Dead Love || Tom Riddle

Chapter I - Hogwarts

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Aurelie didn't like her parents' friends or those ghosts they brought with them. Merula buttoned her in a high, ruffled collared dress with large off-the-shoulder puff sleeves made of voluminous baby blue chiffon and prepared her to greet the guests. Calix Mulicber walked past her and hugged her father. His black hair was slicked back with hair gel and flared out behind his ears; his face was burned from a dark spell in combat years ago. Aurelie remembered the night it happened, he apparated into the Black manor for protection. Orion and Merula cast healing spells and gave him potions all night but he was still cursed with red scarring across his left side.

At four years old, she snuck into Calix's room to see his injuries, but his face was covered by a white cloth. Upon waking him, he grabbed her by the neck and shouted nonsense.

Out of the fifteen of them though, Lucinda Groule frightened her the most. Her skin was white like a corpse and her eyes were red as the rubies that adorned her bony neck, around her flouted ghosts beyond count. They whispered in Aurelie's ears how Lucinda gruesomely killed them, but she just grabbed under her chin and smiled wickedly. She called her "beautiful girl" and traced her jawline with a pale finger, "like her mother." Two she did not recognize were Drusilla Argyle and her husband, Locke; beautiful and poised, donned in expansive fabrics and jewelry, newlywed from two powerful families, two decades younger than her parents and newly entering their pocket of wizards. Drusilla was exceptionally beautiful, graced with raven colored hair, sharp cheek bones and red lips. Aurelie wanted to melt into her blue dress, but Drusilla didn't spare her a glance.

Aurelie quickly returned to her bedroom. They did not want her there anyway. They would discuss their illegal dealing and victories in their underground realm of dark magic in their poorly lit, smoke-filled room. The house elf, Maue, helped pack her trucks for the school year. Her day clothes were similar in fashion to muggles. Woolen skirts to her ankles and knees, even linen pants, crocheted jumpers and hats, embroidered tights, warm trench coats, V-neck vests, buttoned dresses, knee-high stockings, leather boots, cameo necklaces and her metal reading glasses. Maue gave her stacks of her folded Hogwarts's uniforms. Much to her parents' surprise and disappointment, Aurelie was sorted into Hufflepuff; the first Black. Augustine said he expected as much.

Maue took Gillie, a golden gecko, from Aurelie's shoulder and placed him in a small glass cage. Merula insisted he never leave it outside her room. The one time he did escape, he interrupted her tea by crawling on her arm. She gave her daughter a choice; take the cruciatus or watch her crush Gillie under her boot. Augustine took it for her. He gifted her Gillie on her nineth birthday, so she had a friend while he was away at school. He crawled restlessly along the glass walls and watched Aurelie pack his care box.

She also packed one of the few photographs she had of her brother; they sat stiffly in the tearoom dressed in a red waist coat and cravat and a pink, empire-waisted dress, and feather hair pin. Photography was still a recent invention to the wizarding world. She placed the photo in a clay jewelry box beside a pack of Fanged Geranium seeds and bundle of Gillyweed (Augustine had stolen for her his fourth year), a lighter, Hag Stones, bobby pins and a crystalized butterfly wing.

After Aurelie and Maue finished packing, they waited an hour to dress her in her uniform and take the trunks downstairs. Maue hesitantly knocked on the door to the tearoom.

"Mistress and Master Black, your daughter is leaving for school," she announced.The door opened, releasing streams of wafting cigar smoke and drunken conversation. After a heartbeat, Merula's Doberman raced into the foray and bit Maue's boney arm. Before Aurelie could run to help, her parents stepped out and she halted her steps. She wasn't allowed to show weakness especially toward the house-elves without feeling the back of her father's hand.