WILD FLOWERS ✿ d.malfoy

4.

It's been two days since I've been out of the house. Dora dragged me out of the house, to a clothing shop. Much of our day was spent in me sitting around, and Dora picking up clothes saying, "This is cute!" and flinging it into a shopping basket. We bought ten large bags worth of clothes. All for me. The bill reached another time zone. So yeah, I have a brand-new closet; from shoes to bras to tank tops to pants and everything you can possibly imagine. But I mean, I wouldn't need a new closet if my house hadn't been burnt to dust. Just saying.

We also went to a book shop, a magic one, hence the mountain of books in my room.

But the rest of the days, I don't speak much, nor do I sleep much. Different professors all began coming and giving me lessons. McGonagall taught me Transfiguration, Snape for Potions, Remus for Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Gobbins for Alchemy, Professor Sinastra for Astronomy, Professor Flitwick for Charms. I practiced everything through the day and night, focusing on something other than my torturous mind.

Me and Sirius talked a little. Even though he seemed like he was fine, he was not. His inner face was twisted and disfigured; he was sad, broken. James' and Lily's death had broken him more than the thirteen years in Azkaban every could.

"It gets easier," he tells me.

"Does it?" I say. "Or do you just get used to the hole in your life?" I see myself in him. And he probably see's himself in me. He doesn't answer. Of course, he doesn't. He is supposed to give me hope, that's what Remus told him. Still spying, yes.

The truth is, there is no hope. Not for me at least. I've become a monster. I know I have. No part of me feels an ounce of guilt about what I did. And I could probably do it again. And again. And ten times over before I feel anything.

I ask Dumbledore if they're going to imprison me. I did kill five people. He says that they won't. No one except the Order knows what has happened. Not even the Ministry.

• • •

The color has drained out of me. Through every single pore in my body. The redyellowbluepurplepinkblackbrowngreywhiteorange now stains the bed sheets, the carpet, the windows, walls, halls, everything. I feel empty. E-M-P-T-Y. Nothing at all. I could be the wind or the ground or the dust or the planets or the stars or the cosmos or the water or the vacuum. I could have been anything but me. I was no longer Amabel; I didn't know who was Celestia.

"You don't feel yourself," Sirius says one morning. I pour dry cereals into a sad old bowl.

"I don't," I say. I sit down on the creaky chair and stir the cereal around. I have no intentions of eating this.

"Talk to me." Sirius is pleading. "After they died, I needed someone to talk to. Someone who could just listen to me." I look up at him. His face is pale. Broken. "Say something."

I open my mouth then close it. Like a fish taking in water. Except I'm no fish. I would like to be a fish. "I don't know. I feel like a different person, but I don't know who I am."

"Celestia, you're still the same person."

"I'm not." I assert firmly. My voice is thin, almost breaking. I breathe. "I'm not Amabel." I feel like telling him everything. I feel like he'll understand. But I can't talk about it. I shake my head. "I just – can't."

"That's alright. But Celestia," he says gently. I want to run. I want to jump. "You still are the same person."

I throw my head back and laugh. I somehow find this very amusing. I'm the same person. Ah, hilarious. "Were you the same person after that?"

He shakes his head; places a hand on my knee. "When family dies, you can never be the same again. If a person is same after a thing like that, they never loved their family."

"Technically," I say harshly, "I'm adopted."

"Yes, but the Harpers were your family. Family is about love, not blood. James was my family. My own parents were not. But," – he swallows thickly. Like swallowing memories, "you are the same person. Despite everything that has happened, you're still the same body, mind, soul."

"I don't think I have a soul anymore," I say darkly. "I killed five people in cold blood."

His hand moves to my shoulder. "You did that because it was the need of the minute –"

"What if it wasn't? What if I wanted to do it? To cause them pain. To hear them scream?" I say, my voice is rough. My hands feel sticky. There is no blood.

"Then your mind simply desired revenge. But you still have a soul, no matter how damaged it is, you are still a person."

I hug him. I'm surprised by my own actions, but don't pull away. He wraps his hand around me. This is probably how a father hugs their child. I wish Rosie finally gets to meet her dad. I hope they are a happy family in heaven.

"I hope you are right." I pull back. He smiles.

"Come to me, alright?" he says softly.

I nod.

"Also, people are going to go berserk when they get to know you're a Morgana," he says with a small chuckle.

"Why?"

"There hasn't been a Morgana for years. It's the most powerful bloodline to ever exist, and you, the only heir." This is news to me.

"Was my mother – my real mother – who was she?" I try to gulp the thickness in my throat. Nope, still there.

"Cassiopeia Morgana, one of the most powerful witches in history," he says quietly, cautiously. "She died protecting you."

I breathe in sharply.

"What was she – why did she need to protect me?"

His hand is on my knee again. "From Voldemort. You were immensely powerful, even as an infant. So, she gave you up. It broke her. But she did it. She needed you safe."

I breathe in. But the air seems to have vanished. I can't breathe, I'm struggling, coughing, dying. No one notices.

I sit still, eyes on the floor. I nod.

"Who was my father, then?" I only meant to think it.

"That is, unclear. Your mother was in hiding for a very long time, under a fake identity. What she was doing, only she knows." I try to blink myself into outer space. Nope, still here.

"I need to go," I say quietly and find my way upstairs. I spend the rest of the day locked in my room, practicing magic and overthinking.