The Keepers' Evil

Forty: You really ought not to have said that

Song- I bet on losing dogs: Mitski

"You really ought not to have said that."

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Isidora Morganach had been a beautifully underestimated soul with a heart that beat for everyone except herself. As I had watched her memories and felt her pain as though it had been my own, my mind had numbed and it had all become far too much, too weighted on the Keepers' manipulative kindness. My eyes felt misted with the contrast of the dark space as I yanked my head out of the pensieve, only regretting leaving the comfort that being somewhat near Isidora provided.

"Who the fuck are you?" A woman sat upon the chair that had been placed in the centre of the room, her long black hair fixated into a curled accessory on the back of her head. Her robes draped by the floor in shimmers of black and silver, green diamonds occasionally flashing my eyes as I surveyed the unknown before me. She looked unwell, her bones stuck from beneath her dress, her cheeks sunken and eyes sad.

"I had to see you for myself." She spoke with a cracked whisper, one that almost hinted into reflection. She watched me with a layer of tears that lined her eyes like a mirror into the corrupted body that didn't truly belong to her. She was a pureblood wife, that much was clear, and as such my mind seemed to soften for a moment as I noticed the small indents of manipulation and lack of choice that ailed her body.

"I said, who are you?" The repeat of my question seemed to offend her, perhaps sadden her further for an impossibly selfish idea, but there too was a glimmer in her eye of familiarity. The woman looked somewhat proud, perhaps in a twisted maternal way, and as the connection was made between her and Marvolo, the likeness was thankfully lost between her and Ominis.

Perhaps it was the purity of the boy in my mind that was fighting against the sins I knew this woman had committed. Ominis fought an inexplicably strenuous battle within my head, within my heart, for my hand.

"Hemera Gaunt, you'd know me as Ominis' mother." I scoffed as I raised my wand towards her as though it would protect me, but I could feel the shadow of the wards jellied to my magic, attached with a stickiness that only tacked onto other parts of me the longer I fought it. Hemera Gaunt didn't seem to move a muscle and the power still remained with her despite the illusion of it I was given.

"You're also Marvolo's mother. I don't know how you went so wrong with that one but so right with-" It was as though my words were spat onto her, maybe even designed to impale her. She looked visibly hurt, and it made me think back to my mother and the story I knew of her pain.

There was a commonality between all of the pureblood wives that had existed within the same generation. All of their hearts had been starved of the love they deserved, all of them had been forced to portray pain, but in private, they would weep until their eyes stung too much to keep them alive if they continued. I hoped that in the world I wasn't permitted in, that they had found peace and an understanding that released the doves from their cages.

"Ominis is good, but not because of us. I won't claim that." Mrs Gaunt stood slowly, as Marvolo had done, but I could feel the sweetness of her aura swallow me in an embrace. Marvolo had moved too slowly to show me control, but she seemed to allow me the space to falter back, to permit her to enter my space.

With their stone bricks piercing my spine and the hide of my corner no longer a viable space to hide, I allowed her, with a somewhat forced hand, to approach the heave of my panic and the fear in my eyes.