"Family is supposed to be our safe haven. Very often, it is the place where we find the deepest heartache." - Iyanla Vanzant
Charlotte Riggs had barely laid her trunk across her mattress and slung her rucksack from her shoulder, before her mum entered her room with a cheery smile. They had decided since Charlie was now of age, she could just apparate home instead of her mother coming all the way to the station to get her.
"How's my girl?" She outstretched her arms to wrap her only child in a tight embrace, unable to stop grinning.
Charlie breathed in the comforting scent of her mum. "Hey, mum."
"Have a good term?"
She nodded against her mother's shirt, choosing not to answer verbally. There was no need to go into the boy troubles or family troubles, and that was when it struck Charlie that she wasn't even sure that her mother was aware that her ex-husband was dead. It was an odd feeling; having a parent that was murdered and not being sure that the other parent knew of it. Charlie felt weirdly split.
Her mother arched an eyebrow. "Anything worth mentioning?"
Charlie leaned away from her mother's grasp and shook her head with a weak smile. "Nah."
"In a whole year, there's nothing worth talking about? At your age? In a school full of teenagers?" Her mother gave her a look of disbelief.
Charlie shrugged, trailing the edge of her trunk with her finger, avoiding eye contact. "I may have briefly dated a boy," she muttered to the floor.
"A boy?" She demanded. "Who?"
"James Potter?"
Her mum arched an eyebrow. "A Potter?" Charlie could practically see the thoughts coursing through her mother's mind– a pure blood.
Charlie made a face without voicing a response.
"What happened?" She asked gently.
Charlie took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. "It's not important, Mum. We're still friends. It doesn't matter, I promise."
"Charlotte, I-" Whatever her mother was going to say, it was cut off by a sound that came from the kitchen. It sounded like someone had slapped their bare hand against their dining room table.
Charlie's head snapped up, body incased in ice. She snatched her wand from her bed and turned to look at her mum. "Is someone here?" She asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Emmeline Addington turned to look out her daughter's bedroom door. There was something unrecognizable in her blue eyes that unsettled something deep within her daughter. She didn't look confused or fearful; she was steady.
"Mum?"
"It's okay."
Charlie gripped her wand a little tighter as the pit in her stomach grew. Something was off, and it was making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "Mum, who is here?"
Her mother walked towards the door and motioned for her to follow. She wanted to say no, but by every logical aspect, there was no reason to be afraid– there was no reason to feel the way that she was feeling. So, she ignored her the aching in her gut and walked after her mum.
She regretted it immediately. A man–if you could call him that–was sitting at their modest dining room table. His face was pale white and snake-like, right down to the slits for a nose; his eyes were bright red, a striking contrast to his alabaster skin.
So, this is Voldemort, she thought to herself.
His hands were neatly folded in front of him, pressed against the wood of the table, like he was waiting for her. The pit in Charlie's stomach was now a full fledged boulder settling within her.
He waved his hand absently with what she supposed was a smile. A pot of tea began to poor itself into a fine cup, steam billowing from the stout.
"Would you care for some tea, Charlotte?" His voice was calm, nothing like she had imagined, but it still managed to cause goose flesh to rise along the lengths of her arms. She didn't like that he knew her name.
She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out.
"Won't you sit?"
She cleared her throat. "No."
He blinked, and her mother moved to stand closer behind her. "Go on, dear."
Charlie jumped as she had forgotten that her mother was even in the room. "Mum," she whispered. "What is this?"
She smiled. "A discussion."
"A discussion about what?" Charlie demanded, unable to mask the sheer terror in her voice.
He pressed his hands against the wood of the table and stood. "About joining me."
"J-joining y-you?" She stammered, taking a step back. Charlie's heart hammered against her ribs and the blood drained from her face, leaving her feeling very, very cold.
He nodded. "Your mother already has. She has been a fine asset."
Charlie turned to look at her slowly, horror shining in her eyes. "Mum, you didn't?"
Emmeline smiled timidly at her daughter and slid the sleeve of her left arm up to reveal a dark tattoo taking up the majority of her forearm. Charlie's stomach bottomed out.
"No," she whispered.
"He is just cleansing the wizarding world," her mum responded calmly as if they were discussing the weather and not that she had joined the ranks of a mass murderer.
Charlie shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. Her mother yanked down her sleeve to cover the mark again.
"It needs to be done."
Charlie continued to shake her head like a small child, unable to form words as her throat had become sandpaper.
"He is making our world great again. Getting rid of the imposters."
Charlie found her voice. "Mum, I'm an imposter! I'm a half-blood, remember?"
"And, we can forgive that," Voldemort interceded beginning to walk around the table. Charlie's skin began to crawl as he loomed closer.
"Forgive?" She demanded. "Forgive, what? I had no control over my bloodline, and I won't apologize for what I am."
"Darling," her mother said, outstretching a hand towards her daughter's hair. Charlie recoiled. "We mean muggles and mudbloods."
"There's nothing wrong with muggles and muggle-borns," she said through her teeth, nostrils flaring.
Voldemort let out a laugh, and the sound sent chills down Charlie's spine. "They are trash, Charlotte."
Charlie arched onto the balls of her feet wanting to dash from the room as quickly as possible. The adrenaline filled her blood stream, and her mind raced with every possible escape plan.
"You can help us," her mother nodded.
"Help?" Charlie demanded. "They killed my dad!"
