Belladonna

Bella would have liked to say that the next day she and Braulio spoke, that everything got better. But that would have been a lie. He didn’t want to speak with her. He wasn’t sure how to address the elephant in the room and it still pained him to see that after all this time, Tom would have chosen her over him. So, they didn’t talk much, until it was the day to leave.

“Bella” he called her, “I wanted to apologize. I’ve been unfair with you.”

“Braulio-”

“It’s going to take me some time” he admitted, “but we’re going to be the family that we deserve for each other. You are my sister and that it’s more important than any boy.”

She smiled finally. The pressure in her chest finally lowered and she felt like she could breathe for the first time in weeks.

“Even if he was a very pretty boy?”

“Don’t push it.”

But she laughed, and eventually he started laughing as well. “One day” she said out of breath, “we’ll look back at this moment and we won’t even remember why we were so upset.”

“I hope so” he agreed, “maybe not now, but one day we’ll talk about it. I’ll tell you my truth and you’ll tell me yours.”

“Of course.”

That was all they said, but at the same time, it was all that it was needed to be said. And as they went back to Hogwarts, she felt freer than she originally was when she had left.

“Finished!” Ofelia yelled looking at her work.

They had spent all day painting one of the walls of the pub red. It had been Ofelia's idea to do it. Just she and Forth in the silence of the afternoon. And although she didn’t usually mind being silent with him, now it felt like his silence was for a reason. Her boyfriend was thoughtful, seemed to be having a conversation with himself inside his brain. In a moment like this, she wished she had Riddle’s ability to dive into someone’s mind, so that she could know what was going on with him.

There was no answer from him, so she left the paintbrush in the newspaper-covered floor and started to get rid of the dirty clothes. She didn’t intend to get naked, just to leave the dirty pieces behind and have a shower. Yet she did give him a suggestive look when she took her shirt off. Again, there was no reaction from him, no intention to even glance at her. So, she made her way into the bathroom to get cleaned trying not to mind his behaviour.

The Pitchfork Kids were going to play that night, so she might as well get ready for it. She didn’t have time for whatever Aberforth was worrying about, especially if that concerned a fight between them. She would deal with it later.

“Bella...” his soft voice came into the room when she was putting a dress.

“Do you think that I should paint my lips red?” she asked him staring at herself in the mirror.

“I guess.” He walked over to her. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”

“Can it wait?” she asked, finally turning over to see him, her red-painted lips in a pout. “The boys are about to arrive and they wanted to rehearse.”

He scanned her and then went back to her eyes. “Why?”

“It’s an important night” she shrugged, “I need you to be there for me.”

“But why?” he urged.

“Monty was talking to Florean and-”

“Why does Monty talk with my friends?” he chimed in.

“They... get along” she answered, confused, “is that important?”

But he remained silent again.

“Anyways, they talked and Florean said that Celestina Warbeck was interested in coming tonight to the show.”

“The famous singer?”

“Do you know any other Celestina Warbeck?” she laughed, but he didn’t, “this is important. It might be our chance to get into the radio.”

“Bella, you can’t-”

His voice was interrupted by her friends arriving and calling her name from upstairs. He gestured for her to go with them, even though he was clearly upset. Like she had said: she didn’t have time to argue with him.

“Please, promise me you’ll be there for me.”

“Yes.”

She would deal with this later.

She had to admit that she admired Celestina very much. Not only because she was a fan of her music, but because she was an admirable woman that helped millions of wizards and witches with her money. And also, because she knew how to handle the columns’ gossip, which she needed to learn. She hoped that Celestina could see the same in her and support her band.

“Bella, there’s a problem” Walburga appeared behind her with a big frown in her face.

“What is it?”

“No one can find Aberforth.”

“What?” She looked around.

It was true. He wasn’t there.

He promised.

She didn’t have time to go look after him. She was going on stage in five minutes. And there were angry customers waiting to get served, including Celestina. The Singing Sorceress was at her table, guarded by two wizards, waiting for the drink she had ordered.

“Someone needs to take the bar.”

“I’ll do it” Ames offered himself, “I know my way around with ladies.” He smiled at Celestina.

“Don’t. She’s married.”

“Like that’s gonna stop me.”

He ran towards the bar to calm down the angry customers, and Walburga joined him.

“Relax, Bella, everything’s going to be fine.” Monty guided to the stage, so that they could start the show.

Of course, everything went fine, better than fine. They sang the songs that the crowd loved, so Celestina saw first-hand how much the young people acclaimed them. She tried to focus in that sound, tried to push away the feeling of abandonment knowing that Aberforth wasn’t there like he had promised.

“May I congratulate you?” Celestina approached them when they left the stage.

“Thank you, thank you” Chuck shook her hand, almost frenetically.

“If you continue down this path, you might be listening to yourself on the radio any time soon” she assured them, “but for it to happen, I recommend you get a bassist.”

A bassist? Ofelia didn’t know any bassists.

Her opinion was important because her father the owner of the Wizarding Wireless Neywork. If they got her recommendation, they were going famous. 

“It was a pleasure.”

“Where are we going to find a bassist?” Ofelia questioned when she left, “can you play the bass?”

“Oh, don’t look at me.” Ames left his beer on the table. “I don’t know how to play bass, and even if I did, I don’t want to be part of a band.”

“You don’t have what it takes anyway” Potter pushed him, and they started to argue in the way they only knew how to.

Aberforth didn’t appear for the rest of the night. Therefore, they took care of the pub until all the customers left and it was time to close. Her friends left, back to the castle, but she went back to the house. She was surprised to find him there in the kitchen with an empty glass of firewhiskey. She half-expected him to be faraway, that he had taken off to a lonely bar far from Hogsmeade. But there he was. The way in which he looked at her when she came in. He glowered at her and it made her guts writhe.

