Fragmented

🪄👑🪄

Sorry this chapter is so long, I promise not all of them will be like this! It's just so I could fit in a little backstory of the Rowles.

--•--•--•--•--

THEADORA the Death Eater.

--•--•--•--•--

I ran to the window and peeked outside, the Cornish hills spreading for miles around us with no other civilisation. Apart from our new guests. All I could see plaguing the stormy night sky was black smoke, swirling into patterns while the moon, almost full, shone bright behind.

Inside my father's study, he sat at the desk fast a sleep with a bottle of muggle brandy tucked safely under his drunk arm. Luckily my three brothers were still at school, Durmstrang, while I was here at home because I had been expelled from Beauxbatons. My antics were a few of the many reasons my father had turned to the comfort of the bottle, or sometimes, the comfort of abusing someone.

This is what we had been arguing about, he wanted to send me to Ilvermorny as my new school, along with my brothers so they could keep an eye on me. I told him that wasn't what I wanted and he used my face to smash his last bottle of firewhiskey. That had made him even more angry, I was a disappointment with an opinion that had spilt his alcohol. The only way to calm him down was the safety of a drink, so after retrieving him a bottle from my personal stash, he took a couple of swigs and promptly passed out.

The only time he was nice was when he was unconscious. When awake, he was terrorising my brother for killing our mother in child birth. He was fuelling my other brother's anger issues. He was using all of us for his harsh words or even harsher hits. And he was leaving me to care for my brothers, because no one else would.

There could be rare occasions where he could be less angry, he may sit down and eat dinner with us, or join us playing games. The last time that had happened was when I was nine and a muggle lady called Crystal had often come round to visit our father in his bedroom.

However, when he sat down at the head of the dining table that night to eat dinner, he looked me in the eye as I sat next to him, and said, "Theadora, you are my little princess, always. But in order to please me, you should help our family in any way you can. I have been hearing rumours that a man I once worked with, called Lord Voldemort, is slowly regaining power. If he comes to take me to work for him again, you must step up and take my place. You don't want your daddy getting hurt do you?" To which I shook my head.

I replied, "But why me daddy? Adrian is older, wouldn't he be better at it?" The next thing I knew, I was no longer looking at my father, but at Bertie who was sat beside me and my cheek felt as though it had been ripped off my face, it burned so badly.

My father stood up, his chair scraping along the floor the only sound in the silent room. He burst out, "I will not have you disrespect me like this! Talking back? How dare you! Know your place you bitch! It is a woman's job to care for her family, and you will step up when called for!" With that he turned and stormed away.

I stood up out of my chair, walking over to the seat my father had just vacated. Slowly, I sat down and faced my brothers, feet planted on the floor, back dead straight. I looked towards Adrian who was sat at the other end of the stupidly long table, and he gave me a small nod. I then looked towards Eli who sat on my left. He was always so quiet, gazing strongly into my eyes. I finally redirected my eyes to Bertie, who, even though he was too young to understand what had just happened, gave me a big smile.

At that moment, with the hand print still visible on my cheek, I changed. I became a provider, forced by my dead mother and drunk father to become a rock in a storm for the three boys around me. I could never, ever let them down. I would always be there for them. My family, my duty.