The Keepers' Evil: The Shattered Star

Blue was bluebells that didn't die in the winter

The library, the library with the fireplace and the books that couldn't hurt her, that's where she went, that's where Celeste's mind had to go to quiet. She didn't want to read, she didn't want to do anything, but she needed to breathe.

A boy had died in Gabriel's arms by his wand. He had begged for death in her father's war. Blame seemed like a limitless, but pointless, effect when she was sure that the blame was with her. If she had stayed and endured her fate rather than rebelling at all, she would have saved this boy's life, she would have saved Gabriel from having to rescue her time and time again.

Celeste's feet tried to pace, they really tried, but her legs seemed to shake too harshly, and her hands picked at the skin around her nails until they bled furiously. Her mind was occupied with thoughts that had been spun on the spindle of cruelty, the one that had been passed down generations, ones that resulted in her death as a benefit to others.

"Come on, Celeste, focus." Focus on precisely what, she wasn't sure, she wasn't sure she wanted to truly focus. She wobbled her fingers into the air, letting her wrists drop heavily as the air stung the pockets of blood she had picked from her fingernails, and she willed her legs to pace until they ached with fatigue from the small action and her body slumped onto the long velvet chaise and she had no choice but to fall into a jagged sleep in the unsafe.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Gabriel had shouted at her, he had ordered her to leave the room, to go to bed, to find somewhere where he wasn't. He hadn't meant to, but the same stars that her father was named after had taken another life that night, and whilst he hoped that it was a better place than the world he lived in, he wasn't sure that such a place existed.

He regretted the shout deeply, and his mind wouldn't let him forget how she had trembled and scrambled to her feet without a word. She had obeyed like she had been taught to do, so keen to make sure that she did not anger him, but he didn't want that. He wanted her to be certain that she could've shouted back and he wouldn't have hurt her.

His quill had hit the paper on his desk, scribbling nonsense words that made little sense, before he had moved Lestrange's body. As the owl fluttered from the window and flew the little way to Gaunt, he noticed how his mind forced him to think of Celeste in place of the dead boy in his living room, and it scared him worse than the unsecured home that they resided within.

Celeste was the name that devoured his mind as he moved the body into the garden. Celeste was the name that steadied his trembling fingers around his wand as he aimed firmly at the boy's body. Celeste was the name that stopped his tears as he sent the spell to bury the body deep into the earth to let him lay undisturbed for once. Celeste was his constant reminder that their people deserved better than this life.

By the time that Gaunt and Hemera had reached his house, it had been hours since he had seen Celeste, hours too many since he had laid eyes on her. She was terrified, he could feel it vibrating around the walls of his broken home, and he needed to go to her, to tell her that he was sorry for what she had seen, to tell her that Gaunt was going to fix the wards and that he was going to be better to her this time.

He had to be better to her this time.

"What happened?" Hemera had hugged him tightly, a gesture he hadn't quite expected from her. Her voice quivered with the worry she felt for them as she ran into his arms to embrace him, her eyes refusing to look at the damage to the Manor. Gabriel noticed that they cared, that even Gaunt placed a hand on his shoulder to tie their union of friendship.