She wore her truth in her eyes
Moulded stones
Of love and tragedy
Freckled constellations
Of pleasures and pain
From a life's true story.
- Atticus
•+•
Memories. They were magnificent things.
They were little snippets from a greater story - a bigger picture.
But at that moment in time, Cathie Wood desperately wanted to claw out her memories and start anew.
My brother is dead.
My brother is dead.
The four words chanted in her head, never sinking in fully. Surely he was just on a holiday, surely he couldn't be dead.
But Catherine Wood was no idiot - that bludger to the head would've slaughtered anybody.
He wasn't in St. Mungos for a long time. A couple of hours at most, when he was pronounced dead. Unlike her father, Aven, who started sobbing as soon as he heard the news, Cathie still hadn't cried.
Her father was beginning to think that the girl had gone insane from grief - he was sure that no one could hear that their sibling had died and not cry. Right?
So, wiping his eyes, he cautiously approached Cathie, and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Are you okay?" He asked, sounding rather like a heavy smoker, as he had been crying ever since the Healers broke the news.
"I'm fine, Dad." Cathie responded quietly. "It's just, I didn't think he would die, yeah? I always thought 'oh, he's the big sibling, he can't die!' But he can, and he did."
She spoke the last part bitterly, and it left a sour taste in her mouth.
She couldn't pretend any longer.
Oliver was dead. There was nothing Cathie could do to bring him back.
YOU ARE READING
Ashen Stars
FanfictionWhen Cathie Wood's life starts to crash and burn, she turns to the stars for comfort, only to find them smothered by the ashes of her tragic life. In her fifth year, her brother, Oliver, meets his demise by a badly-aimed bludger to the skull. Everyt...
