The Tragedy of Walburga Black

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒★

𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭

𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭, 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡, 𝟏𝟗𝟒𝟒- 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐅𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞

She awoke feeling misshapen; her back and neck felt strained from the firm floor that was her bed all these weeks. There was no way of knowing how long she slept, it could have been 3 or 8 hours, and she wouldn't have known. 

Her skin felt raw around the shackles, and her throat was sore from the lack of talking to a human being.

There was silence for a long while until a pop came from out of nowhere.

It was her bread and water that had shown up, so she would have to assume it was daytime. She quickly reached for it and consumed it faster than she ever would have before. 

Just as soon as she placed the empty cup back down, it vanished; she assumed her mother or house elves were in charge of that.

Sighing, she began to stare into the dark abyss. What she wouldn't give to see the sky at that moment or to simply see the light.

Hours passed, and with them, more thoughts of everything she had lived through.

It wasn't until she could hear the echoing of something that she straightened up her back as she was still sitting. It was the echo of her mother's keys as she unlocked the cellar door.

She quickly wished for the darkness to finally come for her so she wouldn't have to face her mother. She watched with worry as her mother, Irma, entered the dusty basement with her wand held up; the tip ignited with a light. 

A light so bright, Walburga had to squint so it wouldn't hurt her to see. Irma walked closer into the basement, waving her wand around to get a good look until she saw her daughter on the floor with her eyes squinting up at her.

She smirked as she took a good look at her, the bruises that once littered her face were almost gone leaving nothing but dirt and dry blood on her left cheek where she had been cut. 

She looked down and saw her white gown tattered on the floor, covered in blood and dust from the floor. She saw how inflamed the raw skin around the shackles of her ankles and wrist was, and her smirk grew. 

It looked as if her blood circulation would be cut off if she moved even one more inch.

She bent down, shoving the tip of her wand under her daughter's chin to look at her eyes. She raised her wand to her eyes and finally saw them. 

Her irises still hadn't fully recovered, one was wider than the other, and both eyes were red and somewhat puffy.

She got up quickly as if she couldn't bear to see her daughter's face. She undid the shackles and waited for Walburga to get up.

As soon as Walburga felt the shackles fall off, she felt her magic revive within her. The bonds stopped the witches from using any form of magic along with the charms they carried. 

She tried to get up but struggled, it took a few tries before she got up and leaned on the wall behind her.

She looked up again as her mother used her wand to light a few spare candles that lay across the basement. She was scared of her, she was scared of what she would do at any given moment.

As soon as she lit the candles, Irma thought of the punishments her parents made her go through. How she punishes her children is nothing compared to what she went through. She knew that punishing Walburga was the only way to make her grasp what was right and wrong.

"I have grown tired of this."

"Mother I-"

"Stop, Walburga." with disappointment on her face. The candles that lit the room brought out the contours of Irma's face. She was beautiful, there was no doubt about it.

 But what good is beauty on the outside if you are grotesque on the inside?

Her mother's beauty was not the kind of ordinary beauty one might encounter; no, she was beyond beautiful; she was enchanting. She was tall and angular. She seemed to stick out in a crowd full of ordinary women. Her long curly black hair and gray-blue eyes reminded Walburga of a stormy sea; they were just as deadly. Her cheekbones looked like they could cut glass, yet on the rare occasion that she smiled, the apples of her cheeks made her look otherworldly.

She surpassed the beauty of any veela, she was striking. She was hauntingly beautiful - the kind of beauty that does not fit in this world. 

"The next time you try to leave this family, you won't make it past the door," Irma warned with a cold, chilling resolve. She leaned in closer, her voice dripping with a sinister temptation.

 "The choice is yours; if you decide you want out, I can gladly give you a way out. Death is truly a sweet escape."

Walburga kept her gaze fixed on the grimy floor, her options dwindling and her sense of entrapment growing stronger with each passing moment.

"Your father has deemed disowning you out of the question," Irma continued, her voice laced with a twisted sense of family honor, "but in our family, losing one child at the cost of disowning is not unheard of. Those who have been disowned should be considered fortunate. Many have been forgotten by history due to... rather unfortunate events."

She paused, her words heavy with an unspoken implication. "Killing one's kin is a sacrifice that many have had to make in favor of our honor, it ensures our safety," she added, leaving an ominous and chilling silence in her wake

She glanced around the room, seeing quite a few Black family heirlooms along with ancient texts. Walburga was suddenly more aware of her fear than the grumbling in her stomach or the searing pain she felt on the raw parts of her skin.

"Now, have I made myself clear?"

All Walburga could do was nod as she gripped her throbbing wrist.

Smirking, Irma glanced around the room and walked up the stairs. As she left, she used her wand to blow the candles out behind her, leaving Walburga in darkness with only the door to the upstairs open waiting for her to walk through it.

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