From the Stars to the Stars → Draco Malfoy

xxxvi. Corvus

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      The heaviest part of someone's soul was always the secret they tucked away neatly, perfectly hidden away from the prying eyes of the outsiders. Ask Atlas, which one was heavier: the world or the secret every soul had to shoulder. Even with the whole world sitting on his shoulder, he would probably answer the latter.

     There were at least two types of secret according to Orion's book, the one that is someone else's which also had several branches of how important they were, whether it was a life and death secret situation or just a usual secret–like the one Cassiopeia and Orion tend to hide against Cepheus. Or the one that is a personal secret, which also had a branch, the usual one or the one people buried deep deep inside them; which was probably the heaviest one between all of them.

     The day her parents died, something happened; Orion did something unbelievably horrible that her grandfather, Elijah, Freya, Rebekah, and Marcel swore no one could ever know, not even the twins, not even Kol and Davina. The thing was, they didn't even realise Orion knew; all this time they thought they were protecting Orion from seeing herself as a murderer, but that was exactly what she was, a murderer–and she wasn't talking about her parents' sacrifice for her.

     The memory of the day she overheard the fight between her family about her was still ingrained in her brain. She remembered the thundering shout of her grandfather telling Freya how it would absolutely crush Orion if she knew what she did; she remembered him telling the rest of them that the news needed to be kept from her in order to save her innocent mind.

     She's a Mikaelson, she can live without her innocence, was what Freya told him. Orion remembered Elijah telling the both of them to lower their voice, she remembered Marcel and Rebekah agreeing with her grandfather to keep it a secret from her, she was only nine, she needed the last bit of innocence that she could keep in her grasp. Orion remembered hearing them finally coming into an agreement to keep the information from her as she sat in front of the Study Room doors, knees tucked into her chest, eyes staring blankly into a table in front of her, on top of it was a vase with red roses in it.

     Orion's subconscious had always associated secrets with roses; probably from the memory of that day or maybe from the Roman mythology story where Cupid gave Harpocrats–the God of Silence–roses to bribe him in secrecy over the dalliance of Venus. When Sendy Kim gave Orion the roses before their talk, Orion got the message loud and clear, no one was supposed to know they talked and what they talked about, least of all Hadria.

     Not only roses were associated with unspoken sworn secrecy, the rose itself symbolizes a person with a secret, at least that's how Orion saw it. Every layer of every petal was just a little secret protecting the even bigger and important one, the darker ones, in fact. Each time the outer layer of the petal fell, that just meant one step closer towards the inside. But then again, it's always a matter of time until every petal finds a way to fall, usually because of the changing of the weather.

     Orion had never really been worried about herself when it comes to protecting her secrets, though if she was honest, she's not really the best at keeping her mouth shuts when her rage came to get the best of her; the only times it ever happened was with the same person, Draco Malfoy. It's just like his presence angered the hell out of her, or maybe he had a thing with timing–always showing up when Orion was fueled with rage.

     It had been weeks since the incident in the infirmary with Draco–and not once did the git had the brain to cover the hickey Orion left him, and since then too she hadn't talked to him. Her whatever-ship with Hadria had been better, though she had always tried to sneak her way from the much-needed conversation between them, Orion was not sure, but from the look of it, it seemed like Hadria was comfortable with whatever was going on with them. It was not like Orion to avoid confrontation, but at the same time, she wanted it to last for a while; it was nice getting his attention. She liked seeing him trying so hard to sweep her off of her feet while other girls were giving her side eyes because of it; she also liked talking to him, well, more like listening to him telling her stories about his family because she asked.