Heart Scars

Forty Six

Adhara returned home for the Easter holidays. Not because her mother had asked her to, or even the dark lord.

Bellatrix had requested her presence.

She stood outside the door to Number 12 Grimmauld place for quite some time. Her parents didn't know she was returning for the holiday. Usually she stayed at school during the Easter holiday, claiming that she had much studying to do before exams.

With a gentle sigh, she pushed open the door and started down the narrow hallway. It was dark, much like the rest of her home. Sometimes she envisioned it brighter, like the home of an actual family not tainted by darkness. There'd be no elf heads in her home, and she'd trash those awful portraits of her aristocratic ancestors.

Adhara treaded up the stairs, neither of her parents seeming to be around. She had her hand wrapped tightly around her wand in her pocket, a subconscious move she made whenever she entered the House of Black.

She was quick to make her way to her room, head down. Her father's study was on this floor, and she was quiet as to not disturb him if he was home. She wrapped her hand around the knob of the door, but then she stopped dead in her tracks.

Sirius's bedroom door was ajar.

For a moment, she envisioned walking in and finding her twin brother. Sirius would be sitting on his bed, flipping through a magazine or talking to that ridiculous mirror James had got him when they were third years. She shook her head slightly, and surged towards the door.

The sight left her utterly still. Her breathing stopped, and she immediately felt her heart drop to her stomach. Her eyes stuck to the scene, to Sirius's ruined sheets, to the books on the ground, to the blood everywhere.

And it was everywhere. It was spilling on the sheets, and onto the ground. Leftover pieces of parchment were stained red, as were some pages of the books.

That wasn't the most horrific part, though.

The most horrific part was seeing her mother lying in Sirius's bed, her wrists slit and a bloody knife lying discarded to the side.

"Mother?" Adhara's voice was quiet. Her mother didn't like them to speak loudly. She had impeccable hearing, and it scared Adhara when her mother didn't stir.

"Mother!" She rushed to her side, putting her hands on her body. She was cold, but that was no indicator. Her mother's body was always cold as ice, a reflection of the woman herself. Adhara looked at her wrist, and knew she would find no pulse in the shredded mess. She instead pressed her fingers into her mother's neck.

It was faint, but it was there. Like the beating of a butterfly's wings. Her mother's pulse. Her only indicator to life.

Adhara pulled out her wand. She would easily be able to fix this. She had tended many wounds with Poppy. She'd need herbs to regain her mother's proper blood flow, but first she had to stop the bleeding and close the wounds.

She held up her wand, pointing it to the broken skin on her wrist. She opened her mouth to say the spell, but her words got caught in her throat.

It would be so easy just to leave her.

The thought crossed her mind quickly, but lingered like a virus. She could leave her mother here, on her twins bed, and wait for her to bleed out. She could leave, and pretend to come back in a few hours. Her mother's life would be long over by then. Adhara would be free. Her father would lose himself without the direction and discipline of his wife. He might even leave to one of their country houses to escape the Noble House of Black.

She could do it.

But she couldn't.

She moved quickly, repairing the broken skin and bandaging the scars. The color began to return to her mother's skin, and she became less worried. She levitated her mother to her private room, and left her head lying against the pillow. This was the room her mother had away from her father for when they argued or her mother fell ill.