The Aftermath // Sebastian Sallow x MC

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 - 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐧

During the five days between my birthday and Halloween, I couldn't think of anything else but the plans I had made with my friends. In all honesty, my life had been so monotonous during that last period that, in comparison, the mere idea of said evening could have easily won the event of the year prize. In the wizarding world, Halloween had always been a day to celebrate, yet in muggle London it was something that had just recently been discovered. Clearly, from the age of fifteen onwards I had lived completely immersed in the world of magic, but a part of me had always felt strongly connected to the muggle world, so simple, so different.

Not that it mattered to any of them - quite the opposite, actually - but all my friends were pure-blooded wizards and witches, and therefore completely ignorant of anything concerning my former world. Not that we hadn't talked about it, we certainly had the chance to: mostly, there had been many questions and theories about how a muggle-born could have not only been blessed with the gift of magic, but above all with a power that no one else had.

Questions about my family were the most frequent, but I'm afraid there was very little to say: my father was a miner, and my mother worked in a factory. They met in the streets of Manchester on an autumn night in 1873, after their respective rounds, and a year later I was born. They got married quickly, but according to all my relatives, they weren't particularly compatible. That's why my mother took me to Brighton, where she had an aunt rich enough to take us in and help. My father, however, had stayed up north to continue working. He was caught in a mine accident in 1980, when I was only six years old, and shortly afterwards he had left us. I barely even remembered him, considering we lived in two completely different parts of England, but the thought of him did make me sad.

My mother took care of her aunt Martha, an elderly woman, in exchange for the accommodation she offered us: I had attended a school for girls for a few years, but as I previously mentioned I had never been able to integrate. So, from the age of ten, I started taking care of Aunt Martha in my turn, while my mother had found employment in a tailor shop. Sure, it wasn't much, but it was always better than working in a factory.

Aunt Martha was my absolute favorite person: my mother, Eve, was not a particularly motherly and warm woman, quite on the contrary she was cold, and often seemed to have no idea what to do with me. She was just over 15 when he had me. My aunt had never had children, since she became a widow shortly after her wedding: she had a house and an inheritance left from her former husband, yet she did not know what to do with it. At least, not until I got there. She was like a grandmother to me; actually, I had never met either of mine. When I discovered I was a witch, my mother categorically forbade me to tell her: she said she was too old, and her health was too poor for her to understand and accept what I was. We then told her that I had been employed as a housekeeper by a wealthy Scottish family, and that I now lived in London.

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Anyways, when I got back from work, I was visibly excited. In the space of only a few days, Natsai and I had really thought about how to disguise ourselves - as it was definitely the most appealing factor about the event - and we had created our costumes with meticulousness. Natty had recovered an African wooden mask, decorated in gold and red, and accompanied it with a dress of the same tones. Her curls, left loose by the braids with which she frequently tamed them, crowned her head like a lion's mane. 

I had disguised myself as a forest fairy: I had created, with wire and transparent and shiny fabric, wings to place behind my back, and I had filled my hair with small white flowers that I had collected in Hyde Park a few hours earlier - I had used a little spell that Professor Garlic had taught me in order to keep them fresh, like I'd just picked them up. I had a soft, wide dress, the color of sage, very similar to the color of my eyes.