#grcyback

“The worst birthday I’ve ever had,” Lily repeated, as though hoping the soft spoken words could prompt some eloquent response from the recesses of her mind, before the thought weighted the edges of her mouth downward. Slender digits ran through her hair as an exhale pushed past partially parted lips, sinking further into the couch she sat on while the memory assaulted her senses as clear as though she were viewing it through a pensive.

As the chilling, near suffocating, embrace of January loosened into the soft grasp of Spring, it brought with it promises of new beginnings, of brighter days and better things. It was a time when students and teachers alike were forced to pull back the safety curtain that they’d put up in September and were forced to face the inevitable of exams and, for fifth and seventh years, the fact that these exams could potentially decide which path they paved for themselves in terms of their career. Among those things, the end of Winter - this year - brought with it Lily Evans seventeenth birthday which was marked by the sounds of the girl in question emptying the contents of her stomach in a bathroom on the seventh floor. Lily having woken not an hour before to a small pile of presents at the foot of her bed, the familiar slanted hand-writing on a card from her ex-best friend causing her already queasy stomach to lurch, getting up and finding the girls bathroom in the dormitory occupied left the future head girl running down the seventh floor corridor before she could blow chunks all across the hall. 

… at least her future was brighter than the toilet bowl she found herself hunched over.

The second hand of her watched ticked in the ear that was rested against it before the copper haired woman noticed that the headache thrumming against her temples pounded in the same rhythm. A groan clawed it’s way from her throat once she’d realised the beat had been interrupted by hesitant digits rapping against the wood of the stall door. “Lily?” Brows drew together as she tried to cut through the din inside her head and place the voice that had called out to her. “Your friends are worried about you,” her lack of foresight in locking the door was cursed when it was pushed open tentatively, the startling blue eyes of Alyssa McKinnon peered around at her once the gap had been made big enough, Lily noting the concern that filled the sapphire orbs and realised she must have looked pretty pathetic sitting on the floor in her fluffy bathrobe and quidditch pyjamas (she didn’t even like quidditch that much). A moment of hesitance was given between the fifth year prefect offering her hand and Lily clutching it in her own, shameslessly relying on the other woman to help her up and found herself being guided to the hospital wing, managing a weak thank you before Madam Pompfey took it upon herself to fuss over the muggleborn witch. 

Severe food poisoning. If food would betray her, what else did she have left? 

Long after the sun had settled over the horizon, Lily still sat upright in her bed, the letter that a persistent owl had just brought to her illuminated only by the dim off-yellow lamp light of the hospital wing. Each movement the copper haired female made was laced with an underlying hesitance: the slip of her figure under the seal, the grip two fingers had on the thin slip of paper while pulling it from the envelope and the flick of  a digit that revealed the familiar slanted writing of her sister to apprehensive green eyes. Lily, I am only writing to you because mum and dad say that I am under some sort of obligation considering it’s your birthday. I hope you are well. You should probably know that Vernon and I are getting married, it will be in Summer of next year though we have collectively decided that we don’t want someone like you there. - Petunia.” Blinking rapidly as she read over the deliberately short, impersonal, letter, she ran her tongue across her teeth, willing herself not to shed tears as memories surfaced - as they always did - about every time Petunia had called her a freak. A hand swiped under her nose, mumbling about “stupid potions” (knowing they weren’t really to blame), reaching over to take a sheaf of parchment from between the pages of her potions book and writing “Petunia, I wouldn’t miss it for the world - L” but abandoning the pursuit of pondering the appropriate levels of sarcasm for a letter as she leaned over, emptying the contents of her stomach, though it was mainly bile, into the bucket beside her bed.

Bellatrix did her best to wear simple clothes. They were high quality, yes, but the illustrious witch deliberately avoided the delicate yet ornate design favored by other witches of her stature. She was a Death Eater, not a trophy - not like so many other woman in the upper echelons of pureblooded society. And yet, her ghostly skin and darkly lined eyes tended to garner unnecessary attention anyway, even amongst the cold blooded creatures like her that were drawn towards the Dark Lord like moths to a bright, distant flame. Frowning at the younger members, who sat preening as though by being present in these meetings they’d managed to become his confidants, the Lestrange crossed one leg over the other, ebony silk spilling over her boot laced feet. 

They could never be that, not as long as she sat closest to his cold presence, pale wrist resting against the mahogany table, fingers curved like talons. As usual, Bella was... restless. Across from her, as close she was to her lord, sat the disgusting mongrel she only barely tolerated for the Dark Lord. His forearm was not marked with the conviction the others had, and despite her irritation towards the younger members, at least they respected their brilliant leader by marking themselves appropriately. Greyback didn’t. 

The meeting ended as it always did - a reminder to be patient, that their time was coming, that soon the world would be cleansed of the filthy mudblood taint. She nodded, smiled in a way more reminiscent of a feral baring of fangs, and stood after he did, robes settling around her angular figure. As she left the room, werewolf close behind her as he often did in some sort of mockery of chivalry, Bellatrix could feel that restless energy buzzing beneath her skin; the raven haired woman had always had a sense of her magic this way, constantly humming in her veins. In a low hiss, so low only one with heightened senses like Greyback would hear, she reminded him of their usual appointment. 

“Our usual place.” 

With that, Bellatrix strode forward, and soon as she had passed the wards binding the location of the Death Eater meeting, apparated mid step into a clearing in the West Woods. Surrounded by the deceptive calm of beech trees, a faint whisper of leaves carrying through the air, the witch felt far more at ease - here she could be the wild, passionate warrior she was meant to be. Her fingers twitched, calming when they touched the cool metal of her dagger, secreted in the holster of her forearm, along with her wand. She removed it from its sheath, appreciating the beauty of the metallic form when she became aware of the sudden silence. Bellatrix turned to face her companion, twirling the dagger lazily in her hand.

Selina had no religion, but should she choose to align herself with one, the pagans seemed to be well-suited for how she spent her time. She had been more intrigued by Christianity as of late, with their stories of their Savior Christ that sounded so like the prophecies she analyzed near-daily now. The concept of gods--one or many--was foreign to her, as her upbringing involved no supreme being that was infallible.

The only infallible things in her life were forces of nature, the sun and moon traipsing across the sky, ashes sparkling with the remains of a fire, the wind picking up leaves as it brushed the ground. When the moon came out every night, she sketched its shape in a notebook made of bamboo flesh, recording the cycles to keep for her brewing notes.

Her cauldron had been basking in the moon’s glow for two hours, enough time for her to add the lacewing flies. It was not as dark as night could be, not with the moon bright like this, and when her stirring was finished Selina turned toward the moon and tossed her hood back from her head, unafraid of whatever ghuls lurked in the darkness--she was yards away from her own yard, in a clearing overgrown with weeds (not curated by herself, clearly), but her wand was easily reachable and the full cauldron behind her could be used as a weapon, were she so inclined.