𝖶𝖨𝖢𝖪𝖤𝖣 𝖧𝖠𝖳𝖤 | 𝖥𝖱𝖤𝖣 𝖶𝖤𝖠𝖲𝖫𝖤𝖸

43

"Tomorrow you will see I'm fine, Hermione just exaggerated a bit, that's it."

✵ ✵ ✵

I woke up that morning with my cheeks full of my own tears. As in all of his birthdays, I dreamt with the day he left me; his green eyes, just like mine, looking at me with coldness and pity at the same time, closing the door behind him, leaving me alone in the Arambella house while he was supposed to be taking care of me while mother was working in the laboratory. Mother said he left us because he had the hope I'd be a muggle like him because he couldn't deal with two witches at the same time and the amount of magic and chaos that it would carry.

I never knew if that was true or not, but the abandonment was what drove my mother to get closer to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's ideas and to quit her job as a renowned Potions investigator and become one of His most loyal followers.

I was only two years old when I lost my father, and only a year later, I lost my mother.

Since I have memory, I have always blamed myself for it and I have craved that paternal love I knew I would never have. My mother used to tell me I looked just like him. With her hoarse voice through the cells in Azkaban, with that grey mist around us, she would trap my little wrists to drag me closer to her, scrutinise my face and then, spit next to me; you are just like your father, Lili.

Standing up from my bed with Circe's voice in my head, I picked one of my cassettes and let it play while grabbing the herb Fred gave me last night. I wasn't going out of my room any time soon.

I laid down in my bed again and the first puff felt like glory.

The rest of the men in my life always followed Ares's path, after all, they never cared about me enough to stay.

I had no memory of the hours that I spent alone after he left until Circe arrived from work and knew what happened, but I did remember how much I cried that night when I saw my mother devastated, shouting his name to the air, ripping all his portraits, destroying all his objects... how she approached me that night and hugged me in her arms with the most gloomy and deadly sweet tone; it's you and me now, Lili. We will get our revenge, I promise.

Those words will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Another puff.

"Lilith," I heard Draco calling me from behind my locked door, with a careful voice.

"Leave me alone, Draco," I said, deadpan, as I took the joint to my lips again and I felt my body digging itself more in my bed.

It doesn't matter how many years passed, I will always have that dim memory of the sound of his voice, his touch, his frivolity, his snake-like stare. For being a muggle, he would have been a hella intimidating wizard.

A little snort went out of my mouth when I noticed I didn't even know if he was dead or alive, or if he married again to some pretty muggle girl and had pretty normal and muggle children with whom he did stay, or if he ever thought about me or even felt repentant and tried to get back. I'll never know because if I survive this war, I'm erasing from my memory anything related to Ares Arambella.

I prepared another joint and smoked it almost as fast as the first one, with his last words in my head.

Good night, Lili.

A simple and mundane sentence he said the last night before leaving and not coming back again. He was so desperate to be far from Circe and me that he didn't even care to leave his own house. He was so desperate that the bank account full of muggle money was untouched. He simply wanted to leave.