UNBREAK | D.M (UNRAVEL BOOK 5)

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It was a miracle Aine managed to find her way back to the Gryffindor Common Room without passing out mid-way from shock. Hermione was already there, changing into her pyjamas as she chatted with Ginny. Harry had already fled into his own room to hide for the night, having no clue that Aine had just seen what he had seen earlier in Dumbledore's office.

The night went by in a blur, Aine's sense of reality fading as her mind went wild, freely and dangerously deep in thought. She responded to her two roommates without much thinking, only plastering on an empty and hollow smile every once in a while. She got into her own bed, slipping her legs under the sheets as Hermione dims the lighting in the room. The three girls exchanged a series of 'goodnights' and 'sweet dreams' before darkness envelops them.

Although the room was pitched black and hard to see, Aine's eyes were wide open. She stares at the ceiling, boring her eyes through it, imagining the wall above her ripped open. Her mind drifted elsewhere again, to the memory she had stumbled upon. To the ugly, awful truth.

She could only wonder about how it was after the end of the memory sequence, knowing that it clearly did not go so well for her. All she knew about the aftermath was that her mother left her and her father behind and took Aion instead but was still missing for nearly decades, even though her son found his way back. Regardless, there was one thing she still couldn't quite figure out—

Aine couldn't understand how her mother had come to loathe her. 

The woman she saw in Harry's mind through one of the memories seemed to love her so deeply, so much that she would sacrifice herself so that Aine wouldn't be inflicted with the killing curse. And yet, the woman she recalled as her mother was always someone who held great hatred for her. Someone who had abandoned her, leaving nothing but traces of her ghost behind.

Aine exhaled deeply, ridding all the air in her lungs in one breath before sucking in another wave of oxygen. She could not find sleep that entire night unlike her roommates, Hermione and Ginny were now peacefully deep asleep. The hour was growing even later, despite Aine returning back to her common room belatedly. 

She was no longer lying down now. Tossing and turning around in bed did not make her tired and she gave up trying to fall asleep. She was now sitting upright, leaning her back against her four-posted bed's headboard, hugging her knees to her chest as she sinks her face in and sighed once more. She stared aimlessly at nothing throughout the whole night, wondering what should she do with the profound knowledge that very nearly maddened her. It took every cell, every nerve and muscle of her body to restrain herself from growing berserk.

But she was on the verge of breaking.

Her mind was tearing apart, and she felt hopeless again. A new fear lurking in the depths of her mind was now shaking her to the core, adding to the pile of never-ending fears that she had driven aside into the back of her head.

Finding out about Elliot not being her true-blooded father was appalling enough, especially when she heard the words come out from another's lips— That of her enemy's. But this, this one had hit harder than she had envisioned. It was about her true lineage; her true identity of what she truly was. The blood that was flowing in her veins wasn't just Aris who was one of the most mysterious and powerful witches with an unknown entity. It was also her birth father's blood.

Her real father whom she had never once thought about. All this time, the only father she had was Elliot. Elliot Estoileon was her only father. 

"My blood will forever be running in hers too. Our sweet, precious... Little Aine," She suddenly recalled. The voice of the man in the memories of her mother. So familiar but yet so foreign.