“You looked too pretty tonight.”

“I looked even prettier at the stage tonight” she answered.

She wanted to add: but you didn’t see me. Though she didn’t.

He made a face and then stood up, carefully looking for how to begin this conversation.

“I’ve been meaning to make some changes in my life.”

She knew where this was going. She had suspected it for a while now. “You want to move.” He only stared at her, motionless. “I know.”

She had known since Christmas, thanks to what Riddle had said and to the way in which he had reacted. Aberforth was nomad and he wanted to go away. He wanted to keep on travelling, and this sedimentary life was going to drain him now or later.

“I feel trapped and-”

“Then, you can go. I don’t want you to feel like you have to sit down and watch me shine. You don’t make me feel like I should hold back, so I shouldn’t do the same thing to do.” He didn’t answer, so she continued. “Go, and I’ll see you as soon as we end school or we can arrange a place to meet in the weekends. But I don’t want you to stay if you are feeling trapped. Leave Hogsmeade if that is what you want.”

“No, I want to leave you.”

“You are not leaving me, silly. You are just moving away.”

“No, Bella, listen to me. I want to leave you. I want to break up.”

The world went quiet for Bella for just one second. “What?”

“I’m trying to break up with you.”

She laughed manically. Half nervous. Half not buying it.

“That’s funny. Now, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Bella, stop. I’m not joking.”

“What is going on?” she said more seriously, “are you feeling insecure again? Does this have to do with what Riddle said to you when you were alone?”

“I’m not being insecure, Bella. I just don’t want to be with you anymore.”

“What? Like you stopped loving me all of a sudden?”

“Don’t make this more difficult than what it is.”

“Oh! I’m making it difficult?” she yelled, “answer me, then! Don’t you love me anymore?”

“No!”

“Don’t lie” she whispered because she couldn’t believe him.

“I’m not lying” he assured her, “I don’t love you anymore. And I feel trapped in this relationship. You are going to become a Ministry snob and I hate that bullshit. If I wanted a girl that was a Ministry freak, I would have married one ages ago.”

The fainted memory of Aberforth’s female friends evoked her mind. They all worked at the Ministry, and maybe that was why he never married any of them. Because he was an anarchist hermit that liked fucking nymphs and fighting sea monsters, like he had made clear that Christmas at her house with her father.

“I’m still me. I won’t change.” Her voice was shaking. “You can still love me.”

“Listen, Bella, you’re young” he remarked, “you are unexperienced when it comes to love. You don’t know it yet, but soon you’ll learn that the first love is just the first one. I am not your endgame, even if your heart tell you I am.”

Those exact words... No, no, this wasn’t right.

“Don’t use that card. Don’t scratch me as unexperienced because of my age.”

“But it is true” he stated. “You are too young. I know things you don’t, especially when it comes to love. And even if this has been fun, it is over now.”

“Fun?” she questioned, “you think our relationship has been fun?”

“You’ll understand when you grow-”

“Don’t-Don’t you dare finish that sentence.” Now, she was mad. “You can’t leave me, Aberforth, I-”

She didn’t even know how to convince him to stay, and that hurt the most. How could he make her feel so small, so little? She felt so innocent, so naïve. And all of the warning signs fell hopelessly in front of her eyes and the tears came fast.

She was a kid again. Her whole body betrayed her and the tears fell down her cheeks. Now, she wasn’t the woman that had defeated Grindelwald, Scamander’s right-hand man, the future female Minister of Magic. She had revealed her true self: a seventeen-year-old that had just been dumped for her first boyfriend. A kid wide awake at night because she missed her mamma, because she missed home. She was daddy’s little girl walking in the train to Hogwarts with her older brother for the first time in her life. She was climbing down the podium to get sorted in one of the four houses of Hogwarts. She was a little Italian girl, scared that Riddle would notice he intimidated her.

“Please, you promised papà...” she cried and the look that Aberforth erased any sadness that was in her body.

He stared down at her with pity. Like nobody had looked at her before. So much pity in his eyes that made her sick.

So, she took the tears out of her cheeks with the ankle of her hands and then looked at him coolly... like she had never looked at him before.

“I won’t take you back when you come crawling back to me.”

“I’m not coming back to you, Bella. I’m leaving for good.”

So, she smiled viciously. “Oh, but you will” she purred, “you will...” and then she laughed, “let me explain something to you. You don’t know what I can become. Maybe it was my fault because I was too good to you. I should have made you clear from the beginning that I could destroy your life the moment you hurt me. But it doesn’t matter now, because I’m going to make it impossible for you to show your face in this town again or in England.”

And with a very confused Aberforth, she finally left the house she had gotten to call home. And she left behind the man that she had called her love. And as she went back in the loneliness of the night, she couldn’t hold back the tears. In her solitude, she allowed herself to mourn her broken heart.

But then it hit her that she didn’t want to face her roommates yet. How could she? When Walburga and Druella had respectively found the right men for them, especially when Druella had warned her many times about Aberforth. She couldn’t face an “I told you so” at the moment. So, instead she decided to stay at the Head Girl and Boy Office (though now they just called it the Head Girls Office). It wasn’t particularly cosy, but the sofa was big enough for her to rest her whole body in it and there was a pillow where she could cry her eyes out.

“Stupid!” she cried into the pillow and sobbed uncontrollably, until she felt some soft paws in her back.

There was a cat in there. A grey cat that looked straight at her with a questioning face.

“Hey, little kitty, are you lost?” She caressed its ear and it purred in response. “I’ll retrieve you to your owner tomorrow. Right now, I feel too tired.

The cat didn’t seem to have a problem with it, as it walked towards her chest and rested there. It made itself a ball and purred into her dress. And they both fell asleep in each other’s company. And although Ofelia’s tears were still there, now they were softer.