𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁, luna lovegood

one, the terror of ariel black

JULY 1993,

IF ARIEL MARISSA BLACK was a word, she would be reckless. She would own it.

That's what she's appeared to be. Little Miss Perfect Black.

Oh barf.

School had ended just two weeks ago and Ariel was already skipping through the streets of Muggle London, the shoelaces of her sneakers always untied, (her clumsiness making her occasionally trip and fall), Her dark, curly hair swinging behind her freely. She spins around happily enjoying the sunny weather that usually never lasts long and jumps around concrete cracks like it was the most silliest game ever. She laughs freely at traffic lights, (that she'll never understand), running past loud, honking busses while covering her ears.

From a distance, for a teenage girl who was raised into one of the most ancient, pureblood wizarding families, she looked like a reckless teen muggle, who was maybe in seventh year at school. But no, she's Ariel Black, the only daughter of Sirius Orion Black. Though the Black family tradition was to name children after stars, she was named Ariel after her grandmother on her mother's side. Ariel, the lion of God. When she was mere child, she couldn't understand why the children of the old orphanage made fun of her or called her mean, nasty names. Yeah, her hair turned the darkest shade of red when she was angry and yes terrible things happened to people who were mean to her, but so what? Ariel Black is human. She's not different because she's powerful. She's Ariel Black.

She, despite knowing that her father had blasted a whole human in pieces, didn't change her last name, it didn't matter who it came from. You see, Ariel Black was quite the curious child.

By herself, she dug through documents and documents just to find out who she was. She was desperate to know. Desperate to feel something.

The Blacks, her family, is an ancient, traditional, British pureblood family. The Blacks, once again her family were so caught up and brainwashed about blood purity that some of them ended up marrying their cousins and even their siblings. Fucked up? I know.

Ariel Black just wants to be free. She wants to feel something, something in her cold heart that gave a sign of light. Everywhere, she craves light happiness like it was a desire even in just cold weather. Everywhere she goes, she carries a cigarette packet with a small lighter, as she shouldn't use magic freely yet. She inhales and exhales the smoke from her full, rosey lips and she twirls around and around, over and over again. She sees a squirrel running up a tree, with two nuts in its hand and happily shares it with a smaller squirrel. Even though she knew they couldn't understand her, she still smiled up in the tree. I wish I was free like you.

Ariel is quite different than other witches and wizards her age. She proudly wears muggle leather jackets, that were oversized on her, making her look like - what was that muggle term? Baddest bitch? That's her.

But she's so much more than that. She's so much more than just a dainty, scared, school girl who didn't have any parents caring, loving her.

Beneath her confidence, her beauty, her mask, she's just Ariel. Not Ariel Marissa Black. Just Ariel. She has a soft spot for nature, loving mud on her hands, her shoes dirty. But there's so much more. And she feels like she has to hide all of that. But why should she?

The real truth is, no one has that amount of confidence to run up to her and just ask a simple fucking question. No. It's like she's the scariest woman on the planet, like she's a high classed prissy pink princess who's searching for a partner. But that's not her.

She really doesn't give a single crap what anyone says or think about her as long as she feels good. As long as she feels warmth underneath the storm of terror built permanently etched inside of her. Because beneath her confident, rebel attitude, she's just a girl. She's just human. She's just a girl who argues with Ron Weasley over the dumbest things like, "What dress would look best on a troll." In reality, she's just a girl who teases Harry Potter about his shyness and dorky self. She's still the same girl that would spend hours reading in the library with Hermione Granger.

She may not care about what people think of her, but her last name? It hits her straight in the damn chest. She utterly and wholeheartedly despises it. She's ashamed and grossed out by it. She doesn't understand what the hell went wrong there. Her father, who by the way, is a mass murderer and fallen deeper than everyone else before him. She had dug so deep that she finds out that she's so much like Sirius Black. Who had made brothers out of a Potter. Exactly like she had; who had also smoked cigarettes to hide and run away from his feelings, who had also wore leather jackets, and also sorted into Gryffindor, the sworn and direct enemy of Slytherin.

The unanswered questions today still hit her hard, making her collide into darkness. Why had he murdered off his two best friends? Why did he leave a baby as if a pig for slaughter? Why had he killed her mother? Why had he abandoned his only daughter? Why? She doesn't fucking understand. And why the hell did Sirius Black turn into a fucking roach?

Her mother. Who was her mother? Who gave birth to a tiny baby girl on December twenty fifth nineteen seventy nine? Where is she? Why had she left? Is she even alive?

She knew the answer to that last question. She had found a broken and torn picture of the so-called Marissa Black on an old Daily Prophet newspaper, writing about those who had lost their deaths due to Death Eaters. Due to Lord Voldemort.

Marissa Black was a beauty. So much more beautiful than herself. She doesn't know much except that her mother was rumored to be murdered by Sirius Black, her own husband. But her maiden last name was torn apart from the newspaper.

Ariel remembers finding that picture of her mother much too well. She had ripped it from the newspaper and bought the first locket she had seen in Muggle London, just to put that tiny, worn out photo there. And she kept the locket close to her, she rarely took it off. It was her most priceless possession, just something, anything of her mother.

Ariel and Marissa would never know each other. And it was his fault. It was her father's and Lord Voldemort's fault. Sometimes, she would put herself into a scenario in which Voldemort didn't exist. Would she be loved by both parents? Would she have grown up with Harry Potter instead of an old dirty orphanage? Would she have felt light?

Yes, she now lives in another pureblood family who treats her like garbage and only took in her in because of money and her last name; but she's still thankful for it. She still appreciates that they put a roof over her head even though they could've left her to rot in that smelly old room. But, she feels lonely in there. Mr and Mrs. Wilson are a married couple with no kids at all. Just a big, large dog that would bark loud and madly whenever Ariel got even within six feet of it. Mr and Mrs. Wilson had tried to raise her to be a classy, snobby rich pureblood who "loved" her adoptive parents, but unfortunately for them, Ariel Black came out to be one of the biggest blood traitors that ever existed.

A tired sigh came out of her lips as she finally stops at the front of the road at her "home". She fumbles for her keys in her leather jacket; her thoughts about everything fading away.

A storm of terror is coming. A storm of terror is coming.