The Burning of the White Wisteria

CHAPTER 1: POTION'S CLASS

It is Christmas morning. The windows are covered in icy blue frost. They feel as if are going to crack at any moment. Our large fireplace roars with a crimson flame, keeping the white coldness of the room at bay. The manor is quiet, which not an uncommon occurrence. The glacial stone walls surrounding us only amplify the feeling of emptiness in the room, the crackling of the fire bouncing off the walls as it only grows infinitely louder.

In the middle of the elaborate room is our Christmas tree; drained of any exciting colour and ornaments, instead covered in fake snow and small pathetic lights. A star sits at the top of the tree too, empty and dull as no one had remembered to turn it on.

My brother and I sit in our usual fineries in front of our Christmas tree. My brother is stuffed into an expensive red dress shirt. He'd been pulling on the luxurious fabric all night. He had thrown black tie on the floor, cold and unused. His pants are grey and full of elaborate silver embroidery, painfully itchy.

I wear something similar to him: a silver dress with matching embroidery and with red trim at the edge of the skirt. The tulle scratches my leg uncomfortable as I move. I daren't complain.

We sit not on the floor but on stiff black chairs. They feel cold, uncomfortable, purposefully set up to make anyone who sits there look regal.

Regardless of it all, my brother and I smile on this day. Our inpatient and excited hands rip through expensive wrapping paper and we scream in joy when we find it's something we'd been wanting all year. My favourite gift so far has been a dog stuffed animal. I had named it Jax: a black dog with darling little brown eyes.

I'd always wanted a dog, but Father wouldn't allow one. I keep it close, on my lap, as I continue opening presents.

My mother has just come from the kitchen into the living room, hands holding a cup of steaming hot and purposefully black coffee. She looks beautiful. Her ebony long hair is down, as Father prefers it that way, with an intensely dark makeup look. It makes her jade green eyes pop against the black on her eyelids, wide and innocent like.

We are just getting to the end of our gifts: the ones from our father. I say that lightly. The gifts weren't actually from him but rather picked out by our mother to be from him. Father would never spend time finding presents for us.

Despite that, these are the exciting gifts-- the most expensive and lavish.

"Foon. Bring the children their gifts from their father," Mother says to the small house-elf. Foon flinches in return, his adorably big greyish ears sloping downwards as he begins to move.

The big-eared Foon gingerly approaches the gifts and hands them to my brother and me. I smile at him, one he returns sheepishly. The boxes look identical, an ode to my twin brother and me. They are relatively small, to our dismay, and black, covered with a white bow. My brother begins to open it immediately but Mother slaps his hand away, hushing him and telling him to wait.

Mother takes a seat next to Father, still sipping her black coffee. They don't smile, greet, or even acknowledge each other, sitting far enough from each other that they don't even have the need to converse.

Mother wishes he would talk to her. Maybe hoping he would praise her for the lavish decorations she put together or the well-chosen presents she had picked out. She brushes a piece of her fried, straight, black hair behind her pale ears as she peers over at him. She'd noticeably decided to wear a rather beautiful green silk dress, her upper half kept warm by a large and fluffy rabbit coat. It purposefully fit snugly against her curves, a futile attempt to get his attention.