𝗔𝗖𝗧 𝗜 ━━ 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗧 039. monsters and madness
( song for the chapter: matilda — harry styles )
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WIZARDING WORLD, 1968
𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 𝗪𝗔𝗦 𝗦𝗢𝗠𝗘𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗜𝗡𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗧𝗟𝗬 𝗪𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗚 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗧𝗛𝗘 punishing existence of being a girl. Some called it hormones. Others called it hysteria—the kind of bullshit made up to make women look deranged. That wasn't particularly true most of the time; girls weren't crazy. They weren't monsters.
Scarlet Bridget had quite a difficult time to make herself believe it. She was seven when the nightmares started and all she could think about was the fact that she is a crazy monster. She sees the world like one of those freaks in St Mungo's and a voice lingers in her mind, groaning all the ways she could destroy something precious. Perhaps the concept of insanity ran too deep in her fucked-up bloodstream.
The rest of the English families—the pureblooded ones, they either envied or feared the Bridgets. Only the Bridgets themselves were allowed to acknowledge they might even be born cursed.
Then it was their anger. It was ugly, violent and made the back of Scarlet's neck crawl with fear that one day she wouldn't be able to hold back. Her anger was a tether, growing thin and frayed over the course of centuries of ancestral rage, and every push and pull twisted the urge deeper into the pit of her stomach.
"Where were you last night?" Celeste Bridget asked her husband who just entered the living room after disappearing for two days.
She dressed up perfectly even though she hadn't set foot outside. The thousand galleons worth of pieces of jewellery glinting under the eye-twitchingly bright chandelier of the Bridget Manor.
"None of your damn business."
All of their arguments started this way. Something about the curse of a rotten, loveless marriage that made them incapable of being near each other. It was a small ember to ignite the flame.
"Oh well, excuse me for caring. Next time, I won't wait late for you."
"Do you have to start this bullshit this early? I've got a headache."
