The Girl from Azkaban ~ Tom Riddle (18+)

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕱𝖔𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖞-𝕰𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙

~✧~

Two more weeks had passed since the completion of the potion. Taraphina had returned safely to school and fortunately no one except Professor Slughorn had noticed her absence.

As before her absence, she concentrated entirely on school and gave her full attention to the upcoming exams. Even if it still took a little while, she wanted to deal with the largest amount of material already, otherwise she feared that she would not be able to get the huge amount into her head quickly.

While she devoted herself exclusively to her studies and cultivated less and less social contact with her peers, she noticed how she was deteriorating more and more. More and more often, thoughts crept into her head that she had not even had time to consider before.

Her family history particularly preoccupied her.

Her biological mother died in Azkaban, killed by one of the most powerful spells in history. Her biological father was one of the most absurd wizards who had ever existed. And she had inherited from them a gift that should have been extinct for thousands of years.

It was all very confusing for the young witch. She could roughly understand the background, but just as much somehow not. She was just glad that she fortunately lacked the connection to build up any great emotional feeling for these people and their distressing history.

It was much more the death of her adoptive mother that destroyed her, she was after all the woman who had clothed her, fed her and put a roof over her head, even though she was not even of her own blood. Life in this family was not always easy, but still it was probably better than growing up in an orphanage like Tom. She had heard enough bad stories from him and unlike him, at least she had much better living conditions, which included the house, warm water and enough food. She never had to freeze in winter, at most in a far, far figurative sense, when her parents decided not to spend time with their children at Christmas; that was a different cold that could slowly chill even the loving flame in her heart.

Despite this, the flame was never really extinguished, a spark was enough to rekindle the fire, and just before Meredith's death, this fire became bigger than ever. From then on, it was enough for Taraphina to know that her mother would have done many things differently and she could imagine only too well how often the young witch sat crying in her room. But she herself had not known it any other way and had not really been able to discern a path that led along between a loving relationship with her children and the labels of pureblood. She would only hope that Taraphina would one day find that path and pass it on to her children as well.

It was strange because despite Taraphina never really having much time with her mother, she did miss it. Just the thought of her being on another long trip to France or St Tropez would feel better than knowing she was dead. Probably because Taraphina now knew that she would never have the chance of a perfect mother-daughter relationship, even though she would have had the chance twice if things had just gone differently.

She was unsure whether it was a good idea to talk to the professor about her biological mother now, when her foster mother was heavy enough on her heart, but still she was curious about how this woman had been. She wanted to know what all she had passed on to her, or what things might have come from her father after all. Moreover, she was particularly interested in how she had come into the Malfoy family in the first place; was it all coincidence? Fate?

~✧~

Quickly, the young witch scurried along the corridors. The night's rest would soon begin, but the professor and she had finally found a time when they could both talk without anyone noticing.