Serenity (A Wizarding World FanFiction)

1. A VEIL OF LIES.

Adrienna could not remember the last time she had felt peace. Even at night, her mind was plagued with the same nightmares that kept her occupied during the day.

Every night was the same. She would stay awake, for staying awake was the only way she knew to keep the darkness at bay. Eventually, all control would slip away from her reach. The need to close her eyelids and drift off always came. It was the start of a hopeless battle against the needs of her own body—a gentler version of the inevitable way humans spent their whole lives fighting their own mortality.

But none of it mattered in the end. Despite her best efforts to stay awake, Adrienna always lost in the end. Once asleep, she would be confronted with the most gruesome images from her past. All of her worst memories bottled up into one, horrifyingly terrible dream. A bittersweet reminder of the costs of her own failures, forever haunting her.

She'd concluded long ago that both her body and mind abandoned her every night, and had blamed them terribly for it since.

This morning had been no different to her previous ones, and she now found herself curled up in bed, staring at her own reflection in the mirror across the room. Despite the lack of light in the room, the redness around her eyes was undeniably present. Her face was stained with tears, and Adrienna could taste its salt on her lips. On days like this, she often wondered whether she was slowly losing her mind. Losing her mind in the same way her parents had. Perhaps insanity ran in her family, perhaps it was simply inevitable like when her—

Her muscles suddenly tensed as she noticed her reflection in the standing mirror was no longer without company.

"Saints!"

Adrienna jumped up, instinctively grabbing her wand off her nightstand and pointing it at the intruder. She stared at the tall, dark figure until... Click!

The light switched on, revealing an all too familiar face.

"Planning to murder me, were we?" Pollux Rosier asked. He entered her bedroom as if he owned the place, not bothering to look around too much.

"You scared the shit out of me, you idiot," Adrienna scolded, leaving her wand safely on the bedside table again. "Couldn't have knocked, could you?"

"Knocking, my dear, is overrated." Pollux sat himself down in the light blue and gold armchair by the window, opening the curtains with a single snap of his finger. She, in turn, rolled her eyes at his theatrics.

Pollux leaned forward, his arms resting on his legs. His gaze found her, and he narrowed his eyes only slightly when they found hers. Whether it had been the many hours of training the two of them had endured together as children, Adrienna did not know—but there was no greater comfort to her than looking into the eyes of Pollux Rosier. Because if anyone was going to see her for who she truly was, she was glad for it to be him.

"You've cried," Pollux finally stated. His voice sounded flat, as if he was merely pointing out a fact of life.

Adrienna wiped the tears from her cheeks. "I'm fine."

"I didn't ask," Pollux replied. Charming, she noted. "But good. I'm assuming it was the nightmares again. You really should consider—"

"Don't," said Adrienna, glaring at him from across the room. "I know what methods you prefer to employ to keep these... inconveniences at bay, Pollux, and I want no part in it. I am twenty-one years old, I can take care of myself."

He rolled his eyes, sighing as he fell back into the chair. "Alright. Whatever," Pollux said, throwing his hands in the air defensively. "I'm still three years older than you," he added, mumbling.