Morior Invictus |Marauder's Era|

Morbid, Morbider, Morbidest?

Madame Paloma's Prep School for young witches and wizards had to be the dreariest place in all of London.

At least that's what 9-year-old Amara believed as she sat in a dark candlelit room with 13 other pureblooded children from the noblest and old wizarding families. Pureblood children before reaching the dainty age of 11, were brought up to wizard society under very high standards of achievement. Children of her age were raised to be all well versed in 2-3 languages, play a select number of instruments, had a thorough knowledge of wizard history as well as social étiquettes of the wizarding world. This was why she was currently enduring the most dreadful afternoon listening to Marius Gage attempt to recite 12 uses of Alchemy.

She shifted uncomfortably, watching Gage stutter over pronunciations of Latin words and mix up historical dates, Madame Paloma pursing her thin lips further at every error. She might have felt pity for Marius and how much he seemed to be shaking trying to get through the lesson if she hadn't heard him refer to her as a 'faux pur' just moments before the lesson of the day.

Her face burned, hot blood coursing through her veins, her eyes stinging with tears, and the strange sensation of heat at her palms. Had another minute passed, Amara might have felt compelled to hurl a choice of words no 9-year-old should know at the shorter, ashy brown-haired boy. However, as fate would have it, Madame Paloma walked in. Her long dark cloak billowed behind her as a hush of silence settled over the room. Her icy stare was enough to compel the 14 children to take their seats.

'Tres grand' she had thought and begrudgingly took her seat with a huff. The status of their family in the pureblood community had always been a source of gossip for as long as her parents have been together, all the way to the birth of her siblings. To say that it made her life difficult was an understatement. She heard whispers practically wherever she was obligated to go, curious questions of her parentage, whether her father really was a pureblood. Why her mother had unionized such a scandalous affair to her family. Why they were allowed to pureblood society galas at all. 9-year-old Amara had heard most of them, but it never failed to anger her. How could it possibly matter to them?

But it did. She knew. Pureblood society had different rules and obligations but above all, she hated the position it put her family in. The pressure that most heavily fell on the shoulders of her father.

Antonian Garrick Evermore had met and fell in love with Cassiopia Celease Volant at finishing school in France, at the tender age of 17, both naively unaware of the political complications their union would cause for each respective family involved. Both were passionately devoted to each other, much to the dismay of Heloise Alva Beaufort, the matriarch, who had many reservations for her daughter's future. Naive as they were, the two were fiercely inseparable and devised a plan to renounce their society. Her grandmother or Grand-Mere as she specifically demanded on numerous occasions, enraged but fearful of losing the last living Beaufort-Volant heir, had devised a solution that would allow their union, but on her terms.

Amara's mother, Cassiopeia, had her entire life planned for her as the last remaining legacy of the Beaufort-Volant line. Her three elder brothers had perished in a fire that had also claimed their family home in Versailles. Heartbroken, Louis and Heloise Volant (nee Beaufort) had migrated their family back to London, sending their only daughter to finishing school at Beauxbaton Academy of Magic. The Volant family's legacy survived on the shoulders of young Cassiopia and her parents had planned her union long before she was born. She was set to wed Cygnus Black on the eve of her 18th birthday, securing her status and the future of her children in the pureblood society.

Although it happened long before she was born, Amara had heard recounts of how furious her Grand-Pere Louis had been from various living relatives. Through the numerous retelling of the story, she had versions where he chased the both of them throughout their ancestral home to hexing off her father's left ear, though neither sounded true to her.