Rose Lily Lightbourn always knew she was adopted. She remembered the bright green light when she was only three years old, she remembered a red haired woman fall lifeless to the ground. She remembered a baby crying on the crib. She remembered a tall...
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What I am aches in me
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Rose had slept almost the whole weekend after the second task, her dreams were filled with bottomless pits and lakes. Amara had brought her a dreamless potion, but Rose only took it after a horrible dream where she was being dragged down the bottom of the Black Lake by some unknown force.
One of the worst things about the aftermath of the second task was that everybody was very keen to hear details of what had happened down in the lake, which meant everyone was interrogating Rose, Hermione Granger and Ron. Luckily for her, she had a special talent of avoiding people like the plague, which she did with everyone but Amara, Avalon and Adrian. When she finally left her dorm, it was only to find two identical gingers waiting for her in the common room, with Lee Jordan sitting solemnly besides them.
They practically begged her to sit with them, to which she agreed for respect to George and Lee. The four Gryffindors sat before the fire, the tension was thick enough one could cut it with a knife.
"So?" Rose cleared her throat, folding her hands in her lap delicately. "What is it that you need?"
Lee gave her a quizzical look, his eyes going down to her hands and up to her raised chin; she raised her brow at him, and he looked down apologetically.
"We're sorry we edge you out after – well," George began, scratching the back of his neck. "You know..."
"Fred and I broke up?" Rose wondered, tilting her head a little higher, her arms folding over her chest.
Fred's eyes flew to her own, a painful expression crossed his face before he cleared his throat and pulled at his collar. "Yeah – we, well – we miss you."
Rose's face showed genuine shock, her green eyes had gone wide, and her rosy lips parted in surprise. "We never wanted to stop being your friends," Lee mumbled in a low voice, but Rose heard it; she heard everything now.
"I never wanted that either," she answered, making Lee raise his head to her. She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I never stopped considering you my best friends, it was just that – well-"
"You became Rose Potter," Fred interrupted her, a knowing expression on her face.
Rose went to retort, but he was right. She became Rose Potter practically over night to the Wizarding World, her every move was being watched by the prophet and it always had something new to say about her. Not only that, but she had moved out of her childhood home and left any trace that she was ever a muggle behind; she had paid close attention to how Amara and Seraphina carried themselves and she became a carbon copy of the 'Perfect Pureblood Girl'.
Carefully, the red head nodded her head, twirling the fabric of her expensive jumper on her fingers. "Yes, I did," she accepted, her eyes settling themselves in the fire. She heard them all exhale defeated, and she quickly turned back at them. "But I'm still me; I'm still Rose Lightbourn, she's still in me."