MORALITY ⟶ Angelina Johnson [1]

Chapter Thirty-Three

[Chapter Thirty-Three]

Since the Yule Ball had occupied most of Christmas Day with students preparing themselves, the day after Christmas seemed to be the observable day for opening up gifts and spending times with friends. During the previous years, if he and Draco decided to stay at school for the holidays, their parents would send gifts the night before and when they would wake up on Christmas morning, they would all be at the foot of their beds. And maybe throughout the day if their mother couldn't resist, she would send a few gifts that they would receive in the Great Hall. However, the morning after the Yule Ball, Saros woke up to see the foot of his bed empty, with the exception of the winter robes that he had given to Angelina the night before that she had left after use.

There wasn't a single gift waiting for him and he wished it hadn't taken him by surprise the way it did. But then he remembered the letter that he had given to Draco and it all came flooding back to him as to why he was waking up to no presents. Glancing around the dorm room, his dormmates were all still asleep, two of them still in their dress robes after coming in late the night before. All of them had gifts spread at the foot of their beds, brought in by house-elves. Saros was the only one with nothing waiting for him after waking up.

It wasn't so much the lack of gifts that left him upset, over the years, his parents really couldn't find anything that he really enjoyed outside of books, so he was usually left receiving clothing and some books that they found for him. However, it was the matter that they had more than likely received his letter and this was all just the beginning of being shunned from the family. Andromeda had done her best to warn him that being disowned from the family was more than a painful process and still, it had not been enough to prepare Saros from the pain he was already feeling.

In the back of his mind, he had been hoping that his mother would practice some form of mercy and try to at least talk to him. But it appeared no such thing was going to happen, instead, they were making their stance on the situation quite clear. No gifts meant that he was no longer part of the family. They hadn't taken his letter as a wake-up call but as a challenge. Andromeda had also informed him that sometimes the families attempted to isolate a "traitor" to make them rethink their position.

Any financial support that they previously had was cut off and they were left completely on their own, not even able to make contact unless it involved apologising and begging to be welcomed back. As much as it pained Saros, he would never bring himself to beg, even if his parents hadn't raised him properly, they had raised him better than that. If they wanted to play it as such, thinking that they could break Saros to have him return, they were wrong and Saros was going to prove it to them. He didn't need their gifts, he needed them to change their ways and if they weren't going to compromise, so be it.

However, Saros liked to believe that he was a lot stronger emotionally than he really was. He pushed himself out of bed, got dressed with the plan to head to the Great Hall. Breakfast could certainly take his mind off of things, or so he thought.