Belladonna

The stairs seemed eternal now, as she climbed them up. The room of her father seemed faraway, so distant from her reality. And inside, the light was gloomy and her papà was in bed resting. He was so different from her own father, the one that worked all day and still had energy to be with his kids on the evening. It was so frustrating that he was lying in bed, and not sat down in his own armchair downstairs smoking on his pipe.

“Papà” she called him.

He stopped looking at his youngest child to observe his only daughter. His face was pale and sweaty and his eyes seemed small, like they had shrunk into his skull. But as she went closer, she realized that his face was actually looking of some greenish purple.

“Bella...” he had a weak voice. “You are here.”

She sat down next to him and hold his cold hand close to her chest.

“You must be very mad at me” he guessed. “I hid this from you.”

His voice sounded so rough and faded, like he was speaking from the very deep of his lungs. With his last breath. 

“What happened, papà?”

“That doesn’t matter anymore” he whispered. “You look so much like your mother did at your age. Did I ever tell you that she didn’t want to marry me? But I made her fall in love with me. I did, I did...”

“Papà...” Braulio whispered, but he didn’t say more.

“I hope she is proud of me, of how I took care of you.”

“You did” Ofelia assured him. “You still take care of us.”

Suddenly, someone started to call at the door.

“Go and get it, Bella. Please” her dad insisted, so she did.

“Forth?”

Her boyfriend was waiting outside and as soon as he saw her, he hugged her.

“Your father wrote to me” he explained showing her the letter in his hand. She didn't manage to read what it said, but she did notice a shaky handwritting, which was not characteristic of her healthy father. “He said he wanted to ask me for something before he...”

Nobody could say the words.

“He is upstairs” she indicated him.

Apparently, her papà wanted to speak with him in private, as he made both of his sons wait outside. Filipe went to his room, too upset to speak with anybody. But Braulio had a lot of things to say to his little sister, waiting for him downstairs.

“What is he doing here?”

“Papà asked to speak with him. I have no idea” she expressed. “Why didn’t you tell us he was sick?”

“He insisted not to. He didn’t want to upset you, I guess” he explained.

“Well, I'm upset” she confessed. “Sad... We can’t lose him, Braulio.”

“I know” he hugged her. “But there is nothing we can do now.”

That sentence was a punch right into her stomach. The feeling of not being able of stopping any of this...

“What is wrong with him?”

“Dragon Pox.”

This illness was spreading through England and Europe like it was a bloody race. Many wizards were already dead because of it. But the worse part was that there was no cure for it and that it grew very fast.

They remained hugged for a while. She had missed her brother and now she felt ashamed that she had not written even once to him. She couldn’t help by wondering what had happened between them. So close, but now so apart. She never understood why he had started to despise her so much. He was her brother. There was no reason to be hateful. But maybe there was something that she was not taking into consideration, like what had happened between the Dumbledore siblings. Maybe she had made amistake and not realized it.

Aberforth spent half an hour with her father before he came back down. Braulio went back upstairs, as they didn’t want to leave their father alone at all.

“What did he tell you?” she asked, as he sat in one of the armchairs.

“He asked -begged me” he corrected himself, “to take care of you forever. To always do what is best for you.”

“Did he?” Ofelia felt her eyes getting wet. “How dare he? He is my father. He has to take care of me forever. He-” the tears didn’t let her continue.

“Darling, come here” he made her sit in his lap and held her as she cried. “I know it is unfair. But I’ll always be here.”

He kept on whispering into her ear until she calmed herself down. It was the first time he ever saw her cry and of course, he didn’t want to ever see it again. Although her red face and swollen eyes didn’t make her any less beautiful, her sadness was so contagious.

Someone was at the door again, which was strange. Who could be there that night? Who else was missing? But Ofelia didn’t have to wonder any longer, as when she opened the door, she saw the devil of her nightmares back again. Tom Riddle wearing all black was waiting outside her house like a bloody karma. He looked taller, older, but probably she did as well. He was dressed, as if he was ready for the upsetting news. But she wasn't ready for a funeral yet.

“Ofelia...” he said, which seemed weird. No little one tonight?

“Tom...” his name tasted weird in her mouth as well.

“Braulio sent me an owl about your father. I came as soon as I could” he explained.

The questions got stuck in her throat. Where were you? Why weren’t you at the apartment you shared with my brother? What were you doing? What have you been doing? What is your evil plan now? But it wasn’t the moment to make any questions.

“They are both upstairs. Go” she indicated and he did as he was told.

That was new.

“Who was he?” Aberforth asked.

“Oh! He is my brother’s best friend. Do you remember I told you about him?”

The blonde man stared at her suspiciously, knowing very damn well who he was. But again, it was not the moment to discuss such things.

“It’s getting late. I should leave you with your family” Aberforth stood up, forcing her to do it as well.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I don’t think your brother would appreciate me staying the night.”

“Filipe adores you.”

“I’m not talking about Filipe.”

“Fine” she accepted and grabbed the back of his neck to kiss him.

What was going on was another tragedy, but at least she had Aberforth now.

Riddle appeared again heading to the kitchen, so they broke apart. He pretended not to see them, which she found extremely weird. He was not being petty at all. Why was he not being petty at all?! Yet Aberforth still felt like the outsider here, maybe because his girlfriend kept on staring at the young bloke with a mix of anger and confusion. So, he preferred to leave the Rizzos alone.

