✓ WE NEVER SLEEP, draco malfoy

T W E N T Y - S I X

"Sweet is the voice of a sister in the season of sorrow, and wise is the counsel of those who love us."

— Benjamin Disraeli

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Florence Greer was one step closer to freedom. One step closer to achieving something far greater than she ever could be. 

Her sister was hers again, at long last.

She had been so foolish to allow her jealousy to ripen and fester. She should have been smarter, she realized. She should've just gone to her instead of allowing herself to find comfort with a killer, with someone she thought would give her the praise she so deserved.

She had thought, for as long as she could remember, that this was how it was always supposed to be. She had been raised in a prejudice society that told her how to love and how to hate. She had been friends with people who believed such mantras, who believed they were better than their peers who were born of two separate things.

Those unpure thoughts of her sister, of her friends, of her classmates and even teachers had raged a war in her mind. It drove her straight into the cold arms of a snake, of the vile thing she'd cheered and clapped for. The monster she had gotten on her knees for and prayed to like he was this fathomable higher being, like he was a god.

She wanted to be a god, too. 

She wanted him to take her by the hand, to show her exactly what it meant to be powerful. She would never be second best again. She would prove herself to her parents who only sought out one child, even if that child didn't notice.

It seemed, her sister and herself couldn't tell the other was more loved. They had thought the opposite, they had been played by jealousy and mistakes. 

The beach trip. The final one had sent it all into a chaotic motion.

Florence, standing there, watching, as her father swept Rowan into his arms. Watched as they were each others whole worlds, Florence forgotten. She couldn't make herself understand how he had loved her more. How he had cherished her. How he held her hand and worshipped her.

Was Florence not special too? Was she not just as great?

She had kept their long legacy from dying when she was sorted into Slytherin, but her little sister gets put into Gryffindor and suddenly she's everything.

Where was the pride for Florence? Where was her congratulations? Had she truly meant so little?

So, when her parents had gone back up to their little rental home, Florence took her sister into the water. She held her screaming head down, watching as she struggled, flailed, choked. When she pulled her up, all she could see was someone weaker than her. Someone unworthy. 

She had pushed her face back under and smiled a she did it. 

She realized, from watching Rowan when she least suspected through the later years, that their parents had done this to ensure Rowan was still loved. That her being sorted into a different house from the family was okay, it was accepted, she was still loved.

Florence had taken that parents love and thrown it away. 

She always did have a problem with jealousy. Envy was her chosen trait. Her beautiful green. Her forrest eye, her emerald heart.

But when her Dark Lord asked her to kill her blood traitor sister? To kill her precious Rowan? 

She had thought about it, truly, she did. She sat down and contemplated all the glorious ways to make her pay and she broke down in such terrible sobs that it felt like her whole chest had been split open and a piece of her was leaking out.