Star Girl | Cedric Diggory

|*| Sixty Six |*|

"Nash! Thank Merlin!" Aquila cheered, racing toward her brother. She'd been dreading the summer because of her return to her parents, but she could live with spending summer with her brother.

"Aquila," Nash greeted politely, but Aquila wasn't in the mood to be polite. She barreled toward him and wrapped him in a hug, knocking the wind out of him. "Aquila!" Nash repeated; this time he was scolding her.

She was taken aback. "What's your problem, Nashy?" she asked. "Embarrassed to hug your sister?"

"Aquila, people are watching," he told her, motioning with his head to the perplexed looks of the other parents.

"So what?" she asked. "Ignore them."

"We've got to keep up our image," Nash explained as he straightened his robes.

"And what exactly is our image?" Aquila asked, putting her hands on her hips. "Did Mum and Dad put you up to this?"

"I'll explain everything later," he told her. "Now is not the proper place."

"I don't give a shit, Nash!" Aquila yelled. "Tell me what the hell is going on!"

"Stop shouting," Nash scolded her. "We're stoping at Mum and Dad's house for dinner tonight, and then the two of us are going to my place for the summer."

"This doesn't explain anything," Aquila muttered, grabbing Nash's arm to Apparate. He stiffened at her touch.

"It's called a topic change," Nash muttered before disappearing to the Whitman Manor.

|*|*|*|

"You've got a lot of explaining to do, young lady!" Vega Whitman yelled at her daughter. "So you'd better start explaining!"

"There's nothing to explain, Mother," Aquila said, sitting down at the dinner table. Upon their arrival at the manor, Aquila was greeted with the shouting of her mother about everything that had happened at Hogwarts that year.

"Nothing to explain, is there?" Vega shouted at her daughter. "I'll give you something to explain! Not coming home for winter holiday; not writing to us; getting more detentions than days of the week; kissing that Hufflepuff boy-"

Aquila jolted up from her seat. She glared at her mother and spoke in a voice like daggers, "You say anything you want about me, but you leave Cedric out of this."

"I will no nothing of the sort!" her mother yelled. "You have brought disgrace on this family, and it is all because of that boy!"

"Did you ever think that this family is just a disgrace and that it's no fault of mine?" Aquila spat. "Maybe I was born into this disgrace, and you're just too headstrong to admit it."

Vega glared at Aquila. "This family will have no flaws."

"Well, the door's right there whenever you want to leave," Aquila muttered.

"What did you say to me?" Vega snapped.

She really wanted to just shout it out again. Aquila wanted to tell her mother that she was the problem. However, no matter how flawed her family was, Aquila didn't want to anger Vega any more than she already had. She loved her parents, and she had already made the mistake of upsetting them.

"I said, 'I'm sorry,'" Aquila lied. "And I am."

"Sorry doesn't cut it, Aquila!" Vega yelled. "This rebellious act needs to end! You've got a new duty now, just as your brother does. He took it in stride; you should be more like Nash."

Aquila's heart sank, but she forced her sadness to the back of her mind. "I will, mother," she agreed.

"So you're ready, then?" Regor asked, walking into the dining room. Her father had been silently listening to the argument but not saying a word.

"Ready for what?" Aquila asked.

"Nash didn't tell you?" Regor asked, raising a brow. "He was explicitly instructed to tell you."

"He said he'd explain everything to me later," she said. "What's going on?"

"Surely you know of your duty to the legacy of this family?" Vega asked skeptically. "It's only common knowledge; Nash didn't even have to guess."

Well, I'm not Nash, Aquila wanted to say, but she held her tongue. They were just starting to calm down, so she didn't want to say anything to raise the tension again.

"Nash!" Regor called. "Get in here!" Nash rushed into the room and stood next to his father, facing Aquila. "Care to tell me why you haven't told her yet?" Regor asked, not amused in the slightest.

"I didn't want to stress her out," Nash said. "She had a rough year-"

"That isn't an excuse!" Vega yelled. "She needs to know this, and it was your job to tell her! It was a simple task, Nash! If you can't handle something as simple as delivering a message, then how do you expect to move up in the ranks?"

"I'm terribly sorry, Mother," Nash said, lowering his head.

"Well, don't just stand there!" his mother yelled. "Tell her!"

Slowly, Nash made his way over to Aquila. She was beginning to fidget where she was standing. "Merlin, Nash, hurry up, would you?" she asked.

"Aquila," Nash spoke in a voice about two octaves deeper than his usual one. "You've got a duty to this family."

"So I've been hearing," she interrupted.

"Don't interrupt," Regor barked from where he stood.

"Sorry," Aquila muttered, mentally rolling her eyes.

"You have to live up to the standards of the Whitman line," Nash continued. Aquila really wanted to interrupt, but the look her father gave her was her warning not to. "And in order to fulfill your duties of bloody purity and prestige, you've got to pledge yourself to service."

Aquila shivered, and her eyes widened. She wanted to run away from the room; she wanted to run away from her family. She knew things would be bad at home, but she never expected this. She never expected what Nash was saying.

Her brother was finally standing in front of her. There was only enough space between them from him to put his arm in front of her face and pull up the sleeve of his cloak.

There on his skin was the mark. The mark that proved his allegiance to their family, to their family's cause.

Nash now carried the mark of the Dark Lord Voldemort, and Aquila would be next.

|*| YOU THOUGHT IT WAS ALL GOOD HAHAHA |*|