THE FURIES ▸ Draco Malfoy

Chapter Seventeen: PENTHOS

"Merry Christmas, Draco." 

When she got up, she made the hardest effort in the world not to turn back around. Just as she reached the door, she felt the final words burning a fire into her skull. So, she released them. Uncertain if his Occlumency was up or not, Mia projected a single thought with Legilimency before she walked out the door to the Room of Requirements.

I'm sorry. 

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"Andromeda! Theodore!" 

The familiar, elegant sound of their full names rolling off the tongue of Celicia Erebus made the cousins stop hard in their place at King's Cross. All around them, students bustled to find their parents and Platform 9¾ had never been so crowded. Parents, as it seemed, wanted their children home for the holidays now more than ever. Even with the busyness, Theo's tall height came with a huge advantage. Her quiet, unsettled cousin grabbed her elbow with one hand, tugging on it and guiding her in the direction that she assumed her mother was in. 

Unsurprisingly, her and Theo spent the entire ride on Hogwarts Express silent. They had gotten a compartment to themselves, but that was spent with him looking distantly out the window and her flipping absentmindedly through another reparations book. Despite how much she wanted to pull out Slughorn's leather book, she couldn't risk Theo questioning what it was. It would have to wait until she was alone. That was how they spent the entirety of the ride; no questions asked, no suspicious looks. Theodore, much too quiet for her to bear. 

The only thing that seemed to break him of his numbness was when he heard his name being called. He continued to pull her along, sending a glare or two at the wizards who gaped openly at her (because who didn't recognize her after all of the Quibbler cover stories about her). Only when they finally came upon a woman with a head of dark hair and all-too-similar brown eyes did Andromeda finally experience the emotion she had been ignoring for so long: grief. 

Like a wounded child, Mia ignored all rational and twisted Theo's arm so that she could cling to his hand instead. Her cousin glanced down at it briefly, his blue eyes blazing, before taking one look at her fear-stricken face and understanding. Celicia Erebus had changed in the months that it had been since she was last seen. The woman before them looked like she had aged twenty years, wrinkles and circles decaying so deeply in her pale face that it made Mia sick. Her hair was pulled back―something that Celicia never did, because it was considered lazy appearances―and her clothes fit too loose for her mother's taste.

"Oh, Theodore!" her mother cooed as they came into view, her arms reaching with no hesitation to pull her lanky nephew into a large display of affection. Another change, seeing as the last time Mia had received a hug from her mother, she was ten. "You've gotten so tall! And so strong! I'm sure all of the girls at school are falling to the floor over you!" 

"Can't fix his face, unfortunately," Mia said, indifferently. The dullness of her tone reminded her of how many unresolved emotion she had building up. She glanced down at her hand, which had been disconnected from her cousin's, and then back to her mother. "Hello, Mother." 

Celicia disconnected herself slowly from Theodore, and Mia watched as Theodore stepped uncomfortably out of his aunt's grip. Clearly, the affection had been just as surprising to him as it was her. Her attention flickered from her cousin and back to her mother, who was already looking. Celicia's brown eyes truly were a replica of her daughter's―in every single way. The largest difference between them before had always been the wear. Celicia had experienced pain and grief so much that it wore down her eyes, but looking at them now, Mia realized she was only staring at the reflection of her own. The same eyes, and the same replication of trauma.