Aurora liked to think of her life as one that, unlike seemingly everybody else nowadays, she did not want to re-live.
Sometimes, when she's lying awake at night, she likes to think that the fates, or God or whoever it was that planned out peoples li...
The orphanage had never been a happy place. The walls were coated in pealing grey paint, the manky, depressing colour of dust; and there were more holes and indents than actual sturdy walls. The windows - although plentiful - were unclean and filthy, with mold and grime building up in the corners and cheap rubber sills; perhaps the only decent looking room in the orphanage was Matron's office, which was painted a rather off-putting shade of pink and decorated with empty bottles of wine.
The only word to describe the orphanage was dull.
Even the people were dull. Dressed in unsanitary rags and spare pieces of material (most likely from the dodgy charity shop down the road), the children were, in simpler terms, forgotten. Matron got paid to house the children, not look after them, and so they were deemed unnecessary. With no restrictions, no rules, no supervision and most certainly no boundaries, many of the girls are hardly ever seen in their rooms; most likely pick pocketing snooty and stuck up women in the streets of central London or filching the odd loath of bread from an unsuspecting baker. In all honesty, they might as well of been homeless.
So there Aurora was, wondering aimlessly down the streets of muggle London. A cigarette was placed in between two fingers, and every couple of minutes she would bring it up to her lips and take a slow and agonizingly controlled drag, before flicking it to the ground and stamping it out. Her worn down leather jacket hung almost too loosely over her shoulders, and she wore a pair of men's jeans (they were the only ones she could afford, and they had pockets deep enough to hold her wand), which she'd successfully secured with a rather unflattering black leather belt. She'd managed to find some worn down and unwanted Black Doc. Martens, which were now strutting down the cobblestone alley way with an overly confident fifteen year old, who just so happened to be functioning on an empty stomach.
Turning the corner, Aurora eyed the run down corner store that she knew, from past experience, sold cheap bottles of beer and cigarettes. It was owned by a little old man, Mr Merryworth, who Aurora was quite fond of - although he was quite dense and could hardly tell the difference between a duck and an ostrich even if you wrote them down on a post it note and stuck it to his forehead. Besides, she was a regular. Mr Merryworth loved her.
She strutted into the shop, either ignoring the other customer or not noticing him, and automatically made her way over to the counter. Mr Merryworth was a pudgy man with a receding hairline and crooked nose, he wore thick glasses and had faded blue eyes - if it wasn't for his outstanding ability to recognize every customer that entered his shop, she would have been certain he was blind.
"'Ello Aurora, back a'ready?" he was sorting through a box of magazines whilst munching on a chip muffin, most likely leaving greasy finger prints all over them. Cringing, Aurora smiled back at him tightly, her eyes flicking over to the bottles of whiskey he kept behind the counter.
" Erm, yeah" She decided to leave out the fact that she hadn't been back to the shop in over a month "Just a pack of cigs and a couple of bottles of the usual"
"Right 'o, could I interest you in a limited edition copy of-"
"No thanks, Mr Merryworth, I'll just be going now"
She awkwardly placed a couple of sickles (she doubted he'd know the difference) and shuffled hurriedly out of the door, ignoring the catcalls from the group of teenage boys who were wrestling out back. Smirking to herself, Aurora popped off the lid of the beer and took a deep swig, savoring the bitter taste and burning sensation that wasn't nearly as strong as she would of liked. It was that tranquil time of day - where it's not fully dark out, but rather a failed steel blue - and the stars had yet to resurface.
The half moon hung high in the sky, glaring down at Aurora like a hungry predator - which in a sense it was, just not until it was full. Aurora hated her lycanthropy, she had lived with it for as long as she could remember - though she hadn't any memory of being bitten. It was always just there. A looming shadow of her flaws that resided permanently in the back of her mind, a trapped beast that would claw at her sub-conscience to be released; to nip at those she cared about or fight for dominance, or tear at her meat like some sort of feral beast.
Aurora hated it.
She hated that because of her curse, she had placed mental restraints on herself. She would lock herself up in hopes that nobody would notice, in hopes that nobody would come to close to her, in fear that somebody would attempt at a friendship. Hogwarts, where to most people is a home away from home, is like a looming mental prison to Aurora. She hated that she could be alone in a room full of people - she was a Daffodil in a field of sunflowers and she despised it.
But these unsuspecting muggles hadn't a clue. She found it rather humorous really, how elderly women would drag their grandchildren away from her because she was 'quite clearly in a gang' and how gangs of boys would constantly attempt to challenge her because of it - only to find themselves on the receiving end of her fist. It was the life she was used to - Hogwarts was too warm, it made her nauseous.
As she wondered around the alley ways and back streets, a sudden sense of unmistakable paranoia washed over her like a bucket of ice cold water. She suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable, as if there were thousands of sets of eyes watching her every move, it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She gripped her wand from it's place in her jean pocket, not fully drawing it in fear of being either disarmed or expelled, and continued her trek back. She was perfectly aware of the fact that there were people following her, her heightened senses were, well, heightened, and so she could hear their shallow breathes and fast footsteps. Theymust of been in a hurry. Only when she was certain that they were - in fact - armed, did she turn around to face them...
...there wasn't anybody there.
Funny, she thought, she could of sworn there was somebody following her.
Shrugging, she spun on her heal and stalked back to the orphanage, which wasn't to far away from where she was anyway. Reaching the gates, she stared into the alley way one last time before swinging herself over the wall and into the yard, not bothering to spare a second glance to the bear sized dog that was sat stiffly at her feet.
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