Marmoris | Rabastan Lestrange [1] ✔︎

12 | ORDINARY

"Don't get too close;
it's dark inside.
It's where my demons hide."

★

"I'D LIKE TO concentrate on my school work rather than running after something that we will most likely never find an answer to."

These were the words that Phoenix had used to tell Rabastan that she did no longer want to search for the meaning of her birthmark. The foreign emotions had grown into constant companion of her day to day life and with it she had developed hatred towards herself. Although she had been curious about her powers at first, she now saw them as nothing other than a mistake of nature. Being a witch, she wasn't supposed to have these kind of powers. She was pretty sure that if word about it ever got out her family and the other Pure-bloods would classify her as something similar to a beast and would be disgusted by her.

She couldn't let that happen.

Under no circumstances was her family to know that their little girl was an abomination. With that thought came the nightmares that would keep her awake at night. Either she saw her mother scream at her and disown her, or flashes of weird scenes. She saw the faces of her friends as well as unknown faces and one time she even saw one of her teachers talk to an unknown man and caught snippets about their conversation that contained anything but nice things to chat about. Not only was the fact scary that all of her visions involved blood, tears and death, but the fact that she had hardly ever dreamed at night before. Of course she was familiar with the theory that everybody dreamed, but she had never remember her dreams after she woke up. There had only been this abyss during the time when she had slept. However, she remembered every single one of these nightmares vividly and sometimes she even caught herself seeing snippets of them during the day whenever she was distracted. It led her to fear falling asleep. During the day she tried to play the perfect, friendly Pure-blood girl, but when everybody was asleep in her dorm, she was lying awake, scared of what she might see when sleep would take her in.

A tear rolled down Phoenix' cheek while she stared at the dark ceiling above her. She missed the times when the only thing keeping her awake at night had been Maureen's silent snoring or Alison Hollow speaking in her sleep. Now she couldn't help but picture the worst nightmares or what would happen, if people started to talk about her abilities. Silently she reminded herself about all the things that she had to do in order to look ordinary. It had also been that wish to appear normal that had made her quit her research with Rabastan a few days earlier. Although she had realised that he was among the few people that she never felt the emotions of, she had decided that perfect grades in school were more important than the feeling she got whenever she was with him. Keeping her perfect reputation was everything that mattered when it came to hiding her secret.

★

THE FIRST WEEK of December had already come to an end when Phoenix sat in a window seat with her Potions book on her legs, her legs pulled to her chest. She was about ready to slam the book against her forehead when she heard someone approach. She looked up and caught sight of no other than Rabastan Lestrange standing next to the alcove.

He gave her a small smirk and shook a strand of his blonde hair out of his face before gesturing towards the empty space opposite her. "Would you mind if I sit there?"

Phoenix opened and closed her mouth like a fish out of water before remarking, "I thought we agreed that we would quit our research."

"We did," Rabastan rummaged through his bag and pulled a book with a leather cover out of it, showing it to her. "That's actually not what I'm here for. So is that seat taken?"

She slowly shook her head and he sat down on the other side of the alcove, pulling his knees towards his chest and placing the book on top of them. He flicked through the pages until he found his reading position and then his eyes scanned over the lines in front of him. His feet were almost touching hers as he had put one on each side of her feet. Phoenix blinked and lowered her gaze back onto her own book.

She was trying to memorise the characteristics of the Draught of Living Death potion, but somehow she couldn't create a picture in her mind to remember them by like she usually did. It seemed like there was so much going on in her mind that there was no more capacity for any new knowledge.

Suddenly she felt something nudge her right foot. She looked down and noticed Rabastan's foot moving back into his previous position. She furrowed her eyebrows. What was he doing? She resumed her reading but it took only a few second before he nudged her foot again. This time she looked up at him, only to see him grin behind his book. She could only see a part of his face but it was enough to see that he found his own action extremely amusing while he kept pretending to be reading his book.

Phoenix shook her head with a smile and lowered her eyes, but her foot was nudged again and this time she was met with two blue eyes when she looked at Rabastan. "What?"

"Nothing." Rabastan shrugged. "I just like to see you smile."

"Well, I would smile, if I was finally able to remember those stupid characteristics," Phoenix answered, slightly blushing at his words.

He closed his book audibly and slid closer, sitting down next to her. Because of the limited space in the window seat their shoulders and legs were touching and somehow that fact made Phoenix nervous. She held her breath, as he studied the pages in front of her. He then snatched the book from her legs. "You're lucky. I'm a genius at Potions and I can help you with it."

"I've been trying to memorise it for nearly an hour and it didn't work yet. I'm not trying to hurt your ego, but I doubt that you'll be able to change that," Phoenix told him with an apologetic smile.

Rabastan shook his head. "As I said, I'm a genius. I'll find a way."