Rose Thorn ❖ (Draco Malfoy - Harry Potter Series)

5.01

     The fridge door shut. "I think you are lying to me."

     Camille didn't so much as blink. "I think you are forgetful."

     There was a deathly silence.

     "Do you think I would not remember where I leave my son's belongings?"

     Camille dared to sneer. "Perhaps you buried it, with whatever hellish pasts you've buried too."

     Amos, eyes like molten fire found Camille's and within the second he had pulled out his wand. Camille was quick. She pulled her wand out too and stared him down as a wolf surveyed a rabbit. There they were, two of kin, wands drawn on one another.

     Camille raised an eyebrow, hand firm on her wand. "Go on, hex me."

     She was taunting him as Death mocked mortals who dared outsmart him.

     Amos had always been a coward. Her father wouldn't dare do something as foolish as hex his daughter least Cedric look down on him. But Cedric was no longer holding Amos Diggory back. He twirled his wand, beginning to enunciate his curse.

     Whatever it was, Camille didn't wait to find out.

     She disapparated far away, falling into the gutter of some underside of a muggle's bridge. She didn't know where she was nor what she was thinking. She couldn't go home now, not anymore...not like that. That was no home. That was no family.

     The nights were colder here, the dampness of the river creeping into her skin. Her breaths were like frosty jabs in her heart. Maybe she was dying. She almost laughed. Death would not be kind to her and save her from the misery of life.

     For three nights the girl slept under the bridge. No blanket. No belongings. Nothing but her wand and Tom Riddle's ring, strung up in a ribbon and tied around her wrist. She'd heard of what the diary had done to Ginny. How Tom Riddle's things seemed to have some evil personality of its own, threatening to creep inside the beholder. But this ring...it did not react to her. It was merely just a ring.

     She fell asleep on the fourth night in the same place but when she awoke, she was not under the bridge. She awoke in a bed. A large double bed with dark wooden framing, an antique. The room was darkened with green accents. The wall held a family tree. The Noble House of Black.

     Camille held her wand in hand and open the bedroom door inscribed on the front with three letters: R.A.B. It meant nothing to her and soon she walked down the narrow wooden hall, the floorboards threatening to creak under her bare feet. She was in a nightgown now, white as snow, her skin just as pale. Her golden hair fell down behind her shoulder, free of the mattered mess of late, as if someone had brushed it recently.

     She followed the staircase down, believing she'd been strung up in some abandoned house that belonged to the Black family, no sign of Sirius...no sign of anyone. Yet the Blacks were also death-eaters and perhaps she'd fallen into the hands of those cloaked, masked men.

     There were voices.

     Merry voices. Quarreling voices. A number of voices.

     All behind the dark brown door. Camille held her wand, readied her stance. She'd throw a curse or a hex at whoever was there to hurt her. She would not submit to anything.

     She flicked her wand, calling the charm to unlock the door and waited as the door clicked against the frame, slowly opening with a long groan. Faces stared at her, eyes wide, mouths agape. They'd stopped talking instantly.

     Her eyes focused on one...two...

     Sirius Black sat beside Remus Lupin, their eyes on her. Remus stood up, holding his hands up and Sirius smiled. Just as she went to lower her wand, a third head popped up from the side, making her jump in fright. She almost cast a curse at the woman...Molly. It was Molly Weasley.

     "Camille." She exclaimed rushing over to hug her. Camille didn't wrap her arms around her, instead looked straight as many more faces appeared from the room. There was Arthur and the twins and Ron and Ginny and Hermione too. There was another woman, hair short with a purple tinge and bronzed skin, tall as anything. Almost everyone, but Harry.

     Remus and Sirius glided around the table, shutting the door behind them to leave the three to talk with her. Molly took a step back, hands held together as if she were about to cry. There was a mirror to her left, angled toward the girl. Camille stared at the ghost within and found that it was her that stared back. She looked like Death, eyes rimmed in purple sheen, reddened by lack of sleep. Her skin was paler than usual, her cheekbones more prominent as her collarbones stuck out more prominently from the nightgown. She looked less Veela and more Wraith.

     Her mother's child indeed. She was the daughter of decay.

     "Remus found you under a bridge." Molly gasped a little, eyes threatening to water.

     Camille spun her wand in hand. "I know."

     She did not know Remus had found her.

     "Why?" Molly breathed out, she seemed more grief stricken than Camille had ever been. "My poor child, why were you under a bridge?"

     Camille scanned Sirius' face. He was studying her expression. Remus, on the other hand, looks a little more worried. She drew a breath. "I don't have anywhere else to go."

     Molly shook her head. She would've continued if it hadn't been for Remus to speak instead. "Your father?"

     "I am the reminder of death's taking and if Death stood before him, I don't doubt he'd bargain me for Cedric." Her words were harsh. Cold. She'd separated herself from her family so much that she felt nothing. Not even Cedric's death singed her emotions. She bore a heart of ice.

     Remus and Sirius exchanged a look. Sirius smiled a sad smile. They all seemed to smile sadly at her now. They all pitied her. "You have a home here."

     Indeed she did. For the following week, she lived in the bedroom of R.A.B. Hermione had knocked many times on her door, Ginny too, but Camille wanted to be alone. She never opened the door, not even for Harry Potter who had now joined them. Her food and water was delivered by Kreacher, the Black's family house elf. There was a small bathroom connected to her room. Everything she needed was in this one spot. The quiet. The peace. The privacy.

     With her window opened, she could just hear the conversations that went below in the dining room, where they all would sit and talk most of the time. Though they did not know she could hear, she listened to them speak of her.

     "You know what her name means?" It was Molly's voice.

     "Perfect." Sirius began, "Eden told me Camille's name means perfect. She believed her daughter was perfect the minute she was born."

     "Perfect lost one." Molly added. "Diggory means 'lost one'."

     "Your point?" The unfamiliar female asked. She'd learned her named to be Nymphadora through past eavesdropping.

     "She is perfectly lost. It's ironic. It's sad." Molly spoke again.

     But it was Arthur Weasley who spoke next. "She was born lost."