8 years.
It's been 8 years since I left London to go to Beauxbatons.
My parents sent me there before Grindelwalds reign of power.
They believed I would get my education in safe conditions.
They were wrong.
I bite my lip, flashbacks attacking me.
The obscurus
Heads ripping
People burning
Bodies littering the street
Little orphans screaming
The dark obscene smell of death..
...I open up my flask and take my calming draught.
I had survived,I had escaped and that was what mattered.
I look at the gate infront of me.
Malfoy manor.
How could a place feel familiar and jarring at the same time?
Taking a deep breath, my blood allows me to pass through.
Xoxoxo
"Abraxas."
Abraxas, who was busy feeding his numerous albino peacocks, whirls around.
He looks good.
"How's it been, cousin?"
Xoxoxoxo
"What?"
Distantly I hear the tea set crash to the floor.
My ears must have decieved me.
Abraxas, Orion, they all avoid my questioning gaze.
Only Tom looks at me.
Is that a glimmer of guilt? Please let it be.
"You werent supposed to hear that."
Anger, Disbelief, betrayal, a dangerous combination of emotions.
"I wasnt supposed to hear what?"
Perhaps my ears were wrong.
I must tend to a healer.
Abraxas has a house healer, maybe.
"The revolution."
My blood runs cold.
The sounds of war, muggle and wizard both fill my ears.
Gunshots bombs curses ,spells..
and crying, so much crying
" You're preparing for a revolution?"
He nods.
Realization starts to creep in.
"All those lessons and duels I participated in they werent just simple lessons. You were preparing for war."
He nods once more.
Something wet falls down my face.
I'm crying.
Why am I crying.
A blurry figure walk towards me, his warm hands swiping the tears from my face.
It's Tom.
"We were going to ease you into the idea. You werent supposed to know yet."
My heart is breaking in two, but the sudden heat in my palm distracts me.
I just slapped Tom.
The fact clears my vision and I see Tom infront of me, his mask of indifference in place.
I would have preferred his anger.
I would have preferred some emotion, yet he gives me none.
"I deserved that."
That nauseating ridiculous calm voice of his.
It angers me much more that while I feel like a mess Tom is calm as always.
While I feel these jumble of emotions screaming at me from different places in my brain, Tom is feeling nothing.
"It must have been funny."
I swallow the big lump in my throat, threatening to choke me.
"It must have been funny watching me rely on you Tom.
Dumb little Astra Carrow. Trusting the one who's fixing her only to use and break her again..."
"It must have been hilarious. When the girl you see only as a thing, a weapon fell for you and said she loved you."
I allow the tears to fall.
Pain demands to be felt.
"When I had panic attacks in the duel room I thought you were worried."
I thought he cared.
"You were worried, but not about me. You were worried youd have to postpone informing me of your revolution. You were worried my little problem would deter your plans."
He just stares at me, mask in place.
"Say something damn it!"
"I apologize"
I apologize.
That's what I get.
I get a single apology from the boy I loved since I was 11.
I feel the energy suddenly draining out of me.
I'm tired, exhausted, hopeless.
All of the above.
My tears dry and my voice lowers.
"Shame on you Tom."
I turn towards the boys watching us.
"Shame on all of you."
None of them meet my eyes.
Cowards, all of them.
"We just finished a war, we just finished and here you lot are preparing for another."
I shake my head laughing.
And here I was thinking they were my friends.
What a fucking joke.
"You guys disgust me."
I look back at Tom who is standing next to me.
"You disgust me."
Xoxoxo
"..My,my lord what do you suggest we do?"
Tom grimances his head a throbbing mess.
"Salazar, leave her be, she's having a tantrum."
She'll come around.
She always has.
"This doesnt seem like a tantrum, not this time."
Blacks knowing tone irks him.
"Are you questioning me Black?"
Tom lightly rubs his uncomfortable chest before replying.
"She will come back, she has no one else."
She has to come back. She must.
Tom turns to Abraxas Malfoy expecting him to agree,
but finds him sitting down, glaring at his clenched fists.
"Malfoy?"
Abraxas jerks up his head, and snarls out.
"She's not coming back."
While he would normally have cursed his for his tone, Abraxas's disrespect is not the first thing on his mind.
What does he mean she won't come back.
She must.
"Astra is, as you've often said, a spoiled princess. I doubt she can stay a single hour without spending your family vault.
We'll inform Gringotts to.."
Abraxas scowls and cuts him off.
"Tom you dont get to decide which version of Astra you want.
You dont get to view Astra as a brilliant witch whom you wish to join your ranks when it suits you, and then view her as nothing more than the little petulant child who was obsessed with you back in school when it doesnt.
She felt hurt. She felt betrayed. She felt disappointed."
Tom harshly rubs the stinging sensation on his chest at his right mans words.
"What you just saw wasn't a bloody tantrum. It was, it was.."
Abraxas falters, but it's not difficult to finish his sentence.
Lestrange clears his throat.
"It was goodbye."
Abraxas winced slightly, then nods.
"It was goodbye."
Xoxoxo
It's been three weeks.
I look at the front of Malfoy gate as a sense of dejavu runs through.
The first time I was a girl running from the war.
This time, I was a girl who would stop it.
When I left Malfoy Manor I had nowhere to go.
But desperate times call for desperate measures so I planted false memories into an elderly muggle couple to believe I was their grandchild and stayed with them for a while.
I needed to clear my head.
The first week it was near impossible.
Too much emotions were on the loose.
The second week was when my brain started getting back control, and now the third, I knew what I had to do.
I had to kill Tom.
I had killed before.
It was either kill or be killed when you were on the battle field.
But never had I killed someone I knew, nor had I done it when my life wasn't in complete danger.
But I had to kill Tom.
Another war could not happen.
I knew there were many wrongs that needed to be righted in the wizarding world, but not now.
We couldn't afford another war.
The smell of blood
Smoke and gas, burning buildings
The screams
Crying, so much crying.
I reach for my flask and take a quick sip of my potion.
Yes, we couldn't afford another war.