Power ▸ Ron Weasley [1]

Prologue

POWER:
PROLOGUE   

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      Nova Nott believed in good and evil.

      Evil was inevitable. Everyone had an evil side in them. Whether it was the kind of evil that would harm someone else was entirely abstract, but everyone had a sliver of evil hiding in the cracks beneath their skin. She had seen evil devour people. She had seen what happened when a good person decided that the evil inside of them had won.

      Good was rare.

      People could be kind. But seldom were people ever really, truly good. She had yet to meet someone like that, anyway.

      "Nova?" Theo whispered from his place down at her feet.

      She was sitting on her bed, legs hanging over the side as she nervously rocked them back and forth. The moonlight was barely peeking through her curtains, casting a grey light on the side of her brother's face, a face that was as familiar to her as her own.

      It was no secret that they were twins. Even to the untrained eye, it could be seen that they were at least related. Their hair was the same kind of caramel brown, though her brother's was a few shades darker. They had some of the same features, like their eyes and noses. If she were blindfolded, she could probably pick out her brother's face. Lately, though, there had been a heaviness there, a kind of darkness that made her heart ache for him.

      "Is he back?" Nova's own voice sounded minuscule in the silence of her room. The both of them had been asked to leave while Lucius Malfoy discussed "important matters" with their father. It had been over three hours, but the twins were just as quiet as they had been the moment they had been banished from the front room.

      Theodore turned to stare at her. Though he was used to her unsmiling mouth, seeing it now made him feel guilty. She was staring at her feet, lips curled downwards. He knew what she was thinking. The Triwizard Tournament, the death of Cedric Diggory, the rebirth of Voldemort.

      He knew that she secretly wished it was rumors, just lies that Hogwarts students were spreading around.

      But Nova was much too smart to truly believe that.

      "Yes," Theodore replied, facing her door once more. "Yes, he's back. Lord Voldemort's back."

      While most people flinched at the name of the Dark Lord, the two of them had been trained better than that. They should feel superior because they didn't fear the name, because they knew their leader valued their loyalty. Nova didn't even blink. She just nodded thoughtfully.

      The Dark Lord was someone their family had fought beside for years. Even before he was restored, Nova used to hear her father whispering that he would return. That Voldemort would come back and return the wizarding world to the ideas of Salazar Slytherin; pure-bloods were the ones with the real power.

      "We don't have to fear the Dark Lord," her father had told her once, when she had been young enough to know not to argue but old enough to know her father was right. "We're pure-bloods, Konstantinova. We're loyal. He won't hurt us."

      "He won't hurt us," Theodore whispered, repeating the words they had been told all those years ago. "He won't, Nova. Father won't let him."

      "I thought you were smarter than that, Theo," Nova replied, her voice cool. "If the Dark Lord wanted to hurt us, he would hurt us. And Father would do nothing."

      Theodore's head whipped back around to look at her, his face furious. "Father would do everything! He will protect us, Nova."

      "Don't get angry with me because you know what you're saying isn't true." Nova stood from her bed. While she once towered over her brother, he'd grown since the end of school. He stood taller than her now, but she refused to let the height intimidate her.

      "I don't understand what's making you act this way," Theodore confessed as she stalked to the other side of her room. She could hear the front door closing, signaling that they could finally exit. "I don't like this, Nova."

      When Nova turned to look at him, her eyes were shining. Theodore's mouth closed in surprise. If there was one thing he was certain of, it was that Nova didn't cry. Ever. And while she wasn't crying now, the beginnings of tears were threatening in her eyes.

      He knew enough about her to know she'd refuse to let them fall.

      "Roll up the sleeve of your shirt, Theo," Nova demanded softly.

      Theodore stilled. The entire room stilled. It was just the two of them, like it had always been, but Nova hadn't felt that disconnected to him ever in their lives.

      "What? Nova..."

      "Roll up the sleeve," she repeated.

      He swallowed, his throat bobbing as Nova stared at him. Reaching down, he tugged on the sleeve of his shirt, dragging it up his skin. Nova's eyes flickered down, her heartbeat slowing in her chest as she prepared herself for the reality of what she would see.

      Nothing. Theodore's skin was smooth and pale, like it had always been. Nova stepped closer, taking his wrist in her hand and examining. She let out a breath, not aware she had been holding it until she saw the unmarred arm of her twin brother. "Not yet, then," she whispered. "But you're getting ready." It wasn't a question. Their father, Edgar Nott, was many things. Patient was not one of them.

      "How did you know?" he whispered back. Though there was no reason to, talking loudly in the room seemed so colloquial. There was nothing light about the conversation they were having.

      How did she know when he was hurt without being in the same room as him? How did she know when he cried when she was nowhere around him? How did she know what his hopes, fears, and dreams were? "Theo, I know you." She knew him better than herself sometimes. Where she was uncertain, Theo was certainty. He was solid in her life, like an immovable boulder. But now that weight was resting on his shoulders.

      "I'm sorry, Nova."

      "Father and the Dark Lord will protect you," she said, shaking her head. Her hand dropped from his arm and she stepped back, her face growing stoic. "But I don't want the Dark Mark. I don't want it, Theo. And that will get me killed, should the time come."

      "I won't let it," he promised. "I won't let him hurt you."

      Nova blinked, her big hazel eyes taking on the emotionless look he'd grown to know. "Don't make promises you can't keep, Theo."

      When she left the room, Theodore stood without her for a few moments. He trailed his eyes down to his right wrist, where he had moved the bracelet their mother had made him the second his father told him that he was to become like him, a follower of the Dark Lord. With a small sigh, he tugged it off his hand and slid it back onto his left wrist.

      He could keep it there until the time came.

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Edit: 03/19/2023

If you've noticed that a chapter has been updated recently, I changed a couple of the casting choices and updated a little bit of the chapters. They will remain the same plot, just finetuning some writing and updating gifs.