Masquerade (Discontinued)

Chapter XXVII

Sofia, Bulgaria, Europe

Svetlana was alone.

She had never been alone before. She had always had Stasya and her father. And when she didn't have Stasya anymore, she and her father had gotten on as best they could without her. Svetlana was alone, and she didn't know how to deal with something like that. Even at Durmstrang, surrounded by all of those students, she felt so utterly alone. Svetlana Goranov was alone.

She was the bastard orphan. She had no one. She could not afford Durmstrang, not without her father's steady salary. Svetlana wasn't sure what to do. She had always had someone to guide her, and now she had no one except for a mother that couldn't even afford to have her sent over to England. Svetlana closed her eyes and thought about the mother that had given her up—abandoned her—when she was only a baby. Svetlana sneered.

She did not want to meet that woman.

And yet, she didn't want to be alone. If there was anything she was more afraid of than meeting Raina, it was being alone. After all, Raina wasn't really her mother. When she was thirteen, her real mother—though maybe not by blood—had died, holding her. And she remembered Stasya well. Stasya always smiled. Stasya always told her to write her little heart out.

Svetlana froze.

She looked around the library and swallowed hard as she ripped out a piece of parchment, digging in her satchel for an inkwell and quill. When Svetlana found she was looking for, she nodded to herself. She smoothed the parchment, ironing out the creases. Svetlana took a deep breath, and when she exhaled; she felt the pressure of her lungs bursting from her chest.

She'd write her way out.

Svetlana Goranov was many things, but she was not cruel. Her circumstances had made her closed off and stony faced, but never cruel. She worked hard but was always alone, but loneliness bred only courage. So when her prayers to the gods were only met with indifference, she picked up her quill, and wrote her own deliverance.

She'd write her way out.

I take up my quill to give you an imperfect account of one of the most dreadful lives that memory or any records whatever can trace, which happened here in the heart of Bulgaria.

This life began with a violence, born into theworld, washed with blood and hatred. Born to a mother that raged upon her the moment eyes were set. She was abandoned to the world without another thought, a mother crawling back to a wretched country awash with rain, rain to wash the memories of the Unwanted away. A father found her, and named her Svetlana Goranov. The first because her presence was a blessing, the last because the lineage and blood above all. And this girl, Svetlana Goranov, lost everything but her name.

I take up my quill to tell you my story, for this is my deliverance.

Hogwarts, Unplottable Location, Scotland, Great Britain

Sunday the 31st of October 1999

11:32 PM

She paced the length of Tom's office, trembling, her mind still on the scene she had been witnessed to before she had to run. Bella had wanted nothing more than to run to Ariana's crumpled body, but instead she had run to the Forbidden Forest and Disapparated. She had realized her mistake nearly immediately and Disapparated back with her Invisibility Cloak in hand. She snuck back into the chaotic castle, ignoring the whispers and gossip of what had happened to the transfer student. The teachers were running around, trying to figure everything out, and that had been Bella's chance. She had ducked through the shadows to Tom's office and waited, sequestered away and warded. Nagini hissed soothingly at her, but Bella only wanted to vomit. Compulsively, she stroked the line of Sasha's body, her familiar curled up around her neck.