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CHAPTER SIX. . . Life is War
"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life." F. Scott Fitzgerald,The Great Gatsby
It has never been a secret that August Darlington II is made of boiling veins with magma blood, flames licking at his organs and burning him from the inside out. It is no secret that each of his bones were individually carved from a long bloodline of calcium soaked marble, and doused in their commodity: Darlington's Old Whiskey, the very thing that made their fortune. It is no secret that he gained his temper from his father, the same man that makes habit a of covering his son's many discrepancies so he doesn't tarnish the Darlington name. Because nothing matters more than the reputation they have spent years cultivating savouring. Not even the happiness of their last two children.
August didn't plan to open his mother's letter in his dorm after the argument with Lily that sparked a strike of feverish, angered lightening through his system like a shockwave. When he did, a charred brochure drops from a blacken envelope and floats to the ground like a slow motion take from a Muggle film. August can only watch it fall in silence, his bone grinding against bone as his jaw sets, hardening against itself. He can't find it within himself to laugh, but the lingering feeling of exasperated amusement tickles at the back of his throat, and his stomach bottoms out, a sickening, putrid feeling curls inside of him.
She found it.
He has no one to catch him as he falls to the ground, grasping at the charred pieces of paper and trying to piece them together as if his hands could revert them back to it's original form. It takes two minute for August to realise the attempt is fruitlessly frivolous, before he resides himself to the hopeless realisation he would never be able to force it back together. The word "C M B R I G E" is barely readable, and in fact is missing two letters as a result of it's charred state. He thought he had hidden them well-that the carefully charmed box hidden by a hole in the wall with a poster over the top as a safe door was enough to keep his mother from looking. . .
But alas.
Lump in his throat, August spies the piece of Wizarding parchment stark against the ash-colour of the envelope, and he pulls it out, unravelling it to reveal the scratch of his mother's handwriting-most likely created by her trusty peacock feather quill.
My son,
There was no intention here to cause you harm. Quite simply, your father and I are doing what we deem the best for you, and your future. It is not proper of the heir of a Pureblooded family to attend a filthy, Muggle university. It is not right, and nor will I allow you to further yourself down the destructive path that you have placed yourself on. I am simply doing the job of a mother like any other would do.
