𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘺 {𝙘𝙝𝙤 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙜/𝙤𝙘} ⚢

v.

i stared at my reflection in the mirror. i was more than thin. i was skeletal; merely flesh and bones. i held onto the sink in our too-modern bathroom. i yearned for history in architecture, for the castle and all its divinity; the centuries it held onto, the stories it kept within the walls of its gothic, norman romanesque structure. my face was still puffy from where bao had hit me.

i wanted to be free, even for a moment.

"我愛你 (i love you)," bao had told me every day for months and months on end. that phrase-- those three deadly words --replayed in my mind over and over again. i'd never understood why women stayed with their abuser husbands. it had made no sense to me.

just leave them! it can't really be that hard, i'd thought. granted, it was. everything looked easier from the outside, i supposed. adulthood as a kid, graduating hogwarts even though most spent years wanting nothing more (but that when it truly came down to it, i knew nobody that wanted to leave)-- that childhood, in itself, was transient; life was.

i grabbed my makeup bag from the last drawer on the left-handed side. my hands trembled with worry. i feared i wouldn't be able to conceal his abuse, even if i knew very well how to by then. bruises needed deep yellows and oranges to cancel out the blueish, purpling tones before applying foundation. i was aware i shouldn't know these things, but i did.

i missed hogwarts. to be fair, i missed all of the wizarding world. i longed to be back there where i belonged. i was stupid for thinking i could venture beyond those lands (despite how amazing my time in america and asia had been before bao ruined it). i should have stayed within my limitations, taken the role as charms professor as i'd originally planned to do.

maybe i'd be happier, if i had stayed. maybe i'd be whole.

i missed the quidditch pitch, especially the rush of being seeker. i missed the bustling classrooms and the sound of chitter-chatter amongst fellow wizards and witches. i missed christmases gathered in the great hall with the remaining students and professors that had decided to stay during the holiday seasons, and i even missed the crazy, whomping willow and its garland of autumnal hues around halloween.

i'd been glad to leave it all behind me after 1999 (only three years ago!). i'd wanted a fresh start after cedric and voldemort, and merlin knows what else. i needed freedom, and i'd been so sure i would never have found it amongst the ashes of hurt (but now i was sure i would have. so many had moved past the pain of the war!).

i sighed, lathering concealer over my cheekbone. i glared at the woman in front of me. i barely recognised her. i was dissociated from everything-- myself and all my environs.

my cheek looked normal, even under the unforgiving lights that gleamed above me. good. lian wouldn't notice. i crept under the dusty stairwell of our home, jamming my nimble fingers into the slightly loose floorboard where bao hid my wand. grasping it, i held onto the cherry wood, brushing my fingers against my wand's spiral length. magic rushed to my fingertips. i felt ignited with life every time i held it.

i think bao was scared of my wand (or he'd simply remembered the story i had once told him about how wands always sought out their rightful owners, no matter how much time had elapsed). either way, i was relieved. i brought the wand to my cheek and hushed a quick healing charm.

golden streaks and dashes danced across the right apple of my face.

"how do you heal so fast?" bao had asked me sometime last year (thankfully unaware i used my wand to heal myself after all his numerous, numerous attacks).

"i- i--"

"must be that foul magic that courses through your veins," he'd spat. "you're wicked and immoral."

i thought back on the memory. i wasn't wicked. he was, and if i was, it was for staying with him after all this time, not for my magic. never for my magic. i couldn't let him make me believe such rancid lies.

i replaced my wand under the loose floorboard of my stairwell, making sure it laid exactly has it had before, and closed the tiny, shrieking door behind me. before leaving, i gazed into the mirror one last time just to make sure i really looked fine.

i was eager to have a good day today. i'd see lian (my best mate), and we'd walk yalong bay. we'd speak of handsome men and music and the food we loved, and i'd allow myself to forget.