𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐄 - 𝐝.𝐦.

𝟎𝟒𝟖 - 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧

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i've talked abt this a lot but i don't think i've actually talked about it on HERE like in my actual book

obviously i can't control ur minds or how u imagine a character nor am i trying to, but i want to remind everyone that celeste zabini is 100% black, a dark skin in my head. wattpad has this tendency where as soon as there's a character that's black, she's immediately cast as zendaya. zendaya is not the only black representation out there. she's beautiful and i fücking love her, but it's incredibly harmful to have black women represented by just one person, and it just doesn't sit well with me that ppl are imagining my fully black dark skin queen as someone who is half white. i still haven't figured a face claim out, but i just wanted to put this out there.

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"Celeste."

I freeze at the sound of my mother's voice, distant and stony from where she stands in my doorway looking at me. My eyes are stuck on my book, and even as I relax my tense muscles and flip the page nonchalantly, they aren't reading a single word on a single page.

"Yes, Mother?" I ask coolly, refusing to look up from my book.

"We need to talk."

I know I should be civil. No conversation with my mother goes well if I'm passive aggressive or angry or excited or...well, no conversation with my mother goes well. But still I say—

"Oh? We do?"

Mother huffs softly. "Put that book down, Celeste, and look at me when I'm speaking to you."

"So we're speaking, now," I say dryly, feeling my throat start to close up and heart pump wildly while I flip another page nonchalantly, hardly registering any of the words my eyes skim. "I didn't realize. I thought you were still avoiding m—"

I interrupt myself with a gasp when my book goes flying out of my hand and across the room to land right in hers, a slight thumping sound of the cover being snapped shut while she looks at me with clam irritation, shoving her wand away and setting the book down on my desk as she walks over to me.

"You didn't need to do that," I say as calmly as I can, my eyes shooting daggers at hers while she sits down at the edge of my bed, back straight and hands folding in her lap.

"Clearly, I did, since you couldn't find the common decency to put the book down yourself," she responds simply. "I'm not here to talk to you about some silly book, Celeste, so get that childish pout off your face, and take that hood off."

My childish pout curves down in a more furious scowl as I reach up to pull the hood of my sweatshirt off my head, crossing my arms as I watch my mother shift to face me better. I have to admit, she looks tired, but I also have to admit that after overhearing that conversation she had with Aunt Colette, I don't care. I don't care that her eye bags are purple and big enough to rival mine, or that her hair that's usually never even a strand out of place is pulled back in a wrangled bun.