Serenity | 1

FIFTEEN

"A Very Merry Christmas"

Christmas 1965, 2 months later

Everything was different now.

Around her family, Serenity found herself quick to anger and she grew to resent every word that left her Great Grandfather's condescending mouth. She was clutching her knife and fork so tightly she could feel the rough edge of the metal biting at her skin, yet all she could focus on was him and his endless rambling about family loyalty and tradition.

Tradition, a voice in her head spat, that's what broke us.

Little did she know that the voice had also spoken aloud. Everyone was staring at her, from the youngest of her cousins to her grandparents. At that moment where her entire family had begun to question her, she realised that she couldn't care less what they thought.

"I'm not wrong." She spoke up, never removing her challenging gaze from Chadwick. He glowered down the table at her and rested his wrinkled hands atop the small pot-belly he'd begun to display. "It killed Great Grandmother. It left all of your grandchildren as single parents and put extra strain on your own children. You tell us to uphold tradition but tradition sucks. It's not revolutionary, it doesn't lead to success," she catches her father's sharp eye. He shook his head at her, anger in his eyes but worry on his lips, "it breeds betrayal and hatred and loneliness. What good is that-"

"Enough!" Chadwick slammed his fist on the table and, when he finally drew her attention once again, he pointed a bent and wrinkled finger at her. His voice took on a facade of authority but the slight quiver it took betrayed the years he had been in charge. Chadwick Rier was weary with age but he would be damned if he let his eleven-year-old great-granddaughter defy him like this. "You will do well to keep your mouth shut, young lady."

"Or what?" She challenged. This seemed to strike a chord. While silence overwhelmed the rest of the Riers, it seemed that only Serenity and Chadwick remained in the dining hall.

"I am your Great Grandfather and you will do well to remember that!" Serenity now stood abruptly, her chair flying backwards and the table rattling as her thigh bumped against the hardwood.

"Not anymore!" She snatched the napkin she wore as a bib and tossed it onto the table. In a childish fit, she stomped her foot and turned to leave the room.

"Not... anymore..." the sudden quiet in Chadwick's voice chilled her and forced her feet to drag to a halt, there was magic encasing her and forcing her towards him.

Soon enough, she found herself beside him in a grip she'd experienced only once before. Unlike last time, however, she did not squirm or struggle- she simply stared down at him distastefully.

"You would leave? Renounce the Rier name and therefore your birthright?"

"Gladly." She hissed. Chadwick then pushed himself to his feet clumsily, now he towered over her. Despite being withered with age and hunched over, she found that he still made her feel like the child she was.

"You will not associate with this family anymore should you leave."

"I wouldn't want to." His jaw clenched.

"You have no right to the power you have been given," he whispered to her in disdain and with a twitch of his fingers, Serenity began to feel a tingling all over her body. Sensing what he was doing as the magic around her revealed itself in a pink glow, she yelled out as her anger flared.

"No!" Bursting through the barriers holding her in, Serenity stood proudly as she watched her Great Grandfather stumble at the sudden loss of the power he had been trying to expel. "It is not yours to take!" Dumbfounded, he watches as Serenity backs away, brows furrowed and a dark look in her eye.

"Erin," Chadwick announces calmy as he watches as the eleven-year-old turns and leaves the room, "you're my favourite grandchild now." The blonde bows her head to hide the tears that were threatening to spill.

"Yes, Grandfather," she whispered quietly. An exhale seemed to sigh as the Riers looked between each other. There was a dreadful silence that seemed completely lost, no one knew what to do. Serenity had left and Chadwick had cast her away so quickly.

"Chris," Irene whispered to her brother quietly, "go after her. She's a child, your daughter, will you let her leave alone?" Looking to his sister, he shakes his head helplessly and runs a hand over his face.

"I can't do anything, sis, not-" he was cut off by Merritt standing from the table. She glanced at the empty seat beside her and back to her father, the candlelight causing the sheen of tears in her eyes to glisten like the black lake on a full moon. The sight pulled at Christian's heart as he watched his youngest daughter run from the room as well. Standing to follow her, Chadwick calls his name as a clear warning. Disregarding his Grandfather, Christian runs after Merritt.

***

Serenity was wheeling her trunk down the large circular driveway of the Rier estate. She was wrapped in her Hufflepuff scarf and a thick coat that had been gifted to her by her father. Her wand poked at her chest from where it sat on her waistband yet she paid no mind to it- that, and the frost biting at her nose and freezing the tears to her cheeks.

She huffed a translucent cloud billowed up in front of her, she trailed her hand along the ice in the frozen pond one final time before heading to one of the thestral-drawn carriages. Once she'd heaved her trunk into the carriage, she was ready to climb in herself when a voice yelled her name.

Merritt was sprinting down the large steps at the front door in nothing but cotton pyjamas and slippers. Her hair had tangled up behind her almost immediately as snow, wind and an icy breeze all mingled together to form one icy ball behind her neck. The ten-year-old leapt on the edge of the fountain and hopped off the other side before sprinting yet again to her sister.

Serenity braced herself as her little sister barrelled into her.

"Don't go! You can't go! Great Grandfather was only joking, he wasn't actually going to take your power and shut you out. You're still his favourite, not Erin, blegh, why would he pick Erin when you're so much better! You can't go, Ren, I need you and Dad needs you... we all do." Serenity hugs her back.

"I wasn't joking, Mers. I'm going." Merritt shook her head against Serenity's torso and uttered a muffled 'Nah ah!'

"You'll have to take me." Chuckling, Serenity shakes her head.

"I would if I could. But you have to stay here and protect father, besides, you'll see me at Hogwarts next year." Merritt still didn't let go.

"Merritt! Serenity!" The two of them looked up to see Christian run up to them and take them both in his arms. "You can't just run away like that, you scared me!" He saw Serenity's trunk in the carriage and pulled away. "You're really leaving?" Serenity nods, avoiding eye contact. "Where will you go?" She glances back at the black and bony pegasus-like creature that was a constant reminder of the death she'd witnessed all those years ago- where her Great Grandmother had died as she slept beside her.

"Wherever he takes me."