good things fall apart • sirius black

Perfect

Ellie had never known loneliness like this. Bleak expanses of empty spaces and dark corners that threatened to swallow her whole - ones worse than those that consumed her after Adelaide's death. All had melted in the weeks that had followed her leaving Hogwarts, everything, and now Easter was here but not even that was enough to get her out of bed.

This time of year was about beautiful pastel colours and the weather starting to get warmer, but nothing had ever been so miserable in Ellie's world before. When she was younger, her mother would walk her out to the fields beyond the woods around their grounds to see the new born lambs as soon as Easter arrived. She'd giggle, Adelaide would smile adoringly, and that would set the tone for the months that would follow. But it appeared that this nothingness she felt now was what was going to determine how the rest of the year went instead.

Not even the Orangery could provide any comfort, yet Ellie lay in there buried under her duvet almost all of the time hoping that one morning she'd wake up feeling less like a shell of herself. The vines and ivy still coiled around the support beams on the roof, the flowering plants up the walls, the ferns in pots all over the floor, but nothing was the same. How could it be when her world had been fragmented into forever broken shards? 

Cyrus had tried, but his daughter refused to speak to him, refused to even be in the same room as him, look at him, be in the house when he was. He'd broken her trust beyond what should've been possible, for he'd always been understanding before this, always been happy to listen to her opinions, but now he'd made this decision without her input and changed the way that Ellie thought they understood each other. She'd not only be angry with him for a long time, but maybe never truly forgive him either, and when Cyrus tried to explain again why he'd made this decision, she'd just turned her back on him and trudged back out to the Orangery. He of all people should understand, she thought constantly, he grew up with Monty, went to school with him, and has never not lived next-door to the Potters, so why would he want to force me and Prongs apart?

And as if all of that wasn't enough, the world still turned, the full moon still rose, and Ellie had to endure them alone. She'd begged to spend those awful nights with the rest of the Marauders at Hogwarts and been denied company every time; she'd pleaded to have at least Remus come to her if the school was the issue, and been told no by everyone - even Professor McGonagall who she'd wrote to desperately, hoping that her favourite teacher would be as understanding as she always was underneath her stern exterior, but she'd only received a reply saying that she held no authority in the matter.  

Men, Ellie had cursed for a long time. Men in power who think they know best - Dumbledore. Controlling fathers who think their daughters are mere liabilities - Cyrus. Euphemia couldn't get a word in about how wrong she thought it was to pull Ellie out of Hogwarts, Cyrus just shook his head and said the decision was final; Madam Pomfrey had been brushed off when she'd protested sending Ellie anywhere that she wouldn't get the correct treatment after a full moon; and even Camille had started to have doubts as to whether Beauxbatons was best after she'd received countless letters from her niece begging for her to change her father's mind. "You can't possibly be serious, Albus." McGonagall had asked in total bemusement when she was told Ellie would be leaving.

It appeared everyone, bar the men who were making this decision for her, believed the best thing for the beautiful girl was to stay right where she was. Ellie was sure that if her mother was here to have a say, Cyrus would've long been put back in his place.

So here she lay on her mattress in the Orangery as usual, cocooned tightly in her duvet as she tried to sleep. It was morning but that didn't matter, sleep was easier than being awake. In sleep nothing mattered - not her having to move to France, not her being torn from her friends that she called family, not the fact that she was a Werewolf. There was only peace and her dreams full of how things were supposed to be. Until, of course, she woke up again and the peace was shattered.