one point perspective

don't cut me down

throw me out

leave me here to waste

corvus wakes up to bright light streaming in front of her closed eyelids. warm air picking at her skin. 

she opens her eyes groggily and feels herself panic. she doesn't know where she is for a moment. 

she doesn't remember last night. she doesn't remember mrs potter’s kind face staring back at her when she opened the door last night.

she doesn't know where she is. but she knows she's not in grimmauld place. grimmauld never woke her up to sunlight or warmth. it was always dark and cold. this feels suffocating.

all she can think is regulus. because if she doesn't know where she is, then she doesn't know where reg is either. 

so she's freaking out. the air is too warm and the sun is too bright. and she's not used to waking up like this. 

she can't breathe. and the in for four, out for four isn't helping. no matter how many times she repeats evan’s voice in her head and replays the feeling of his hands in her hair. she can't get control of it.

she feels her body sink to the ground, letting out a sob she isn't sure how it is her own. she can feel tears streaming down her face.

she wants to tear her skin off. she wants to rip every thought out of her head. she wants it all to stop. 

by the time she remembers what happened the night before, she's too far gone. she's still sitting on the floor of the guest bedroom at the potter’s manor and she's crying tears that don't feel like they belong to her.

and then the door opens. and she doesn't bother looking up. she can't look up. she knows if she does, she's just going to shout some hurtful thing, and half of this house is split between black siblings and potter’s, so she doesn't sense that that would end very well.

she can't look up, and she can't breathe, and she can't stop crying, for fuck’s sake. 

corvus hates crying. always has. since she was six years old and her mother told her that crying was a sign of weakness. that real ladies cover their faces in makeup and keep a straight face. smile painted on and acting like nothing is wrong. you don't cry in 12 grimmauld place.

she feels hands grab onto hers and she jerks back. 

her body doesn't feel like it belongs to her. her skin doesn't feel like her own.

it feels like it is her mother’s and bellatrix’s and lucius’. she's never known hands that don't hurt during the summers.

“hey, it's okay.” she hears an all too familiar voice say, and it almost snaps her out of her crying immediately.

she looks up, locking eyes with her twin brother’s matching pale gray ones. she jolts back, abruptly standing back and hastily wiping the tears off of her face.

“get out.” she snaps, crossing her arms over her chest and trying to ignore the way her voice is cracking at the seams.

“cor-” sirius starts, but he stops when he sees the look on his sister’s face, taking a breath and trying again. “corvus, i'm just trying to help.”

“your time for helping passed months ago, sirius.” corvus bites back, not backing down. trying not to let the mask fall. “get out.”

“hey, don't act like you're the only victim in this.” sirius scolds, stepping closer, only making corvus back up further, hitting her back against the wall.

“oh, now you think i'm a victim. what changed since last night, huh?” corvus laughs, but it's cold and lacking any humor. “realized you weren't the only one suffering in that house, did you?”

“you never showed that you were suffering. how the hell was i supposed to know?” sirius yells, slamming his palm against the dresser at the end of the bed corvus had slept in last night.

“because it was right there!” corvus screams, no longer able to keep still, and starts pacing around the room, something that her mother would have scolded her for. “we were miserable! we were dying in that house, and you never looked back. you don't get to see yourself as all high and mighty when we warded us off as soon as we were sorted into slytherin. as soon as you met james fucking potter and found the sibling you wanted more!”

“oh, don't make you laugh.” sirius scoffs, also pacing now too, in the same pattern that corvus was, not breaking his eyes away from her. “you were flourishing. they loved you and reg. their little angel children. the ones who would've done anything and everything for them. you would've tore yourself in fucking half if it meant that they would love you more!”

“well then why the fuck are we here then, sirius?” corvus screams back, stopping her pacing and staring sirius straight ahead. “tell me why i ran out in the middle of the fucking night just to get away from them, huh? why i ran to james fucking potter’s house . that's how desperate i was. that is not worshiping them. that is not fucking flourishing!”

“oh, they probably just wouldn't let you buy the new sweater you wanted. i bet you'll be crawling back to them in no time. and they'll take you. cause you guys are the ones they wanted to begin with.”

“they wanted us to take the mark, sirius!” corvus’ voice is shattering because of how loud she is screaming, but she honestly doesn't even care. “they brought lord fucking voldemort into our house. i walked in to see a fucking demon in my living room! would you rather us have the mark? huh? no matter what we did, you wouldn't have been happy. we come here, and you get defense, cause, i don't know, we stepped into your territory or something? we stay there, we get the mark, and we're more dead to you than we already were. nothing would have ever been enough! so why are you so insistent that we're the bad ones when we're here ? we fucking left , sirius!”

sirius doesn't say anything, and neither does corvus. the silence between them the loudest they've ever been. she's sure everyone else in the house could hear them, but she really doesn't care.

“i needed my brother.” corvus finally says, her voice small and quiet, tears starting to form in her eyes. “i needed you, and you weren't there. and i waited . i waited, thinking that maybe you would come back. maybe you would come get us after all. but you didn't even turn around. admit it, we weren't worth your time the second they slipped a green and silver tie around our necks. you thought we were a lost cause long before you left.”

sirius still doesn't say anything, looking at corvus with small eyes. this is the smallest she thinks she's ever seen sirius. even when he ran out into the middle of the cold and the rain without so much as shoes on christmas eve earlier that school year.

“i would have never done that to you, and you know that.” corvus whispers, a tear dropping down her face.

“i'm sorry.” sirius says, looking like he really, truly means it. “i am so sorry.”

“sorry isn't enough, sirius.” corvus argues, because it's not. 

sorry won't fix the break in her heart when she watched her twin brother run down the street without so much as looking back.

sorry won't fix the days and weeks of waiting and waiting for him to show up, ready to sweep her and regulus away to james potter’s house with him. 

sorry won't fix the new scar right below her eye that wouldn't be there if he hadn't given up on them so soon.

“i know.” sirius whispers, his eyes glossy and his voice choked. “i know it won't. and i'm sorry for that, too.”

and then he walks out of the room. leaving corvus with nothing but a hole in her chest and tear stains running down her face.

she wants to set the world on fire. 

she wants to tear her skin off.

she wants to rip the thoughts out of her head.

she wants to not exist anymore.

she wants to be dead.