The Girl from Azkaban ~ Tom Riddle (18+)

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕿𝖜𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖞-𝕱𝖔𝖚𝖗

~✧~

The next six weeks passed without any incidents. Everyone was concentrating on the preliminary exams at the moment. Any conflicts were avoided in order to concentrate fully on studying for the time being. The problem was, however, that some conflicts only grew bigger with time than they already were. Over the long period of time, anger only ate itself deeper and even a postponed conflict threatened to escalate all the more quickly.

Such was the problem of Taraphina and Abraxas.

Abraxas was angry with his little sister and she with him. Sometimes their paths crossed in the corridors or in the Slytherin common room, but neither dared to start a conversation. They just stared into each other's eyes with hatred in their eyes.

That, however, was what made the rest of the days different from today, because now the siblings were forced to start a conversation.

As soon as Taraphina received the letter from her father and eyed it with scepticism, she opened it. Her father never wrote letters, when it was her mother; this made the situation very strange. She read the first lines and was even more amazed when she recognised her father's own handwriting, he had not even made use of one of the house elves to write the letter.

"Dear Taraphina, Dear Abraxas,

I hope you are doing your best for the exams ahead.
I wish I did not have to report to you under these circumstances, but there is now no choice but to report to you.
Your mother has a viral infection, normally wizards should not be very affected by this and not have a strong course of illness, but it seems different with your mother.
She has been struggling with the illness for three weeks now and her condition continues to worsen despite dozens of treatments.
To be honest, I don't know what else could help her. I doubt she has enough strength to go through any more treatments.
Our last hope is an old witch in Birmingham. As soon as I know more, I will keep you informed about your mother's health.
Please don't get your hopes up, her chances are not good.

All love,

Jamethy Malfoy"

The first tears began to roll down Tara's pale cheeks and wet the parchment paper. The ink blurred and mixed with the fibres of the paper.

The young girl, as soon as she regained control of her body, ran off towards her brother's room.

"Brax," she croaked as she banged on the door of the room.

As soon as the door opened, she fell around the tall blond boy's neck. Now she was sobbing uncontrollably in the crook of his neck, all self-control gone.

Abraxas was completely overwhelmed at first, but after a few seconds he managed to persuade himself to wrap his arms around her and press her tightly against his chest.

There was a chaos of emotions in his body as Tara continued to cry uncontrollably. He was sure Tom was to blame for her emotional breakdown.

"Shhh," he tried to soothe her, "Breathe, calm down."

Carefully, he lifted Tara up into his arms and carried her over to his bed. He leaned against the headboard and gently pressed Tara against him. Lying half on top of him and half next to him, the young girl clawed tightly into the fabric of his clothes, as if this would somehow stop the pain inside.

A little deja vu crept into her subconscious as she realised this was how they had always sought comfort from each other as children.

"Shhh, it's going to be okay," he whispered softly against her forehead and gently kissed her hairline, but Tara just shook her head in denial.