Toujours Pur | Euphemia Black

Chapter 67 | Accepting Fate

Euphemia's second term in fifth year had not, admittedly, gotten off to the best start. That was mostly because of Orion dragging her away from her friends on the first day back after Christmas, which had made Mia feel very miserable and also extremely weak because she had given into his commands.

To be honest, Orion was her fiancée so what he said about 'owning her' was quite true but Euphemia just wasn't ready to accept the fact that she had to marry her horrendous cousin as of yet.

Mia had been much happier during her first term of fifth year because she had managed to pretend that the arranged marriage wasn't actually happening that summer as well as actually embracing some of the joy that came with pranking others and causing trouble with her friends.

Now, however, she was restricted to misery and, ever since Orion had seen her talking to the boys on the first day back after the Christmas holidays, Euphemia had been forced to hang around with her future husband and his slimy friends or her beastly cousins.

It was quite a drastic change from all of the fun that she had been having before Christmas but Mia forced herself to smile and laugh at Orion's jokes; she pretended to enjoy hanging around with Walburga and Heather (though it was more trailing around after them).

Most importantly, Euphemia made sure that she was never seen conversing with any of her friends, rather like in her earlier years at the school when she had had to keep it a secret.

They tried to convince her otherwise, though. Florean had lectured her in Herbology and his promises to keep her safe would've persuaded Mia completely if it hadn't have been for Walburga glowering in their direction the entire time.

Charlus had started sending her pleading looks that just screamed that he wanted to talk to her and make it better but Euphemia mostly ignored him, not wanting to get hurt by Orion if he realised that she had a crush on Charlus. It hurt Mia but it had to be done.

Sometimes, Euphemia would think about her conversation with Charis on New Years Eve about doing what she wanted for a change and not always doing what everyone expected of her but that had gone out of the window as soon as she had allowed Orion to drag her away from her true friends.

Mia wanted to do what she desired - she wanted to break free from Orion's chains that were binding her to him for life, chains that would be tightened even further once she said her vows in July. But she couldn't. It was virtually impossible unless she wanted to end up dead.

Orion had complete control over Euphemia's life and, no matter how much she hated it, Mia couldn't do anything to stop it so she decided to just accept her fate and get used to it because her current situation would be what the rest of her life was going to be like.

If she couldn't do anything to stop her arranged marriage to Orion, Euphemia thought it would be best if she just started getting used to it without any complaint or a fight of any accord. It was better than pretending that it wasn't going to happen.

Even though Mia had had the most immense fun before Christmas when she had embraced her prankster side, the mischief had only been a distraction to make her happier (which had succeeded).

But her happiness wasn't going to last. Euphemia had managed to push her arranged marriage to the back of her mind through pranking and causing trouble but that wasn't going to help if she just kept pretending that nothing was going to happen. It was better to just accept it and stop pretending.

"We can still do something to prevent it from happening," Alastor had told Mia during a Care of Magical Creatures class once but the girl had just shook her head, informing her friend that she might as well just give in and go along with it now.