Circi | 2

SIXTEEN

"A lie to a truth"

July 1995, 1 month later

There was a funeral service for Cedric at Hogwarts. It was primarily for the students to pay their respects. It was in the Great Hall. There was a lot of crying, remembrance and bitter laughter. But it was all part of the healing process.

Circi dreaded returning home and after Carmen's departure from Draco's life she feared she would no longer see her again. Since coming to Hogwarts, she had grown to see Carmen as an almost sister. She seemed to genuinely care for Circi and the attention warmed her.

The train journey home was eerily silent. The students were in mourning and even if Mica, Leslie and Circi were finally together again after an eventful half-year since the Yule Ball, they were thinking over the year bitterly. Each of them wished to forget it and Circi looked forward to turning thirteen next month.

She was deliberating, however, somehow escaping the grasps of her brother and father when she exits the train. Perhaps she could disguise herself as Leslie and pass as his twin brother and go home with him? Or she could seek out her second cousin, Professor Rier, and implore with him to take her with him. If she could not escape now, she would try as soon as she got home. There was a voice nagging at the back of her mind, telling her that the faded scar that used to be her father's dark mark would be as dark and as fresh on his arm as a spilled pot of ink.

She would know, then, the truth.

Unlike her first year, where she had been one of the first off of the train, Circi lingered as long as possible. She tried to continue her nap into the stopping time but Mica had shaken her awake.

They still hovered in the corridors, watching through the windows as the students reunited with their families. Leslie had to leave them, claiming his parents planned to take him to a restaurant. From their position by the window they watched him approach a tall biracial couple. His parents did not look like him in the slightest and Circi recalled him talking about an adoption, she smiled sadly as his mother adjusted his glasses and brushed his hair down.

Mica rested her hand on Circi's shoulder and pointed further down the platform. Draco was greeting Lucius and Narcissa, stiffly accepting a hug from his mother. Lucius was wearing his usual long sleeved robe and his shirt cuffs were peeking out around his hands, he was looking around the windows of the train with a mixture of stern superiority and curiosity in his eyes. The snake head on his cane winked in the sunlight filterin in through the windows. Circi was beginning to fear the sight of it. It reminded her of the snake emerging from the smokey symbol of the death eaters in the sky, and with each wink of light she recalled each time he had swung the cane perhaps too close to her head or used it to catch her clothes or shove Draco in the stomach.

She loved her father, as she was meant to, but after recent events she couldn't help but fear him.

"It'll be okay," Mica told her, squeezing her shoulder, "if you need anything, just write to me. That's my mum," she points elsewhere on the platform at a stout South Korean woman with greying hair in a midi dress standing beside a pale, much shorter, man in a bowler hat, "she's a bit stingy when it comes to etiquette but she's got a heart of gold."

Circi thanks her and they finally move off of the train.

Every step towards her father felt like an eternity. Shockingly, he greeted her with the same affection as he usually would and he even rested his hand gently on her shoulder as they left the station.

It was unnaturally silent in the manor. Circi and Draco weren't talking, they hadn't spoken a word to each other since Carmen broke up with him. Lucius tried to talk to Circi but she had ran to her room upon entering the premises and did not emerge for tea.