The dinner table
When I was five my brother Regulus, who at that time went by a different no longer used name, our older Brother Sirius, and I started to order our house elf Kreacher to play hide and seek with us. For a child the dark Grimmauld Place with its endless rooms seemed scary and frightening.
It still seems this scary now. But today it is for a different reason. We are no longer afraid of the monsters our childish imaginations made up.
Now we are afraid of the real monsters, that sit downstairs in the living room, that eat dinner with us, that punish us when we do something wrong.
At five I still had been beautifully carefree and unknowing.
But hey, lucky are those who live unaware, right?
The idea to hide under the dinner table in the huge, dark dining room came to me around the third time we played.
Our table cloth was always big and so long that it reached to the ground on every side of the long table. I crawled underneath it and hid under the table.
It was exactly what I did by the probably 100 time we played. I had been six. Thinking nothing as I once again hid underneath the table.
I remember it so clearly as if it was yesterday. Not years ago. The fear that had all of the sudden rushed trough my little body when I had heard the creak of the door, the steps that walked inside the dining room and the voices that had followed. The next minute that I had sat under the table not able to move. We weren’t allowed in the dining room unless my parents were there. If they would find me I would be in trouble. I just didn’t know how much trouble I would be in back then.
“Please. Sit down, My Lord. Coffee? Tea?”
“Tea will be fine thank you Walburga”
The voice was soothing, smooth, charming. Warm and soft. And yet it had sent shivers down my spine. Something about it had made me feel threatened. Unsafe.
“So? Hepzibah Smith?”, The voice asked demanding.
“It went well, my Lord”, my mother had relied.
“Survivors?”
“None, my Lord. Not even the children!”, I had heard my father answer.
I’d heard myself whimper and hastily covered my mouth with my hands. Had my parents found a whole family dead? Did I knew them? Were they friends of ours?
“Did you find it then? The cup. The locket?”
“Yes my Lord”.
I had never heard my parents talk with such voices. Reverent. Almost scared. Who was this person.
I heard something clatter. Then a relived sight coming from the southing voice.
My mothers voice echoed trough the room. Curious. Exited.
“My Lord. If I may ask, the cup. Is it real-“
“It is. Walburga. However I did not allow you to talk about it, didn’t I?”, the strangers voice asked coldly.
I couldn’t help but smile, knowing that any second this man would hear the most furious lecture he had ever endured. No one talked to my mother that way.
Ever. She was a strong, noble woman. But then.
“Of course not. I apologize for my wife, my Lord. She did not intent it. Rather wanting to know who we killed for what, my Lord. Please forgive her”
Killed? Cold shivers had run down my spine. Why would they kill someone.
And since when did my father stand against my mother. Who. Was. This. Person?
The cold voice had chuckled.
“Your wife is forgiven, Orion. Woman, am I right? Never knowing when to keep their mouth shut. So much talking for such little brain.”
I’d heard my father laugh an agreeing laugh.
Then chairs were drawn back.
“Allow me to show you out my Lord”, my father said.
“My Lord”, my mother had said. When I’d squinted my eyes I had seen her silhouette bowing trough the tablecloth.
I’d heard steps walking away. Finally I breathed.
At least until the tablecloth had been folded back. By my mother. A yelp had left my mouth.
“I knew I heard something”
The woman standing in front of me had most definitely been mother.
But the eyes that had pierced me.
These eyes belong to the devil.
That day, at the age of six, I had realized it for the first time in my life that they were the same.
Satan and my mother.
She’d dragged me away from the table and downstairs.
I was not allowed downstairs. The panic had rushed trough me like a beast taking over its squirming victim.
Sometimes Sirius had been there. And when he had been I had heard him screaming.
Heart beating I had apologized and begged for forgiveness while being yanked down the stairs.
When we were downstairs my little legs had already given in, tears streaming down my face.
“I am sorry mother! Please. I did not know better. It will never happen again”
“Oh Vega.” My mother had whispered, taking a step towards me, her hand whipping away my tears softly and lovingly.
“Of course it won’t happen again. We are here to remind you of that!”
I hadn’t known the curse she had whispered after.
When I was older I found out its name was cruciatus curse.
I remember it so clearly. Even now after all those years. Even tough the whole experience had felt so blurred together.
You never forget the first time.
Someone screamed. A voice, high and stringing, echoing trough the basement and the entire house.
I had wondered who screamed. And if they were alright.
Then I had realized that I was lying on the ground twitching and twisting and squirming. And that my throat had hurt from screaming, just as my entire body was aching in the endless pain that had rushed trough it, eating me alive.
Then I had finally known that it had been me who was screaming.
It did not hold on for long. Maybe half a minute. Even though it had felt like hours.
Only half conscious I had heard my mother going upstairs calling for my father.
Would he do the same to me?
I did not thing I could survive a second round.
But when my father was there he had helped me up.
“Let’s get to your favorite Ice cream shop, shall we?”
And I had nodded. Tears still running down my face dropping on the ground.
When we walked back from the shop it’d felt better. Normally we would apparate. But today we walked.
“You know Vega. You have to understand that you did something wrong, my Dear”, my father had started to explain. “And as your parents it is our job to teach you and your siblings what is right or wrong. You have to understand how much your mother loves you, Darling. If she would not care that means she would allow you to make these mistakes. But we are the noble House of Blacks. We have to do perfect. It is in our blood. Our pure, pure blood, Vega. And we will teach you and your siblings how to be so. Because we love you. All of you. Because we want what is best for you”
I had stopped, Ice cream dripping from my hand.
“So by hurting me mother was just helping me. Because she loves me?”, I had asked.
“Correct. She loves you so dearly my child. So. Do not let it happen again. It would break your poor mothers heart to hurt you like that again, hm?”
And he had patted my head.
“Yes father”, I had answered.
At the age of six I liked my father more than my mother. Because he wouldn’t hurt me. He would take me to get ice cream to ease the pain my mother had put me trough.
When I grew older I had realized that he was just as horrible as my mother. I would tell him secrets, thinking I could trust him, only to later that day get tortured by my mother for said secrets and confessions.
He was not better than her. He was just better at hiding it.
But they love me, I kept telling myself. Even when the torture sessions would get longer and longer and would happen for reasons that were not reasons. I still would tell myself that they loved me. That this was how they showed they cared.
And sometimes in the middle of the night I would hear my siblings being loved, too.
It was not until Hogwarts that I realized what kind of love they praised and practiced.
That their love was a cage, a prison.
Their love was the world of Hades.
That there souls were dead and incapable of love.