“I’ll come back first time in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

He finally left and she decided that she would go to the kitchen before visiting her father. Riddle was making some tea, showing his back at her.

“Do you want some tea?” he offered without turning around.

“No, thank you” she said, tensed up.

He was acting different: not being mean or bickering. He was similar to the boy that had appeared that Christmas night when they were alone at their common room. Maybe he was just trying to be empathetic with her, or maybe he was mourning as well. But through Ofelia's eyes, the sentiment of empathy or sadness did not enter within Riddle's capaciries. He had to be a human being for that.

“Filipe fell asleep in his room and Braulio is still with your father” he said trying to fill up the silence. “If you want to go upstairs...”

“Thank you” she said before she went upstairs.

She wasn’t sure how many hours she spent sat down in that bed. Every minute that went on she would convince herself that she would have her papà no more. There would not be more letters from him or hugs or meals. No more smell of fishes and the sea. No more smell of wild mulberries when he would open the bag in his back pocket to eat them. She had to make peace with it, even if the tears in her eyes didn’t let her see clearly anymore.

Eventually, Braulio fell asleep in his own seat and Riddle and her resorted to leave the room for a while to get away from all that pain that the room embodied. They began to feel hemmed and a little bit overwhelmed. Therefore, they set themselves in the kitchen, where they could at least breathe.

“So, what have you been doing lately?” Ofelia asked trying to small-talk.

“Um... working, doing investigations” he answered vaguely. “I don’t need to ask what you’ve been doing.”

“Ha!” she smiled shyly. “Yes, I’ve become quite the talk of the town.”

“You did destroy the darkest wizard of all time.”

“I did” she agreed. “You didn’t come to Christmas this year.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to set foot in this house anymore” he raised his eyebrows.

“Maybe I was too hard on you...”

“No, you weren’t” he confessed. “I was working and I didn’t really want to dine with the Dumbledores.”

“Me neither.”

“Really?” he inquired. “I saw you very attached to Dumbledore’s brother.”

“He is my boyfriend.”

Tom smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was cynical. He looked down trying to hide it or at least he was pretending to do it.

“He must shag you fucking well for you to call him that.”

“He actually does. Thank you for asking.”

“He is like twelve years older than you, isn’t he?” he questioned rhetorically. “How long do you think it will be until he gets bored of you and finds a new toy to play with?”

Ah, there he was! She knew that Tom couldn't go along without bickering for more than an hour. He had done it for more than two hours now; that must be a new record, she thought. If only she could inform The Daily Prophet... However, Ofelia wouldn’t let him get into her mind. She was certain about Aberforth. There were no doubts about him, so she didn’t need to question herself with stupid queries, like does he really love or is he just trying to bang me.

“You know it actually doesn’t matter what you say” she stood up to leave the kitchen. “It’s him who I chose.”

“I’m just trying to warn you. Braulio is worried about you” he explained. “He thinks you are making a big mistake.”

“Is that why he is so mad at me?”

“Probably...”

“Why are you acting civilized all of a sudden?” she questioned.

“Your father is dying, Ofelia.” Nobody had said the word until that moment. “Civilized is what we all should be tonight... at least for him.”

“How nice of you” she rolled her eyes.

She believed that being nice was not in Riddle’s DNA. It doesn’t matter how hard he tried. So, in her eyes, Riddle was being a big, fat liar. And let’s be honest, he was. He didn’t care about the Signore Rizzo. He was only interested in the Rizzo siblings. Maybe even obsessed. But the reason was yet to be discovered.

“It’s late” Bella said. “I’ll check once more on papà and then I’ll go to sleep.”

He had fallen asleep with Braulio’s head on his lap. He looked so peaceful with his eyes closed. No pain in his frown. The early memories of her father irrupted in her mind. The castle in Italy and him doing research in his private study, while she was peeping through the door lock. Then, the glimpse of how they escaped to England. She didn’t exactly remember it with pictures, but she did remember her father holding her tight in his arm at every moment. The guilt appeared too, feeling like she had wasted too much time away, fighting a war for him when all he ever wanted was for her to be safe and to be by his side. His little girl...

She slept in her bedroom. A place that her father had made sure it was for her. He kept on watering the plants, even if she was gone. He cleaned the place every week, but he would memorize the order in which she had left her books, so that when she would come back home everything would be exactly as she had left it. Who would do all that for her now? Only a parent cared that much. The last time she had been at her room, she had felt that it belonged to someone else. That the room was from her past self, the girl, the kid. Now, she could only hope o regain that room if that meant she could have her father for one day more. If becoming a kid again meant that she could have ten more minutes of her papà, then she would wish to age backwards.

When she walked up next morning, the dark blue sky had turned grey with a cloudy weather invading the picture. She walked barefoot to her father’s room with the cold floor rising over her feet. The scene was exactly the same as the one she had left the night before: Braulio sleeping with her father; he hadn’t move. But there was something different. Her papà breathed no more.

“No, papà” she cried grabbing him by his shoulders. “Svegliati, svegliati!”

“Bella?” her brother woke up.

“Braulio, he is not breathing” she wept. “He is not breathing.”

He checked his father slowly, carefully. But when he understood that her sister was right, the tears began to fall off from his face like hers'. And they both fell into their father’s chest suffering from the same pain, as the new orphans they had just become.