"I know," she whispered.
Bile rose in Charlie's throat as she stared at her mother. There was something behind Emmeline's blue eyes that unsettled something deep within in Charlie's insides.
"Mum, what did you do?"
"Charlie," her mother said carefully. "They've helped me. I haven't had a drink in months, and your father-"
"And my sister?" Charlie demanded. At that moment, when she looked back at what was happening, Charlie could swear that she floated out of her body and watched from above.
"We've helped her purge her old ways," Voldemort explained. "Drinking, the muggles, all of it."
Charlie blinked several times processing the information. "Did you kill my father, Mum?"
Emmeline stared at her daughter and with unwavering resolve she said, "Yes."
Something within Charlie snapped, and it would never be repaired. "You can both go to hell. Expulso!"
The dining room table exploded behind her, sending her mother and Voldemort diving for cover. She took the opportunity to bolt towards her bedroom, knowing she only had seconds.
"Charlotte, get back here!"
"She had her chance, Emmeline!"
Charlie dove for her bed, landing with a thud on top of her luggage. The two got to her doorway just in time to watch her disapparte with a swooshing sound. Charlotte Riggs was gone. She appeared in an abandoned alley left to sob beside the trash cans wondering if there was anyone she could talk to that would understand. She felt utterly and completely alone.
Over a hundred miles away, one of her best friends–Sirius Black, found himself in an eerily similar situation. Standing at the edge of a different alley, two brothers stood, staring at the other. The smaller one, obviously the younger of the two, couldn't quite meet his older brother's eyes as he stood there with his hood pulled up incase a familiar face walked by and was none to kind to the eldest Black child.
"Regulus?" Sirius whispered. "Look at me."
Regulus Black gritted his teeth before turning to meet his brother's familiar grey eyes.
"Come with me."
The shorter brother shook his head. "I can't," he responded simply.
"You need to get away from mum and dad."
Regulus laughed a humorless laugh. "And, go where exactly?"
"The Potter's would be more than happy to take you in."
"Oh, I'm sure."
Sirius huffed at his brother's stubbornness. He gnawed on the skin of his chapped lips before saying, "Would you just trust me, for once in your life? Please?"
"My loyalties lie elsewhere, Sirius," he everted his eyes from his brother's once more. The topic of this conversation is exactly the reason the youngest Black had not wanted to meet with his older brother, but Sirius had been insistent on having a chat.
Sirius made a face. "With who? Mum and dad?"
Regulus blinked several times, trying to clear the clutter of thoughts in his brain. "In a manner of speaking."
"Just be fucking straight with me, Regulus. What is going on?"
"You'll hate me."
Sirius stood up a little straighter and an odd, electric-like tingling began at the back of his neck and trickled down his spine. "What did you do, Regulus?"
His younger brother took a deep breath, seeing no other way around it– he ripped up the sleeve of his left forearm and revealed the symbol that marked just where his loyalties lied.
Sirius felt like vomiting. "You didn't," he whispered in disbelief.
"It's okay, Sirius," Regulus responded, pulling his sleeve back down.
"The hell it is!" Sirius' shock had passed; he was now so incredibly angry, he saw red.
"You're a pure blood," Regulus reminded him with a roll of his eyes. "Surely, you und-"
"No!" Sirius interrupted with a sharp pointing of his finger. "No, no, no. He is murdering people, Regulus. So, don't you dare say that I should understand. It's disgusting."
"Not people– muggles," Regulus answered robotically the way he had been taught.
Sirius' forearm landed on his little brother's chest, and he shoved him against the bricks of the alley, pinning him there. "My best friend's kid sister is dead because of them!"
Regulus swallowed. "She was a muggle," he answered weakly.
Sirius stood up straight, eyes blank, jaw clenched. Sirius Black had never looked more terrifying. A fire blazed in his grey eyes, and Regulus felt cold noticing for the first time how much his older brother looked like their father.
"I didn't say which friend, Regulus."
The blood drained from the younger Black's face as he realized his mistake. "I, uh," he cleared his throat. "I heard about it."
Sirius leaned away from the alley wall before connecting his fist with Regulus' jaw. He wasn't even aware that he was punching him until it sent his little brother stumbling. "She was a goddamned child, Regulus!"
Regulus rubbed the hinge of his jaw. "Th-the o-others-"
"I don't care that the others were fucking adults! You don't murder people! I shouldn't have to explain that! What the fuck is wrong with you?" His fist connected with his little brother again, but this time there was an explosion of blood as the blood vessels with his nose burst.
"Sirius, I-"
Another punch.
"Brother, wai-"
Punch.
"I'm sor-"
Punch.
"It's just busin-"
Punch.
"You're not father!"
Sirius froze, arm raised to take another swing. He stared in horror at the scene before him: his younger brother's face was swollen and bloodied, and his own fist was red with the blood and sore from the blows. It was as if something had come over him, as if he had been possessed.
Sirius opened his mouth to say something. To apologize. To yell some more. But, all the possible strings of words made their way to his throat and died there. There was nothing to be said. What was done was done– for both of the Black brothers.
The oldest brother disappeared on the spot arriving in his bedroom at Potter Manor, letting out an animalistic scream that would cause his best friend and the rest of the house members to come running. The youngest brother was left behind in the alley alone next to the trash cans bruised and bloodied wondering if there was anyone out there that understood.