ATLAS -James Potter-

• Chapter XXXV

Victoria turned back around, only daring to look Remus in the eyes. The boy's eyes were wide open, previous mixed with new tears still glimmering in his eyes, surrounded by an even paler face. Still, when she just revealed one of the biggest secrets she held, she tried on offering him a smile. "See, two or three scars more don't matter. ," she croaked out, still a little weak from the blood she lost.

"How?"

She breathed in deeply, trying to be calm when it was truly the first time she would ever be telling the stories those scars held. "Most of them are due quidditch. Other ones are from silly things I did as a kid." Choose to obey as a kid. "Like these ones, when I helped the house-elves with the Grindylows we had in our garden., "she said, pointing to the one on her face, and one on her right arm. Those were some of the only ones she could tell with the slightest of smiles because she remembered the afternoon she had to spend laughing with the little creatures; laughing before she was commanded inside and explained to why they don't mingle with creatures.

"And the big ones? , "Peter piped in, Victoria looking at him for the first time. Not only him; she looked at everyone the first time since she had just revealed that. They looked like Remus; pained, compassionate and helpless because in their opinion, there should be something they could do, anything.

She dared to look in Peters' eyes. In the grey of Sirius' eyes, own memories visibly floating back to him. She hesitated on looking in James's eyes, but what sadness then crashed onto her. Victoria only looked at him for a second, before it was too much. She preferred to look at her fidgeting hands. They wouldn't cause more hurt than she was already feeling.

"My father became the leader of the department of magical law enforcement when I was 11, around Christmas first year, after he had to end his quidditch career."

"I thought he quit, because of back problems. , "Peter stated in a whisper, recalling the articles he had read in almost every wizard magazine.

"My grandparents didn't view it as a real job and made him quit.," she explained what most magazines would have killed for to hear from his daughter herself. "He hates his job now, but he was never particularly gifted in magic, so couldn't become an auror, which was bad enough. Everyone in our family is an auror."

And I will become one too.

"When I was twelve-" she had to take deep breathes now, the air seeming to get harder and harder into her lungs. " My father loves my mother. I can dislike-"Victoria didn't even used the word hate "- him as much as I want, he really loves her. But sometimes, when the world was a little harsher to him, he could be a little harsh back...One time, Cayden and my mother were visiting relatives in France. I had to stay behind because I had to train quidditch - you all saw the article in second year...It had been exactly one year since he had his new job and the press was loving it that they could criticize him in the way they did then. He hadn't really accomplished anything special till then, despite all of our other family members already being legend - like in their job only after one year... I remember him drinking a little more at dinner, and when I returned to my room, I heard - let's say sounds you don't want to hear coming out of your parents bedroom. It wasn't the first time - when the sounds stopped and I saw her walk out of the house, a terribly smug smile on her face as she straightened her hair and pulled her coat around her lightly clad body."

She would always the hate she had felt for that women, walking around like she owned everything. As if the man in the bed, the manor, the world, as if all of this would be hers, and she wasn't just a distraction for the man. Looking back, it was stupid to direct that amount of hate towards her. Truly, it was just because of that smile that she almost hated her more than she hated her father at that moment.