CHERRY // marlene mckinnon

-twenty seven

There was only a trembling, shaken-up, Aurora Black left on the cold floor.

And then she saw another figure approach her and kneel beside her.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. Let's get you back to your room." Regulus gently spoke, helping his sister get up.

Aurora was limping and could barely walk, but with the help of Regulus, she made it to her room and laid down on her bed. Regulus pulled out the chair from her desk and sat beside her bed. None of them said anything, and the entire house was deadly silent. The only noise that was made was from the ticking of the clock on her nightstand.

"Do you want anything? A glass of water perhaps?" Regulus asked, breaking the silence between them, but she shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"What for? You didn't do anything wrong, Reg." Aurora managed to speak up in a low voice.

"I know, but I just can't help but feel as if it's all my fault. They torture you and I cant even do anything about it." Regulus sighed.

"It's not your fault, alright? That's just how they are." Aurora said, gently grabbing his hand. "Look, one day, we'll get out of this place. Both of us. And we won't have to deal with them anymore. We can live freely and do as we please without any punishments."

But Regulus wasn't too sure of that. All of his 'freedom' would soon be stripped away from him.

And belong to the Dark Lord.

*****

That night, Aurora couldn't sleep. Her body was still slightly trembling and ached from earlier.

So, she managed to get up, open her window, and sit beside it, staring into the dark and empty streets.

As she felt the cool breeze, her thoughts wandered to Sirius, who was probably laughing and joking around with James at the Potter household. And then to Marlene, who was probably happily at home with her family.

And that left Aurora wondering what would happen to her. At this point, all she had was Regulus, whom she promised to get out of this household, but she probably never would considering her marriage arrangement.

It was as if she was leaving one prison, to enter another. There was no escape.

Not for her.

*****

The days soon turned into weeks and almost half of their summer was over.

Aurora's days were filled with reading, or writing letters to Narcissa and Veronica. They all tried to update each other as much as possible, although Aurora left out the more gruesome parts of her summer. Apparently Narcissa and her family had gone to vacation in Italy. And Veronica had gone to France as she was talking about before they left school.

Aurora on the other hand, barely left her room, only to eat. And her parents had their own businesses to attend to, which left the house quiet for most of the time.

But this particular day in July was different. Regulus and their parents apparently had to go somewhere, leaving Aurora to question their whereabouts with a weird feeling. But nonetheless, she shook it off. It's probably nothing, she thought to herself.

But she tried to convince herself that it was nothing, and not something she had overheard a few months back.

They returned a few hours later, all do them looking emotionless, and it was already the after so they quietly ate dinner, as usual, and returned to their rooms.

On this night, like most of the others, Aurora couldn't sleep. She was about to grab a book from her bookshelf but stopped herself as she heard what sounded like quiet sniffles coming from the other room. Regulus's room.

She quietly left her room and made her way to his room. She opened the door to reveal a crying Regulus Black.

"Reg? What's wrong?" She quickly asked as she went to sit beside her brother. But he didn't respond, only clutching his forearm. This only made Aurora more suspicious.

"It's nothing, you should just go." Regulus quietly managed to speak up.

"So you crying is nothing?" She raised her eyebrows. "Tell me what happened. First you leave with mother and father to go somewhere. And now you're crying and clutching your forearm."

"Like I said, it's nothing that you need to worry about, now go-"

His words soon got cut off when Aurora grabbed his arm and lifted his sleeve up.

But she wasn't expecting to see what she was about to witness. Although, she wasn't fully surprised since she had a feeling all along. She gasped as she stared at the skull and snake tattoo etched onto his skin.

The Dark Mark.

*****

Hi guys !

As much as I didn't like torturing Aurora like that, I hope y'all liked this chapter.

Oh and this chapter is a bit short so sorry about that.

qotd:

What's your zodiac sign?

I'm a sagittarius :)