The Last of the Blacks

Chapter 55: Speech

Every teenage girl's problems started from one particular person in her life. That was her mother.

The person who would notice every imperfection on her and would criticizes her for that.

You are too fat.

You have pimple on the top of your nose.

What is this dress?

What is this shirt?

And so on. And so on.

Cassiopea Black never actually realized how lucky she was for not having a mother until she got back from America. Apparently no one decided to inform Emma Rosier that her daughter was going to America with her aunt, Daphne and Kol (who Emma hated).

Once Mrs Black, now just another Rosier, Emma was waiting for her daughter on the staircase of 12 Grimmauld Place when Cassiopea appeared with Daphne. She looked once at Cassie, then at her friend, then back at Cassie and said, "You do realize that some people punish their children for going somewhere without asking, right?"

Cassie's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me? Since when you have any right to express an opinion?"

"I am your mother, Cassiopea."

"You left me. For 13 years. Dad stuck around more."

Those words burnt inside Cassie so hot that she almost fell down on her knees. Her wound had nothing to do with it this time.

"Oh, and the last time I checked, I was 17," Cassie went on.

"A mother is still..."

"YOU AREN'T MY MOTHER!" Cassie yelled. Andromeda froze at the kitchen door when Cassiopea pointed her. "That woman is my mother! She raised me! She loved me! And, unlike you, SHE WAS HERE!"

"I didn't have a choice..."

"Everyone has a choice," tears burnt in her eyes. "And I always screw them up. But you know what? I don't leave. I won't leave my family and my friends in the middle of the fight or before it has began. I won't leave anyone who needs my help."

It sounded stupid, she knew that. But Emma Rosier had no right to judge her when she had done something far worse.

She had left Cassie alone to wonder what life could have been if only someone chose her over their freaking believes. She had left and came back 13 years later.

13 years in which Cassie had had her first period, paralyzed in the Hospital Wing with her aunt Andromeda right next to her, stroking her hair gently. 13 year in which Cassie had had her first kiss, had had her first sex.

In those 13 years Cassiopea Black was alone. More alone than ever. She felt empty, she felt like the whole world was against her. She was bullied, left alone and so many things that she couldn't remember all of them. When she was alone in the darkness, Emma wasn't here. When she was in the light with her friends, finally starting the life she had dreamed of-a life with her family, a life of love and joy - Emma came back and ruined it.

And Emma had no right coming back here and telling her what she had to do or how she had to feel.

"Leave," Cassie said finally. "Leave just like you did when I was a child. Leave like Remus did. Leave!"

"Cassiopea..."

"When my father died you weren't here. I went through HELL and all of you, all of that fucking Order of whatever stood there and watched as I was grieving, calling it overeating..."

"Sweetheart, please..."

"When I got into Slytherin my own godfather, the man I trusted the most, turned his back on me one last time. You didn't care to show up..."