travelled through time, her father couldn’t recognise it otherwise it could potentially cause too many problems. He had given it to her mother on their first date, it was an heirloom of the Rosier family and she knew that, as loving a man as her father had been, he had still been a death eater and had guarded the prestige of the Rosier family. 

Snape starter for @corda-comminuta (Lily)

Once the pain had finally faded away, the only thing left on Snape’s mind were those eyes that he had tried so hard to deceive himself into believing were those of his old friend.  The eyes that he wished that he could look into at least one more time and apologize to for all of the wrongs he did, as well as his biggest regret about his failure as a friend.  Perhaps if he hadn’t pushed her away than his life could’ve been better, but at least he was pretty sure that she had been happy with her family for the short while it lasted.  After what hurtful things Severus had been able to say to his only friend, he fully believed that he did not deserve happiness.