The Tragedy of Walburga Black

★𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕𝟗★

𝐉𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝟐𝟎𝐭𝐡 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟐 - 𝟏𝟐 𝐆𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞

As her brother left she decided to speak to Orion, walking into his study. The heavy wooden door stood before her, a barrier between her and the conversation she needed to have. Summoning her courage, she knocked firmly, the sound echoing through the quiet hallway.

Not waiting for him to speak up she opened it and walked into the room, closing it behind her.

She found him seated behind his desk, engrossed in a stack of parchment. Clearing her throat to announce her presence, she waited for him to acknowledge her. It was clear he wasn't reading the parchment.

Sensing his distraction, she approached the desk with measured steps. "Alphard just left," looking at the parchment in front of him, there wasn't any writing on it. "He didn't mean to bring her up."

His expression remained black as he looked up at her. "I know," he replied quietly, his gaze meeting hers. "But it's a wound that never quite heals, isn't it?"

Looking down, she sat down on the chair in front of his desk. "I suppose not," Meeting his eyes she could feel the guilt of the murder scratching at her insides begging for a release.

Leaning back in his seat he looked at her before shaking his head. "Do you want a drink?"

He waited for her reply as he stood up and walked to his small cupboard talking out a glass of vanilla gin. Pouring the amber liquid into the glasses, he did so with practiced precision, his movements smooth despite the turmoil in his mind.

Returning to the desk, he placed one of the glasses in front of her, their eyes meeting briefly before he settled back into his chair, taking a sip of his drink.

She took small sips careful not to make much eye contact with him.

"Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we never married? If we could have just simply been cousins and nothing more?" His voice was calm but his facial expression was stern as he looked at her.

Walburga's gaze drifted to the glass in her hands, swirling the liquid inside as she contemplated his question. Truthfully, she hadn't; at least not until she and Abraxas had started the affair. Up until that point, her life revolved around Orion as the earth revolves around the sun.

"I did," she admitted quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. "But, then I realized I couldn't be with anyone but you."

She couldn't tell if it was love anymore. Despite the yelling, the fighting, the drinking, and the smoking, she knew deep down that without him beside her, she would feel adrift, purposeless. It was a realization that both terrified and comforted her in equal measure.

It had surpassed love for her, it had become a dependency.

Even if her small fantasy of a 'what if' life with Abraxas Malfoy was filled with happiness and laughter, she couldn't live like that for long. At least that was what she convinced herself enough to believe.

She needed the destruction that came with being Orion's wife. It was a frightening realization, one that came with a heavy price—the blood of the woman he loved, staining her hands with the weight of guilt and regret.

Shaking her head with a bitter laugh, she took another sip of the gin, the burn of the alcohol providing a reprieve from her inner turmoil. "More than that," she admitted quietly, her voice tinged with resignation, "I realized no one could be with me."

His gaze remained stoic, devoid of emotion as he shook his head at her. "What a victim you paint yourself to be," he remarked.

"Aren't we all?" she mused, her tone tinged with sarcasm.