Chapter 2
Stephanie didn’t know who she hated the most out of her aunt, her uncle, and her cousin. They were in fierce competition, but Narcissa had just managed to take the lead. After the fifth cracked window and a shattered floral vase, Narcissa had temporarily banished her from her own bedroom. Frankly, Stephanie thought her aunt should be glad, given that the vase had been absolutely hideous.
However, upon being awoken at two in the morning, Narcissa had angrily barged into her bedroom. Stephanie was a quivering mess already, and she thought she might still be dreaming when her aunt had grabbed her arm and marched her downstairs.
“If you can’t sleep without destroying everything around you, then you don’t deserve to sleep near anything breakable,” her aunt had seethed.
So now she sat in a dank, dark, miserable dungeon. At least Dobby had been able to provide her with some blankets and an old mattress, but the only lights in the room were the silver runes that she knew encoded all manner of entrapment and imprisonment spells. It would take a miracle to get out if her Aunt didn’t let her go.
She wondered idly if maybe her aunt would forget about her, and leave her to rot away until she was nothing more than a pile of bones. Well, at least then she wouldn’t have to put up with them anymore.
Her magic burned angrily inside her, prickling at the inside of her ribcage, desperate to escape and burn down the entire house. Instead, she just buried her head in the pillow and screamed furiously until her voice gave out. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
It wasn’t fair that she was in this stupid dungeon. It wasn’t fair that she was in this stupid house. It wasn’t fair that her night terrors had started up again when she was already busy living a nightmare. It wasn’t fair that Madame Babineaux couldn’t come to England. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t even write to Pipsy because house-elves couldn’t read. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t go to her grandfather’s funeral, or even visit his grave. It wasn’t fair that she woke up every night scared and in pain. It wasn’t fair that her grandfather had died and she hadn’t.
What had she ever done to deserve this? She was a good kid. She was always polite, even when she didn’t want to be. She always did her work and ate her vegetables. She didn’t deserve this, she didn’t.
As much as she tried to tell herself that, she couldn’t ignore the small voice in the back of her head. You’re not even a Malfoy. You’re just a half-blooded freak stealing from a real pureblood family.
Clutching the blankets tightly, Stephanie curled into a tight ball on the makeshift mattress, the sounds of her quiet sobs echoing through the large, empty dungeon. As her exhaustion overtook her, her breaths slowed, the anger and misery overtaken by weariness. In the quiet solitude of the dungeon, Stephanie drifted off into fitful sleep, where memories and fears wove together into a painful tapestry.