The Keepers' Evil

Forty-Six: One could be led by butterflies

Song- Ocean eyes: Billie Eilish

"Strange to think that one could be led by butterflies."

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A tiny, fragile, blue-eyed girl had once pressed her ear to the door to her father's study, the study that was out of bounds, the study which held secrets that hadn't even been whispered. She listened for her mother who had been called inside, taken away from their book and the silly voices that she would adopt. The tiny, fragile, blue-eyed girl listened to screams of her name that were bigger than she was, stronger than she would ever be.

The tiny, fragile, blue-eyed girl learnt that she could simply listen, and the world would tell her what she needed to know.

As my ear pressed firmly to the door, my knees buckled against the floor of Sebastian's childhood bedroom that had simply evolved with time, it was clear who played what part this time, that the tiny, fragile, blue-eyed girl had never left, and the mother and father behind the door were now replaced with two people who still screamed her name in ways that were bigger than her, than me.

Sebastian had said very few words that night after being allowed into the depths of what he had taken before, after being subjected to the torment that Marvolo had meant for me. I supposed that I had underestimated the amount of hurt that Sebastian felt from simply observing my pain, and I could see it in the way his eyes blurred as he looked at me. But he had still said almost nothing.

Hope came in the reality that although Marvolo had a mother and a father, children and a wife, not a single soul would feel the pain when he got hurt, not a person alive would weep at the sight of his scars.

But Sebastian did, and he did for me.

Azkaban had changed Sebastian, made him quieter, made his silence a prominent feature of his existence. In truth, I wasn't sure if it was in fact Azkaban, or if it was simply the darkness that I had let hurt us, that had taken away the stubborn loudness to his anger.

When his fingers had slowly retracted away from my skin, they had laced into my hair to hold me closer. His lips had pressed against where his fingers had been as though he had been the one to hurt me, and the salt of his tears had slipped down my own cheeks. Sebastian had apologised, apologised profusely, and stayed awake until I had fallen into a sleep full of his warmth and the scent of what remained of his cologne.

It had all been Marvolo's fault, it had been the Gaunts' fault, but it had not been Ominis'. It had never been his fault, it was never going to be his fault, in my eyes.

Sebastian's anger was of a similar nature to my magic; it could be suppressed, it could be hidden, it could be silenced, but for how long? Sebastian could not show Marvolo how he had been angered, not whilst he was not here. But Ominis was. Sebastian had woken, untucking his limbs from mine even before dawn broke familiar yellows into the room, and he had met Ominis and Anne, and their insomnia had erupted into a chorus of a mismatched rage.

"That girl is never going to be able to settle because you told them about her knowing that she's different, that her magic makes her fucking desirable." Sebastian's voice was a hushed murmur of a shout, merely the blurred shadow of anger in the puddle of tears on the floor. I wondered when nights of gobstones in the Undercroft had become stifled bouts of anger between three people that I never deserved.